The "Characters" of Jean de La Bruyère

by Jean de La Bruyère

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pascalʼs Pensées were published in 1670, six years after their authorʼs death; La Rochefoucauldʼs Maximes appeared in 1665, and of both works from five to six editions had been sold before the “Characters” saw the light. I have borrowed the definition of these authorsʼ labours from La Bruyèreʼs “Prefatory Discourse concerning Theophrastus,” which came out at the same time as the “Characters,” and served as an introduction.

[2] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” page v.

[3] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of the French Academy, June 15, 1693,” which preface was published for the first time with the eighth edition of the “Characters,” in 1694.

[4] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” page i.

[5] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of the French Academy, June 15, 1693.”

[6] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of the French Academy, June 15, 1693.”

[7] Sir Walter Scott, in his introduction to Drydenʼs “Absalom and Achitophel,” says: “He who collects a gallery of portraits disclaims, by the very act of doing so, any intention of presenting a series of historical events.”

[8] It was the custom in Paris, at the time La Bruyère wrote, for any gentleman or lady to leave part of their gains on the table, to pay, as it were, for the cards; hence the allusion.

[9] All the passages on pages 15 and 16 between inverted commas (“ ”) have been taken from La Bruyèreʼs “Prefatory Discourse concerning Theophrastus.”

[10] See the Chapter “Of the Great,” page [230], § 25. When, in the Chapter “Of Certain Customs,” page [408], § 14, he speaks of his “descent from a certain Godfrey de la Bruyère,” he does so jocularly.

[11] Compare “Preface,” page iv., “I did not hesitate,” till page v., “and more regular.”

[12] In his “Introduction to the Reader,” printed before “Absalom and Achitophel,” and published in 1681, Dryden openly admits: “I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire, where justice would allow it, from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced at their own cost that I can write severely with more ease than I can write gently.” La Bruyère would never have ventured to speak so plainly, and this difference between the French and English author seems very characteristic of the two nations. Compare also Drydenʼs poetic delineation of Buckingham as Zimri to La Bruyèreʼs portrait of Lauzun as Straton.

[13] Perhaps no author is more quoted in Littréʼs Dictionnaire de la langue française than La Bruyère is.

[14] M. G. Servois, in his bibliographic Notice of La Bruyèreʼs works, &c., vol. iii., first part, quotes a passage from the London correspondent of the Histoire des Ouvrages des savants (see page [19], note 68) in affirmation of this statement, and seems to think this translation to have been the first edition of the one mentioned in No. 4.

[15] Wattʼs “Bibliotheca Britannica.”

[16] According to M. Servois, this edition is mentioned in Lowndesʼ “The Bibliographerʼs Manual,” but I have not been able to find it there.

[17] I imagine I can observe slight traces of La Bruyère in Swiftʼs “Account of the Empire of Japan, written in 1728,” beginning with the words: “Regoge was the 34th emperor of Japan;” in nearly all he wrote for the Tatler; in many of the portraits to be found in the Examiner, for example in the portrait of “Laurence Hyde, late earl of Rochester,” beginning with the words: “The person who now presides at the Council, etc.” Compare also “A Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton;” the “Narrative of Guiscardʼs Examination;” and in the “True Relation of the Intended Riot,” the passage beginning with “the surprising generosity, and fit of housekeeping the German princess has been guilty of this summer.” Swift, moreover, possesses a far more trenchant style than the French author, but I imagine the latter did as much execution, though he used a rapier, whilst Swift employed a bludgeon.

[18] There are few portraits in Shaftesburyʼs “Characteristics;” one of the few exceptions being the portrait of “a notable enthusiast of the itinerant kind,” supposed to be Van Helmont; now and then, however, he seems to have borrowed a few ideas of La Bruyère, as for example, in the second section of “A Letter concerning Enthusiasm,” his remarks on criticism and ridicule. Compare also Shaftesbury in section 2, saying: “The vulgar, indeed, may swallow any sordid jest, any mere drollery or buffoonery; but it must be a finer and truer wit which takes the men of sense and breeding,” to La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Works of the Mind,” §§ 51, 52; the whole of this “Letter” is somewhat like La Bruyère, as in section iv. the crafty beggars, addressing some one they meet in a coach, and of whose quality they are ignorant. In Shaftesburyʼs “Sensus Communis, an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour,” part 1, section 3, his remarks about true raillery; and the opening of the second part, section 1: “If a native of Ethiopia were of a sudden transported into Europe,” etc., as well as in the “Soliloquy,” the allegory of the love-spent nobleman, and in the “Moralists” the portraits of Palemon, Philocles, and Theocles, and the opening of the third part, “it was yet deep night,” appear somewhat like reminiscences of the French author.

[19] “English Philosophers:” Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. By Thomas Fowler, President of Corpus Christi College: London, 1882.

[20] It will, of course, be impossible to give “chapter and verse” for every passage of the “Spectator” which is faintly like one of La Bruyèreʼs observations, nor do I mean to say that Addison, Steele, and the other contributors to the English paper borrowed literally, and without acknowledgment, from the French author. But what I intended to convey was that, though the humour of the Spectator and its Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry, &c., are preeminently English, several of the remarks and portraits to be found there are more or less inspired by a careful study of La Bruyère. Compare for example Addisonʼs paper about the opera, Spectator No. 5, to § 47 of La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Works of the Mind;” and the remarks in No. 10 of the Spectator, about the occupations of the female world, and Nos. 144, 156, and No. 265 of the same paper, with some paragraphs of La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Women.” Nos. 45, 57, 77, 88, 98, 100, 129, 193, 236, 238, and 494, appear to me somewhat like several of La Bruyèreʼs paragraphs. The “fair youth” in No. 104 of the “Spectator” is not unlike a reverse picture of La Bruyèreʼs portrait of Iphis in the Chapter “Of Fashion,” page 389, § 14; whilst the remark in No. 226, “Who is the better man for beholding the most beautiful Venus,” &c., reminds one of La Bruyèreʼs remark on obscene “pictures painted for certain princes of the Church,” in his Chapter “Of Certain Customs,” page 409, § 17. Steeleʼs opinions about corporal punishments (Spectator, No. 157) are very much in advance of those of La Bruyère on the same subject; the English author remarks about Louis XIV. (Spectator, No. 180 and 200) should be compared with La Bruyèreʼs glorification of the same monarch.

[21] I have consulted the edition of Dr. R. Southʼs sermons, eleven vols., the first six published by H. Lintot, 1732; the last five by Charles Bathurst, 1744. In the sermon preached at Westminster Abbey, February 22, 1684-85, on Prov. xvi. 33: “The lot is cast into the lap,” &c., the passage about Alexander the Great, in his famed expedition against Darius, the remarks about Hannibal and Cæsar, Agathocles, the potter who became King, Masaniello, and finally what the Doctor says about Cromwell: “and who, that had beheld such a bankrupt beggarly fellow as Cromwell first entering the Parliament House, with a threadbare, torn cloak, and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of them paid for), could have suspected that in the space of so few years, he should, by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested in the royal robes, and want nothing of the state of a king, but the changing of his hat into a crown,” seem like some expressions of La Bruyère. Compare also sermon x.: “Good Intentions no Excuse for Bad Actions,” full of pithy characteristics in word-painting, and his sermons: “The Fatal Imposture and Force of Words,” Isaiah v. 20, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil,” which are very La Bruyèresque, and somewhat like several paragraphs of the Chapter “Of Certain Customs.” See also in “The Nature and Measures of Conscience,” a sermon preached Nov. 1, 1691, the portrait of the “potent sinner upon earth,” and a sermon on “Pretence of Conscience no Excuse for Rebellion,” preached before Charles II., 13th January, 1662-63, the anniversary of the “execrable murder” of Charles I., in which South says, “I wonder where the blasphemy lies which some charge upon those who make the kingʼs suffering something to resemble our Saviourʼs.” Compare finally the portrait of the “cozening, lying, perjured shop-keeper” in the second sermon, “On Avarice as contradictory to Religion,” with La Bruyèreʼs tradesman in his Chapter “Of the Gifts of Fortune,” § 43.

[22] The Abbé Claude Fleury, the learned author of the Histoire Ecclésiastique, who succeeded La Bruyère as a member of the French Academy, said of his predecessor in his opening speech: “Il savait les langues mortes et les vivantes.”

[23] See the Chapter “Of Mankind,” page [289], note 553.

[24] See the Chapter “Of the Great,” page [242], § 53.

[25] Some of the passages of this “Prefatory Discourse” will be found in the Introduction.

[26] In a lecture read before the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Berlin, the 23d of August 1787, and printed in the memoirs of that Academy, Formey told this story on the authority of M. de Maupertuis, who is said to have heard it from the lady herself, the wife of the financier, Charles Rémy de July, to whom she brought a dowry of more than 100,000 livres.

[27] See note 3, page 4.?

[28] See the Chapter “Of Society and Conversation,” page [122], § 66, and note 228; about Fontenelle, see in the same Chapter the character of Cydias, page [127], § 75.

[29] This he stated openly in the speech he delivered at his reception at the Academy, the 15th of June 1693; his enemies would certainly have contradicted him if it had not been the truth.

[30] See the Chapter “Of the Court,” page [201], note 413.

[31] In the Introduction are to be found some extracts from this preface.

[32] La Bruyèreʼs bitter feelings appear in such paragraphs as § 43, page 56; in the Chapter “Of the Town,” page 166, § 4; in that “Of the Great,” pages 223 and 224, §§ 11 and 12; page 232, § 33; and in the Chapter “Of Opinions,” page 334, § 19. Molière felt a somewhat similar bitterness; at least in the dedication of les Fâcheux he says to Louis XIV.: “Those that are born in an elevated rank may propose to themselves the honour of serving your Majesty in great employments; but, for my part, all the glory I can aspire to, is to amuse you.” Compare also Shakespeareʼs hundred and eleventh Sonnet beginning—“Oh! for my sake do you with Fortune chide.”

[33] See the Chapter “Of Society and of Conversation,” page [120], §§ 56, 57.

[34] See in the Chapter “Of the Great,” page [230], § 26, which seems to me to prove this fear.

[35] “We have wished to warn and not to bite; to be useful and not to wound; to benefit the morals of men, and not to be detrimental to them.” This quotation is taken from one of the letters of Erasmus to Martin Dorpius, in which the former replies to some criticisms on his “Praise of Folly.” The preface to the “Characters,” altered and augmented several times by the author himself, is found for the first time, in its present form, in the eighth edition of his work.

[36] The first edition of the “Characters,” published in 1688, contained 420 characters, the fourth edition 771.

[37] This mark, a ((¶)) between double parentheses, as well as the same mark between single parentheses, was first employed in the fifth edition (1690) of the “Characters,” and in all the following ones. But the mere ¶ without any parentheses was used by La Bruyère in all editions to denote the beginning of a paragraph.

[38] This refers to the sixth (1691), seventh (1692), and eighth (1694) editions. The fifth edition contained 923 characters, the sixth 997, the seventh 1073, and the eighth 1120. The ninth edition (1696) was published about a month after the death of La Bruyère.

[39] This seems to allude to La Rochefoucauldʼs “Maxims.”

[40] M. de La Bruyère adopts the chronology of Suidas, a Greek lexicographer who flourished during the latter end of the eleventh century; according to the Hebrew chronology the world had only existed 5692 years when the “Characters” were first published in 1688.

[41] Abile in the original, in the sense of the English word “able,” and used as a noun, was already then considered antiquated.

[42] Sentiment, in the original, was during the seventeenth century not seldom employed in French for “opinion,” as “sentiments” are at present in English.

[43] This magistrate is said to have been Pierre Poncet de la Rivière, Count dʼAblys (1600-1681), a barrister, a councillor of state, and member of the royal council of finances, whose absurd moral treatise, Considérations sur les avantages de la vieillesse dans la vie chrétienne, politique, civile, économique et solitaire, was published under the pseudonym of the Baron de Prelle, in the month of August 1677, about one month before the death of the Lord Chancellor dʼAligre, and more than three months before President Lamoignonʼs decease.

[44] At that time so-called collections of anecdotes, such as Boléana, Ménagiana, and Segraisiana, were greatly in vogue.

[45] It is said that the great dramatic poet Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) is alluded to as one of those poets.

[46] All the “Keys” pretend this is a hit at the “Dictionary of the Academy,” and they may be right; for the Dictionary, only published in 1694, six years after the “Characters” first saw the light, had been expected for more than forty years. But most likely La Bruyère was thinking of the tragedy-ballet of Psyché (1671), words by Pierre Corneille and Molière, music by Quinault and Lulli; of the opera which in 1680 Racine and Boileau, joint historiographes of Louis XIV., began, and which never saw the light; and of the newly-acted Idylle sur la Paix and the Eglogue de Versailles (1685), written by Quinault, Racine, and Molière.

[47] Even in La Bruyèreʼs lifetime doubts were already expressed about the Iliad being written by Homer.

[48] This Roman orator was Cicero.

[49] La Bruyère adds in a footnote: “Even merely considered as an author.”

[50] Almost every one felt during the seventeenth century a dislike for Gothic architecture.

[51] Probably Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757) is meant here. This author had made excellent classical studies in a Jesuit college, but attacked the ancients in his Discours sur LʼEglogue and in his Digression sur les anciens et les modernes, published together with his Poésies Pastorales in 1688. The paragraph beginning “A man feeds” and ending “nurses” was only printed for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689.

[52] It is generally thought that Charles Perrault (1628-1703), a member of the French Academy, is alluded to, but this seems more than doubtful.

[53] Those “able men” were the dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699) and the satirist Nicolas Boileau Despréaux (1636-1711).

[54] Zoilus, a Greek grammarian, flourished about 356-336 B.C., and assailed Homer, Plato, Isocrates, and other Greek authors with merciless severity.

[55] According to all the “Keys,” this is said to be an allusion to the Abbé de Dangeau (1643-1723), a member of the French Academy, and a brother of the better known marquis. But why and wherefore this Abbé has been singled out, has not reached posterity. Some say the President Cousin, the editor of the Journal des Savants, was meant.

[56] Ζηλωτής means “envious.”

[57] In his Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers, 1676, Charles Perrault defended the Alceste of Quinault and attacked the Alcestis of Euripides. Unfortunately his criticism contained several errors, which Racine noticed in the preface of Iphigénie, accusing Perrault at the same time of having carelessly read the work he was censuring.

[58] This was meant for Henri-Joseph de Peyre, Count de Troisvilles (1642-1708), pronounced Tréville, a very intelligent and highly-cultivated nobleman, brought up in his youth with Louis XIV., whose talents he rather undervalued. He was on intimate terms with the Port-Royalists, and after several alternate fits of devotion and dissipation, ended his days devoutly and penitently.

[59] The Abbé de Dangeau, a pedantical purist mentioned already, page 13, note.

[60] In the seventeenth century fireworks were in French feu gréçois, literally “Greek fire.”

[61] The Cid, the dramatic masterpiece of Pierre Corneille, was first performed in 1636. Cardinal Richelieu tried to get up a cabal to crush it, but was unsuccessful; he also persuaded the Academy to publish a severe criticism on it, which is too favourably spoken of by La Bruyère. Boileau says in his ninth satire:—

“En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue,

Tout Paris pour Chimère a les yeux de Rodrigue.

LʼAcadémie en corps a beau le censurer,

Le public révolté sʼobstine à lʼadmirer.”

[62] Courageux and courage were not seldom used in the seventeenth century for “heartfelt” and “heart,” whilst main dʼouvrier, “hand of a workman,” was sometimes employed instead of main de maître, “hand of a master.”

[63] The dramatist Edme Boursault (1638-1701) had had a literary quarrel with Boileau, who attacked him in his ninth Satire, to which Boursault replied by his comedy La Satire des Satires. But they had been reconciled more than a year before the “Characters” were published.

[64] Father Bouhours (1628-1702), a literary Jesuit of some reputation and talent, published in 1689 his Pensées ingénieuses des anciens et des modernes, in which he several times praised the “Characters.” La Bruyère, not to be behind-hand, inserted the learned fatherʼs name in his fifth edition, published in 1690.

[65] Roger de Rabutin, Count de Bussy (1618-1693), a friend of our author, enjoyed a certain literary reputation in the seventeenth century, now completely lost. He is only remembered by his licentious and satirical Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, for which he was banished from the court for more than twenty years.

[66] Damis was meant for Boileau.

[67] There had been a whole family of printers of that name, though only André was alive when the “Characters” appeared. At that time books in France and in England were almost always sold bound.

[68] By “newsmonger” our author alludes to the manufacturers of manuscript newspapers, containing all kinds of social and political scandal, eagerly sought for, and who were severely punished when caught. The English translator of 1702 gives for nouvelliste “journalist,” and says in his “Key:” “The author of the Works of the Learned of Paris,” etc. The Histoire des Savants, edited by H. Basnage (1656-1710), was published in Holland. Mr. N. Rowe, in his translation published in 1713, also uses the word “journalist,” and says in the “Key:” “On the authors of Journals, or accounts of books and News, published in France, Holland,” etc.

[69] La Bruyère speaks here of himself.

[70] In the seventeenth century, bel esprit, plural beaux esprits, in the original, meant a man of intelligence, but began already in La Bruyèreʼs time to have the meaning of “witling.”

[71] Jean Guez de Balzac (1594-1655), one of the first members of the French Academy, wrote, besides his over-praised “Letters,” a Socrate Chrétien, the Prince, a panegyric on Louis XIII., and Entretiens ou Dissertations littéraires.

[72] Voiture (1598-1648), also a member of the French Academy, is chiefly known by his “Letters” and some namby-pamby poetry, amongst which is the well-known sonnet on “Uranie,” which was by many preferred to the sonnet on “Job” by Benserade, and gave rise to a pretty literary quarrel in the seventeenth century. Voiture and Balzac are now deservedly buried in oblivion.

[73] The letters of Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) were not published until 1726, or thirty years after La Bruyèreʼs death, though perhaps he might have seen some of them in manuscript. Among the ladies celebrated for their epistolary style in the seventeenth century were Madame de Maintenon, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Madame de Bussy-Lameth, and above all Madame de Boislandry. See the Chapter “Of Opinions,” [§ 28], “A Fragment.”

[74] Publius Terentius Afer (194-158 B.C.), a celebrated Latin comic dramatist.

[75] Some commentators on La Bruyère think that the words “vulgar tongue (jargon) and barbarisms” refer to Molière having put peasants on the stage, and letting them speak their dialect. See [§ 52].

[76] Malherbe (1555-1628) was one of the greatest purists amongst the authors of his time. Théophile de Viau (1591-1626), a writer of tragedies and a poet, was by some of his contemporaries thought to be a rival of Malherbe.

[77] In the original il feint, the Latin fingit, he shapes, imagines.

[78] Ronsard (1524-1585), the chief of the “Pleiad” or constellation of seven authors, was the most celebrated poet of his time, and the author of the Franciade.

[79] Clément Marot (1495-1544), the favourite poet of Francis I., was born twenty-nine years before Ronsard, who lived about forty years longer than Marot.

[80] Rémy Belleau (1528-1577), Jodelle (1532-1573), and du Bartas (1544-1590), were all poets of the school of Ronsard and belonging to the “Pleiad.” Du Bartasʼs chief work has been translated into English by “silver-tongued” Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618), under the title of “The Divine Week and Works;” and Spenser speaks of “his heavenly muse,” and of his filling “the world with never-dying fame.”

[81] Honorat de Bueil, Marquis de Racan (1589-1670), the favourite pupil of Malherbe, is chiefly known by his pastoral dialogue, Les Bergeries. La Bruyère praises Malherbe and Racan for their pure style, but the fabulist Jean de la Fontaine says of them:—

“Malherbe avec Racan parmi le chœur des anges,

Là-haut de lʼEternel célébrant les louanges

Ont emporté leur lyre.”

[82] François Rabelais (1459-1553), author of the Chroniques de Gargantua et de Pantagruel.

[83] La Bruyère writes “Montagne,” and so it is even now pronounced. Montaigneʼs (1533-1592) “Essays” are known everywhere.

[84] The author who “thinks too little” is said to have been the Port-Royalist, Pierre Nicole (1625-1695), though some imagine Balzac was meant; the author who thought “with too much subtlety” seems to have been Father Malebranche (1638-1715), who attacked Montaigne in his Recherche de la Vérité (1674).

[85] Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), the translator of Plutarch. Nicolas Coëffeteau (1574-1623), bishop of Marseille, is best known by his translation of the Roman historian, Florus.

[86] The letters H. G. stand for Hermes Galant, “Hermes” being the Greek for Mercury, and there existing since 1672 a kind of monthly review, called the Mercure Galant, edited by Donneau de Visé, Thomas Corneille, and Fontenelle, and printing some news from the court and the army, a few literary articles, and as many advertisements as possible. Since 1677 its title changed to Mercure de France.

[87] Boileau, La Fontaine, and Saint Evremond were, like La Bruyère, no lovers of the opera.

[88] The Abbé Perrin and his brother-in-law, the Marquis de Sourdéac, the first regular directors of opera in France, ruined themselves in less than three years through their expensive decorations and machinery. In 1672 Lulli and his son-in-law Francine obtained permission to manage another opera-house, but spent far less money on decorations than their predecessors had done. Our author calls Lulli “Amphion,” a Greek musician who is said to have built Thebes by the music of his lute.

[89] At that time there was a regular theatre for puppet-shows, founded by Pierre dʼAttelin, better known as Brioché.

[90] In 1670 Corneille and Racine had each a tragedy, Bérénice, represented; Pénélope, a tragedy of the Abbé Genest, was played in 1684.

[91] One of those busybodies is said to have been a certain M. Manse, engineer of the waterworks of Chantilly, the seat of the Condés; and he pretended to have chiefly organised the festival given by the Prince de Condé, a son of the great Condé and the father of La Bruyèreʼs pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, to the Dauphin, the son of Louis XIV., at Chantilly during the month of August 1688. This entertainment lasted eight days; hence the necessity of a theatre.

[92] The “hunt on the water” took place on the sixth day of the festival, when some living deer and other animals were thrown alive into a large lake, which the ladies, in boats, tried to catch by means of ropes, and which, when caught, were set at liberty.

[93] On the first day of the feast a splendid “collation” was given by the Prince to the Dauphin, at the cross-way of “La Table,” amidst a temple of verdure erected for the occasion. Any meal taken between the dinner and supper hours, or any festive repast, was called in Louis XIV.ʼs time a collation.

[94] “Another wonderful collation given in the Labyrinth of Chantilly,” says a note of La Bruyère. An engraving still exists of the table, its decorations and ornaments.

[95] This compliment to the Prince de Condé only appeared for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689, when the whole court was still talking about the entertainment.

[96] This is said to be a hit at the partisans of Quinault, who could see no charms in anything except in his operas.

[97] In the original, esprit fort, which sometimes meant “a man who does not care for the opinions of the world,” and sometimes “a freethinker.”

[98] La Bruyère puts in a note: “A rebellion was the ordinary ending of tragedies.”

[99] Some commentators think this is an allusion to the tragedies of Quinault, but they were already buried in oblivion when he died in 1688: it seems rather to refer to those of Jean Galbert de Campistron (1656-1713), who, during ten years, from 1683 to 1693, produced almost yearly a tragedy, none of which have come down to posterity.

[100] Molière often put peasants on the stage; but he never made of them, nor of intoxicated persons, his principal characters: the “sick person” is said to be a hit at Argan in Molièreʼs Le Malade imaginaire. See also page [21], § 38.

[101] This is an allusion to the actor Baronʼs LʼHomme à bonnes fortunes (1686) and the Débauché (1690); this latter comedy, acted before the court the very year the above paragraph first appeared, was a complete failure, and has never been printed. Intoxicated people were often represented on the stage in La Bruyèreʼs time.

[102] In the original comédies, a word employed for tragedies as well as for comedies.

[103] Cinna in the tragedy of that name, Felix in Polyeucte, and Rodogune in Rodogune are examples of this.

[104] The original has nombreux, the Latin numerosus.

[105] Three tragedies by Corneille. Though he himself calls the last tragedy by the name given above, its real title is Horace.

[106] Mithridates, the hero of Racineʼs tragedy of that name; Porus, a character in the Alexandre, and Burrhus in the Britannicus of the same author.

[107] In the comparison between Corneille and Racine there are some reminiscences of a Parallèle de M. Corneille et de M. Racine, published in 1686 by a certain author, de Requeleyne, Baron de Longepierre.

[108] Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), Euripides (480-406 B.C.)

[109] Cassius Longinus (213-273), a Greek orator, philosopher, and author, is chiefly known by his “Treatise on the Sublime,” which is generally attributed to him. In it he states that there are five principal sources of the sublime, and that the third is nought but the figures of speech turned about in a certain manner. Boileauʼs translation of this “Treatise” appeared in 1674, and in his preface he described but did not define the sublime, a definition also not found in Longinus.

[110] The original has capable, in the sense of the Latin capax.

[111] According to Boileau, Longinus does not understand by “sublime” a sublime style, but something extraordinary and marvellously striking, which causes a work to enrapture, delight, and transport us. A sublime style always requires grand, eloquent words; but the sublime may be found in a single thought, a single figure of speech, a single phrase. Longinus himself says that anything which leaves us food for thought, which almost carries us away, and of which the remembrance is lasting, is sublime.

[112] In rhetoric there is a difference between a metaphor and a comparison.

[113] The above paragraph is said to refer to the polemical writings interchanged between the Jesuits and Jansenists, and seems not quite fair to Pascalʼs Lettres Provinciales.

[114] Some “Keys” mention the names of Bouhours and Bourdaloue, whilst more modern commentators think that La Bruyère only wished to give a paragraph on the French prose of his time.

[115] The original has artisan, which even in La Bruyèreʼs time meant an artisan, when used without being qualified; our author employs it, however, for “artist.”

[116] Some annotators say a certain Abbé Bourdelon (1653-1730), a completely forgotten critic, was meant; others think it was a hit at Ménage (1613-1692), who had the good sense not to recognise himself in this portrait, and is said to have been also the original of Vadius in Molièreʼs Femmes Savantes.

[117] This author was the Abbé de Villiers, who published in 1682 a poem in four cantos, LʼArt de Précher, in which he tried to imitate LʼArt poétique of Boileau, and in 1690 Réflexions sur les défauts dʼautrui, which were very successful; some suppose Father Bouhoursʼ Pensées ingénieuses des anciens et des modernes (1689) hinted at; whilst M. G. Servois, the able editor of La Bruyère in the Grands Ecrivains de la France (1865-1878), thinks that possibly the “author” was Jacques Brillon, a lawyer and indefatigable imitator, who in his youth may have been presumptuous enough to have asked La Bruyèreʼs advice on some of his literary works, the Portraits sérieux, etc., the LʼOuvrage nouveau dans le goût des Caractères de Théophraste et des Pensées de Pascal, the Théophraste moderne, etc., which three books appeared, however, after La Bruyèreʼs death, from 1696 to 1700. Adrien Baillet, an erudite scholar and fertile author, is also mentioned by some “Keys.”

[118] It is now generally supposed that by the satirist described Boileau is meant, for he sometimes commences grand subjects, as in his satires Sur lʼHomme or Sur la Noblesse, but he never enters deeply into the matter, and treats of Les Embarras de Paris or Le Repas ridicule.

[119] Those names stand for Varillas (1624-1695) and Maimbourg (1610-1686), two voluminous historians, the first of whom is known for the inaccuracy of his facts, the second by his pretentious style, though Madame de Sévigné and Voltaire do not entirely condemn the latter, and Bayle, in his Dictionnaire, praises his knowledge and accuracy. “Handburg” is the German for “Maimbourg.”

[120] Glorieux in the original, which in La Bruyèreʼs time, and even later, had the meaning “conceited.” One of N. Destouchesʼ (1680-1754) best comedies is called Le Glorieux.

[121] The original has un honnête homme, which meant, in La Bruyèreʼs time, “a gentleman, a well-mannered man,” but never “an honest man,” which is in French un homme de bien.

[122] “The stammerer” was meant for the son of Achille de Harlay (1639-1712), chief president of the parliament of Paris, and is said not to have stammered, but to have been very idle, and without any oratorical talents. Yet, in 1691, at the age of twenty-three, he was appointed advocate-general, through the influence of his father. Hence his appearance in the sixth edition of the “Characters,” also published in 1691. Mdlle. de Harlay, a daughter of the first president, was sent to a convent in 1686 on account of her affection for Dumesnil, a singer at the Opera.

[123] Xanthus was M. de Courtenvaux, the eldest son of the Minister for War, M. de Louvois, and is said not to have excelled either in good looks or bravery.

[124] V ... stands for Claude François Vignon (1634-1703), a son of an artist of the same name; C ... is Pascal Colasse, a pupil of Lulli, whose opera, Achille et Polyxène, was played a short time before the “Characters” were first published (1687); Pyrame, written by Pradon (1632-1698), was acted in 1674; he had brought out several other tragedies before the first appearance of La Bruyèreʼs book. At that time Pierre Mignard (1635-1695), the celebrated artist, and Pierre Corneille (1606-1694) were still alive, and Lulli (1633-1687), the great musician, had only been dead a few months.

[125] Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536), one of the most celebrated scholars and learned men of his time.

[126] By this bishop some say was meant M. de Harlay (1625-1695), archbishop of Paris; others think the archbishop of Rheims, Le Tellier (1642-1710), the brother of Louvois, was designated. See also page [141], note 282.

[127] The original has collier dʼordre, the collar of the order of the Holy Ghost.

[128] Trophime, it was supposed, stood for our authorʼs friend Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704), the eminent theologian, preacher, and bishop of Meaux, but he never became a cardinal. So general was this supposition, that in all editions of the “Characters” published after the authorʼs death the name of “Bénigne” was put instead of “Trophime.” Some “Keys,” however, mention the name of Etienne le Camus (1632-1707), bishop of Grenoble, who became a cardinal in 1686.

[129] Lord Stafford is meant here; he was a relative to the Duke of Norfolk, very rich and very eccentric, and married in 1694 a daughter of the Count de Gramont. Some think the Count dʼAubigné, the brother of Mdlle. de Maintenon, is spoken of.

[130] La Bruyère adds in a footnote, “an agate.”

[131] In the original il ne se plaint non plus. Plaindre had sometimes the meaning of “to be sparing,” and Le Sage employs it in Gil Blas in that sense.

[132] This is said to apply to a certain M. de Mennevillette, receveur-général of the clergy, whose son married Mdlle. de Harlay.

[133] In the original drap de Hollande, because the best cloth came from Holland. Colbert induced some Dutch and Flemish weavers to settle in France, where they made a cloth called Toile Colbertine, of which Molière wore a doublet as the Marquis in les Fâcheux. Colberteen is also mentioned in “The Fopʼs Dictionary” (1690), and in Congreveʼs “The Way of the World.”

[134] The lumen gloriæ is, according to Roman Catholic theologians, “The help God affords to the souls of the blessed, to strengthen them that they may be able to see God ‘face to face,’ as St. Paul says (1 Cor. xiii. 12), or by intuition; as they say in the schools; for without such a help they could not bear the immediate presence of God.”

[135] A certain preacher, Charles Boileau, was meant; others think it was a canon of Notre-Dame, called Robert.

[136] The man of learning is Mabillon (1632-1707), a scholarly Benedictine, and author of De Re diplomatica, De Vetera analecta, and other works.

[137] The original has homme de bien. See page [43], note 121.

[138] Montaigne, Saint-Evremond, and the latest French writer on Alexander, M. Jurien de la Gravière, happily still alive, and formerly Minister for the French Navy, think more favourably than La Bruyère did of the talents of the youthful king of Macedonia.

[139] Æmilius is the Prince de Condé (1621-1686). The whole of the above paragraph is filled with reminiscences from Bossuetʼs Oraison funèbre du Prince de Condé, delivered in the year 1687.

[140] The battle of Rocroi was won in 1643, when Condé was only twenty-two years old, whilst those of Freiburg, Nordlingen, and Lens were gained, respectively, in 1644, 1645, and 1648.

[141] An allusion to the siege of Lerida, raised by Condé in 1647.

[142] La Bruyère forgets the wars of the Fronde (1648-1653) and the part Condé took in them, as well as in the wars of Spain against France, from 1652 till 1659.

[143] His grandson and his nephew married illegitimate daughters of Louis XIV.

[144] An allusion to his bad and hasty temper.

[145] La Bruyère adds in a note, “Sons and grandsons, descendants of kings.” This seems a reminiscence of the Homeric Διογενῖς, Διοτρεφεῖς, Βασιλεῖς.

[146] This compliment was addressed to the princes of the Condé family, of whom one, the Prince de Conti (1629-1661), was in command of the army in Catalonia, though he had never served. Compare the saying of Mascarille in Molièreʼs Les Précieuses Ridicules: “People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.”

[147] Charles Castel, Abbé de Saint Pierre (1658-1743), a member of the French Academy, whence he was ejected in 1718 on account of his Discours sur la Polysynodie, a work in which he proposed a kind of Constitution for the French nation.

[148] Celsus is the Baron de Breteuil, who was sent in 1682 on a diplomatic mission to the dukes of Parma and Modena, but failed, and was disowned.

[149] The “two brothers” are said to have been the counsellors of the parliament, Claude and Michel le Peletier, and the quarrel was about a question of precedence.

[150] The “two ministers” were Louvois and de Seignelay, a son of Colbert, and the chief cause of their falling out seems to have been the more or less assistance which should be given to James II. against England.

[151] Menippus is the Marshal François de Villeroy (1644-1730), the favourite of the king and of Mademoiselle de Maintenon, only known as a perfect courtier when La Bruyère published his book, but who later on proved himself an incapable general. In the Mémoires of the Duke de Saint-Simon, he is called glorieux à lʼexcès par nature. See also page [43], note 120. Some commentators say Menippus was the Marquis de Cavoye (1640-1716), one of the handsomest men and one of the greatest duellists of the court.

[152] The original has de mise, which was also used by Voltaire and Rousseau, but seems now to have become antiquated.

[153] Montre la corde in the original.

[154] When the “Characters” first made their appearance in 1689, Louis XIV. no longer resided in the Louvre, but at Versailles. The greatest nobles, in order to pay their court to the king, lodged in some wretched rooms in the palace.

[155] The first part of this paragraph, referring to “false greatness,” is said to apply to the Marshal de Villeroy; the second, alluding to “true greatness,” to Marshal Turenne (1611-1675).

[156] An allusion to a fashion of the time La Bruyère wrote, when the ladies wore shoes with very high heels and enormous head-dresses, called Fontanges; the latter were invented by Marie-Angélique Scoraille de Roussille, Duchesse de Fontanges (1661-1681), who was one of the mistresses of Louis XIV. Our author refers to them in his chapter “Of Fashion,” § 12.

[157] Some of the ladies at court, in order to hide the hollowness of their cheeks, used, it is said, to hold small balls of wax in their mouths.

[158] Lise is generally supposed to have been Catherine-Henriette dʼAngennes de la Loupe, Countess dʼOlonne, one of the most dissolute ladies of the court of Louis XIV., who was fifty-five years old when this paragraph appeared (1692), and died in 1714. Many particulars about her are related in Bussy-Rabutinʼs Histoire amoureuse des Gaules.

[159] This is said to allude to a certain Mademoiselle de Loines, who fell in love with a crooked, ill-looking, dwarfish limb of the law.

[160] The memoirs of the time of Louis XIV. teem with examples of young men of the highest families who considered it no disgrace to live at the expense of rich and amorous old crones, and even to receive money from young ladies.

[161] The original has dans une ruelle. Ruelle means literally “a small street,” hence the narrow opening between the wall and the bed, on which bed superfine ladies, gaily dressed, were lying when they received their friends, and thus ruelle came to mean “any fashionable assembly.” In Dr. Ashʼs “Dictionary of the English Language,” London, 1755, ruelle is still defined “a little street, a circle, an assembly at a private house.”

[162] En cravate et en habit gris, says the French, which was the usual dress of dandified magistrates, although they were strictly forbidden to wear any other clothes but black ones.

[163] Only officers of the kingʼs household were allowed to wear gold-embroidered scarfs.

[164] This alludes to the Count dʼAubigné, a brother of Madame de Maintenon, who was no favourite at court. See also the portrait of “Theodectes” in the chapter “Of Society and Conversation,” § 12, page [106].

[165] The “lady” is said to have been Madame de la Ferrière, the wife of a maître des requêtes, and Dorinna a certain Mdlle. Foucault, a relative of some well-known conseiller au parlement, who was in love with a Doctor Moreau.

[166] The original has questionnaire, a word then already antiquated, and which meant a man applying the question or rack.

[167] Roscius seems to have been intended for a portrait of the celebrated actor Michael Baron (1653-1729), whilst the names of Lelia, Cesonia, Claudia, and Messalina probably allude to some of the ladies of the court who intrigued with actors. During the eighteenth century the names of the Maréchale de la Ferté, and of her sister the Countess dʼOlonne (see page [61], note 158), both of very dissolute manners, were mentioned as having been the originals of Claudia and Messalina, whilst Claudia was also, according to some, a portrait of Marie-Anne Mancini, Duchesse de Bouillon, though it is not probable that La Bruyère intended to allude to her. Bathyllus and Cobus stand for Le Basque, Pécourt, or Beauchamps, dancers at the Opera; Draco is Philibert, a German flute-player of those times; Lelia or Cesonia are supposed to have been a certain widow of the Marquis de Constantin.

[168] Is this not an allusion of our author to some nunneries not in very good repute at the time?

[169] This applies, it is said, to the Maréchale de la Ferté, mentioned on page 67, note 2, and to the Duke dʼAumontʼs second wife, who died in 1711, sixty-one years old.

[170] At the time La Bruyère wrote, nearly every fashionable lady had, besides her father-confessor, a spiritual director, who was her “guide, philosopher, and friend.” Boileau, in his tenth satire, says:—

“Mais de tous les mortels, grâce aux dévotes âmes,

Nul nʼest si bien soigné quʼun directeur de femmes.”

[171] Placer des domestiques, in the original; domestique was used for any person belonging to the household of some great nobleman, even if he were himself a noble; it also meant “a household.”

[172] A note of La Bruyère says that this refers to “assumed piety.”

[173] Those ladies are supposed to have been the Duchesse dʼAumont, already mentioned; the Countess de Lyonne, the wife of a minister of state; the Duchess de Lesdiguières, and the Countess de Roucy.

[174] Our authorʼs note says, “A pretended pious woman.”

[175] It was then the custom for people who had a lawsuit to go and solicit their judges in person.

[176] In La Bruyèreʼs time many ladies had a great reputation for learning, such as Madame de Sévigné, and her daughter, Madame de Grignan, who greatly admired Descartesʼ philosophy; Madame de la Fayette; and a sister of Madame de Montespan, who was Abbess of Fontévrault. Montaigne was of opinion that women had no need of learning, and Molière, in his Femmes Savantes, holds the golden mean.

[177] Such were, for example, the heroines of the Fronde, who only cared for ambition. Saint Simon in his Mémoires speaks of the Maréchale de Ciérambault, “who only left off gambling whilst at meals;” the Princess de Harcourt, who took usually the sacrament after having gambled until four in the morning; and the Duchesse dʼAumont, whom we have already mentioned.

[178] “Most women have no characters at all,” says Pope in the Second Epistle “Of the Characters of Women.” The late Rev. Whitwell Elwin thinks this “a literal rendering” of La Bruyèreʼs § 65 “Of Men.” I imagine it inspired by the above paragraph.

[179] To deceive some one is now in French en imposer à quelquʼun, but until the last hundred years imposer was used, which meant “to deceive” and “to impose respect.”

[180] Glycera is said to have been Madame de la Ferrière, whom we have already mentioned. See page [66], note 165.

[181] Pierre du Puget, lord of Montauron, who died in 1664, first president of the bureau des finances at Montauban, was celebrated for his riches and vanity. P. Corneille dedicated his tragedy Cinna to him. Michael Particelli, lord of Esmery, became, through the patronage of Cardinal Mazarin, surintendant des finances, and died in 1650.

[182] Venouse is not Venuzia, the native town of the Roman lyric poet Horace, but Vincennes; the road from Paris to Vincennes was a favourite spot for walking.

[183] The Faubourg Saint-Germain is meant by the “grand suburb.”

[184] Canidia, a Neapolitan lady, is said to have been loved by Horace, and to have deserted him. Out of revenge the poet, in his Epodes v. and xvii., depicted her as an old sorceress who could unsphere the moon. Canidia is supposed to allude to La Voisin, who was burned at the stake in Paris, in 1680, for having poisoned several people.

[185] In the original affranchi, freedman.

[186] All the “Keys” say that “the husband” of this paragraph and the following one was a certain Nicolas de Bauquemare, président de la deuxième chambre des requêtes au palais.

[187] Wives of a similar kind seem to have been Madame de Montespan, Madame de Sévigné, and Madame de la Fayette.

[188] This paragraph refers again to the président, mentioned on page 80, note 2, and to his wife, who was always called “DʼOns-en-Bray,” pronounced “DʼOsembray,” after a property belonging to her husband.

[189] Stupide had, in La Bruyères time, the meaning of “stupefied” as well as of “stupid.”

[190] It might have been expected that some of the “Keys” would have told us who Emira was, but this anecdote is either invented by La Bruyère or founded on a fact only known to him.

[191] La Rouchefoucauld, in the Maximes (1665), makes almost the same remarks, and so does Pascal in the Pensées (1670). It often happens that those two authors agree in their expressions and thoughts with La Bruyère, who carefully studied them before publishing his Caractères.

[192] Discordia fit carior concordia is a saying of the Latin poet Publius Syrus (104-41 B.C.)

[193] In the chapter “Of the Affections,” La Bruyère has borrowed a goodly number of ideas of Senecaʼs treatise De beneficiis; this is one of them.

[194] An imitation of another line of Publius Syrus: Ita amicum habeas, posse inimicum fieri ut putes.

[195] This paragraph was not very clear in the original. We have followed M. Destailleurʼs explanation.

[196] In the original déterminément, an adverb employed by the best authors of the seventeenth century, but now antiquated.

[197] This is called la légitime in French.

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

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

[200] Arontius is said to be Perrault (see page [14], note 57.) Who Melinda was has never been discovered.

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

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

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

[204] Such an adventure is said to have happened to a certain conseiller au châtelet, Robert de Châtillon. Montesquieu, in his Lettres Persanes, describes a similar character.

[205] Theodectes is the Count dʼAubigné. See page [65], note 164.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[218] In this paragraph, as well as in the preceding one, some commentators imagine there is an allusion to the President Achille de Harlay, so bitterly attacked by St. Simon in his Mémoires. See also page [45], note 122.

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

[220] The principal antiquated words in this imitation are estriver, to strive, to quarrel; se ramentevoir, to call to mind, used by Molière in the Dépit amoureux (iii. 4); and succéder, to be successful, which, of course, is at present in French réussir.

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

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

[223] Such a contract was called les nourritures in French legal phraseology.

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

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

[226] A bailli was a magistrate who judged certain cases, an élu a sort of assessor of various taxes, and an assesseur an assistant magistrate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[239] Those names La Bruyère found in the Histoire du Monde of Chevreau see page [124], note 235); and nearly all of them are so wrongly spelt that it is almost hopeless to discover whom they meant.

[240] In the month of December of the same year this paragraph had been published, Joseph I. (1678-1711), emperor of the Romans, was crowned king of Hungary, in virtue of his hereditary right. See page [215], note 444.

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

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

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

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

[245] Cydias is Fontenelle (see page [11], note 51), who was only thirty-seven years old when this paragraph was first printed in the eighth edition of the “Characters,” in 1694, and who became La Bruyèreʼs enemy ever since.

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

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

[248] The author adds “a philosopher and a tragic poet.” See page [124], note 235.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[257] Those men were the so-called “farmers of the revenue,” nearly all of low birth, and who formerly had been in some trade or business. See page [136], note 266, and page [137], § 15.

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

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

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

[261] The “Keys” mention several people for Clitiphon, such as M. le Camus, lieutenant-civil, or his brother the cardinal, or another brother who was maître des requêtes.

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

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

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

[265] The original has trivial, from the Latin trivialis and trivium, hence the meaning of exposed to the public gaze, “perceptible.”

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

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

[268] See page [43], note 121.

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

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

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

[272] “Champagne” stands for Monnerot. (See page [110], note 213.) It was not uncommon to give such names as Poitevin, Lorrain, Basque, Provençal, etc., to footmen, after their supposed native provinces.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[280] The original has pancartes, which our author in a note states were billets dʼenterrement.

[281] Noble homme was a title which citizens of importance took in all legal contracts, whilst men of less influence, tradesmen and artisans, were styled Honorable homme, and Messire was only reserved for persons of rank.

[282] This youth was M. le Tellier, who became Archbishop of Rheims in 1671, when he was only twenty-nine years old, but who already, before that time, received the revenues of six abbeys. (See also page [47], note 126.)

[283] Formerly six vingts, hundred and twenty—thus in the original—was as commonly used as quatre-vingt.

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

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

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

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

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

[289] See page [136], note 266.

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

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

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

[293] See page [43], note 121.

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

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

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

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

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

[299] Au denier dix in the original.

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

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

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

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

[304] These different degrees of legal dignity were formerly in French praticien, officier, magistrat, président.

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

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

[307] Thus M. Langlée, a “man sprung from nothing,” as St. Simon calls him, but a first-rate gambler, played for several years every day with the king. See also page [139], note 279. Gourville (see page [137], note 267) gambled with noblemen of the highest rank; and a certain Morin, after having lost large sums of money, was obliged to fly to London, where he managed the gambling table of the Duchess de Mazarin, and is often mentioned by St. Evremond.

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

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

[310] A game of chance played with cards.

[311] Those who made their fortune by gambling were, according to the “Keys,” Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau, who left behind him a very valuable Journal of the sayings and doings of the court of Louis XIV., which has often been printed; but he did not owe his success in life to gambling alone; and Morin, already mentioned, page 155, note 1.

[312] All the “Keys” give as the model of a perfect gambler a certain Louis Robert, Seigneur de Fortille, who made his fortune as intendant of different army-corps, and lost almost everything he possessed; but as the passion for gambling was very common, and as the king was the first to give the example of it, ruined gamblers were to be found in plenty. Cheating at play was also not rare.

[313] Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, after the death of her husband Odenathus, waged war for five years against the Romans, and was vanquished by Aurelian in the year 273.

[314] Ouvrier, in the original, is sometimes used by our author for “artist.”

[315] Phidias (490-432 B.C.) was a Greek sculptor of renown; Zeuxis (424-400 B.C.), a Greek painter, who is said to have painted grapes so well that some birds came and pecked at them.

[316] The “herdsman” alluded to in the above paragraph seems to have been the financier La Touanne, trésorier de lʼextraordinaire des guerres. He had a mansion near the park of Saint Maur, part of an estate formerly belonging to Catherine de Medici (Zenobia), on which he spent enormous sums, whilst the other part belonged to the Prince de Condé, who in vain tried to induce the parvenu to sell him his property. Hence the attack of our author on the man who dared to oppose the wishes of his noble patron. However, when this paragraph appeared, La Touanne did not yet live at Saint Maur.

[317] According to the commentators, this refers to Jacques Bordier, intendant des finances, who, after having spent more than a million on his estate at Raincy, was obliged to leave it; but his creditors did not expel him, for it was sold by his heirs after his death.

[318] The Marquis de Seignelay is supposed by some to have been the original of Eumolpus; he did not, however, enjoy a long life. (See page [149], note 255.

[319] Libertin, in the original, which first meant a man of free-and-easy manners, came to be chiefly used in the second half of the seventeenth century for a “freethinker.”

[320] Superstitieux sometimes had the above meaning; Littré gives two examples of it in his dictionary.

[321] Giton and Phædo do not apply to any one in particular, though some commentators maintain that by the first the Marquis de Barbézieux, the son of Louvois, was meant.

[322] Now we speak of town and country, but in La Bruyèreʼs time people mentioned the town or city and the court, wholly different in customs and manners. Boileau begins his Satires with the two following lines—

“Damon, ce grand auteur dont la muse fertile,

Amusa si long-temps et la cour et la ville.”

Our author places his chapter “Of the Town” before that “Of the Court” and “Of the Great,” and leads up to that “Of the Sovereign.”

[323] Le Cours la Reine, familiarly called Le Cours, was a part of the Champs-Elysées, planted with trees by order of Maria de Medici, the wife of Henri IV.; hence the name. The theatre finished then at seven oʼclock, when it was not too late to take a walk in summer-time. See also Molièreʼs Les Fâcheux, act i. scene 1.

[324] The favourite and fashionable walk, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, was from Paris to Vincennes.

[325] That bank is now the quays Saint-Bernard and Austerlitz.

[326] Bourdaloue (1632-1704), a celebrated preacher, censures a similar behaviour in his sermon on Les Divertissements du Monde.

[327] To the grande robe belonged all magistrates; to the petite robe all avoués and procureurs, somewhat like attorneys and solicitors; the avocats or barristers were between the two, and the court of justice or parlement above them all.

[328] The avocats were generally not considered to belong to the grande robe, and La Bruyère was one of them; the latter part of the paragraph is a direct attack on the sale of legal offices.

[329] This applies, according to the “Keys,” to a certain M. de la Briffe, a maître des requêtes, or to M. de Saint-Pouange. (See page [134], note 259.)

[330] Two celebrated barristers of La Bruyèreʼs time.

[331] J. H. de Mesmes, who became président à mortier in 1688, when he was only twenty-seven years old, is said to have been a constant companion of profligate young noblemen. A mortier was a round velvet cap, worn by the Chancellor and Presidents of parliaments.

[332] See page [165], note 324.

[333] The original has et qui a consigné, a meaning which we have still in the English word “consignment.” The explanation of this word is given by the author himself.

[334] An allusion to the three fleurs de lis of the Bourbons.

[335] Litre, in the original, is a kind of mourning hangings, or, rather, a broad velvet band on which the coats of arms of certain nobles were painted, and which was placed around the church, inside as well as outside. The right of using the litre belonged only to noblemen who had founded a church, or to those who had exercised a certain jurisdiction in their domains.

[336] The commentators hint at several magistrates as the originals of the Crispins, and imagine that the Sannions were the family of Leclerc de Lesseville, the descendants of rich tanners, who became ennobled for having lent 20,000 crowns to Henry IV. after the battle of Ivry.

[337] This “other man” was a certain President de Coigneux, who neglected his legal duties to spend all his time in sport.

[338] Laisse-courre in French; formerly courre was used instead of courir, as a sporting term.

[339] A. M. Jérôme de Nouveau, the head of the post-office, is said to have asked his head huntsman a similar question.

[340] Hippolytus, son of Theseus, king of Athens, “a youth who never knew a woman,” thrown from his chariot and killed, is the hero of Racineʼs tragedy Phèdre.

[341] The Ile meant nearly always the Ile Saint-Louis; the Quartier du Temple, formerly the Marais, is even sometimes now called by that name.

[342] The commentators have given the names of several obscure people for those “infatuated men,” and for André as well; but it is surely not a rare thing for men to ruin themselves through vanity.

[343] The Abbé de Villars, who died in 1691, was a son of the Marquis de Villars, French ambassador to the Court of Spain, and is said to have been the original of Narcissus.

[344] The Convent of the Feuillants, a branch of the Cistercian monks, was in the Rue Saint-Honoré; that of the Minims, an order founded by St. Francis of Paula in 1453, was near the Place Royale.

[345] Ombre, a Spanish game of cards, often mentioned by English authors of the eighteenth century; Pope has a poetical description of it in his “Rape of the Lock.” Reversis is another game of cards, played by four persons, and in which those who make the fewest tricks win the game.

[346] A golden pistole was usually worth eleven livres.

[347] The Gazette de Hollande was a newspaper published in Holland, and in which everything was put that could not be printed or said in France. For the Mercure Galant, see page [24], note 86.

[348] Cyrano de Bergerac (1620-1655) was the author of the Histoires Comiques des Etats et Empires de la Lune, etc., of a tragedy, Agrippine, and of a comedy, Le Pédant Joué, from which Molière borrowed two scenes.

[349] Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (1596-1676), an author of various plays, novels, and poems, and one of the first in France to attack the authority of the ancients.

[350] Louis de Lesclache (1620-1661), a grammarian and a writer on philosophy.

[351] Barbin, a well-known publisher at the time our author wrote.

[352] The Plaine was probably the Plaine des Sablons; for the Cours, see page 164, note 2.

[353] The “Keys” are unanimous in saying that the Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who had married a sister of the Maréchal de Luxembourg, and who died at the Hague in 1692, is meant by “this man.”

[354] This was the boulevard of the Porte Saint-Antoine, sometimes called the Nouveau Cours, on the road to Vincennes.

[355] A large garden in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was called thus, after a financier of the same name who had laid it out.

[356] A sort of mock tilting-match on horseback.

[357] The alliance between France and Switzerland was always solemnly sworn, and this was done for the last time in 1663 in Notre-Dame.

[358] Every year under Louis XIV.ʼs reign there were published large engravings, in which the king, the princes, and the principal persons of the court were represented, whilst lower down the citizens, the people, etc., were looking on, and the real almanack was pasted quite at the bottom.

[359] Saint Hubert was the patron saint of the chase, and on the 5th of November, when his festival was held, the king and the greatest personages of the court hunted at Versailles.

[360] Two small places near Versailles where often soldiers encamped and reviews were held.

[361] Bernardi was the director of a celebrated gymnasium at that time, and every year his pupils attacked and defended an artificial fort, erected by his orders.

[362] The Marquis de Chamlay was a noted tactician; Jacquier had been the head of the commissariate, and died in 1684; and Berbier du Metz, lieutenant-general of the artillery, was killed at the battle of Fleuras in 1690.

[363] Beaumavielle, a celebrated basso-singer at the opera, died about 1688.

[364] Marthe de Rochois sang at the opera from 1678 till 1697.

[365] The Annales Galantes were published in 1670, and written by Madame de Villedieu; no Journal Amoureux ever saw the light.

[366] Roland, an opera by Quinault (see page [28], note 99) and Lulli (see page [25], note 88, and page 46, note), was represented for the first time at Versailles in the beginning of 1685, and Mademoiselle de Rochois played the part of Angelica in it.

[367] See page [65], note 161.

[368] M. de Terrat, the chancelier of Monsieur, the brother of Louis XIV., is hinted at here, probably merely on account of his name.

[369] Le mortier, in the original. See page [168], note 331.

[370] La Bruyère employs le vide de la consignation. See page [169], note 333.

[371] Pécunieux our author uses in its Latin meaning.

[372] Gilt nails were the principal ornaments of the heavy and unwieldy coaches of the age of Louis XIV.

[373] Some unprincipled suitors borrowed costly jewels which they put in the trousseau of their brides, but which had to be returned after the marriage.

[374] Gaultier was the proprietor of a well-known warehouse for the sale of silks and gold and silver-embroidered stuffs in the Rue des Bourdonnais, in Paris, during the latter part of the seventeenth century.

[375] According to an immemorial custom in Paris, a young wife showily dressed had to sit up on her bed during the first three days after marriage to receive visits. Several memoirs and letters of the time refer to it. Addison in “The Spectator,” No. 45, speaks also of the “English ladies ... brought up the fashion of receiving visits in their beds.”

[376] People were then (1688-1694) in the habit of dining at twelve oʼclock, and of taking supper at seven or eight; hence the reference to the “five hours.”

[377] We do not know if this refers to Swiss porters or Swiss guards; I should think it meant the former, and intends to point out that the lady made three calls. (See also page [134], note 260.)

[378] This paragraph alludes, of course, to the visits ladies pay one another.

[379] Sou pour livre, or a penny in the pound, in the original, was a tax on merchandise of a twentieth part of their value.

[380] Wax-candles were a luxury at the time La Bruyère wrote, and chiefly manufactured at Bougiah, on the coast of Africa; hence their name, bougie.

[381] In every parliament there were originally two courts, and two kinds of barristers or conseillers; one court was called the grandʼchambre, where the cases were heard; in the other court, the chambre des enquêtes, reports in writing were made of all cases.

[382] The nobleman or lady of high rank to whom the education of the children of royalty was intrusted in France bore the title of gouverneur, or gouvernante des enfants de France.

[383] Voltaire attacked this paragraph, and maintained it was ridiculous to praise our forefathers for being calculating, slow, coarse, and not very cleanly. Moreover, money should not be stowed away in coffers, but circulate. One of the latest commentators of La Bruyère, M. Destailleur, observes rightly that our author only praises economy, simplicity, and moderation, and not avarice and uncleanliness, and that he merely attacks the pretended showiness of men wishing to imitate people of high rank; hence the last sentence.

[384] Not alone La Bruyère, but many of the most eminent persons of his time, such as Saint-Simon, Bourdaloue, Fénelon, Massillon, Madame de Maintenon, the Duke of Orléans and his mother, had the same opinion of the court and courtiers.

[385] It was only in the sixth edition of the “Characters” that our author printed Versailles in full; until then it was only “V ...”

[386] The French has fourriers, petits contrôleurs, and chefs de fruiterie. The first looked after the lodgings of the persons following the court when the king was travelling; the second superintended the expenses of the kingʼs table and household; and the third set out the dessert and provided the wax-candles for the kingʼs dining-room. A fourrier is still a non-commissioned officer in the French army who has charge of the quarters and provisions of the men.

[387] Faire son capital, in the original, a phrase much in vogue during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[388] This paragraph is said to apply to a certain M. de Barète, unknown to fame, or to the brother of Madame de Maintenon. (See page [65], note 164.)

[389] It was not considered etiquette to knock or to rap at the door of the kingʼs chamber, or at the door of any noblemanʼs room; but a person asking to be admitted simply scratched the door with his nails, whilst the fashionables used their combs, which they always carried about with them to comb their long wigs. Only the princes, the grand officers of the crown, and some favourite nobles were admitted to the grand levée of Louis XIV., then officers of an inferior rank and a certain number of courtiers were allowed to enter the room; the crowd were not admitted, but had to wait till the king left the room, and then stood aside.

[390] This is said to be an allusion to a certain Italian quack, Caretto or Caretti, then the fashion, who is mentioned by Saint-Simon in his Mémoires and by Madame de Sévigné in her Letters.

[391] By the Castle is meant Versailles.

[392] This seems a more correct portrait of M. de Langlée than the one to be found in the chapter “Of the Gifts of Fortune,” § 21 (see also page [139], note 279). Saint-Simon, in his Mémoires, often mentions him and his mother, who was the queenʼs chamber-maid, and through her influence at court got him introduced amongst the highest of the land. He also speaks of de Langléeʼs successes at play, his intimacy with the king, and the kingʼs mistresses, favourites, and family, his want of intelligence, and his great tact, except in continually using obscene words, and finally his being an arbiter elegantiarum. Madame de Sévigné also refers to him and his familiarity.

[393] See p. [135], note 264.

[394] Some commentators think this refers to the Duke de Bouillon, because his name means also “beef-tea,” and because he wished to add to his family name, La Tour, that of dʼAuvergne, but the name was illustrious. A modern commentator, M. Hémardinquer, rightly thinks it might apply to the ministers of Louis XIV., who all were descended from citizens, and took for their titles Marquis de Louvois, de Seignelay, de Barbézieux, Count de Maurepas, de Maillebois, etc., all of which titles might be considered “not pretty” as names.

[395] This points to M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, bishop of Noyon, who always boasted of his lineage, and thought himself a wit because he had been elected a member of the French Academy by the desire of the king.

[396] By the princes of Lorraine are probably meant the Guises, whose family name was de Lorraine; they were, however, princes de Joinville. The Rohans were one of the oldest families in Brittany; the Châtillons, of whom the Admiral de Coligny was one, were related to the Montmorencys, who date from the tenth century, and had been chiefly rendered famous in history by the connétable de Montmorency (1492-1567), the rival of the Duke de Guise.

[397] The Oriflamme was the banner of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and only brought out by order of the king the moment the battle began.

[398] Demoiselle was originally the appellation given to any married or unmarried lady of noble birth, but in La Bruyèreʼs time it was generally applied to ladies of plebeian origin. In several legal contracts our authorʼs mother is called demoiselle veuve.

[399] There was no public lottery in France before the year 1700, but the king often had one drawn, and not seldom gave permission to hospitals and other public institutions also to have them drawn.

[400] The king usually allowed the holders of certain offices to appoint their successors, or to hold such posts conjointly. But they had to pay heavily for such survivances, as they were called, to the royal tax-gatherers and to the original holders. (See also page [130], note 254.)

[401] The original has tout lʼappartement. The rooms where the courtiers danced attendance at Versailles were called thus.

[402] Some commentators imagine this refers to the Marshal de Luxembourg, who in 1675 was appointed to succeed the Prince de Condé as commander-in-chief of the army—an appointment which gave general satisfaction—and four years later fell into disgrace and was exiled. The hero who “appears deformed when compared to his portraits,” seems also to refer to the Marshal, who was humpbacked. However, many other and earlier authors have made similar remarks about favourites of fortune fallen from their high estate.

[403] There were three persons named Rousseau, well known to the courtiers: an innkeeper near the Porte Saint-Denis, the doorkeeper of the Kingʼs chamber, and the fencing-master of the young royal princes. Fabry was a man who was “burned at the stake for his infamous vices about twenty years ago,” says La Bruyère; and La Couture, the tailor of the Dauphine, had become insane, and was always about the court.

[404] See page [43], note 121.

[405] The “Keys” pretend that Artemon is the Marquis de Vardes, who, after having been in exile for twenty years, intrigued to be appointed governor of the youthful Duke of Burgundy, and died in 1688, before he was successful; about a year afterwards the Duke de Beauvilliers was appointed to the vacant post.

[406] An allusion to the Duke de Beauvilliers, mentioned in the preceding note.

[407] The French Academy, composed of forty members, was established on the 2d of January 1635, and still exists.

[408] It is said that the Minister of State Abel Servien (1598-1639) refused politely, and that Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661) did not know how to give.

[409] P. Corneille, in his comedy Le Menteur (act i. scene 1), says also—

“Tel donne à pleines mains qui nʼoblige personne:

La façon de donner vaut mieux que ce quʼon donne.”

[410] Saint-Simon adopts the word amphibie from our author, and names, among others, a certain M. Saint-Romain, who was ambassador at the court of Portugal, and enjoyed the income of two abbeys. Some commentators think this paragraph refers to M. de Villeroy, who was archbishop as well as governor of Lyons, and died in 1693; whilst others suppose it alludes to the Chevalier de Hautefeuille, grand prieur dʼAquitaine, and lieutenant-general to boot.

[411] Menophilus is said to be either Father la Chaise (1624-1709), the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., or the celebrated Capuchin monk Joseph (1577-1638), the confidant of Cardinal Richelieu. Most likely the portrait was intended for neither.

[412] When our author wrote, it was the fashion for gentlemen and ladies of the best society to be present at public executions. Even Madame de Sévigné went with some ladies of the court to see the poisoners the Marchioness de Brinvilliers and la Voisin executed (1670 and 1680).

[413] This “happy” individual seems to have been a certain M. Boucherat, who after his nomination as chancelier de France became very arrogant.

[414] Some commentators appear to think this refers to M. de Pontchartrain (see page [143], note 288), who had been Secretary of State for more than a year when this paragraph first appeared in 1691; but this Minister was a friend and patron of our author.

[415] There were two kinds of abbés. The abbé régulier, who was always a priest, wore the habit of his order, not seldom was a high dignitary of the Church, and the abbé commendataire, who was a layman, and only enjoyed the revenues of the abbey; in time many a layman, who had no revenues whatever, either from an abbey or from any other source, adopted the semi-clerical dress of an abbé and called himself so.

[416] A bishop wore a golden cross on his breast; cardinals wear purple dresses.

[417] Louis XIV. used on festive occasions to bestow various gifts on his courtiers, as well as abbeys and ecclesiastical appointments on clerical dignitaries.

[418] The “Keys” give the names of several well-known financiers as those “knaves.”

[419] In the original homme de bien. (See page [43], note 121.)

[420] Our author imitates some old French writer, or at least employs antiquated words, of which the only one worthy of notice is saffranier, stained with saffron, because the houses of bankrupt traders were formerly stained yellow; hence saffranier meant “a bankrupt.”

[421] Another allusion to the disgrace of the Duke de Luxembourg. (See page [195], note 402), which happened from 1679 to 1681.

[422] This new Minister was, according to some, M. Claude le Peletier (see page 54, note 1), appointed contrôleur-général des finances in 1683, and with whom the Duke de Villeroy, afterwards defeated by Marlborough at Ramillies, 1706, claimed relationship, though without any foundation. It seems more likely to have referred to M. de Pontchartrain. (See page [201], note 414.)

[423] Plancus is the Minister for War, Louvois, who died suddenly in 1691, about a year before this paragraph appeared: Tibur stands for Meudon, near Paris. In the ancient Tibur, a town of Latium to the east of Rome, and now called Tivoli, the Latin poet Horace had his country-seat; Plancus, the Consul, was one of his friends.

[424] This is a reference to Psalm cxxxv. 16, 17.

[425] In French certaines livrées, certain liveries. Can this be an allusion to the justaucorps à brevet, or coats only worn by the Kingʼs permission?

[426] The commentators suppose that a certain Abbé de Choisy (1644-1724) is meant, who passed a great part of his life dressed as a woman.

[427] See page [121], note 227.

[428] The original has tout ce qui paraît de nouveau avec les livrées de la faveur. See also page [205], note 425.

[429] The Italian astronomer T. D. Cassini (1625-1712) was the head of the Parisian Observatoire for astronomical studies.

[430] A parhelion is a mock sun or meteor near the sun, sometimes tinged with colours; a parallax is the difference between its position as seen from some point on the earthʼs surface and its position as seen from some other conventional point.

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

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

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

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

[435] See page [174], note 356.

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

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

[438] See page [186], note 389.

[439] See also page [213], § 75.

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

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

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

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

[444] M. de Bontemps and the Marquis de Dangeau, both of whom we have already mentioned (see page [210], note 437, and page [156], note 311), seem to be meant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[451] If the Abbé de Choisy (see page [205], note 426) ever told La Bruyère how he was brought up, as he mentions in his Mémoires, there can be no doubt he was the original of Lucilius.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[463] Among the citizens who had “become powerful” may be reckoned J. B. Colbert (see page [132], note 255), whose three daughters married dukes, and whose son married a relative of the Bourbon family.

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

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

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

[467] The original has vertu, in the sense of the Latin virtus, courage.

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

[469] Le Brun (1616-1690), a celebrated painter, was still alive when this paragraph appeared. For Lulli and Racine, see page [46], note 124, and page [11], note 33. Compare also page [226], § 19.

[470] Achille de Harlay (1639-1712), President of the Parliament of Paris, and descended from an illustrious line of magistrates, is said to have feigned an excess of modesty which was not natural to him. See also page [45], note 122.

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

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

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

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

[475] See page [19], note 68.

[476] M. de Harlay (1625-1695), Archbishop of Paris, is said to have been the original of Theognis. (See page [46], § 26.) He was the nephew of the President mentioned on the previous page, note 122.

[477] Pamphilus is the Marquis de Dangeau, of whom we have already spoken (see page [156], note 311), and who made himself ridiculous by his excessive vanity. Saint-Simon, in his Mémoires, calls the Marquis un Pamphile, but our author speaks of les Pamphiles, and describes them at three different times, namely, in 1681, 1691, and 1692.

[478] See page [47], note 127. When this paragraph appeared, the Marquis de Dangeau had been already three years a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. The knights of this order wore a cross hanging from a broad blue ribbon, which were both depicted around their escutcheon.

[479] See page [70], note 171.

[480] Such an official was in our authorʼs time called le premier commis.

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

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

[483] See page [240], note 480.

[484] This minister is said to have been Louvois (see page [204], note 423), who liked to have many postulants about him.

[485] See page [164], note 322.

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

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

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

[489] Taxes are meant here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[498] The original has halles et fauxbourgs, “markets and suburbs.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[510] This paragraph only appeared for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689, and disappeared, never to be printed again, two years afterwards. It was probably suppressed for fear of offending either Louis XIV., who had allowed his former favourites, Bussy-Rabutin and Lauzun, to reappear at court (see page [18], note 65, and page [218], note 447), or of hurting the feelings of these two noblemen, above all of Bussy-Rabutin, who, after being admitted to the presence of the King, twice left a court where he felt he was not wanted, and could not obtain any command in the army.

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

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

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

[514] This is an allusion to the reduction of the interest on the French debt, and the calling in and recoining of certain monies, a measure which was often taken by the French kings, and even by Louis XIV., who, however, made no profit by it. See also page [152], note 300.

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

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

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

[518] Voltaire, in his Siècle de Louis XIV., says: “From 1663 until 1672 every year some new manufactory was established. The fine cloths formerly imported from England and Holland were manufactured at Abbeville.... The cloth manufactories of Sedan, which had almost gone to wreck and ruin, were re-established.” See also page [48], note 133.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[527] To say that Louis XIV. increased by his example the influence of religion and virtue, can only apply to him after his marriage with Madame de Maintenon. See page [258], note 508.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[535] See page [243], note 486.

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

[537] See page [164], note 322.

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

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

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

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

[542] The king used to hunt at Fontainebleau almost every day in October. See also page [174], note 359.

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

[544] See page [65], note 161.

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

[546] This picture represents the burial of an eloquent and learned canon, who, whilst being carried to the tomb, rose in his coffin, exclaimed that he was damned, and fell back again.

[547] See page [138], note 272.

[548] Tallemant des Réaux, in his Historiettes, tells a more probable story of de Brancas, how one day, being on horseback and stopped by footpads, he mistook them for footmen, and ordered them to let go his horse, and how he did not find out his mistake till they clapt a pistol to his breast.

[549] Compare what our author says in the above paragraph with the remarks he makes in § 21, page 260, and § 34, page 266.

[550] One of these fathers appears to have been the Duke de Gesvres (1620-1704), who spent all his money on purpose not to leave any to his children.

[551] See the chapter “Of Society,” [§ 63].

[552] Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, where Æsculapius, the god of medicine and a son of Apollo, was worshipped.

[553] This paragraph appeared for the first time in the eighth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1694, three years after the former favourite of Louis XIV., Madame de Montespan, had left the court, and about ten years after he had married Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Montespan had then become an imaginary invalid, and made frequent journeys to take the waters at different places, and chiefly to Bourbon-lʼArchambaud, where, it is said, a doctor made her a similar answer as recorded above. It is doubtful whether La Bruyère would have spoken of her corpulency, failing sight, and her growing old if Madame de Montespan had still remained a favourite; his former pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, had married, in 1685, Mademoiselle de Nantes, one of her daughters by Louis XIV.

[554] See page [68], note 170.

[555] This refers to the Prince de Conti (1661-1685), a cousin of the Duke de Bourbon, the pupil of our author. When the Princeʼs wife, formerly Mademoiselle de Blois, a daughter of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière, was attacked by the small-pox, he nursed her so well that she recovered, but he died.

[556] According to the “Keys,” this paragraph alludes to Louvois. See page [132], note 255, and page [242], note 484.

[557] The original has “aux âmes bien nées,” a very favourite expression of the French authors of the seventeenth century; thus P. Corneille, amongst others, says in the Cid:

“Pour des âmes bien nées,

La valeur nʼattend point le nombre des années.”

[558] Gambling was highly valued at court (see page [154], § 71); the Marquis de Dangeau (see page [156], note 311) owed partly his position to his successes at the gambling-table; and the mathematician Sauveur, a member of the Academy of Sciences, used to give scientific demonstrations before the king and the court of the various combinations of the fashionable games.

[559] The Marshal de la Feuillade is supposed to be meant. Besides the monument he erected to Louis XIV. (see page [227], note 455), there are many other proofs of his eccentricity, as, for example, his going with two hundred volunteers to wrest Candia from the Turks, and his voyage to Spain to challenge a certain M. de Saint-Aunay, who was accused of having calumniated Louis XIV.

[560] The commentators speak of a certain captain of the guard, Boisselot, and of an Irish officer, Macarthy, one of the generals of James II.; but there would have been nothing astonishing in their “mixing with the people.” It may be that this paragraph points at the Duke of Orléans, a brother-of Louis XIV., who had shown some valour at the battle of Cassel in 1677, but who was never more employed, and was not very “judicious.”

[561] All the “Keys” say the Archbishop of Paris, M. de Harlay, was meant. See also page [238], note 476.

[562] The Cardinal de Bouillon (1644-1715) is supposed to be meant by this remark; he was, however, according to Saint-Simon, always very dissolute in his manners. See page [210], note 436.

[563] Some “Keys” name here wrongly Boutillier de Rancé, the founder of the Trappists, whilst others speak of Le Camus, bishop of Grenoble (see page 47, note 4). La Bruyèreʼs allusion is far more general.

[564] All the “Keys” say this refers to the Dictionnaire de lʼAcadémie, but its first edition only appeared in 1694, and this paragraph was published four years before. See page [9], note 46. It alludes probably to those encyclopedias called Traités sur toutes les sciences, très abrégés à lʼusage de la noblesse, or to some collection of anecdotes, a kind of omnium gatherum, entitled Bibliothèque des gens de cour; perhaps it might also apply to some verses then in vogue, and called vers abécédaires, of which the first line began with an “a,” the second with a “b,” and so on. Those “sports of wit,” which our author calls by the name of jeux dʼesprit, witticisms, also existed later in England, e.g., “The Foundling Hospital for Wit.”

[565] Several persons have been named whose duty it was to distribute charity to the poor, but it has been rightly observed that the person alluded to in this paragraph “makes a display of it,” and therefore it cannot have been his duty.

[566] In French, sœurs grises, grey sisters, because the Sisters of Charity wore grey dresses. Bands were then worn by every one, but clergymenʼs bands were plain and called petits collets, the name our author gives them.

[567] Holders of certain legal or financial offices had the right of reversion or next nomination whilst they were alive, and not seldom delayed exercising it until they were very old; but unless they did so within forty days of their death, and had paid an annual tax called le droit de paulette, so called after Charles Paulet, a minister of Henri IV. who established it in 1604, and which tax varied from a sixtieth to a fourth of the value of the office, the king had a right to make fresh appointments. See also page [192], note 400.

[568] Jean François, Marquis dʼHautefort, who was, it is said, the original of Harpagon in Molièreʼs Avare, seems to be partly portrayed in this paragraph.

[569] Some of the commentators pretend that the “courtier of a ripe old age” was the Marshal Nicolas de Villeroy, the former governor of Louis XIV., who died in 1685, and whose son, the Duke, is mentioned on page 54, note 3, and on page 204, note 1.

[570] It is said that by Philip our author intended to portray the Marquis de Sablé, a son of the finance minister Servien, who was the proprietor of Meudon, sold it to Louvois (see the chapter “Of the Court,” page [204], note 423), and seems to have been chiefly known by his love for eating and drinking, his eccentricities and his debauchery.

[571] Louis Roger Danse, a canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, and a noted gourmand, is supposed to have sat for Gnathon, as well as for the stout Canon Evrard in Boileauʼs Lutrin.

[572] The Count dʼOlonne, a well-known lover of good cheer, who died in 1690, is said to have been limned as Clito; others think it was another gourmet, M. de Bruslard, Count de Broussain, who lived until 1693.

[573] See page [179], note 376.

[574] The potages, in La Bruyèreʼs time, different from what is now understood by them, seem to have been a sort of stew.

[575] These were either entremets or side-dishes not larger than could be contained in a plate or assiette.

[576] Trivial in French. See page [136], note 265.

[577] See page [181], note 381.

[578] This asking for an injunction was called sʼopposer au sceau, literally “to oppose oneʼs self to the seal.”

[579] See page [130], note 254, and page [192], note 400.

[580] Committimus, in the original.

[581] The chairman is the syndic de direction.

[582] Vieil meuble de ruelle. Vieil was, in La Bruyèreʼs time, often used instead of vieux, even before a consonant. For ruelle, see page [65], note 161.

[583] The original speaks of the “Marais” (see page [172], note 341), and of the “Grand Faubourg,” probably the “Faubourg Saint-Germain.”

[584] See page [72], note 175.

[585] The “Keys” name for Antagoras two eccentric noblemen of the time now wholly unknown, a Count de Montluc and a Marquis de Fourille.

[586] In Louis XIV.ʼs time France was divided into thirty-three provinces, and as communications were difficult, the inferior noblemen were what our author describes them to be, and had no other amusements but duelling, dining, and drinking.

[587] The original has fourrures et mortiers; the gowns of bachelors, licentiates, and doctors of the various faculties were bordered and even sometimes lined with fur. For mortier see page [168], note 331.

[588] In French les masses dʼun chancelier, for the mace was always carried before the Chancellor of France.

[589] La Bruyère adds in a note: “We can only mean that philosophy which is depending on the Christian religion.”

[590] An allusion to the theory of Descartes (see page [151], note 298), that beasts were only automatons without any consciousness of their acts.

[591] In French “Alain,” the name of a rustic servant in Molièreʼs École des Femmes.

[592] All the names given by our author have already been mentioned before, except that of Claude de Lingendes (1595-1660), one of the best preachers among the Jesuits, and whose reputation must have been great to quote him with such illustrious dead; and whilst Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fénelon were still alive.

[593] An allusion to the entertainments given by Louis XIV.

[594] Such places were, in our authorʼs time, Versailles, Fontainebleau, Marly.

[595] This seems to hit at the courtiers of Louis XIV., who pretended to become devout in order to please the monarch and Madame de Maintenon.

[596] La Bruyère is not in advance of his times in what regards corporal punishment: Montaigne was.

[597] For “caps” and “gowns” the original has mortier and fourrures (see page [168], note 331, and page [318], note 587); for fasces see page [139], note 278.

[598] Some commentators think that the Marshal de Villeroy (see page [54], note 151) is meant by Timon, but this cannot be, as the Marshal was rather ostentatious, and not at all a misanthrope. Perhaps our author thought of giving another version of Molièreʼs Alceste, as later on he gives another of Tartuffe, in his portrait of Onuphre, in the chapter “Of Fashion,” page 395, § 24.

[599] The original has entêtement, “infatuation,” “obstinacy,” which sometimes meant “enthusiasm,” as in Molièreʼs Femmes Savantes, act iii. scene 2, “Jʼaime la poésie avec entêtement.”

[600] Our author adds in a note, “a pretended pious person.”

[601] The original has pétitoire et possessoire, printed in italics.

[602] M. Terentius Varro (116-26 B.C.) was considered one of the most learned among the Romans. His principal works are De re rustica and De Lingua latina.

[603] This is an allusion to Quinault (see page [28], note 99), whose tragedies were all bad, but whose operas were considered well written. (See page [175], note 366.) He died in 1688, one year before the appearance of this paragraph.

[604] J. Chapelain (1595-1674), the author of La Pucelle dʼOrléans, an epic poem of which only twelve cantos appeared, was the wealthiest of all the authors of his time. Rodogune, Princesse des Parthes, one of the most successful tragedies of Pierre Corneille, had been acted in 1644, and this great dramatist died in poverty and want twenty years later, at the age of seventy-eight, four years before the above paragraph was published.

[605] Bathyllus is Le Basque or Pécourt (see page [67], note 167); the names of several long-forgotten female dancers or singers are given for Rhoe, Roscia—the feminised name of the celebrated Roman actor Roscius—and Nerina.

[606] An allusion to the wife of Dancourt (1661-1725), an author and comic actor, who is, as an actress, said to have been neither beautiful nor excellent.

[607] According to the “Keys,” the actor referred to was Baron (see page [67], note 167), or Champmeslé (1642-1701), an author and actor, and the husband of a lady known to posterity as a friend of the poet Racine.

[608] The Cardinal dʼEstrées (1628-1714) was a member of the French Academy: his nephew, the Marshal, was considered a learned and polished gentleman. There were several magistrates of the name of Séguier, of whom the best known is the Chancellor Séguier (1588-1672). The Duke de Montausier, the former governor of the Dauphin, the husband of Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, and the supposed original of Molièreʼs Misanthrope, was still alive when his name appeared, but died about a year later, in 1690. The Duke de Chevreuse, afterwards Duke de Luynes (1620-1690), an author of moral and religious works, was a friend of the Port-Royalists. The first President of the Parliament, Potier de Novion, was a member of the Academy, and died in 1693. There were two Lamoignons—the first, President of the Parliament, who died in 1677, and his son, Chrétien François, président à mortier, the friend of Boileau and Racine, who lived till 1709. Paul Pellisson (1624-1693), the friend and defender of Fouquet, became perpetual secretary to the French Academy, of which he wrote a history, and was considered the ugliest man of his time. M. de la Bruyère adds in a footnote, that in speaking of Scudéry, he meant Mademoiselle Scudéry, to distinguish her from her brother Georges, also an author; this lady wrote a good many novels then in vogue (see page [123], note 229), and died in 1701, more than ninety years old. For de Harlay see page [237], note 470; for Bossuet see page [47], note 128; and for Wardes or Vardes see page [197], note 405.

[609] The Duke de Chartres (1674-1723), only seventeen years old when this paragraph appeared, was reputed very clever for his age; he afterwards became the Regent dʼOrléans. By Condé, either the great Condé, who died in 1686, or his son Henri-Jules, the father of La Bruyèreʼs pupil, was meant. For François-Louis, Prince de Conti (1634-1709), see page [273], note 533; his father, Armand de Bourbon (1629-1666), had first been an admirer and then an antagonist of Molière. For Bourbon and Vendôme see page [221], note 449; there was also a celebrated general, the Duke de Vendôme (1654-1712). The Duke de Maine (1670-1736), the eldest of the children of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan, was twenty years old when his name appeared in the above paragraph, and was considered a prodigy of learning.

[610] The Cardinal dʼOssat (1536-1604) became an able diplomatist and statesman, after having been professor of rhetoric and philosophy at the University of Paris; Cardinal Ximenes (1437-1517) published several works of Aristotle, founded the University of Alcala, and promoted the publishing of a polyglot Bible before becoming prime minister of Charles V. of Spain. Richelieu (see page [261], note 512) wrote several theological works, some tragedies, and founded the French Academy.

[611] The original has grimaud, also used by Trissotin in addressing Vadius in Molièreʼs Femmes Savantes, act iii, scene 5: “Allez, petit grimaud, barbouilleur de papier.”

[612] Jérôme Bignon (1589-1656) was a celebrated magistrate; his son was also a scholar, and his grandson, the Abbé Jean-François (1662-1743), was a member of the French Academy. For the Lamoignons see page [333], note 608.

[613] Plato expresses this idea in the seventh book of his “Republic,” but it was often in the mouth of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180), called Antoninus, as being the adopted son of Antoninus Pius.

[614] Henri III. of France is said to have fainted if he caught sight of a cat, and some commentators state a certain Abbé de Drubec (see page [112], note 217) had this weakness. Shakespeare, in the Merchant of Venice (act iv. scene 1) also says, “Some that are mad, if they behold a cat.”

[615] In our authorʼs time there were only feather beds or straw palliasses, but no flock beds.

[616] The original has praticien. See page [153], note 304.

[617] A footman. We have already seen in the chapter “Of the Town” (page 137, note 1) how many footmen became financiers of the highest order.

[618] This stands for Antoine Benoît, the royal waxwork maker, who had a gallery of waxworks called cercle royal.

[619] B ... was a certain Barbereau who sold Seine water for mineral water, or perhaps Brimbeuf, another quack, who sold a specific for perpetual youth.

[620] This may be Caretti (see page [186], note 390), or Domenico Ammonio, another Italian quack.

[621] A good many panders at the court of Louis XIV. were politely called Mercuries, after the messenger of Jupiter; it is therefore difficult to say whom La Bruyère meant. Some say he spoke of Bontemps, first valet-de-chambre of the king; others imagine he wished to hit the Marquis de Lassay, who had the reputation of being pander to the Duke de Bourbon, the former pupil of our author.

[622] In La Bruyèreʼs time people wore long wigs but were closely shaved.

[623] Tityrus is a shepherd, who, according to the first line uttered by Melibœus in Virgilʼs first “Eclogue,” is one of those men who “lay at ease under their patrimonial beech trees.”

[624] This is an allusion to the Siamese ambassadors, who came to Paris in 1686, and produced a great sensation.

[625] The original has agreste, taken with the meaning it sometimes has in Latin. La Bruyère says in a note: “This word is used here metaphorically.”

[626] Our author was probably for a month either at Rouen or Caen as trésorier-général des finances, an office which he bought in 1673, and, whilst there, might have had a quarrel with some of his colleagues. This is the more likely as in the first three editions of the “Characters” the magistrates alone were named.

[627] A game played with four cards, formerly in use; it was primero when the hands were shown, and the four cards were of different colours; grand primero when more than thirty points were made. In Shakespeareʼs King Henry VIII. (act v. scene 1), Gardiner tells Sir Thomas Lovell that he left the king “at primero with the Duke of Suffolk.”

[628] This is supposed to have been a portrait of M. de Noailles, who was Bishop of Châlons when La Bruyère wrote this paragraph, but who in 1695 became Archbishop of Paris and a Cardinal. The number of bishops residing in their dioceses was very small at the end of the seventeenth century.

[629] An allusion to some members of the clergy and legal profession who frequented fashionable society.

[630] According to the Abbé de Chaulieu, Arténice is Catherine Turgot, the wife of Gilles dʼAligres, Seigneur de Boislandry, who, after a scandalous lawsuit, separated from her one year before this “Fragment” appeared (1694). She was then only twenty-one, and became, it is said, the mistress of de Chaulieu; afterwards she married again a certain M. de Chevilly, a captain of the royal guards. Her friend, Mademoiselle de la Force, is supposed to have been Elvira.

[631] An allusion to the President de Harlay. See page [237], note 470.

[632] This paragraph and the preceding one seem to refer to Pellisson. See page [333], note 608.

[633] A grain is the 576th part of an ounce, which is the 16th part of a pound.

[634] The original has honnête homme (see page [43], note 121) for “gentleman,” homme de bien for “honest man” (see page [49], note 137), and habile homme for “clever man.”

[635] For “ombre” see page [172], note 345.

[636] A portrait of La Fontaine (see page [335], § 19), who was still alive when this paragraph appeared (1691).

[637] This is a sketch of Pierre Corneille (see page [9], note 45, and page [18], note 61), and Augustus, Pompey, Nicomedes, and Heraclius are the names of some of his tragedies.

[638] Theodas is Santeul (1630-1697), one of the most elegant of the modern Latin poets, whose character, immediately recognised by all his contemporaries, seems to have been the compound of folly and sense La Bruyère made it out to be; he is said to have died in consequence of having drunk a glass of wine and snuff given to him by the Duke de Bourbon, the father of our authorʼs pupil.

[639] These two men are said to have been the brothers Le Peletier. See page [54], note 150.

[640] Bachelors in theology and the canon law were the only graduates compelled to study the history of the first four centuries of the Christian era.

[641] Aristotle.

[642] Cicero.

[643] La Bruyère did not wish to give a sketch of Socrates, as he himself admitted in one of his letters to Ménage. It is supposed he meant to give a portrait of himself; at least he was sometimes called “an intelligent madman.”

[644] A gambler was in La Bruyèreʼs time a regular profession, perhaps not considered quite as respectable as any other of the learned professions, but still decent enough to entitle its professors to be received at court and in very good society. The gambler was almost as much admired for his pluck and dash as a gentleman-jockey is at present.

[645] It was generally believed that this paragraph refers to the minister Le Tellier (1603-1685) and to his son Louvois, for whom see pages [132] and [242], notes 255 and 484.

[646] Cato of Utica (95-46 B.C.). Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the father-in-law of Julius Cæsar, had been accused by Cicero in the year 59 B.C. of extortions, and of plundering Macedonia.

[647] See also the chapter “Of Mankind,” pages [308] and [321], §§ [104] and [139].

[648] Our author had already praised people of a certain age in his chapter “Of the Court,” page 211, § 74.

[649] An allusion to Pierre-Louis de Reich, Seigneur de Penautier, receiver-general of the clergy of France, who had been accused of having poisoned his father-in-law.

[650] The Archbishop of Lyons bore the title of primat des Gaules, which is in the original French.

[651] See page [192], note 400.

[652] Pierre du Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard (1475-1524), a great military commander, deservedly received the name of the “knight without fear and without reproach.” Our author states in a footnote that the Marquis de Montrevel was commissioner-general of the cavalry, and lieutenant-general. Seven years after the death of La Bruyère, he became Marshal of France. Saint-Simon calls him “a very brave but a rather stupid, not over-honest and ignorant man,” who died of fright by the upsetting of a salt-cellar.

[653] This theory was maintained by Descartes.

[654] Vauban (1633-1707), the great French military engineer, after the retaking of Namur by William III. in 1695, four years after this paragraph saw the light, was accused of having committed some errors in the erection of the fortifications of that town, but he proved those accusations to be unfounded.

[655] Antiphilus is Pope Innocent XI. (1676-1689), who held other opinions as a cardinal than he did as a pope; he opposed the liberties of the Gallican Church.

[656] The original has savantasse, a word always used with a bad meaning.

[657] In French praticien. See page [153], note 304.

[658] See the chapter “Of Mankind,” page [299], § 76.

[659] An allusion to the siege of Namur, June 1692, which lasted one month, during which many courtiers and magistrates went there out of curiosity. Racine and Boileau were also present as the kingʼs historians. The above paragraph appeared the same year the siege took place.

[660] A French army of eighty thousand men under the Marshal de Luxembourg (see page [195], note 402) prevented William III. from coming to the relief of Namur.

[661] According to M. G. Servoisʼs preface to the Lexique of La Bruyère, ravelin, a synonym of demi-lune, and fausse-braie, a counter breastwork, are antiquated in French. However, “ravelin” and “demi-lune” are still found as English words in certain dictionaries.

[662] Montaigne was of the opinion of La Bruyère and in favour of Cæsar; Pascal, in his Pensées, on the contrary, thought that Cæsar, assassinated at the age of fifty-six, was too old for the conquest of the world, and that it would have better suited the youthful Alexander. See also page [49], § 31.

[663] This paragraph in praise of the Dauphin (1661-1711), written in epigraphic style, was printed in capital letters, and published whilst he was in command of the army of the Rhine (1688).

[664] La Bruyère says in a note: “This is an opinion opposed to a well-known Latin maxim.” Erasmus, in his Adagiorum Chiliades, gives the Latinised proverb, Filii heroum noxæ, “the sons of heroes degenerate,” and our author alludes to this. As for the “divine qualities,” see page [51], § 33.

[665] La Bruyèreʼs feeling about the happiness of being his own master breaks out now and then. See also page [232], § 33.

[666] This paragraph, and almost all the following ones, refer to the revolution (1688) which placed William III. on the throne of Great Britain.

[667] An allusion to the abortive attempt of the French in Ireland to aid in the re-establishment of James II. See also page [218], note 447.

[668] The first-mentioned enemy was Charles V., Duke of Lorraine, who died in 1690; the second was William III., a rumour of whose death spread in Paris the same year, and caused great rejoicings.

[669] O Tempora! O Mores! is the opening of the first of Ciceroʼs Catilinaria.

[670] Our author lets Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher, utter this paragraph, whilst he puts the following into the mouth of Democritus, the laughing, or better, the sneering philosopher of Abdera.

[671] According to the mythology, Lycaon, king of Arcadia, murdered his guests and served them up at his table, in order to test the divine knowledge of Jupiter, who changed him into a wolf. Ægistheus was the son of Thyestes, and the murderer of Agamemnon.

[672] William III.

[673] The “they have less to fear from us,” &c., was also one of the arguments used by France during the first revolution.

[674] This, of course, refers to the hospitality Louis XIV. granted to James II.

[675] Leopold I. (see page [252], note 499), Emperor of Germany, broke off a war in which he was engaged against the Ottomans, who had twice invaded Hungary, and entered the League of Augsburg (1686) against Louis XIV., because the latter had compelled him to accept the Treaty of Nimeguen, in 1679. See page [253], note 502.

[676] An allusion to Pope Innocent XI. (see page [361], note 655), who was too little of a friend of Louis XIV. to show much zeal on behalf of James II.

[677] Musket-balls.

[678] Cannon-balls.

[679] Shells.

[680] Athos was a mountain in Roumelia which the sculptor Dinocrates proposed to hew into a statue of Alexander. Our author refers to this; Byron has also an allusion to it in the twelfth canto of his “Don Juan.”

[681] The enemies of William III. often alluded to the livid colour of his countenance, and Boileau in his wretched Ode sur la prise de Namur also speaks of “Nassau blème.”

[682] The Prince of Orange ordered in 1672 the dykes in Holland to be opened to delay the advance of the French army; hence the allusion to “bogs.”

[683] William III. became the adopted son of the Dutch republic on the death of his father in 1666, and on the proposal of John de Witt. Frenchmen pretend he was far more dictatorial in Holland than in England, and accuse him of having behaved ungratefully towards de Witt, his so-called “nurse.”

[684] When William III. returned to the Hague (1690), several princes who had joined the League of Augsburg came to compliment him; it was even rumoured that the Elector of Bavaria had some time to wait before he could obtain an audience.

[685] In the original archonte, archon, the chief magistrate in ancient Athens.

[686] This seems to refer to the siege of Mons (1690), which William III. did not venture to raise.

[687] The Emperor of Germany.

[688] The arms of the house of Austria proper.

[689] Theotimus stands for M. Sachot, who was vicar of Saint-Gervais at the time La Bruyère wrote, and used to shrive all the fashionable people, but gradually was supplanted by Bourdaloue, who also succeeded him in his vicarage. The fashion of not bleeding during a fever still exists, and rightly so.

[690] The “Keys” speak of a certain lawyer, Cambout or Cabout, who belonged to the household of the Condés, and of a flute-player, Descosteaux, both passionately fond of flowers, as the supposed originals of the “lover of flowers.”

[691] This lover of fruit was the financier Rambouillet de la Sablière, who had a large garden in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. See also page [173], note 355.

[692] Four well-known antiquarians, the Duke dʼAumont, Vaillant, Le Nostre, and Father Menestrier, the latter author of an Histoire de Louis le grand par les médailles, have been supposed the originals of Diognetes.

[693] Several collectors of prints of the time have been named by the commentators as the original of Democedes.

[694] At the time La Bruyère wrote, the houses on the bridge called the “Petit-Pont” and those in the “Rue Neuve-Notre-Dame” were covered with hangings and adorned with common prints on the days when a procession was passing.

[695] Jacques Callot (1593-1655), a celebrated Lorraine artist and etcher.

[696] In the “Rue Vieille-du-Temple,” in Paris, there was, at the time our author wrote, a mansion erected by M. Amelot de Bisseuil, which was considered one of the curiosities of Paris.

[697] According to some “Keys,” this refers to the Hotel Lesdiguières; according to others, to the hotel of M. de Langlée. See page [188], note 392.

[698] In the original, il donne pension à un homme, antiquated in this sense.

[699] The author states: “These are names of various shells.” The original has “le Léopard, la Plume, la Musique,” and the English names have been kindly suggested by M. Hugh Owen in “Notes and Queries” as equivalents for the French ones.

[700] A few years before La Bruyère wrote, there was quite a mania for butterflies at court, and in Paris.

[701] An allusion to the ordeal by duel, of which one of the last was fought between Jarnac and La Chateigneraye, in 1542, before Henri II. and his court. A treacherous thrust of the first-named nobleman has given rise to the proverbial saying un coup de Jarnac.

[702] Louis XIV. was strongly opposed to duelling, and several legal prohibitions of it were promulgated during his reign.

[703] Sophonius Tigellinus, a favourite and accomplice of the Roman emperor Nero, was put to death about the year 70.

[704] In the original, souffler and jeter en sable, “to gulp down;” only the last word is found in the dictionary of the French Academy of 1694. The old English translators of La Bruyère have been greatly puzzled by the sentence beginning with the word “a Tigellinus,” and give it: “a juggler, one who turns aqua-vita black, and performs other feats of legerdemain (other surprising things),” whilst the translation of 1767 speaks of “a fiddler, who, besides several odd performances on his instrument, gulps down,” &c.

[705] See the chapter “Of the Gifts of Fortune,” [§§ 71,]-75.

[706] In the original la crapule, now no longer used for “intoxication.”

[707] C. Valerius Catullus (87-47 B.C.), the well-known Roman poet; is supposed to allude to the Abbé de Chaulieu (see page [342], note 630). The latterʼs disciple was the Chevalier de Bouillon.

[708] See page [173], note 346.

[709] During the summer of 1689 the fashionable ladies at court adorned themselves with bouquets of cornflowers.

[710] For Voiture see page [20], § 37, and note 72. Sarrazin (1603-1654) was a rival of Voiture in an affected and pretentious style.

[711] The original has gens dʼesprit. See page [20], note 70.

[712] Those of my readers who wish to see the various fashions in dress of the end of the seventeenth century should look at the etchings at the head of each chapter, which faithfully represent them at the time La Bruyère wrote; the high head-dresses had been abandoned when he penned this paragraph (1691), but they became again the rage the following year (see Chapter iv., “Of Women,” [§ 5]), and continued so for a considerable period.

[713] In the original il parle gras; parler gras means usually “to speak thick,” but is sometimes said, as it is here, of people who lisp, which generally in French is grasseyer.

[714] In the original indécence, “crudeness,” “want of harmony,” now antiquated with this meaning.

[715] Attila, king of the Huns, died 453.

[716] The “long black veil,” coming down to the feet, worn by ladies in mourning, and during some grand ceremonies, was called a mante. Our author adds in a note: “Oriental habits.” The tiara, or triple crown, was the head-dress of the ancient Persian potentates, of the Jewish high priest, and of the Pope. For the sagum, see page [259], note 509.

[717] The author says in a note: “Offensive and defensive.”

[718] Canions, or canons in French, were large round pieces of linen, often adorned with lace or bunches of ribbons, which were fastened below the breeches, just under the knee.

[719] Libertin in the original. See page [161], note 319.

[720] It was two years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) that La Bruyère made these remarks about “pretended piety,” for since the influence of Madame de Maintenon over Louis XIV., all the courtiers were turning pious. See also page [207], note 431.

[721] Our author is careful to add in a note, “assumed piety.”

[722] Connaître le flanc is used by La Bruyère. Some of the commentators think this is a military term used purposely by our author.

[723] None of La Bruyèreʼs commentators have observed that the “unknown jargon” seems to refer to the mystic quietism taught by Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon (1648-1717), who was at the height of her reputation when this paragraph was published for the first time in the eighth edition of the “Characters” in 1694. To our author has also been attributed “Dialogues sur le Quiétisme.”

[724] La Bruyère is always very careful when he uses the word “devout” or “pious,” in a bad sense, to add in a note, “assumed” or “false piety.” See also [§ 22].

[725] See page [43], note 121.

[726] This “devout courtier” was Paul de Beauvillier, Dulce de Saint-Aignan, peer of France, gouverneur des enfants de France. See also page [197], note 405.

[727] Sainte-Beuve, in his Histoire de Port Royal, justly observes that La Bruyère showed more courage in writing the character of Onuphrius than Molière displayed in bringing out his Tartuffe, for the latter comedy made its appearance in 1667, and Onuphrius in 1691, five years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when Louis XIV. was already under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and had become devout.

[728] An allusion to the first words said by Tartuffe (act iii. scene 2) in Molièreʼs play of that name: “Laurent, serrez ma haire avec ma discipline.”

[729] The “Spiritual Fight,” a religious work attributed to an Italian Theatine monk, Scupoli, had been already translated into French in 1608; the “Inward Christian,” by Louvigny, was published in 1661, whilst there were two “Holy Years,” one written by Bordier in 1668, and a second published ten years later by a certain clergyman, Loisel.

[730] In the original, il pousse des élans et des soupirs, a reminiscence of Molièreʼs Tartuffe (act i. scene 5), where Orgon, in speaking of the hypocrite, says:

“Il attirait les yeux de lʼassemblée entière

Par lʼardeur dont au ciel il poussait sa prière;

Il faisait des soupirs, de grands élancements,

Et baisait humblement la terre à tous moments.”

[731] The “chapel” and the “anteroom” refer to the chapel and anteroom of the palace of Versailles.

[732] Il a des vapeurs in the original, which, when our author wrote, was somewhat like the “out of sorts” of the present time.

[733] A reference to the declaration Tartuffe makes to Elmire, the wife of Orgon. See Molièreʼs Tartuffe, act iii. scene 3.

[734] An allusion to Josephʼs adventure with Potipharʼs wife.

[735] La Bruyère is very careful to add again in a note: “False piety.”

[736] Again our author adds “false piety,” in a footnote.

[737] Tartuffe, in the comedy of that name (act iii.), obtains from Orgon a deed of gift of all his property, to the detriment of his son and his second wife. This was against the French law, which obliged a man to leave a certain part of his goods, called la légitime (see page [95], § 71), to his wife and children; but this law did not apply to cousins, nephews, and nieces.

[738] Orgon, the patron of Tartuffe, has a son and a daughter.

[739] See Tartuffe, act v. scene 7.

[740] The original has ne trouve pas jour; the French noun has become antiquated in this sense.

[741] According to some commentators, Zelia was intended for the wife of de Pontchartrain, the contrôleur-général of the finances; but they seem to forget that La Bruyère was his friend and under some obligations to him.

[742] In this and the following paragraph the author adds again in a note, “pretended piety.”

[743] Already in the first edition of the “Characters” (1687), La Bruyère gave in the above paragraph his opinion about the danger of compelling the courtiers to become pious.

[744] Favier, a dancer at the opera, was also the dancing-master of the Duke de Bourbon, the pupil of La Bruyère. The anthems of Paolo Lorenzani, the music-master of Ann of Austria (1601-1666), were published in 1693.

[745] Many of the bishops in our authorʼs time were continually dangling about the court, and not residing in their dioceses. See page [340], note 628.

[746] Our author added in a note of the first four editions, “secretaries of the king.” Those offices were bought, and ennobled their holders, hence the nickname of savonnettes à vilain, literally, “soap balls for serfs.” Other offices also gave a title to the persons who filled them, and this is probably the reason of the suppression of this note.

[747] La Bruyèreʼs own note says “veterans,” a name given to the conseillers (see page [181], note 381), who, after having practised for twenty years, sold their post, but retained all the privileges attached to it.

[748] Here our author gives the same note as above.

[749] Commoners were ennobled by the grant of letters of nobility, whilst nobles whose ancestors had derogated were rehabilitated. However, commoners who had become wealthy often asked and obtained letters of rehabilitation, and, therefore, pretended to be of noble origin. “Rehabilitation,” according to Thomas Blountʼs Law Dictionary, 1717, was in England: “one of those exactions ... claimed by the Pope ... and seems to signify a Bull or Breve for re-enabling a spiritual person to exercise his function, who was formerly disabled; or a restoring to former ability.”

[750] The “war-cry” is a great proof of the nobility being ancient. The heaume, head-piece, is the same as the casque, helmet, which latter word was generally used in French heraldic language. According to certain rules which soon ceased to be practised, the vizard was open or shut, and showed more or less bars, whilst the helmet was in front or profile, according as the owner of the coat of arms was of ancient or modern nobility. The “Keys” refer to the Le Camus and Bezons families, as having taken the pictorial emblems of their fatherʼs signboards for their family arms. See also Molièreʼs École des Femmes, Act i. Scene 1.

[751] The DʼHoziers were a family of genealogists, flourishing from 1592 till 1830. La Bruyère speaks most probably of Louis Roger and his brother Charles-René dʼHozier, who were of middle age when the “Characters” were published.

[752] It is said this is a hit at Monsieur, the brother of Louis XIV., who, in imitation of the kingʼs son and grandsons, did no longer wish to be addressed as “Royal Highness,” but simply as “you;” an example followed by all other French princes.

[753] A maître dʼhôtel of Louis XIV., Delrieux, is said to have called himself De Rieux, and there had been a marshal of that name. Syris is the name of a slave in Plautusʼ and Terenceʼs comedies; Cyrus, a celebrated king of Persia, was killed in battle against the Massagetæ, 529 B.C.

[754] Such men were a M. Sonnin, the son of a receveur-général, who called himself M. de Sonningen, and M. Nicolai, Marquis de Goussainville, descended from a M. Nicolas.

[755] The marriages of the Marquis de Tourville with a Mdlle. Langeois (see page [142], note 285), and of the Marshal de Lorges with Mdlle. Frémont, (see page [132], note 255), are examples of this, though many similar marriages took place almost daily.

[756] An ironical remark referring to noblemen marrying the daughters of commoners, for nobility descended only from the father to the children, but not if the mother were a serf; in Champagne, however, nobility could be inherited from the motherʼs side.

[757] “Franchise” is a privilege or exemption from ordinary jurisdiction, and “immunity” the right of not paying taxes, or of paying less than the commonalty. La Bruyère, in speaking of “certain monks who obtained titles,” adds in a note: “a certain convent was secretary to the king.” The convent of the Celestines had already in the fourteenth century been appointed to a secretaryship, and received its emoluments, but never fulfilled its duties. The religious community said to have had an interest in the gabelle or salt tax, is supposed to have been that of the Jesuits, but this accusation seems to have been made without sufficient proof.

[758] A certain Geoffroy de La Bruyère had really taken part in the third crusade and died during the siege of St. Jean dʼAcre in 1191, or almost a century after Godfrey of Bouillon (1061-1100). Our author only mentioned his ancestorʼs full name in the sixth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1691.

[759] Abbé is derived from the Syrian aba, father; the “cardinal” may have been the Cardinal de Bouillon, who always was gaily dressed. See page [306], note 560.

[760] In the palace Farnese at Rome, built by order of the Cardinal Alexander Farnese, who afterwards became Pope under the name of Paul III. (1534-1549), are to be found many works, such as Aurora and Cephalus, Diana and Endymion, Galathea, Polyphemus and Acis, and Ganymedes and Jupiter, painted by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), and Domenichino (1581-1641), all representing nude figures, and not religious subjects.

[761] Richeletʼs Dictionary, published in 1680, mentions the gigue as “une danse anglaise, composée de toutes sortes de pas, quʼon danse sur la corde,” and hence, he continues, “any dancing tune was thus called.” But was a jig originally danced on the tight-rope? The “chapel” is of course the chapel-royal at Versailles.

[762] Paris, a son of Priam and Hecuba, had to decide whether Juno, Venus, or Minerva was the most beautiful, and should receive a “golden apple” as a prize. The three goddesses did not present themselves for this competition with too many clothes on.

[763] Hangings representing nude figures and profane subjects were seen until almost the last fifty years in some of the churches of the capital of France.

[764] Our author adds in a note, “an anthem translated into French by LL....” but no commentator has discovered who this unknown poet can have been.

[765] The TT ... were the Theatine monks, who settled in France about 1644, built a splendid church, and tried to raise money by charging for seats, during service, which was held with full orchestral and vocal music, about ten years before our author first published this paragraph, in 1694, in the eighth edition of his book.

[766] Although this paragraph appeared when the “Characters” were first published in 1688, yet the great Bossuet went, five years later, out of his way to attack, in a sermon, Molière, the actor and playwright, although the latter had been dead more than twenty years.

[767] This paragraph reveals to us the quarrels raging between the secular and regular clergy, and seems to point out that, at the time our author wrote, the Barnabites were in vogue as confessors. The “monk” is supposed to have been a certain Father la Combe, the spiritual director of Madame Guyon. See page [393], note 723.

[768] Three parish priests have been named by the commentators as the originals of La Bruyèreʼs portrait, but our author was far more general in his application.

[769] Les fourrures in the original. See page [318], note 587.

[770] The original has the proper name Ambreville, a noted rogue and head of a band of robbers, who was publicly burned at the stake in 1686.

[771] The lady superior of an abbey was appointed by the king, but in a nunnery she was elected by the entire sisterhood; hence our authorʼs remarks about “a popular or a despotic rule.”

[772] When our author wrote, it was the fashion among the upper classes for a man never to be seen in public with his wife. Some years later people began even to be ashamed of being married, and if comedies hold the mirror up to nature, this may be observed in Le Philosophe marié (1727), by N. Destouches, and in Le Préjugé à la Mode (1735), by La Chaussée. For the Cours, see page [164], note 323.

[773] The author states in a note that by “making the most of oneʼs money” he means “lending it out on bills and notes of hand,” for which, according to the old French legislation and the old canonical law no interest could be charged, though some divines allowed trading companies to pay interest on borrowed monies.

[774] Several remarks had been made on this part of the above paragraph whilst La Bruyère was still alive, and a note of the ninth edition of the “Characters” (1696), published one month after the authorʼs death, explained that it only referred to monies deposited in the greffe or clerkʼs office of certain tribunals whilst a lawsuit was going on.

[775] An allusion to the bankruptcy of some hospitals in Paris, which ruined many persons who had advanced money on annuities. This bankruptcy took place in the year 1689, and the fourth edition of the “Characters,” in which the above paragraph first appeared, was published the same year. The original has also a play on words, on le fonds perdu, to sink money in an annuity, and un bien perdu, money irretrievably lost.

[776] For the huitième denier, see page [138], note 270. The aides were indirect taxes which the clergy and the nobility had to pay as well as the common people.

[777] The original has partisans. See page [136], note 266.

[778] The President Potier de Novion (see page [333], note 608) was the first, it is said, to adopt this custom, but a few months before this paragraph was published (1689), he had to resign his post on account of malversation and abuse of authority.

[779] See page [155], note 309.

[780] See page [181], note 381.

[781] See page [72], note 175.

[782] Counsellors of parliament (see page [181], note 381) were obliged to wear bands, by an order of Council obtained at the request of M. de Harlay (see page [45], note 122); before that time they wore cravats like other gentlemen. See also page [65], note 162.

[783] The counsellors of parliament wore red gowns, the magistrates red fur-lined cloaks. See page [318], note 587. The original of “on account of his money” is consignation. See page [169], note 333.

[784] In most of the courts of France the places of magistrates were bought and sold. See also the chapter “Of the Town,” page [167], § 5.

[785] Marcus Valerius Martialis (43, was living 104) says: “Iras et verba locant.”

[786] Montaigne, Montesquieu, and many other eminent Frenchmen attacked the legal employment of torture, but it was continued in France till 1788.

[787] Our author uses by exception honnêtes gens for honest men. A certain Marquis de Langlade was put on the rack (1688), and after having been innocently sentenced to the galleys on a false accusation of having robbed the Duke de Montmorency, died there in 1689; and a servant, Le Brun, accused of the murder of Madame Marel, died after having been cruelly tortured (1690). The real criminals were discovered some time afterwards, and this produced a great sensation at the time La Bruyère wrote (1691).

[788] It has been said that the wife of M. de Saint-Pouange (see page [134]134, note 259) was robbed of a diamond buckle when leaving the opera, but that it was returned to her by M. de Grandmaison, grand prévôt de la connétablie.

[789] The “Keys” mention as one of these men the President de Mesmes. See page [168], note 331.

[790] During the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV., fire-raising was very common in the rural districts of France, and it was one of the means the peasants chose for revenging themselves on their masters for their exactions and for fiscal cruelties.

[791] The original has lanternes, tribunes in Parliament whence people could see what was going on without being seen.

[792] Il se voit officier in the original. See page [153], note 304.

[793] Titius and Seius were often quoted in Roman law, as “A.” and “B.” are in English law, in stating a case to counsel. Mævius was a wretched poet of Virgilʼs time, and seems to be wrongly named by La Bruyère in apposition to Titius. According to some commentators, the mishap attributed to Titius really happened to a M. Hennequin, procureur général au grand conseil.

[794] The notary, M. de Bonnefoi, in Molièreʼs Malade Imaginaire (act i.
scene 9) explains to the hypochondriacal Argan: “You cannot give anything to your wife by your will ... Common law is opposed to it ... in Paris and in all countries where common law exists.... All the good which man and woman joined in wedlock can do to each other, is a mutual donation while living; and then there must be no children.” And when Argan asks what he has to do to leave his wife his property, the honest notary replies: “You can quietly choose an intimate friend of your wifeʼs, to whom you will give, in due form by your will, all that you can; and this friend shall afterwards give it all back to her.”

[795] Vaudeville in the original, of which the primitive meaning was “a satirical song.”

[796] Le mortier in French. See page [168], note 331. When the king was not present at a sitting of the Parliament, the president claimed the right to represent him, and therefore, to take precedence before any one.

[797] A certain de Charnacé, formerly lieutenant in the kingʼs body-guard, committed several crimes in Anjou, even coined false money, and finally was obliged to flee for his life. In many of the provinces the conduct of the nobles was so inhuman and disgraceful, that the kings of France were often obliged to appoint special committees, called grands jours, to try and punish them, the latest and most celebrated of which had been held in Auvergne in 1665.

[798] The “Keys” name Louis de Crevant, Duke dʼHumières, who was made Marshal of France in 1668, and died in 1694; Jacques Henri de Durfort, Duke de Duras, brother to the Earl of Feversham, and also a Marshal of France, who died in 1704, at the age of seventy-four; and the Marshal de Créqui, as having displayed great luxury whilst in the field. The king, who had first given the example of such splendour, finally attempted to restrain it, and in vain promulgated edicts against it in 1672.

[799] Hermippus is supposed to be a certain Jean-Jacques Renouard, Count de Villayer, maître des requêtes, a member of the French Academy, who was very ingenious, and always invented new machinery—amongst others, a kind of lift—and who died in 1691.

[800] The original has improuver, now antiquated.

[801] Leurs pensions in French. See page [381], note 695.

[802] A dʼAquin (1629-1696), who was physician to Louis XIV., had one son a magistrate and another a bishop. See also page [273], note 533.

[803] See page [186], note 390. Some “Keys” also say that perhaps Adrien Helvétius, the grandfather of the philosopher, may be meant, but this seems hardly likely, for Helvétius was wealthy, gave his medicine gratis, was a very honest man, and the first to recommend the use of ipecacuanha in certain diseases.

[804] In Molièreʼs Malade Imaginaire (act iii. scene 4), Toinette, the servant, dressed up as a physician, says almost the same thing.

[805] Constitution (de rentes) understood in the text.

[806] Guy Crescence Fagon (1638-1718) became in succession physician to the wife of the Dauphin, the queen, and the royal children, and in 1693, when dʼAquin fell into disgrace, first physician to Louis XIV. He was for his time an able and conscientious man. His eldest son became Bishop of Lombez, and his second intendant des finances.

[807] Fagon was a strenuous defender of emetics and of Peruvian bark, which latter remedy was first imported into France in the seventeenth century, and had become so popular that Jean la Fontaine sang its praises in a pretty long poem, le Quinquina, the French name of the Peruvian bark, so called after the Countess del Cinchon, wife of the Viceroy of Peru, whence the bark was first sent to Europe.

[808] Fagon was also professor of botany and chemistry in the kingʼs botanical garden, and one of the editors of its catalogue, called Hortus regius, published in 1665.

[809] The belief in sorcerers and witchcraft was very general when our author wrote, and there existed an almost universal idea that robbers and murderers might be discovered by means of the motion of a hazel rod. Even the magistrates in France tried sometimes such a rod to find out criminals.

[810] Many eminent pedagogues have held a contrary opinion; for example, Malebranche in his Traité de Morale, and Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Emile, both maintain languages should be acquired when the child is not too young.

[811] The going “open-breasted” was the fashion of the time of Francis I.; ruffs and bands were worn in France during part of the reigns of Henri II. and Henri III., but were no longer in vogue when our author wrote; they were, however, still used in Spain.

[812] This is an allusion to the wearing of very tight silk stockings and short breeches, showing the legs.

[813] It was never the custom in France for ladies to hide their feet, but in Spain it was considered highly improper and indecent even to show the smallest part of them (see the Countess dʼAulnoy, Relation du Voyage en Espagne, 1690); and as the wife of Louis XIV., Maria Theresa, was a daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, it is probable that the ladies at court followed the fashion set to them by the queen.

[814] According to Voltaireʼs Siècle de Louis XIV., chap, viii., the king and his officers went, however, to the trenches wearing head-pieces and breast-plates.

[815] Bertrand du Guesclin (1320-1380) was constable of France under Charles V., whilst Olivier de Clisson (1332-1407) filled the same high office under Charles VI.; Gaston de Foix (1331-1391), surnamed “Phœbus,” was Viscount of Bearn, and Jean le Maingre de Boucicault (1364-1421) was Marshal of France. They all four distinguished themselves in the wars against the English during the fourteenth century.

[816] Our author now launches into a dissertation about the relative value of certain words which was far from unusual at the time he wrote, and is found in almost the same form in several contemporary writers. I also imagine the late Walter Savage Landor was influenced by La Bruyèreʼs dissertation when he wrote in his “Imaginary Conversations” the two “Dialogues” between Dr. Johnson and Horne Tooke.

[817] Mais, says La Bruyère in a note, but this word is not an anagram of ains, which comes from the Latin ante, whilst mais is the Latin magis.

[818] It is not yet settled whether maint is of Latin, Celtic, or Teutonic origin.

[819] Some purists wished to forbid the use of car, which was defended by Voiture. (See page [20], note 72.)

[820] A good many words which La Bruyère thought were going out of fashion are still in use at present.

[821] De moi and que cʼest que have been employed several times by Malherbe (see page [21], note 76) and other good authors, but these expressions are now quite obsolete.

[822] Oraison, phrase in the original; antiquated in this sense.

[823] The people formally changed the Latin syllables pro and fro into prou or pour and into frou or four; hence proufit, fourment, or froument, from the Latin proficere and fromentum. The scholars of the sixteenth century brought back these words to their etymological form.

[824] In French adjectives in il derived from Latin words with a long i, on which the accent rests, form their feminine by adding an e, whilst adjectives with the termination ile for the masculine and feminine are formed from Latin words with a short i, not accentuated.

[825] In the French of the Middle Ages these substantives had the termination els, aus, or iaus in the nominative singular plural, and el in the accusative singular and the nominative plural; aus became generally adopted in all cases, but dropped the s.

[826] Vaugelas and his commentators insisted that all words not sanctioned by custom should not be admitted into the French language.

[827] Laurent was a wretched versifier at the time of La Bruyère, who published rhymed descriptions of all kinds of festivals.

[828] For Marot. See page [22], note 79. Philippe Desportes (1555-1606), an imitator of the Italian school of poetry, enjoyed a great reputation in his time.

[829] See page [122], note 228, and page 20, note 72.

[830] The original rondeaux which are given here are not so old as La Bruyère thought they were, and are merely very fair imitations, written probably about the end of the sixteenth century. The hero of the first rondeau is Ogier, generally called le Danois, which does not mean the Dane, but is a contraction of le DʼArdennois, from the Ardennes.

I owe the above translation to Mr. J. E. Barlas, of New College, Oxford, who has endeavoured to imitate the pseudo-antiquated style of the original, and to use several Chaucerian and Spenserian words.

Bien à propos sʼen vint Ogier en France

Pour le païs de mescréans monder:

Jà nʼest besoin de conter sa vaillance

Puisquʼ ennemis nʼosoient le regarder.

Or quand il eut tout mis en assurance,

De voyager il voulut sʼenharder;

En Paradis trouva lʼeau de jouvance,

Dont il se sceut de vieillesse engarder

Bien à propos.

Puis par cette eau son corps tout décrépite

Transmué fut par manière subite

En jeune gars, frais, gracieux et droit.

Grand dommage est que cecy soit sornettes:

Filles connois qui ne sont pas jeunettes,

A qui cette eau de jouvance viendroit

Bien à propos.

——

De cettuy preux maints grands clercs ont écrit

Quʼoncques dangier nʼétonna son courage:

Abusé fut par le malin esprit,

Quʼil épousa sous feminin visage.

Si piteux cas à la fin découvrit,

Sans un seul brin de peur ny de dommage,

Dont grand renom par tout le monde acquit,

Si quʼon tenoit très honeste langage

De cettuy preux.

Bien-tost après fille de Roy sʼéprit

De son amour, qui voulentiers sʼoffrit

Au bon Richard en second mariage.

Donc sil vaut mieux ou diable ou femme avoir,

Et qui des deux bruit plus en ménage,

Ceulx qui voudront, si le pourront scavoir

De cettuy preux.

[831] The chapter “Of the Pulpit” was first published in 1688, and our author made additions to it until the eighth edition of the “Characters” saw the light, in 1694. He had heard all the best preachers of his time, such as the Jesuit Claude de Lingendes (see page [323], note 592), and the Oratorians Le Jeune and Senault, who both died in 1672, whilst Bossuet preached in Paris from 1659 to 1669. Bourdaloue began preaching there in 1663, Mascaron in 1666, Fléchier in 1670, and Fénelon in 1675. The only great pulpit-orator our author did not hear was Massillon, who did not preach in the capital until 1696. Several sermons on pulpit oratory were preached in France, and many books on the same subject had been published there before and after this chapter was printed.

[832] Three barristers of repute in the seventeenth century, Antoine le Maître (1608-1658), whose Recueil de Plaidoyers has been printed; Claude Pucelle, and Bonaventure Fourcroy, a friend of Molière and Boileau, who died in 1691 and was a poet as well as a lawyer.

[833] See the Chapter “Of Certain Customs,” [§ 42.]

[834] A certain Abbé le Tourneur or le Tourneux, who died in 1680 at the age of forty-six, is said to have been such a man, but was, of course, not allowed to remain long at court.

[835] Bourdaloue (1632-1704) set the fashion of introducing in his sermons “portraits” or “Characters” of well-known individuals: a fashion which was much exaggerated by his imitators, and which also for some time prevailed in England. The Sermons of Dr. R. South (1633-1716), Prebendary of Westminster and Canon of Christ Church, Oxon, contain also many “portraits.”

[836] Our author says in a note; “This was Father Seraphin, a Capuchin monk.” Others have been less favourably inclined towards this preacher than La Bruyère was. This monk, who had been holding forth in Paris as early as 1671, preached in the parish church of Versailles, and four years later before the court and the king, in the palace.

[837] Saint Basil (329-379) was bishop of Cesarea; Saint John Chrysostom was (347-407) bishop of Constantinople, called the “golden-mouthed” for his great eloquence.

[838] Our author makes the same observation about dramatic poets. See his Chapter “Of Works of the Mind,” page [9], § 8.

[839] Compare in Racineʼs comedy of Les Plaideurs the speech of “LʼIntimé” (act iii, scene 3), to ridicule similar quotations.

[840] The Pandects of the Roman emperor Justinian were a cyclopædia of legal decisions of Roman lawyers; and after they had been discovered at Amalfi in Italy about the year 1137, they changed the whole of the legal aspect of Europe.

[841] There were three saints of the name of Cyrillus, but the one mentioned above was probably bishop of Jerusalem (315-388); Saint Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus (210-285) was bishop of Carthage: whilst Saint Aurelius Augustinus (354-430) was the celebrated author and bishop of Hippo.

[842] The preachers accused of a florid style were, according to the “Keys,” the Oratorian Senault, and Fléchier, who in 1685 had been appointed bishop of Nîmes.

[843] Theodorus is supposed to be Bourdaloue (see page [165], note 326). Some other celebrated preachers have also been named.

[844] Charles Boileau, abbé de Beaulieu, and a member of the French Academy, who died in 1704 (see page [49], note 135), is said to have preached a morality such as is mentioned in the above paragraph.

[845] A certain Abbé de Roquette, a nephew of the Bishop of Autun (see page [226], note 453), had to preach one Holy Thursday before the king, but through some unfortunate accident Louis XIV. could not be present, and the preacher, disconcerted at the absence of the monarch, for whom probably he had prepared the most fulsome flatteries, did not dare to mount the pulpit and deliver his sermon.

[846] In the original clercs, to which our author added a note in the first four editions to say that he meant “clergymen.” The whole paragraph alludes to the missionaries sent into the provinces to convert the Protestants. Did La Bruyère, in speaking of the “converts who had already been made for these clergymen,” hint at the dragonnades and at the other wretched and inhuman means employed to compel people to change their religion? I am afraid not, though he admits some persons could not be converted.

[847] Saint Vincent de Paul (1566-1660), a well-known philanthropical preacher, very successful in his missions; Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1553), a Jesuit missionary, who made many converts in the East Indies.

[848] See page [173], note 346.

[849] See the chapter “Of Works of the Mind,” page [65], § 3.

[850] Some scribbler of the time, a certain Gédéon Pontier, author of the Cabinet des Grands, is said to have written almost similar nonsense.

[851] In 1689, the same year this paragraph first appeared, seventy-nine royal censors had been appointed, and no book could be printed without their permission.

[852] The last sentence of the above paragraph was added in the fifth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1690, about one year after Fénelon had been appointed teacher of the Duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Louis XIV. Fénelon became archbishop of Cambrai in 1695.

[853] See page [27], note 97. Several eminent divines had already written against “freethinkers,” and about a year before the first edition of the “Characters” appeared, Fénelon preached a sermon against them. Those freethinkers were not deists nor atheists, but somewhat like those persons, at present called agnostics, who neither affirm nor deny anything, but simply state that they know nothing for certain. Among their sect might be reckoned at the time our author wrote the celebrated traveller Bernier, Saint Evremond, Bayle, Fontenelle, Chaulieu, La Fare, the Dukes de Nevers and de Bouillon, the Grand Prior de Vendôme, and many others.

[854] The French name for “freethinker” is esprit fort, literally “strong mind.”

[855] Another play on words in the original on esprit fort and esprit faible.

[856] This is perhaps an allusion to the traveller F. Bernier, a pupil of Gassendi, who visited Assyria, Egypt, and India, and published a narrative of his travels in 1670.

[857] Libertin was another name for freethinker in French. See p. [161], note 319.

[858] The original has une personne libre, to which our author adds in a note, une fille.

[859] An allusion to some such men as the Duke de la Feuillade, the Minister de Louvois, and the Marquis de Seignelay, who have been mentioned before, and who almost all died after a very short illness.

[860] Whenever our author has an opportunity he always opposes esprits forts to esprits faibles, or faibles génies, as in the above paragraph.

[861] Leo I., bishop of Rome, called the Great, died 461; St. Jerome (331-420) was one of the fathers of the Latin Church. For Basil and Augustine (see page [446], note 837, and page [447], note 841.)

[862] Spécieux in the original, with the Latin meaning.

[863] This is perhaps a hit at Malebrancheʼs Nouvelle Métaphysique.

[864] At the time our author wrote it was the custom to allow masked people to enter a ball-room.

[865] In “A New Historical Relation of Siam,” by M. de la Loubère (see page 155, note 2), we find: “The priests are the Talapoins.... They have umbrellas in the form of a screen which they carry in their hand.... In Siamese they call them ‘Talapat,’ and it is probable that from hence comes the name of ‘Talapir’ or ‘Talapoin,’ which is in use among foreigners only.” The embassy from the King of Siam to Louis XIV. took place in the year 1686. See page [338], note 624.

[866] In 1685, when this paragraph was first published, La Bruyère was forty years old.

[867] St. Augustin (see page [447], note 841) and Descartes (see page [150], § 56) had already made use of the above argument.

[868] Our author adds in a note: “An objection to the system of freethinkers.” An allusion to the system of Spinosa, which Fénelon also attempted to refute in his Traité de lʼexistence de Dieu.

[869] “This is what freethinkers bring forward,” says La Bruyère in a note. He means probably the disciples of Gassendi, and followers of the systems of Epicurus and Lucretius.

[870] This is Descartesʼ doctrine.

[871] Lucilius is supposed to have been the Duke of Bourbon, the pupil of La Bruyère, and the spot of ground, the park of Chantilly, the seat of the Condé family. (See page [25], § 48.)

[872] Instead of the Nonette and the Thève, two small rivers canalised by order of the Prince de Condé, our author names two other small streams, the Yvette, which has its source near Rambouillet, and the Lignon, an affluent of the Loire.

[873] André le Nôtre, a celebrated landscape-gardener, laid out the gardens of Versailles and Chantilly, and died in 1700.

[874] The calculations of La Bruyère were not always exact; thus the mass of the moon is eighty-nine times less than the earthʼs; it is 2165 miles in diameter, and revolves at a mean distance of 238,800 miles round the earth.

[875] Our author argues as if he were no believer in the system of Copernicus (1473-1543), but he only states that the sun appears to move through the firmament, for on page 484 he distinctly mentions that “the earth is carried round the sun.”

[876] If we suppose that the earth is immovable, the moon moves at a rate of more than eighteen hundred thousand miles a day, but in reality it moves at the rate of about sixty thousand miles during twenty-four hours.

[877] Sound travels at the rate of more than nine hundred miles per hour.

[878] It is in reality a hundred and ten times more.

[879] Its absolute diameter is 860,000 miles.

[880] The volume of the sun is equivalent to about one and a quarter million times the volume of our earth; but its mean density is only a quarter of that of the earth.

[881] The mean distance of the sun from the earth, is, according to the latest results, about 92,400,000 miles.

[882] Saturnʼs volume is 686.7 that of the earth; it is the sixth planet in order of distance from the sun, and describes in 10,795,22 days, or twenty-nine years five months and fourteen days, an orbit whose semi-major axis is 872,137,000 miles. In our authorʼs time Saturn was supposed to be the planet the farthest from the sun. See page [135], note 264.

[883] “Immensurable” is a word La Bruyère tried to naturalise in French, but he did not succeed, yet it exists in English; “incommensurable” is to be found in both languages.

[884] According to Aragoʼs Leçons dʼAstronomie the star nearest the earth is still 22,800,000,000,000 leagues distant from it.

[885] No south polar star exists.

[886] Though the number of stars visible to the naked eye is not more than five thousand, thousands of millions of stars are in existence of which only about a hundred thousand have been observed.

[887] See page [479], note 875. The sun is not the centre of the universe, but of our planetary system.

[888] The atomic system of philosophy started by Leucippus, and adopted by Epicurus, Democritus, and many other philosophers, was that the universe, material and mental, consisted of minute, indivisible, and impenetrable atoms, which atoms were assumed to be the ultimate ground of nature, whilst necessity was supposed to be the cause of all existence.

[889] According to Descartesʼ Discours de la Méthode, animal spirits, which are so often mentioned in the philosophical and moral works of his time, “are like a very subtle mind, or rather like a very pure and bright flame, which is continually and in great abundance ascending from the heart to the brain, proceeds from thence through the nerves into the muscles, and produces motion in all the members of the body.”

[890] Pascal already in his Pensées (i. 6.) had called man “a thinking reed ... nobler than the universe, even if it were to crush him, because he knows he has to die.”

[891] In the original ouvrier. See page [159], note 314.

[892] Similar ideas as those expressed in the above paragraph are to be found in a sermon “On Providence” preached by Bossuet at the Louvre in 1662, which was not printed until long after he and La Bruyère were dead. But as the two men were great friends, it is not unlikely that our author may have heard them expressed by the eloquent pulpit orator, either in private conversation or in a sermon.

[893] See the chapter “Of Opinions,” page [364], § 104.

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