FOOTNOTES:
[118] In order to support his opinion concerning the dangers of disciplines, the Abbé Boileau has quoted Bartholinus’s treatise De medico flagrorum usu, and that wrote by John-Henry Meibomius, a Professor at Lubeck, De usu flagrorum in re venereâ. The singularity of these titles led me to look into both publications, in order to be able to give my opinion about them, and also in hope I might pick a few facts and quotations to entertain the Reader with: but I have been disappointed; both Treatises being as dull unconnected farragos as ever were printed. From Meibomius’s Treatise, and also from Cœlius Rhodiginus’s Book, the Abbé had however borrowed two stories, which I at first intended to insert in this Chapter; but as I have found them, upon more attentive examination, to be related in no pleasing nor even probable manner, besides being very long, I have set them aside, contrary to the design of this Work, as I have explained it in the [Introduction], which was to make use of and introduce, in the Text, all the facts and quotations scattered in the Abbé’s Book: I therefore make my apology to the Reader, for the omission.
To the other facts thus supplied by the Abbé’s Work, I have in this Chapter, conformably to the promise made at [p. 131], added the Abbé’s own expressions and remarks, not only on account of their great ingenuity, but also in order that the present final Chapter might be a common conclusion of our respective talks, and that the Abbé and me, joining hands again in it, might thus have an opportunity, as is the custom at the end of Plays, to make our obeisance together, and take a joint leave of the Public.
[119] ... ad cujus sententiam, meam libens volensque adjungo.
[120] Quippecum eâ de causâ Capucini, multæque Moniales, virorum Medicorum ac piorum hominum consilio, ascesim flagellandi sursum humeros reliquerint, ut sibi nates lumbosque strient asperatis virgis, ac nodosis funiculis conscribillent.
[121] Ho, ho, Monsieur l’Abbé! How come you to be so well acquainted with beauties of the kind you mention here, and to speak of them in so positive a manner? For, the Reader must not think I here lend any expressions to the Abbé which are not his own: Num probrosum (says he), soli ostendere lumbos & femora juvenilia, excellenti formê, quamvis religionis honestate consecrata? This Monsieur l’Abbé, for his excursion upon objects and beauties which, one should have thought, lie out of his province, richly deserves a lecture of the same kind with that which Parson Adams received from Lady Booby, when he ventured to expatiate, in her Ladyship’s presence, on the beauties of Fanny.
[122] These dangers arising from self-examination I do not allow myself to call in question; since, besides the Abbé Boileau, the Framers of Monastic Rules have taken notice of them; and indeed I find Brantôme has entertained thoughts of the same kind; and many facts are to be found in that Chapter of his which he has intitled Of Sight in Love, that fully confirm the above observations. But besides these serious dangers into which a too curious examination of one’s-self may lead, there are others very well worth mentioning: I mean to speak of the acts of pride, vanity, self-admiration and complacency, to which the above curiosity may give rise. Vanity and a disposition to admire one’s-self, are dispositions that are but too general among Mankind; and there is hardly a time in life at which we may be said to be perfectly cured of such worldly affections. On this occasion I shall produce the following anecdote, which is related by Brantôme.
A certain Lady, who had been very handsome, and now was somewhat advanced in years, would no longer look at her face in the looking-glass, for fear of discovering some new injury time might have done to it; but she used to survey the other parts of her body, and then, suddenly actuated by the worldly vanity we speak of, she exclaimed, “God be thanked, here I do not grow old” (je ne vieillis point.)
These dangers of a too curious examination of one’s own person, are extremely well expressed by Ovid, in that part of his Metamorphosis where he describes Narcissus sitting near that clear silver fountain in which he contemplated himself:
Fons erat illimis, nitidis argenteus undis.
And the Poet relates, in a very lively manner, the astonishment of the Youth, at the sight of, as he thought, his own charms and perfections.
... visæ correptus imagine formæ
Adstupet ipse sibi.
That unexperienced Nuns should be led, by their disciplines, into faults of a similar kind, are therefore very natural apprehensions. Being thoroughly engaged in the contemplation of those beauties which they expose to light, it is no wonder that all their thoughts of a religious kind should vanish: and they even may very well in the issue, inchanted as they are by what they are beholding, intirely forget and neglect those pious exercises which they have purposely retired to their cell to perform.
[123] Quid turpius excogitari potest, sivè viro sivè fœminæ, quàm, lumbis & femoribus ad radios Solis apertis, seipsum diverberare?... Quis in edito & aperto loco, plenis comitiis, in conspectu hominum, lumbos natesque virgis cædere non pertimescat?
This exhibition of nakedness to the rays of the Sun, the Poet Lafontaine observes, is only fit for the New World. He expresses this opinion in that Tale which has been above quoted, The Pair of Spectacles, when he attempts to express the objects which the Nuns exhibited to the sight of each other, and of the Abbess: “Niggardly and proud charms, which the Sun is allowed to see only in the New World, for this does not shew them to him.”
—— chiches & fiers appas
Que le Soleil ne voit qu’au nouveau monde,
Car celui-ci ne les lui montre pas.
However, notwithstanding the opinion of the Poet Lafontaine, it seems that an exhibition of charms and attractions, even superior to what takes place in the New World, is common in Russia; which is certainly a part of our Old World: the Reader may see in the accounts given by Travellers, that individuals of both Sexes, after some stay in the hot-baths and stoves in use in that Country, will rush out promiscuously together, stark-naked, playing, and delightfully rolling themselves in the snow. If Russia had been more visited by Travellers in the times of Cardinals Damian and Pullus, these two great Promoters of nakedness would have been supplied with facts much to the advantage of their doctrine.
Bartholinus too, from the accounts of the same Travellers would have been supplied with excellent materials for composing his abovementioned Treatise, On the physical use of Flagellations. The Abbé Dauteroche, one of the latest Travellers who have published an account of Russia, where he went to observe the transit of Venus, gives a somewhat accurate description of the baths and stoves we mention. The heat is commonly carried in them to so high a degree as the fiftieth of Reaumur’s scale (which answer to the 130th of Fahrenheit’s; the greatest summer heat in England seldom surpasses, or even reaches, 80) a suffocating steam is raised by throwing plenty of water upon stones kept constantly red hot; and, in order to carry the agitation of the blood still farther, flagellations are applied to: a bundle of birchen twigs, with the leaves on, which being dry are soon stripped off, is as constant a part of the bathing implements and furniture, as a handkerchief or a towel. All these different operations being fulfilled, the bathers, as is above said, rush out into the external air, sometimes ten, or even twenty degrees colder than it was in this Country in the year 1740, and roll themselves in the snow, or jump into water through holes made in the ice. These are certainly surprising instances of what the human body may be brought to bear; much more remarkable than those that have been before mentioned; and the boxes of Buckhorse, the Chinese bastinadoes, and the flagellations of the Italian and Spanish disciplinants, are nothing in comparison to it. But, for a farther account of the Russian stoves, and of the trial the Abbé Dauteroche had the curiosity to make of them, as well as of the unexpected and unwelcome entertainment he received, I must refer the Reader to the Work itself he has published.
