FOOTNOTES:
[26] Léon Daudet, L’Entre-Deux-Guerres, 235 (1915).
[27] Souvenirs, I. 353.
[28] Souvenirs, II. 13.
[29] Souvenirs, I. 214.
[30] Ibid., 16.
[31] Souvenirs, II. 25.
[32] Souvenirs, II. 26.
[33] Souvenirs, II. 30.
[34] Taine, born in 1828, was then twenty-nine.
[35] Souvenirs, II. 39.
CHAPTER V
HER FIRST BOOK
1858
“L’œuvre de Mme. Juliette Lambert n’est que l’hymne triomphante des sentiments humains les plus nobles et les plus joyeux.”—Jules Lemaître.
Born and bred in an atmosphere of controversy, inheriting from her grandmother and father an argumentative disposition, it is not surprising that in the field of polemics Juliette won her first literary laurels. Neither was it inconsistent with her ambitious nature that she should have chosen for adversary the most distinguished controversialist of the day. The socialist Proudhon was regarded not only as an eminent economist but as a master of dialectics.
Proudhon’s masterpiece appeared on the 22nd of April, 1858. It was a work in three volumes, entitled La Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’Eglise. Announced in 1854, this book had been eagerly awaited by philosophic readers, among whom was Juliette’s father.
Dr. Lambert wrote to his daughter that she must buy La Justice at once, and that, as she finished each volume, she must send it down to him at Chauny. It was well that Juliette carried out her father’s recommendation, for in a few days the book was suppressed[36] and its author, who had fled to Belgium, condemned to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 4000 francs.
Juliette, as she read these pages, was compelled to recognise the excellence of the writer’s style and the skill of his dialectics. But the so-called “justice” which Proudhon here metes out to women could not but infuriate so fervent a feminist. For even a cursory survey of this book will serve to reveal that the writer here carries the anti-feminist argument to its extreme verge. No self-respecting woman could possibly read these pages without being moved to indignation, unless she resolve to treat the matter as a huge joke; but unfortunately Proudhon, like most pure economists, had no sense of humour: he only stumbled into being funny. A breath of the blessed illuminating comic spirit would have saved him from many a ludicrous absurdity.
Juliette’s resentment of the philosopher’s sweeping indictment of her sex was aggravated by his singling out for special condemnation the two women whom among her contemporaries she admired most. “J’ai la folie d’admirer,” she has said of herself; and with all the ardour of her passionate soul she admired George Sand and Daniel Stern (la Comtesse d’Agoult). It was precisely against these two distinguished writers that Proudhon directed all the vitriol of his invective. In George Sand’s work he would see nothing but une orgueilleuse impuissance.[37] Daniel Stern,[38] because in her Esquisses Morales she had ventured to maintain that woman need not necessarily be inferior to man, he decried as une femme savante qui parle sans raison ni conscience.[39]
Writhing under these insults, Juliette went one evening to Mme. Fauvety’s. There she said to Jenny d’Héricourt, “You ought to defend the women who are thus insulted, you who know so well how to wield a pen against the terrible Proudhon. It would be disgraceful to leave unanswered such abominable charges.”
“George Sand and Daniel Stern,” replied this vertu farouche, “have only what they deserve. I insist upon virtue and I practise it. Proudhon has not dared to insult me, I am certain of it, though I have not yet read his book.”
“Very well,” said Juliette. “I am nobody, it is true, although I am as virtuous as you, and I will reply to Proudhon. Women, they must be defended by women.”
This esprit de corps, this loyalty not to her sex alone, but to any cause or party, political, social or religious with which she has chosen to identify herself, has ever characterised Mme. Adam, and the conflict of her sense of solidarity with her innate Celtic rebelliousness is one of the most interesting traits in her psychology.
Thus bravely did this young woman of twenty-two take up the glove thrown down by the most eminent and the most skilful dialectician of the day. For two months she was absorbed in the writing of this, her first book. Most of the work was done at night. She would shut herself up in her room, where she was alone with little Alice. Whenever she found time to go to the Fauvety’s, M. Fauvety and M. Renouvier inquired eagerly after the progress of the great work. Mme. d’Héricourt continued scornful.
“Well, and this defence of your famous friends, how is it getting on?” she would inquire derisively. “If you succeed in carrying it through, God send those great ladies be grateful to you, seeing all the pains you seem to be taking.”[40]
“Madame,” replied Juliette, “I am taking great pains. But then you must remember I am but a novice; and you can’t expect one of my age to have the experience of veterans.”
“Veterans! Veterans!” cried the irate lady. “You mean me, doubtless. Well, if you defend some of us you are very impertinent to others.”
Finally the book was finished, and entitled Idées Anti-Proudhoniennes. It was read to M. Fauvety, who approved and gave useful advice. But to Juliette’s dismay he expressed a doubt whether a reply to so powerful an adversary, so acrimonious a controversialist, so consummate a master of dialectics would ever find a publisher.
In her passionate enthusiasm for her task, such a horrid fear had never once entered Juliette’s mind.
“What!” she cried, “my poor book which has devoured my nights will never see day?”
“You have made a mot,” replied the editor of La Revue Philosophique, laughing. “But now you must captivate some great publisher. Don’t write, but offer your manuscript in person. Who knows? However, I doubt whether you will succeed when your book has been read.”
Such an opinion from so competent a critic would have discouraged most writers. But Juliette, with a buoyant hopefulness which has ever supported her throughout all the trials of her long career, was not deterred. She merely concluded that such difficulties in the way of publication would involve her having to defray the expenses of the book’s appearance. Consequently she went down to Chauny to demand her father’s fulfilment of a rash promise that should she ever give birth to a volume he would pay for its publication.
“I told him,” writes Juliette, “that I had written a book.” “What is it?” he asked, not unnaturally. But the subject of her book was the last thing Juliette meant to reveal to this disciple of Proudhon. It would seem a thing unheard of that Dr. Lambert should be asked to pay for the publication of a book when he was ignorant of its contents. But this was Juliette’s request; and she knew her father could refuse her nothing. She was encouraged, moreover, when she heard him express his annoyance with the philosopher for his gross attacks on such devoted republicans as George Sand and Daniel Stern. “You must have been sadly wounded, Juliette?” he inquired. “Yes, I was heart-broken,” she replied. Yet she did not enlighten him any further. Nevertheless she returned to Paris with the thousand francs, which her doting parent calculated would suffice for the publication of her literary first-born.
Then followed the search for a publisher. Always ambitious, Juliette applied to one of the greatest publishing houses in the world. She addressed herself to M. Michel Lévy,[41] the publisher of Victor Hugo, of Sainte-Beuve, of Alexandre Dumas, who had recently discovered Renan in his garret. That famous master used to declare that Michel Lévy had been ordained by a special decree of Providence to become his publisher. Such was not Juliette’s experience; for M. Lévy’s reception of her was, to put it mildly, not encouraging.[42]
“Here is a young lady,” said his clerk, and in what a tone! “who has come about a book she has written, which she wants the firm to publish.”
Smiling, M. Lévy looked at his visitor and asked: “The subject of the book?”
“A reply to the attacks made on George Sand and Daniel Stern in La Justice dans la Révolution.”
“And this reply is by you, mademoiselle?”
“Madame, sir.”
“And you think that a book like this will be published by the house of Michel Lévy?”
“Oh, sir, I quite realise that I must bear the expense of the publication of my first book. If you would be so kind as to read it.”
“Useless, madame.”
“What! Do you decide without having looked at it?”
“Oh! I can see perfectly what your ... work is like merely by looking at you. What do you think, my good Scholl?”[43] said he, addressing some one who had just come in.
“It would be a pity,” said Scholl, “for madame to become a commonplace blue-stocking. You are quite right to discourage her, my dear Lévy. She has something better to do.”
“Monsieur Aurélien Scholl,” replied Juliette proudly, “M. Huegel, near by, has published a poem[44] by me which may not be as good as your Denise, but my prose may quite well be equal to yours.”[45]
And with her heart in her mouth, her literary personality, as she puts it, thoroughly humiliated, she left Michel Lévy’s office. Scholl, with whom she was often to discuss that scene in after years, told her he had advised Lévy to call her back.
Though for the moment her hopes were all dashed to the ground, Juliette was unconquered. Her courage has ever been roused by opposition. And M. Lévy’s impertinence had provided her with a further incentive to succeed: she desired ardently to prove him in the wrong. So she continued her search for a publisher; and always it was the leaders of the publishing world whom she visited. No less than eight did she approach, not omitting even Proudhon’s own publisher. He was extremely polite, but he said: “You will understand, madame, that such things are not done.” At that time Hetzel, one of the most literary of Paris publishers, was in exile at Brussels. Juliette wrote to him. He replied:[46] “Either your book is very bad or you use a coloured handkerchief, and possibly you take snuff. I can’t believe a woman, who is probably ugly and certainly middle-aged, can have any right to defend against Proudhon the youth of George Sand and Daniel Stern or their position in the world. You would expose them to ridicule, and they would never forgive you. For doubtless Proudhon would reply to you.”
Here was a dilemma. What was Juliette to do? Evidently none of the recognised publishers would even read her MS., for they all either found her too pretty or suspected her of being plain.
On the ground floor of her house in the Rue de Rivoli was a bookseller, Taride by name, of whom Juliette was an excellent customer. She took him into her confidence. Would he publish her book if she stood all the expense? “Why not, madame?” he replied. “We neither of us run any risk, for we are both unknown, and if we fail, no one will hear of it.”
Consequently, Juliette put down eight hundred francs, and the book appeared, in defiance of the bookseller’s advice, in the summer, on the 15th of August, when, as the saying went, there was not “a cat in Paris.” But the impatient young authoress, whose hopes had been so long delayed, refused to wait until the autumn.
On the 19th of the month Juliette installed herself in the bookseller’s back shop, and inscribed on the fly-leaves of fifty copies suitable dedications to the most important figures in the world of journalism and letters: George Sand, Daniel Stern, Littré, Émile de Girardin, Prosper Mérimée, Edmond About, Octave Feuillet, Jules Grévy, Hippolyte Carnot and others. Then dispatching an errand-boy with the celebrities’ copies, she herself took a cab and delivered the books at the newspaper offices.
This done, her next concern was to go down to Chauny and put a volume into her father’s hands. What would he say to her impudence in attacking so great a philosopher, to her Idées Anti-Proudhoniennes? And, indeed, the title was a shock to him. He took the little volume in his hand, turned it round and round. “What if it’s bad?” he began. “But if it’s good?” interposed Juliette. “Ah, at your age, even if you have half a success, you are distinguished for life.”[47]
After dinner, finding her very agitated, he sent her to bed. “Va te coucher, Basile,” he said. “I will read your book to-night, and tell you what I think of it in the morning.”
“At three o’clock in the morning he came into his daughter’s room and awakened her with the words:[48] ”It is good, it is good. But it is mine. I sowed the seed in your mind of these Idées Anti-Proudhoniennes. My dear child, this means your success, your salvation,[49] influential friendships, your grandmother’s wishes realised. Why is she not here at this moment?“
The next morning at breakfast even the usually despondent Mme. Lambert was gay, although she could not help her customary gloom breaking out in the exclamation, “I tremble to think what a life of work and worry this will mean for you.”
Dr. Lambert was eager for his daughter to be off to Paris, there to receive the congratulations which he was convinced were awaiting her. And he was not mistaken. Every day brought some new proof of the attention this little volume had attracted. The book was widely noticed in the press. The review which pleased her most, even to the point, she confesses, of for the moment making her lose her head (cet article me monta un peu à la tête),[50] was by Eugène Pelletan, in La Presse. The writer came to see her the day after the article’s appearance: and from that moment he became one of her most faithful and devoted friends. The Siècle, the periodical which had published her first prose effort,[51] in the following terms noticed her volume only a few days after its publication—
“We received yesterday a book destined to produce a profound sensation. It is a reply to Proudhon and to the insulting attack upon George Sand and Daniel Stern contained in his last work. This book, despite its virility, is said to be by a very young woman. The title of the volume is Idées Anti-Proudhoniennes. It is signed ‘Juliette Lamessine.’”
Virility is, indeed, the dominating feature of this, Juliette’s first production, as it was to be of all her work. She writes as one having authority. Her style is crisp, terse, dramatic, vivid and, above all, forcible. It is essentially the style of a woman of action as well as of thought. In controversy she has always been at her best. And she could not possibly have found a subject better suited to her temperament and training than this answer to Proudhon’s attack on women. That in this year, 1858, three years before John Stuart Mill began to write his Subjection of Women, three years before our first woman doctor, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, began to study medicine, a young woman of twenty-two should have been able to present a bird’s-eye view of the whole field of feminist reform; that she should, in such forcible terms, have enunciated feminist principles and contended for those rights which it has required half a century of conflict to win, was a very remarkable achievement.
This little book of one hundred and ninety-six pages, polished off in two months, naturally makes no pretence at being an adequate answer to Proudhon’s great work, the result of years of laborious effort. It is, indeed, only with the last part of the book, that treating of women and of marriage, that the authoress of Idées Anti-Proudhoniennes is concerned. “Therein,” she writes, “are things which every woman who knows how to hold a pen has the right to regard as personal insults, and it is to these personalities that I intend to reply.”
Nevertheless, in her first chapter, entitled “Generalities,” she permits herself a few remarks on the main trend of her adversary’s book. She blames the narrow dogmatism which blinds him to the complexity of the social problem. A pure economist, this founder of the People’s Bank had attempted to solve the social problem in terms of pounds, shillings and pence. This Proudhon was the J. A. Hobson of that day. His absorption in the idea of justice caused him to forget what is equally important, passion, affection, solidarity and mercy. “There is no heart in your dialectics,” writes Juliette. “Now to understand life, you must be yourself alive. Had you the most powerful brain in the universe, you would never comprehend man and humanity.”
“Justice,” wrote Proudhon, “had been nothing, it must be everything.” But for this hide-bound economist justice could exist only between man and man, for all men should be equal; but between man and woman, who must ever be unequal, justice need not be considered, for man must ever dominate woman. And why? Because man regarded as a working member of the community is more productive than woman, who is physically, intellectually and morally man’s inferior. Such an argument gives us pause in these days of the Great War, when manufacturers are telling us that the average output of women in factories is twenty per cent. higher than that of men.
Woman, man’s inferior physically, maintains Proudhon, must necessarily be mentally his inferior also. For physical strength is no less necessary to the work of the mind than to the work of the body. Here the retort was obvious; and we may be sure Proudhon’s young opponent did not miss it. “What, M. Proudhon,” she rejoins; “then a porter will be a better thinker than a philosopher. M. Proudhon’s God is obviously the dynamometer.... Force, always force. In force lies the millennium. That was the opinion of the Prætorian Guard when they chose for emperor the great Maximin, because he was stronger than a horse.”
Instead of the subjection of woman to man, which Proudhon maintains to be inevitable, his young adversary contends that the progress of society requires that men and women shall work together as equals. “A mere glance at the history of mankind,” she argues, “will suffice to show that among nations civilisation is in proportion to the part played by woman, to her influence, to her moral worth; and, as civilisation increases, the greater will be the value set upon the position accorded to woman.” This is an argument which no profound observer of human nature could deny. Unless men and women laugh together you cannot have that true comedy which is the very salt of the intellectual life, was the opinion of George Meredith.[52] “Where the veil is over women’s faces,” he wrote, referring to the silence of comedy among Eastern peoples, “you cannot have society, without which the senses are barbarous, and the comic spirit is driven to the gutters of grossness to slake its thirst.” Nous avons débrutalisé la société française was the proudest boast of Juliette’s forerunner, La Marquise de Rambouillet, foundress of the first great French salon.
Mme. Lamessine was one of the earliest French women writers to divine that which this war is proving: woman’s capacity for work, for which her asserted inferiority to man had been held to unfit her.
Anticipating John Stuart Mill, Mme. Lamessine demanded that all the liberal professions should be thrown open to women, and that women should be admitted to a share, if not in the legislation at least in the administration, of their country. The rôle of mayoress she considered particularly appropriate to women. She demanded the admission of women to those conseils de prud’hommes which in France regulate disputes between employers and employed.
“O Nazaréen incorrigible!” she exclaims, when her adversary falls a prey to the ancient myth that woman is ever the source of evil and the mother of impurity. “Men who, like M. Proudhon,” she continues, “desire to restore the patriarchate by imprisoning women in the family are des abstractions de quintessence who are blind to all that is going on around them, who misjudge the collective life which is daily developing new needs, engendering new forces, and giving rise to social institutions responding to these needs and organising these forces. They mean well, doubtless, and they think they are serving the cause of progress, or at least of morality, which always comes to be that of progress. By compelling woman to shut herself up in her family, by limiting her to the rôle of wife and mother, they hope to put an end to her growing passion for luxury and dissipation.... But they are mistaken. It is not by limiting the scope of her activity that they will arrest this disorder, but rather by opening up new channels for the wholesome play of her energy. Women must be educated thoroughly, and, wherever it is possible, professionally. They must be made productive. Work alone has emancipated man. Work alone can emancipate woman. Let woman provide herself by honest work with clothes which will adorn and become her. Then, instead of dragging in the dust of the pavement her lace shawls and her silk skirts, she will walk free and proud in the modesty of clothes which will reveal her beauty, without tarnishing her virtue or selling her honour....
“But do not let me be accused of undervaluing woman’s rôle in the family: I, like Proudhon, believe that a woman’s first duty is to be wife and mother. But I maintain that family life need not absorb all woman’s activities, physical, moral and intellectual. The part of a broody hen is honourable without doubt, but it is not suited to every one, neither is it so absorbing as it is represented.”
In Juliette’s childhood her father had given her a catechism embodying the principles of democratic socialism. Now in the last pages of this book she expressed in another catechism her views of society and of women’s rôle in it.
The question of the parliamentary franchise Mme. Lamessine did not discuss in this volume. It is obvious that so ardent an advocate of sex equality must have believed in woman’s right to vote. Woman’s suffrage, we remember, was one of the reforms demanded by the Mlles. André’s pupils when, in 1848, Juliette marshalled them in the playground at Chauny beneath the banner of her father’s social democratic handkerchief. But the so-called universal, in reality manhood, suffrage of 1851 had led to the Empire, and Mme. Lamessine abhorred the Empire: henceforth therefore she placed no great faith in the people’s vote, not even if, as she believed, in all justice it should do, the people included women.