"If there is a pure love, he says, exempt from all admixture with other passions, it is that which lies hidden at the bottom of the heart, and of which we ourselves are ignorant."
Unlike Mandeville, our own great cynic of the eighteenth century, La Rochefoucauld, while calling in question the reality of almost all benevolent impulses, stopped short of denying the existence of virtue itself. He would not have said, as the author of the "Fable of the Bees" (1714) did, that the "hunting after this pulchrum et honestum is not much better than a wild-goose chase." But he had a strong contempt for the humbugs of the world, and among them he placed unflinching optimists. One of the main forms of humbug in his day was the legend that everybody acted nobly for the sake of other people. This La Rochefoucauld stoutly denied, but he was not so excessive as his commentators in his condemnation of that self-love which he declares to be the source of all our moral actions. He insinuates the possibility of an innocent and even a beneficial egotism. He says, "The praise which is given us serves to fix us in the practice of virtue," and if that is true, amour-propre must be practically useful. Helvétius, who made some very valuable comments on the "Maximes" a hundred years later, pointed out that amour-propre is not in itself an evil thing, but is a sentiment implanted in us all by nature, and that this sentiment is transformed in every human being into either vice or virtue, so that although we are all egoists, some are good and some are bad.
La Rochefoucauld, therefore, while he takes a very dark view of the selfishness of the human race, softens the shades of his picture by admitting that egotism may be, and often must be, advantageous not merely to the individual but to the race. And here we find the key to one of the oddest passages in his works, that in which he attributes his inspiration to two saints, St. Augustine and St. Epicurus! He says—
Everybody wishes to be happy; that is the aim of all the acts of life. Spurious men of the world and spurious men of piety only seek for the appearance of virtue, and I believe that in matters of morality, Seneca was a hypocrite and Epicurus was a saint. I know of nothing in the world so beautiful as nobility of heart and loftiness of mind: from these proceeds that perfect integrity which I set above all other qualities, and which seems to me, at my present stage of life, to be of more price than a royal crown. But I am not sure whether, in order to live happily and as a man of the highest sense of honour, it is not better to be Alcibiades and Phaedo than to be Aristides and Socrates.
It would take us too far out of our path to comment on the relation of this epicureanism to the religion of La Rochefoucauld's day, but a few words seem necessary on this subject. He says extremely little about religion, although he makes the necessary and perhaps not wholly perfunctory, statement that he was orthodox. But the position of a votary of St. Epicurus had grown difficult. Since the Duke's exile, the enmity between the church and the world had become violent, so violent that a man of prominent social and intellectual position was bound to take one side or another. We may note that the years during which the "Maximes" were being composed were precisely those during which Bossuet was thundering from the pulpit his anathemas against worldly luxury and the pride of life. The period marked at one extremity by "L'Amour des Passions" (1660) and at the other by the "Grandeurs Humains" (1663) is precisely that in which the lapidary art of La Rochefoucauld was most assiduous. The church was advocating asceticism and humility with all its authority, and was leading up towards the later phase of the fanatical despotism of Louis XIV.'s old age, with all its attendant hypocrisy. For the moment, in the struggle, La Rochefoucauld, though no dévot, would seem a friend of the church rather than a foe, and in fact he retained the intimacy of Bossuet, in whose arms he died. We may be sure that he guarded himself with delicate care from the charge of being what was then called a "libertine," that is a man openly at war with the theory and practice of the theologians.
It is said that La Rochefoucauld invented[7] the word "vraie," "true," to describe the character of Mme de La Fayette. His intimacy with this illustrious lady is one of the most beautiful episodes in the history of literature, and perhaps its purest example of true friendship between the sexes. The phrase we have already quoted shows that in 1663 the two great writers were acquainted but not yet intimate. Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette, was in her thirtieth year, La Rochefoucauld had completed his fiftieth when some cause which remains obscure drew them together with a tie which death alone, after seventeen wonderful years of almost unbroken association, was to sever. There was no scandal about it, even in that scandal-mongering age. The astute Mile de Scudery, writing to her gossip Bussy Rabutin (December 6, 1675), says, "Nothing could be happier for her, or more dignified for him; the fear of God on either side, and perhaps prudence as well, have clipped the wings of love." Twelve years before, when Ménage had repeated to her some critical remarks about her novel, "La Princesse de Montpensier," Mme de La Fayette had replied, "I am greatly obliged to M. de la Rochefoucauld for his expressions. They are the result of our similarity of experience, 'de la belle sympathie qui est entre nous.'"
[Footnote 7: Mme de Sévigné seems not to have known this when, in writing to her daughter (July 19, 1671), she claims to have been the first to say vraie when she meant sincere, loyal. "Il y a longtemps que je dis que vous êtes vraie">[
The famous friends were excluded by their physical conditions from the activities of life. Mme de La Fayette, who was perhaps something of a hypochondriac, tossed all day among the pillows of that golden bed with the extravagance of which the austerity of Mme de Maintenon upbraided her. La Rochefoucauld, tormented by the gout, lay stretched at her side in his long chair, and the days went by in endless discussion, endless balancing of right and wrong, much gossip, much reading of books new and old, and not a little consultation of artist with artist. They kept their secrets well, and no curiosity of successive critics has been able to discover how much of La Rochefoucauld is hidden in the pages of "La Princesse de Clèves", the earliest of the modern novels of the world, nor how much of Mme de La Fayette in the revised and re-revised text of the "Maximes." [8] But we know that she was no less sagacious and no less an enemy to illusion than he was, and those are probably not far wrong who have detected a softening influence from her conversation on the late genius of La Rochefoucauld.
In 1675 Mme de Thiange presented to the Duke du Maine a toy which has long ago disappeared, and for the recovery of which I would gladly exchange many a grand composition of painting and sculpture. It was a sort of gilded doll's house, representing the interior of a salon. Over the door was written, "Chambre des Sublimes." Inside were wax portrait-figures of living celebrities, the Duke du Maine in one arm-chair; in another La Rochefoucauld, who was handing him some manuscript. By the arm-chairs were standing Bossuet, then Bishop of Condom, and La Rochefoucauld's eldest son, M. de Marcillac. At the other end of the alcove Mme de La Fayette and Mme de Thiange were reading verses together. Outside the balustrade, Boileau with a pitchfork was preventing seven or eight bad poets from entering, to the amusement and approval of Racine, who was already inside, and of La Fontaine, who was invited to come forward. The likeness of these little waxen images is said to have been perfect, and there can hardly be fancied a relic of that fine society which would be more valuable to us in re-establishing its social character. We know not what became of it in the next generation. No doubt, the wax grew dusty, and the figures lost their heads and hands, and some petulant châtelaine doomed the ruined treasure to the dustbin.
[Footnote 8: Bussy Rabutin writes to Mme de Sévigné that he hears that La Rochefoucauld and Mme de La Fayette are preparing "quelque chose de fort joli." This shows that before "La Princess de Clèves" was finished the Duke's name was identified with its composition.]