That man went to war was not sufficient proof of his bravery; in addition, he must, upon the smallest pretext, draw his sword, must fight constantly, and especially with adversaries better armed and larger in force; the love of woman was for such men only. Adventure was the fad: it is said of one seigneur that he took pleasure in going every night to a certain corner and, from pure malice, striking with his sword the first person who chanced that way; this unique pastime he continued until he himself was killed.
Marriage, until the eighteenth century, was not a union of affection, but merely an alliance between two families and in the interest of both; women, to preserve their identity after marriage, signed their family names. As maturity was reached at the age of twelve, marriage meant simply cohabitation. Until the Revolution, free marriages, or liaisons, were recognized as natural if not legitimate institutions, and the offspring of such unions, who were said to be more numerous than legitimate children, were legitimatized and became heirs simply through recognition by the father. (At first, princes were unwilling to accept, as wives, the natural daughters of kings; however, the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Conti married the natural daughters of Louis XIV.) As a rule, titles could not be transmitted through females; when a woman married beneath her rank she lost her titles, but they were given to her children.
In the seventeenth century, woman's influence was of a nature vastly superior to that exerted by her in the sixteenth century, in that it rendered sacred both her and her honor; but, in spite of the refining restraint of the salon, brutality was still the main characteristic of man. To express beautiful sentiments in the midst of jealousies, rivalries, adventures, complaints, and despair, was the savoir-vivre of the Catherine de' Medici type of elegance brought from Italy in the sixteenth century. This caused the extremes of external fastidiousness and internal grossness to be embodied in the same individual; in the eighteenth century, man was, inwardly as well as outwardly, refined, mild, kind, a friend of pleasure; and therein lies the fundamental difference between the honnête homme of Louis XIV. and the homme du monde of Louis XV. The seventeenth century type of man is midway between that of the sixteenth and eighteenth--more polished and less gross than the former, yet lacking the knowledge and culture of the latter.
When in the seventeenth century the two all-powerful forces, brute force and money, of the preceding century were replaced by those of money and the pen, the decay of the impoverished and unintellectual nobility became but a question of time. The day when great gentlemen might scorn men of letters and learning was rapidly passing; with the French Academy arose a new spirit, a fresh impulse was given to intellectual attainments. Although treated as inferiors, the literary men of the seventeenth century spoke of the aristocracy in a spirit of raillery, but slightly veiled with respect; and the nobility while remaining, in its way, courageous and glorious, lost its prestige, force, and influence.
In the seventeenth century, money acquired a certain purchasing value which procured advantages and luxuries impossible in the preceding period when the brave man was worth infinitely more than the rich who, scorned and considered as a rapacious Jew, was isolated and in constant fear of being robbed or killed. As the number of government officials increased, individual fortunes grew; men became enormously wealthy through the various offices bought by them or given to them by the government. The financier was a king and many marriages of princes and dukes with daughters of men of wealth are recorded. Women of station, however, seldom married beneath their rank, because they lost their titles by so doing, and titles were still the only road to social success. As a rule, titles could not be transmitted through females; when a woman made a misalliance her titles were given to her children. Almost all rich men of the period, from the time of Louis XIII. to the Revolution, became nobles, as almost every brave man was made a knight up to the seventeenth century. It was possible for the wealthy to buy a marquisate or baronetage and give it to their children; a grand-marshal of France was no longer so powerful as a rich banker.
The complete change, under Louis XIV., of the customs of the time, caused numberless petty jealousies, scandals, and intrigues in the aristocracy, which could no longer maintain its old form and yet had to be considered by the government. The question of reform arose--how to restrict the number of nobles, which increased every year. Rank was bestowed for service and, sometimes, even for wealth; the old families, being poor, had no distinctive prestige except that given by their privileges at court; their titles no longer distinguished them from the newcomers, whom they gradually began to disdain, and the result was a general lowering of the standing, importance, and influence of nobility. Another party which gained prominence was that of the bench; the judges, as interpreters of the king's laws, became powerful, for law was absolute. A deadly rivalry sprang up between the parties of rank with no money or power and of power and money without rank.
The desire of every man of rank to be independent, to be a force in himself instead of a part of a unit which might be useful to the state as a whole, was one of the principal defects of the French aristocracy; poverty crushed it, idleness robbed it of its alertness, intriguing and gradual oppression reduced it to despair. Appointed to offices, its members failed in the performance of their duties; the latter fell to the under men who, while the aristocracy was busy at fêtes, in society, at the table, became experts in the affairs of the government--shrewd politicians and financiers. The new nobility, that of the robe, replaced that of the sword in all interests of the government except war; gradually, Parliament was made up of men who, having been elevated to the rank of nobility, retained their aversion to those who were noble by birth, recognizing only the king as their superior and refusing precedence to even the princes of the blood. Louis XIV., however, objecting to and fearing such a strong class as that of the robe, employed, wherever possible, people of lower rank. Thus it happened in the seventeenth century that the still powerful nobility of higher rank was scorned and kept down; but in the eighteenth century, when the gentlemen of the robe had become all-powerful and therefore constituted a dangerous party, it was they who became the objects of scorn and persecution, while the aristocrats of blood, the gentlemen of the court, recovered the royal favors through their political powerlessness.
French aristocracy really had no object, no raison d'être, after its disappearance from all governmental functions; it became an encumbrance to the state; having no particular part to play, it did nothing; this is one of the causes of its dissolution and of the Revolution as well. Thus France gradually passed from inequality of classes under the sanction of custom to equality of classes before the law: this change in the condition and constitution of the French nobility accounts for many intrigues and scandals and explains the social and moral actions of French women, as well as the difference in the nature of their activities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The seventeenth was, par excellence, the century which can boast of that incomparable society the cult of which was the highest in all things--art, religion, philosophy, poetry, politics, war, and beauty. From the convent of the Carmelites to the Hôtel de Rambouillet, from the Place Royale to the various châteaux and salons, we must seek only that which is elevating and spiritual, beautiful and religious. In the famous society which kept pace with the political reputation and influence of France is found a coterie of women who combined remarkable beauty and intelligence with a high moral standard, and whose names are intimately connected with the history of France. Where again can we find such a galaxy of beauties as that formed by Charlotte de Montmorency, Mme. de Chevreuse, Mme. de Hautefort, Mme. de Montbazon, Mme. de Guémené, Mme. de Châtillon, Mme. de Longueville, Marie de Gonzague, Henriette de la Vallière, Mme. de Montespan, Mme. de Maintenon, without enumerating such great writers and leaders of salons as Mme. de Rambouillet, Mlle. de Scudéry, Mme. de Lambert, Mme. de Sévigné, and Mme. de la Fayette? The seventeenth century could tolerate no mediocrity; grandeur was in the very atmosphere; its political movements were great movements; it produced in art a Poussin, in letters a Corneille, in science and philosophy a Descartes.
The various movements of which woman was the head may be divided into two periods, and each period into two parts. The political women may well be grouped about Marie de' Medici,--whose career will not be given separate treatment, inasmuch as there was no drop of French blood in her veins,--and the social and literary women about Mme. de Rambouillet and her salon. In the latter half of the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the eighteenth, politics are represented by Mme. de Montespan--the mistress--and Mme. de Maintenon--the wife; social life and literature have their purest representative in Mme. de Lambert. The two queens of the seventeenth century, Anne of Austria and Maria Theresa, were without influence; the religious movement was represented by the galaxy of women of whom we write in a later chapter.