Women of Modern France

by Hugo P. Thieme

This state of affairs developed distinctive physiognomies in the different classes of the middle-class society: thus, "the wives of the financiers are dignified, stern, severe; those of the merchants are seductive, active, gossiping, and alert; those of the artists are free, easy, and independent, with a strong taste for pleasure and gayety—and they give the tone." As we approach the end of the century, the bourgeoisie begins to assume the airs, habits, extravagances, and even the immoralities, of the higher classes.

Below the bourgeoise was the workingwoman, whose ideas were limited to those of a savage and who was a woman only in sex. Her ideas of morality, decency, conjugal happiness, children, education, were limited by quarrels, profanity, blows, fights. At that time brandy was the sole consolation for those women; it supplied their moral force and their moral resistance, making them forget cold, hunger, fatigue, evil, and giving them courage and patience; it was the fire that sustained, comforted, and incited them.

These women were not much above the level of animals, but from them, we find, often sprang the entertainers of the time, the queens of beauty and gallantry—Laguerre, D'Hervieux, Sophie Arnould. Having lost their virtue with maturity, these women had no sense of morality; in them, nothing preserved the sense of honor—their religion consisted of a few superstitious practices. The constituents of duty and the virtue of women they could only vaguely guess; marriage itself was presented to them under the most repugnant image of constant contention.

It was in such an atmosphere as this that the daughters of these women grew up. Their talents found opportunity for display at the public dances where some of them would in time attract especial attention. Some became opera singers, dancers, or actresses, and were very popular; others became influential, and, through the efforts of some lover, allured about them a circle of ambitious débauchés or aspirants for social favors. Through their adventures they made their way up in the world to high society.

From this element of prostitution was disentangled, to a large extent, the great gallantry of the eighteenth century. This was accomplished by adding an elegance to debauch, by clothing vice with a sort of grandeur, and by adorning scandal with a semblance of the glory and grace of the courtier of old. Possessing the fascination of all gifts, prodigalities, follies, with all the appetites and tendencies of the time, these women attracted the society of the period—the poets, the artists, even the scientists, the philosophers, and the nobility. Their reputation increased with the number and standing of their lovers. The genius of the eighteenth century circled about these street belles—they represented the fortune of pleasure.

As the church would not countenance the marriage of an actress, she was forced to renounce the theatre when she would marry, but once married a permit to return to the stage was easily obtained. Society was not so severe as the laws; it received actresses, sought out, and even adored them; it received the women of the stage as equals, and many of them were married by counts and dukes, given a title, and presented at court. The regular type of the prostitute was tolerated and even received by society; "a word of anger, malediction, or outrage, was seldom raised against these women: on the contrary, pity and the commiseration of charity and tenderness were felt for them and manifested." This was natural, for many of them—through notoriety—reached society and, as mistresses of the king, even the throne itself. "If such women as Mme. de Pompadour were esteemed, what principles remained in the name of which to judge without pity and to condemn the débauchés of the street," says Mme. de Choiseul, one of the purest of women.

This class usually created and established the styles. There is a striking contrast between the standards of beauty and fashions of the respective periods of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.: "The stately figure, rich costume, awe-inspiring peruke of the magnificent Louis XIV.—the satins, velvets, embroideries, perfumes, and powder of the indolent and handsome Louis XV., well illustrate the two epochs." The beauty of the Louis XIV. age was more serious, more imposing, imperial, classic; later in the eighteenth century, under Louis XV., she developed into a charming figure of finesse, sveltesse et gracilité, with an extremely delicate complexion, a small mouth and thin nose, as opposed to the strong, plump mouth and nez léonin (leonine nose). More animated, the face was all movement, the eyes talked; the esprit passed to the face. It was the type of Marivaux' comedies, with an esprit mobile, animated and colored by all the coquetries of grace.

Later in the century, the very opposite type prevailed; the aspiration then became to leave an emotion ungratified rather than to seduce; a languishing expression was cultivated; women sought to sweeten the physiognomy, to make it tender and mild. The style of beauty changed from the brunette with brown eyes—so much in vogue under Louis XV., to the blonde with blue eyes under Louis XVI. Even the red which formerly "dishonored France," became a favorite. To obtain the much admired pale complexion, women had themselves bled; their dress corresponded to their complexion, light materials and pure white being much affected.

In these three stages of the development of beauty, fashion changed to harmonize with the popular style in beauty. In general, styles were influenced by an important event of the day: thus, when Marie Leczinska, introduced the fad of quadrilles, there were invented ribbons called "quadrille of the queen"; and many other fads originated in the same way. French taste and fashions travelled over entire Europe; all Europe was à la française, yoked and laced in French styles, French in art, taste, industry. The domination of the French Galerie des Modes was due to the inventive minds of French women in relation to everything pertaining to headdress, to detailed and delicate arrangements of every phase of ornamentation.