A bishop of Grenoble was famous in his time for the length of his beard.[[17]] Molé, the lord keeper of the great seal, who had likewise a very long one, having seen the bishop of Grenoble’s, said, Now, God be thanked, my beard is under shelter.
[17]. One day, this bishop let fall something, when he was at table, on his long beard. One of the servants said to him: There is a bit of meat on your excellency’s beard. The servant was answered: Why dost thou not say on the excellency of your beard?
What a number of beards should I have to celebrate, if I had resolution enough, to do it! what a crowd of names of heroes and philosophers would come to embellish this precious enumeration! You would be banished from it, sages of the age, who wish only to appear so in your writings; shaved philosophers, whose effeminate appearance always belies the glorious title under which you conceal the pusillanimity of your souls. But you would have an honourable place there, divine men, the pride of Rome and Greece! You, adorable Anacreon, the patriarch of gallantry, you, worthy to rank with the longest bearded of the ancients, who took care to let posterity know your pleasures and the beauty of your beard; come and convince our age that this mark of virility is not the enemy of gallantry. And you, O Adrian![[18]] who, of all the Roman emperors, were the first that brought in vogue this ornament of masculine faces, your example is a proof that the introduction of a like usage is not beneath the greatest prince: I would place on your head an everlasting laurel, and by your side a French monarch, your wise imitator: the friend and protector of arts and sciences. He thought the revival of the majesty of long beards was still wanting to his glory; and, in order to insure more certain and general success to this noble enterprize, he, as the first of his kingdom, let grow out on his royal chin that hair which characterises vigour and majesty. In this manner did chance favour the wise projects of Francis I. to restore an usage as ancient and natural as it was respectable.
[18]. Adrian was the first Roman emperor that wore a beard, to hide, as it is said, some cicatrices which he had in his face. His successors imitated him down to Constantine, who shaved. Beards came in again under Heraclius, and all the Greek emperors afterwards continued the usage.
This prince being at Remorantin at the count of St. Pol’s, twelfth day, 1521, amused himself with several of his courtiers in attacking with snow-balls a house which the count, with a party of noblemen and gentlemen, defended in the same manner, as is it had been a strong castle. The national courage was equally conspicuous on both sides. The vigorous attacks of the one party were followed by a still more vigorous defence from the other: victory seemed to hang suspended between the Greeks and Trojans, when all of a sudden ammunition failed in this second Troy. The besieged were filled with despair, and the enemy took advantage of their confusion to storm the place. The Trojans were on the point of being overcome by their courageous assailants, when captain de Lorges, having a little recovered himself, resolutely laid hold of a fire-brand, and, Hector like, boldly advanced toward the enemy, and threw it at random among the besiegers. The French monarch, who was climbing up among the foremost, unfortunately received it on his head. Both Greeks and Trojans threw down their arms immediately; an end was put to the play, and every one was taken up with the wound of Francis I. who, by this accident, was obliged to have his head shaved; and being desirous to recover on his chin what he had lost from his head, he let his beard grow out, and every body did the same.
The best establishments always meet with traducers: the beard was not without opposers; it had to fight at one and the same time against the usage, against the prejudice and bad taste of the age, and especially against the fury of the clergy and parliaments, who, as we shall see presently, wanted in those days to make every body shave. But the great and powerful enemies of this mode, far from setting bounds to its conquests, gave additional splendour to its triumph. In a little time, every body submitted to the yoke of the victorious beard, and, in the sequel, a shaved chin was looked upon as a sign of turpitude and debauchery.
Henry III. king of France, furnishes us with an example of the horror in which a shaved face was held in those days. Amidst the debauchery in which this prince was plunged, like a second Heliogabulus, he carried things so far as to appear at a ball close shaved. Some verses of a satire of the poet d’Aubigné have preserved us this fact, with the indignation it inspired. They may be thus rendered in English:
Henry was well versed in judging the dress
Of the w——s of his court: of an intrigue not less:
His chin shaved; his cheeks pale; effeminate manner;