There is nothing more eloquent than outward appearance, especially among a superficial people. Why then do those, who, for the interest of their state or the happiness of their subjects, are under a necessity of commanding respect, neglect such powerful means? The beard presents them with the most simple, most natural, and most persuasive of all. With that mark of manhood our warriors would no longer look like women; we should have venerable old men and priests more reverenced.
CHAP. III.
Of some shaved Chins.
IT is a disgrace to man to have the most conspicuous mark of his virility taken off; to pretend that it becomes him to look like a woman, an eunuch, or a child, is the height of folly and ridiculousness. Even if this truth were not constantly supported by the will of nature, the opinion of all the most respectable characters of antiquity should be sufficient to establish it for ever among all nations, and this is what I would fain persuade my countrymen of.
A shaved chin was always a sign of slavery, infamy, or debauchery. Diogenes asked those he saw without beards, if they had not changed their sex, and were dissatisfied at being men. The loss of the beard, among a great many nations, was always accompanied by banishment. All the fathers of the church exclaimed against this shameful abuse, and always regarded a shaved chin as the effect of the vilest licentiousness.
The example of Alexander, no doubt, will be alleged against me, who, before the battle of Ardela, had all his soldiers shaved. I shall answer, that he never shaved himself, but constantly wore this characteristical mark of his valour, and that, if he ordered his soldiers’ faces to be trimmed, it was only, as Plutarch says, for fear the enemy should seize them by the beard.
I know very well too, that Scipio Africanus was the first Roman who daily used a razor, and that this mode was brought from Sicily to Italy by P. Ticinius, who brought with him a troop of barbers. But it is good to know, as Pliny very judiciously remarks, that, of all the nations that then consented to cut off their beards, the Romans were the last that yielded to this effeminate custom.[[26]] This proves nothing more, than that luxury began to be predominant at Rome, and that luxury perverts every thing. Moreover, these particular cases should be reckoned among transient errors, which, being dissipated, give to truth an additional lustre.
[26]. Plin. Hist. nat. lib. vii, cap. 60.
Let us take a view of a period less remote, which, interesting us more, will shew the value of a beard, the disgrace of a shaved face, and the mischiefs that have been the consequence of it.
In the beginning of the French monarchy, Clotarius II. having a mind to appoint a Governor to his son Dagobert, chose Sadregesile, a man very learned for his time; he loaded him with honours, and created him duke of Aquitaine; and the new duke spared no pains to instruct his pupil; but it seemed the latter no more answered the intention of the king his father, than the lessons of his governor. The wild unruly character of the princes of those times must necessarily have submitted with difficulty to the will of master. Dagobert would not long endure the constraint which the duty of his education laid him under. He considered reprimands as so many outrages. Hatred and vengeance took possession of his proud heart, and soon broke out to attack Sadregesile.