It may here be mentioned, that the prince of Conti and the duchess of Longueville held out in Bordeaux and Guienne against the royal authority for several years. Through the interposition of Gourville they acceded to terms in 1658. The conclusion of madame de Longueville's life was singular. Cardinal de Retz and Rochefoucauld both describe her as naturally indolent; but they both so inoculated her with a love of party intrigue, that, when the war of the Fronde ceased, she found it impossible to reconcile herself to a quiet life. She became jansenist. She built herself a dwelling close to the abbey of Port Royal aux Champs. She put herself forward in all the disputes, and was looked up to with reverence by the leaders of the party, and contrived, when every one else had failed, to suspend the disturbances caused by the formula. "A singular woman," the French biographer writes, "who even became renowned while working out her salvation, and saved herself on the same plank from hell and from ennui." Her piety was sincere, for she submitted to great personal privations, and fasted so strictly, that she died, it is said, from inanition. She died about a month after the duke de la Rochefoucauld. The bishop of Autun preached her funeral oration, as madame de Sévigné says, with all the ability, tact, and grace that it was possible to conceive. The children and friends of Rochefoucauld were among his audience, and wept his death anew.
[28]"Il y a toujours eût du je ne sais quoi en tout M. de la Rochefoucauld. Il a voulu se mêler d'intrigues dès son enfance, et en un temps où il ne sentait pas les petits intérêts, qui n'ont jamais été son faible, et où il ne connoissait pas les grands, qui, d'un autre sens, n'ont pas été son tort. Il n'a jamais été capable d'aucune affaire, et je ne sais pourquoi; car il avait des qualités qui eussent suplié, en tout autre celles qu'il n'avait pas. Sa vue n'était pas assez étendue, et il ne voyait pas même tout ensemble ce qui était à sa portée; mais son bon sens, très bon dans la speculation, joint à sa douceur, à son insinuation, et à sa facilité de mœurs, qui est admirable, devait recompenser plus qu'il n'a fait le défaut de sa pénétration. Il a toujours eût une irrésolution habituelle; mais je ne sais même à quoi attribuer cette irrésolution: elle n'a pu venir en lui de la fécondité de son imagination, qui est rien moins que vive. Je ne puis la donner à la stérilité de son jugement, car quoiqu'il ne l'ait pas exquis dans l'action, il à un bon fonds de raison. Nous voyons l'effect de cette irrésolution, quoique nous n'en connaissons pas la cause. Il n'a jamais été guérier, quoiqu'il fut très soldat. Il n'a jamais été par lui même bon courtisan, quoiqu'il ait eût toujours bonne intention de l'être. Il n'a jamais été bon homme de parti, quoique toute sa vie il y ait été engagé. Cet air de honte et de timidité que vous lui voyez dans la vie civile s'était tourné dans les affaires en air d'apologie. Il croyait toujours en avoir besoin, ce qui jointes a ses maximes, qui ne marquent pas assez de foi à la vertu, et à sa pratique, qui a toujours été à sortir des affaires avec autant d'impatience qu'il y est entré, me fait conclure qu'il eut beaucoup mieux fait de se connaître et de se réduire à passer, comme il eût pu, pour le courtisan le plus poli et pour le plus honnête homme, à l'égard de la vie commune, qui eût paru dans le siècle."
Such is the character de Retz gives of his rival. Madame de Sévigné has preserved a portrait of the cardinal by Rochefoucauld. He gives him high praise for good understanding and an admirable memory. He represents him as high minded, and yet more vain than ambitious; an easy temper, ready to listen to the complaints of his followers; indolent to excess, when allowed to repose, but equal to any exertion when called into action; and aided on all occasions by a presence of mind which enabled him to turn every chance so much to his advantage that it seemed as if each had been foreseen and desired by him. He relates that he was fond of narrating his past adventures; and his reputation was founded chiefly on his ability in placing his very defects in a good light. He even regards his last retreat as resulting from vanity, while his friend, madame de Sévigné, more justly looks upon it as resulting from the grandeur of his mind and love of justice.
[29]We doubt the exact truth of these assertions even while we write them. It is true that Rochefoucauld detects self-love as mingling in many of our actions and feelings, but he does not advance the opinion that no disinterested virtue can exist, and, still less, the Helvetian metaphysical notion that self-love is the spring of every emotion, which it is, inasmuch as it is we that feel, and that our emotions cause our pulses to beat, not another's; but is not, inasmuch as we do not consult our own interest or pleasure in all we feel and do. Madame de Sévigné relates an anecdote of an officer who had his arm carried off by the same cannon-ball that killed Turenne, but who, careless of the mutilation, threw himself weeping on the corpse of the hero. She adds that Rochefoucauld shed tears when he heard this told. Such tears are a tribute paid to disinterested virtue; and prove, though the author of the "Maxims" could trace dross in ore wherever it existed, yet that he believed that virtue could be found in entire purity.
[30]Bayle's Dictionary, article Cæsar.
[MOLIÈRE]
1622-1673
Louis XIV. one day asked Boileau "Which writer of his reign he considered the most distinguished;" Boileau answered, unhesitatingly, "Molière." "You surprise me," said the king; "but of course you know best." Boileau displayed his discernment in this reply. The more we learn of Molière's career, and inquire into the peculiarities of his character, the more we are struck by the greatness of his genius and the admirable nature of the man. Of all French writers he is the least merely French. His dramas belong to all countries and ages; and, as if as a corollary to this observation, we find, also, an earnestness of feeling, and a deep tone of passion in his character, that raises him above our ordinary notions of Gallic frivolity.
Molière was of respectable parentage. For several generations his family had been traders in Paris, and were so well esteemed, that various members had held the places of judge and consul in the city of Paris; situations of sufficient importance, on some occasions, to cause those who filled them to be raised to the rank of nobles. His father, Jean Poquelin, was appointed tapestry or carpet-furnisher to the king: his mother, Marie Cressé[31], belonged to a family similarly situated; her father, also, was a manufacturer of carpets and tapestry. Jean Baptiste Poquelin (such was Molière's real name) was horn on the 15th January, 1622, in a house in Rue Saint Honoré, near the Rue de la Tonnellerie. He was the eldest of a numerous family of children, and destined to succeed his father in trade. The latter being afterwards appointed valet de chambre to the king, and the survivorship of the place being obtained for his son, his prospects in life were sufficiently prosperous. His mother died when he was only ten years of age, and thus a family of orphans were left on his father's hands.
Brought up to trade, Poquelin's education during childhood was restricted to reading and writing; and his boyish days were passed in the warehouse of his father. His heart, however, was set on other things. His paternal grandfather was very fond of play-going, and often took his grandson to the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where Corneille's plays were being acted. From this old man the youth probably inherited his taste for the drama, and he owed it to him that his genius took so early the right bent. To him he was indebted for another great obligation. The boy's father reproached the grandfather for taking him so often to the play. "Do you wish to make an actor of him?" he exclaimed. "Yes, if it pleased God that he became as good a one as Bellerose[32]," the other replied. The prejudices of the age were violent against actors. We almost all take our peculiar prejudices from our parents, whom, in our nonage (unless, through unfortunate circumstances, they lose our respect), we naturally regard as the sources of truth. To this speech, to the admiration which the elder Poquelin felt for actors and acting, no doubt the boy owed his early and lasting emancipation from those puerile or worse prejudices against the theatre, which proved quicksands to swallow up the genius of Racine.