Someone entered my room: it was my neighbor, whom I had not seen since the day of our famous duel. He had a shrewd suspicion that I was not taken in by his false gallantry—I who had witnessed his abject terror on the day of the partie fine. I knew that he had made a great noise about his valor, prating of his duel to everybody he saw; but he had avoided meeting me in company; my presence would have embarrassed him in his narrative of our combat. I wondered what he wanted of me.
“Good-morning, my dear friend!” he began; “how goes the health this morning?”
“Why, I am inclined to think it goes too fast; I am going at a rapid pace.”
“You must be prudent, neighbor.”
“You’re a good one to talk about prudence, Monsieur Raymond! What are you doing with Agathe?”
“Oh! I don’t see her any more; that’s all over, we are parted forever! I don’t propose ever to be caught by one of those little hussies again; you spend an enormous amount of money, and sometimes you don’t make your expenses. And they don’t know how to appreciate a man; they don’t know the difference between a poet and a gudgeon! So long as you have money in your pocket, and can stuff them from morning till night with bonbons, sweetmeats, ices, and syrups, and tell them they’re adorable, take them to drive and to the theatre and to the country, and buy them all the fal-lals they happen to want, oh! bless my soul, then they’re satisfied. You may be as stupid as a goose, as coarse as a street porter, as conceited as an Italian virtuoso, yet you’re none the less delightful in the eyes of those girls.”
“There’s a great deal of truth in what you say, neighbor; but, as a general rule, it is adulation and flattery that spoil both men and women; if we didn’t kneel at their feet, they wouldn’t look down on us from such a height. Flatterers, courtiers, low-lived sycophants, creep in everywhere and sometimes corrupt the most happily endowed nature. Kings, unfortunately, are more encompassed than other men by this servile swarm, which constantly hums in their ears a concert of exaggerated and insipid praise; it is when men tremble that they stoop lower than at any other time. Louis XI had more courtiers than Louis XII, Charles IX more than Henri IV. Richelieu and Mazarin did not take a step without being surrounded by a multitude of courtiers; they were feared, people trembled before them, but humiliated themselves and scribbled verses in their honor. Sully and Colbert had their admirers, but they knew how to repel flattery; they were too great to surround themselves with people whom they despised. If too frequent adulation did not increase our vanity, if the familiar atmosphere of praise did not give us too great confidence in our own deserts, how many shortcomings would those heroes and great captains have escaped, who, under difficult circumstances, have rejected the counsels of wisdom because they were accustomed only to the language of flattery, and deemed themselves invincible because a thousand voices had declared that they were, and because the man who has been exalted to the rank of a demigod does not readily decide to take the advice of his creatures! The pernicious effects of adulation date from a very early period: the serpent seduced the first woman by flattery. Almost always by the same means have women since then been seduced. Flattery destroyed Antiochus and Nebuchadnezzar, Semiramis and Mary Stuart, Cinq-Mars, Monmouth, Cleopatra, and Marion Delorme; Samson allowed his hair to be cut off while listening to the compliments of Delilah; Holofernes lost his head while listening to Judith’s soft voice; Charles XII of Sweden, blinded by his victories, buried his army in the plains of Pultowa; the Maréchal de Villeroi, relying always on luck, insisted on joining battle at Ramillies. Excessive praise, by blinding us to our faults, causes us to remain in the path of mediocrity, when nature has given us faculties calculated to raise us above the vulgar; by tempting us to close our ears to the harsh counsels of truth, it leads us to mistake self-esteem for genius, vanity for merit, facility for talent. How many artists, even when they seek advice, refuse to receive anything but compliments! But they have been persuaded that all their works are masterpieces, that no defect can be found in them! And people who have attained that end no longer take the pains to study; everything that comes from their hands must necessarily be perfect. But civility demands that we must not always say what we think. Suppose a poet reads us some of his verses: if they are bad, you must not tell him so unless you are his friend; for you do not desire to be looked upon in society as an Alcestis, forever growling about the vagaries and absurdities of everyone else; that rôle would raise up too many enemies to be endured, except on the stage. In society, we choose to overlook one another’s failings rather than to set ourselves up as censors; mutual intercourse is pleasanter thus, and we find more pleasure in living for ourselves than in wasting our time trying to correct other people. But although courtesy may compel us to conceal what we think, it does not compel us to say what we do not think; when I listen to the reading of execrable poetry, I will hold my peace, but I won’t say that it is charming; nay, more, I will try to summon courage to make some suggestions to the author. I can never make up my mind to say that a portrait resembles its subject, when I think it a wretched failure; I cannot tell a person that he sings true, when he has just been torturing my ears. With nascent talents, above all, we should be sparing of praise, even while we encourage them; flattery is responsible for very many such coming to naught, because it arrests the flight of a genius, which, deeming itself perfect already, no longer cares to take the trouble to acquire what it lacks. Doubtless a father is excusable for considering his son a prodigy of beauty, wit, and talent; paternal love naturally misleads us; but let us at least keep our conviction to ourselves; let us not force strangers to go into ecstasies over the story of a mischievous trick, to listen in religious silence to a fable often directly at variance with common sense, and to gaze in admiration at a flat nose, turned-up chin, and inflamed eyes, which can never delight any glance but a father’s. If there were fewer flatterers, how many men, who are simply unendurable now because they have been spoiled, would be ornaments of society! Let us reserve our enthusiasm for those poets and artists whose talents exalt them above all praise. Doubtless the contemporaries of Molière and Voltaire rendered to those sublime geniuses the homage they deserved; but one does not display his admiration for such men by insipid compliments and empty praise: great talents are proud of the applause of people of taste; they despise the base fawning of which fools are so vain.
“When Voltaire lived at Ferney, those travellers who, by virtue of their rank or their merit, could hope to gain access to him, never failed, even though they were obliged to go far out of their way, to visit the philosopher’s retreat. Everyone was curious to see that extraordinary man, who astounded the whole universe by his genius. Men of intellect and of taste thought only of the pleasure that was in store for them; but the fools—and they too were anxious to converse with Voltaire—gave all their attention to the posture and expression they proposed to assume at sight of the philosopher, the better to manifest their admiration of him. Voltaire was affable with the former; but when a lady, on catching sight of the great poet, deemed it advisable to shriek and to swoon, the philosopher shrugged his shoulders and turned on his heel.
“Great geniuses are rare; great talents are affable and modest; they who might have acquired great talents but have failed inhale with delight the incense people are good enough to lavish on them. How can a young man whose voice is rather pleasant and nothing more fail to consider himself a Laïs or a Martin when people seem to be so infatuated with him? They urge him, entreat him, implore him to sing; all the women are in a flutter of excitement before hearing him; they belaud him to their neighbors in anticipation. ‘Delicious!’ ‘Divine!’ ‘Charming!’ are the only words that reach the ears of the virtuoso, who condescends at last to comply with the wishes of the assemblage, and, after all the inevitable monkey tricks, sings just passably a ballad of which it is well understood that he will not pronounce the words intelligibly; and he has hardly finished before the concert of praise begins anew, while the impartial auditor, who had been led to expect something very different, asks himself if he can believe his ears. Look you, my dear neighbor, I confess that I have never been able to persuade myself to increase the crowd that hovers about these social prodigies, in whom I find nothing except inordinate self-esteem; or to swell the number of adorers of a woman of fashion, whose coquetry is carried to such a point that I blush for her and for those who surround her. Unquestionably, I am as fond of a pretty woman as any other man; I will be the first to do homage to her charms; but does that necessitate my exalting her to the skies at all times and seasons, and overwhelming her with compliments which, even if they are not extravagant, must none the less be tiresome to the person to whom they are addressed? Must it be that she cannot take a step without my praising her dress, her figure, her gait, her foot, her grace? Can she not smile without my going into ecstasies over her teeth, her mouth, and the expression of her eyes? Can she not utter a word without my extolling her wit, her shrewdness, her tact, her penetration, and the sweet tones of her voice? I may think it all, but I won’t say it; I should be afraid of bringing a blush to her cheek. I know that I am considered far from gallant; that may injure me with some ladies, but I have neither the power nor the desire to change. If everybody did as I do, perhaps we should see less self-conceit and arrogance in men, less coquetry and caprice in women; they would take more trouble to be affable and agreeable, and everybody would be the gainer.—What do you think about it, neighbor?”
I saw that Raymond was not listening; he was examining the bunches of orange blossoms that adorned my mantel, and seemed to be puzzled by the old bouquets which I had collected on my commode, after taking out the flowers that would not live.