This was but a month before the Bastile fell; and yet, on the threshold of their hideous doom, the people who had most at stake were incapable not only of intelligent action to ward off their fate, but even of serious thought as to what their fate would be. The men—the nobles, the clerical dignitaries, and the princes of the blood—chose the church as a place wherein to cut antics that would have better befitted a pack of monkeys; while the women, their wives and mistresses, exchanged with them impure jests at their own expense, relished because of the truth on which they rested. Brutes might still have held sway at least for a time; but these were merely vicious triflers. They did not believe in their religion; they did not believe in themselves; they did not believe in anything. They had no earnestness, no seriousness; their sensibilities and enthusiasms were alike affectations. There was still plenty of fire and purpose and furious energy in the hearts of the French people; but these and all the other virile virtues lay not among the noblesse, but among the ranks of the common herd beneath them, down-trodden, bloody in their wayward ferocity, but still capable of fierce, heroic devotion to an ideal in which they believed, and for which they would spill the blood of others, or pour out their own, with the proud waste of utter recklessness.
Many of Morris's accounts of the literary life of the salon read as if they were explanatory notes to "Les Précieuses Ridicules." There was a certain pretentiousness about it that made it a bit of a sham at the best; and the feebler variety of salon, built on such a foundation, thus became that most despicable of things, an imitation of a pretense. At one of the dinners which Morris describes, the company was of a kind that would have done no discredit to an entertainment of the great social and literary light of Eatanswill. "Set off in great haste to dine with the Comtesse de R., on an invitation of a week's standing. Arrive at about a quarter past three, and find in the drawing-room some dirty linen and no fire. While a waiting-woman takes away one, a valet lights up the other. Three small sticks in a deep bed of ashes give no great expectation of heat. By the smoke, however, all doubts are removed respecting the existence of fire. To expel the smoke, a window is opened, and, the day being cold, I have the benefit of as fresh air as can reasonably be expected in so large a city.
"Towards four o'clock the guests begin to assemble, and I begin to expect that, as madame is a poetess, I shall have the honor to dine with that exalted part of the species who devote themselves to the muses. In effect, the gentlemen begin to compliment their respective works; and, as regular hours cannot be expected in a house where the mistress is occupied more with the intellectual than the material world, I have a delightful prospect of a continuance of the scene. Towards five, madame steps in to announce dinner, and the hungry poets advance to the charge. As they bring good appetites, they have certainly reason to praise the feast. And I console myself with the persuasion that for this day at least I shall escape an indigestion. A very narrow escape, too, for some rancid butter, of which the cook had been liberal, puts me in bodily fear. If the repast is not abundant, we have at least the consolation that there is no lack of conversation. Not being perfectly master of the language, most of the jests escaped me. As for the rest of the company, each being employed either in saying a good thing, or else in studying one to say, it is no wonder if he cannot find time to applaud that of his neighbors. They all agree that we live in an age alike deficient in justice and in taste. Each finds in the fate of his own works numerous instances to justify this censure. They tell me, to my great surprise, that the public now condemn theatrical compositions before they have heard the first recital. And, to remove my doubts, the comtesse is so kind as to assure me that this rash decision has been made on one of her own pieces. In pitying modern degeneracy, we rise from the table.
"I take my leave immediately after the coffee, which by no means dishonors the precedent repast; and madame informs me that on Tuesdays and Thursdays she is always at home, and will always be glad to see me. While I stammer out some return to the compliment, my heart, convinced of my unworthiness to partake of such attic entertainments, makes me promise never again to occupy the place from which perhaps I had excluded a worthier personage."
Among Morris's other qualities, he was the first to develop that peculiarly American vein of humor which is especially fond of gravely pretending to believe without reserve some preposterously untrue assertion,—as throughout the above quotation.
Though the society in which he was thrown interested him, he always regarded it with half-sarcastic amusement, and at times it bored him greatly. Meditating on the conversation in "this upper region of wits and graces," he concludes that "the sententious style" is the one best fitted for it, and that in it "observations with more of justice than splendor cannot amuse," and sums up by saying that "he could not please, because he was not sufficiently pleased."
His comments upon the various distinguished men he met are always interesting, on account of the quick, accurate judgment of character which they show. It was this insight into the feelings and ideas alike of the leaders and of their followers which made his political predictions often so accurate. His judgment of many of his contemporaries comes marvelously near the cooler estimate of history.
He was originally prejudiced in favor of the king, poor Louis XVI., and, believing him "to be an honest and good man, he sincerely wished him well," but he very soon began to despise him for his weakness. This quality was the exact one that under existing circumstances was absolutely fatal; and Morris mentions it again and again, pronouncing the king "a well-meaning man, but extremely weak, without genius or education to show the way towards that good which he desires," and "a prince so weak that he can influence very little either by his presence or absence." Finally, in a letter to Washington, he gives a biting sketch of the unfortunate monarch. "If the reigning prince were not the small-beer character that he is, there can be but little doubt that, watching events and making a tolerable use of them, he would regain his authority; but what will you have from a creature who, situated as he is, eats and drinks, sleeps well and laughs, and is as merry a grig as lives? The idea that they will give him some money, which he can economize, and that he will have no trouble in governing, contents him entirely. Poor man! He little thinks how unstable is his situation. He is beloved, but it is not with the sort of love which a monarch should inspire. It is that kind of good-natured pity which one feels for a led captive. There is besides no possibility of serving him, for at the slightest show of opposition he gives up everything and every person." Morris had too robust a mind to feel the least regard for mere amiability and good intentions when unaccompanied by any of the ruder, manlier virtues.
The Count d'Artois had "neither sense to counsel himself, nor to choose counsellors for himself, much less to counsel others." This gentleman, afterwards Charles X., stands as perhaps the most shining example of the monumental ineptitude of his royal house. His fellow Bourbon, the amiable Bomba of Naples, is his only equal for dull silliness, crass immorality, and the lack of every manly or kingly virtue. Democracy has much to answer for, but after all it would be hard to find, even among the aldermen of New York and Chicago, men whose moral and mental shortcomings would put them lower than this royal couple. To our shame be it said, our system of popular government once let our greatest city fall under the control of Tweed; but it would be rank injustice to that clever rogue to compare him with the two vicious dullards whom the opposite system permitted to tyrannize at Paris and Naples. Moreover, in the end, we of the democracy not only overthrew the evil-doer who oppressed us, but also put him in prison; and in the long run we have usually meted out the same justice to our lesser criminals. Government by manhood suffrage shows at its worst in large cities; and yet even in these experience certainly does not show that a despotism works a whit better, or as well.
Morris described the Count de Montmorin pithily, saying: "He has more understanding than people in general imagine, and he means well, very well, but he means it feebly."