Again, let us look to the celebrated Duchess de Pompadour—the corrupt, profligate, and intriguing mistress of that weak, effeminate, heartless monarch, King Lewis XV, whose abandoned, lewd court, is so well described as plunged in the sink of corruption and debauchery, and dead to all shame of decency and morality. Even she is represented by some of the wisest men of the day, as being exceedingly kind and beneficent to her friends, or tender and sympathetic in the highest degree towards misfortune of all kinds, when the parties concerned had not in any manner wounded her feminine vanity or prejudices. How interesting even does this woman become in that scene in which Marmontel, pleading the claims of Boissy to a pension, so works on her feelings by the recital of the galling poverty of Boissy, as to make her exclaim, "Good God! you make me shudder. I'll go and recommend him to the king." Marmontel was so much influenced by her kind attentions to her personal friends, of whom he was one, that he every where speaks of her in the most grateful terms as one not only willing to do a kindness, but to do it in the most flattering, affectionate and pleasing manner, frequently adding little injunctions or recommendations, which communicated the highest pleasure whilst they imposed no heavy obligation. For example, when he applied to the king, through Mad. de P. for a favor relative to a work of his entitled the "Poetique," he says, "I owe this testimony to the memory of this beneficent woman, that at this simple and easy method of publicly deciding the king in my favor, her beautiful countenance beamed with joy. 'Most willingly,' said she, 'will I ask for you this favor of the king, and it will be granted.' She obtained it without difficulty, and in announcing it to me, 'You must give,' said she, 'all possible solemnity to this presentation; and on the same day all the royal family and all the ministers, must receive your work from your own hand.'"
When, however, any prejudice exists in the mind of woman, from pique at the conduct of a particular individual, or from any cause which wounds her feminine vanity, you may in vain expect such kindness and sympathy. All a woman's benevolence is dried up the moment the object of it becomes disagreeable to her. Madame de Pompadour disliked the king of Prussia, and she could never be prevailed on to do anything for d'Alembert, because he was a great admirer eulogist of that celebrated monarch. Racine basked in the royal sunshine of courtly favor, while Madame de Maintenon was the ascendant at court. He happened one day, in presence of the king and Madame de M. in one of those fits of absence for which he was remarkable, to observe that the theatre had fallen into disrepute, because the managers selected plays of too inferior a character, such as those of Scarron, &c. Now Scarron had been the husband of Maintenon, and from that day poor Racine, the immortal tragedian of France, was never more invited into the royal presence, or loaded with the royal favors.
Not only, however, does woman's feelings, sympathies, prejudices, &c. make her an unsafe and most partial, and sometimes very unjust politician, but her mind is rarely of that order, from reasons already pointed out, which will enable her to take large, and comprehensive, and unbiassed views of political subjects. Woman's individuality is too strong for general principles and abstract considerations. She has too much pleasure in the particulars and details around her, to develope much of the higher and more comprehensive powers of generalization. She judges of the great characters who are moving forward the mighty drama of politics as she would judge of beaux in a ball room, or friends and relatives in a parlor. Henrietta, queen of Charles I, is an admirable specimen of female politicians. She viewed the characters of great men with all the sensations of a woman. "Describing the Earl of Strafford," says D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, "to a confidential friend, and having observed that he was a great man, she dwelt with far more interest on his person. 'Though not handsome,' said she, 'he was agreeable enough, and he had the finest hands of any man in the world.'" The same author tells us, that when "landing at Burlington Bay in Yorkshire, she lodged on the quay; the parliament's admiral barbarously pointed his cannon at the house; and several shot reaching it, her favorite Jermyn requested her to fly; she safely reached a cavern in the fields, but, recollecting that she had left a lapdog asleep in its bed, she flew back, and, amidst the cannon-shot returned with this other favorite." Well might this have been termed a complete woman's victory. With such feelings, and sympathies, and judgments as these, however amiable and pure they may be, you can never expect to meet with the comprehensive views and well arranged plans of the great statesman: a Jermyn or a lapdog may disarrange or defeat them.
The peculiarities and minuteness of woman's speculations may be observed on all subjects, even on the graver and more impressive topic of religion. Although the celebrated Eloisa was deeply learned in all the cumbrous learning of the schools and the fathers, yet when speaking of the apostles, she seems to forget their religious character in order that she might express her astonishment that "even in the company of their master, they were so rustic and ill-bred, that regardless of common decorum, as they passed through cornfields they plucked the ears and ate them like children. Nor did they wash their hands before they sat down to table." Pope, who in his Abelard and Eloisa, has followed with wonderful exactness, the real history of these two lovers, makes Eloisa, when speculating on the use of letters, think of no advantage but those furnished to lovers.
| "Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banished lover, or some captive maid." |
This is truly characteristic of the woman, and it manifests an order of mind admirably adapted to the circumscribed sphere in which nature seems to have destined her to move. But it does not suit the wide arena of the statesman. Go, for example, into the great deliberative body of this country, and listen to the polemical combats of the minds that are there brought together, and mark particularly the powerful effusions of that individual with the master mind of this country—I had like to have said of the age in which he lives—and you will be amazed at the vast power of generalization and consequent condensation which his capacious mind displays. Is it the complicate and difficult subject of the banking system which has fallen under his review, then observe how he passes by unheeded, the petty details and minute histories of the little institutions around him which engage the little minds of the body, and fixes his eagle gaze on the great and prominent points of the subject; shows you that the general nature of man, and the general nature of this institution, is the same at Amsterdam, at Venice, at London, as at Philadelphia, Washington, or Baltimore. He points out the great and general circumstances which lead on to the corruption and final destruction of the system, and shows you that the straining and breaking of our banks in by-gone times, was not the result of chance and accident, but of causes as fixed and unerring in their operation as the law of gravity or the force of elasticity. Or is he on the great subject of the dangers to be apprehended from irresponsible power in the hands of a dominant majority, then observe how his mind ranges over the history of the past, and culls from the page of Greece and Rome, and even from that more sacred one of Israel's people, the great lessons which they inculcate upon this point. He shows you that the contests of patricians and plebeians, the forcible establishment of the power of the tribunes in ancient Rome, and the division of a modern parliament into the lords and commons, or the fearful disputes between the tiers état and the nobles and clergy in France, all prove the same great truth and teach the same great lesson, that every great interest to be safe, must have the means of defending itself. Such a mind as this when it fails, fails (if I may use the language of the logician) from not attending to specific and individual differences in the application of general principles: it fails because while leaping from the Appenines to the Alps, and from the Alps to the Pyrennees, it does not perceive the rivulets, the flowers, the little hills and dales which lie beneath. Such a mind is the very opposite of that of woman.
But it may be said there are women who have reigned with glory and lustre, and merited well of their country and mankind. Christina, for example, in Sweden, Isabella in Castile, and Elizabeth in England, have merited the esteem of their age and posterity. The two Catharines in Russia, and Maria Theresa, during the long wars about the pragmatic sanction, have each manifested the abilities of statesmen. To this however, I would remark in the first place, that we are concerned here with general rules and not with particular exceptions. Now the general rule is what I have stated; women make bad politicians, unsafe depositaries of power, and most partial and unequal administrators of justice. In the second place, you will find that the weakness and errors of the good female sovereigns have almost always arisen from their feminine foibles or womanly judgments. Take, for example, Queen Elizabeth, whom Mr. Hume has pronounced to have been perhaps the greatest female sovereign who ever sat upon a throne. It was said of her that her inclinations and the coquetries of her sex, stole beneath the cares of her throne and the grandeur of her character. And it has been said, with perhaps too much truth, that if Mary Queen of Scotland had been less beautiful, Elizabeth had been less cruel; she always believed too readily, that the mere power of pleasing implied genius. The exaggerated but well-timed gallantries of Raleigh,4 and the personal beauty and accomplishments of the earl of Leicester, made the fortunes of those individuals.
4 Raleigh threw a new plush cloak into the mud over which the queen was passing; she stepped cautiously on it, and shot forth a smile upon the young captain. This cunning gallantry introduced him to the queen for the first time; his advancement was rapid, and the title of captain was soon changed for that of Sir Walter.
This celebrated queen has been described as passionately admiring handsome persons, and he was already far advanced in her favor who approached her with beauty and grace. It is said she had so unconquerable an aversion to ugly and ill-made men, that she could not endure their presence. Her aversion to boots was very marked, and highly characteristic of the woman. I think it is Sir Walter Scott who, in one of his romances, represents her as having had so much aversion to the boots of the Duke of Suffolk, who was brought forward by his party for the honor of knighthood, as to fly into a passion about it, and for some time to refuse to knight him in such a dress.5 She is well known to have been a great coquette, giving all her suitors some hopes of finally obtaining her hand. She had likewise a most ardent desire to be thought beautiful. Raleigh was well aware of this excessive vanity, and made it a means of securing her favor and continuing in her good graces. Mr. Hume tells us that Sir Walter, in a love-letter written to the queen when she was sixty years old, after exhausting his poetic talent in exalting her charms and his devotion, concludes by comparing her to Venus and Diana. D'Israeli says that Du Maurier, in his Memoirs, writes: "I heard from my father, that having been sent to her, at every audience he had with her Majesty, she pulled off her gloves more than a hundred times, to display her hands, which were indeed beautiful and very white." And he says, "She never forgave Buzenval for ridiculing her bad pronunciation of the French language; and when Henry IV sent him over on an embassy, she would not receive him. So nice was the irritable vanity of this great queen, that she made her private injuries matters of state." Well then has it been said, that "the toilet of Elizabeth was indeed an altar of devotion, of which she was the idol, and all her ministers were her votaries: it was the reign of coquetry, and the golden age of millinery."
5 In the Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantes, it is stated that Madame Permon, mother of the Duchess, had a very great aversion to the boots of the Republican generals, particularly when wet and passing through the process of drying.