The last monarch of the old French line, the unfortunate Louis XVI., forms a bright contrast to his predecessors. His education had been severe, his principles were naturally strict. Placed upon the throne after the Revolution had become inevitable, his whole attention was devoted to the business of reigning, and attempting reforms which came quite too late. Neither he nor his wife ever gave rise to merited scandal.
The profligate character of the court was, however, sustained by the Orleans family and their connections. Philippe Egalité was a true descendant of the regent. On the very eve of the Revolution he indulged in orgies that were closely imitated from those of the Palais Royal.
Our sketch of the immoralities of the French court naturally ends here. Though the period of the Directory was marked by a general looseness in the best French society, and both Napoleon and Louis XVIII. set no example of conjugal fidelity to their subjects, yet vice was not exhibited so openly under them as it had been under former kings, and the laws of decency were not actually set at defiance. Their frailties were private matters, into which it is scarcely the duty of the historian to intrude. The same may be said of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. The former had, in his youth, been a sharer of many of the excesses of the Orleans family, but at the time he became king he was an old man, and could afford to lead a decent life. Louis Philippe had never afforded a theme for scandal, and as king he set an example of rigorous morality.
If we turn back now to the period of the Regency, we shall find letters sympathizing in the most marked manner with the court. Under the regime of severe etiquette and decency established by Louis XIV., authors respected the ear of innocence; under the brutal sway of the regent, and the lewd influence of the satyr Louis XV., the old prostitution of literature was revived. Thus we find that the most successful authors of the day, such as Voltaire, handled themes grossly immoral in themselves, and rendered still more offensive by their mode of treatment. The most popular novel of the eighteenth century—Manon Lescant—the work, by the way, of an abbé, is the narrative of the adventures of a prostitute. Of all the romance writers of that age, no one was more widely popular or more generally read than Crebillon fils, whose works would almost fall into the hands of the police at the present time. Diderot, Mirabeau, Montesquieu, and, with few exceptions, all the most eminent men of France, prostituted their genius to the composition of erotic works which were widely read by women as well as men. Of the light poetry of the eighteenth century very little is fit for modern reading, the poets being, as a general rule, either dull or depraved. Nor were the arts behindhand. Frescoes differing but little from those which had adorned Fontainebleau under Francis I. again covered the walls of rich men’s houses; and the most fortunate painters of the day were those who could best outrage decency without positively suggesting the brothel. Lewd books and pictures were freely sold in Paris during the Regency, the reign of Louis XV., and the Revolutionary period. Napoleon burned all he could find, but there still remained enough to supply the demand almost ever since.
It should be noticed in connection with the state of morals in France during the second half of the eighteenth century, that the tendency of the philosophical doctrines which were then current was to undermine the respect paid to marriage and chastity. The former, being a sacrament, was assailed as part of the ecclesiastical system; the latter was conceived to be at war with the natural, and, therefore, the proper passions of mankind. Several of the philosophers left it to be inferred from their writings, or stated broadly, that promiscuous intercourse, or, at all events, unlimited facilities of divorce, were the natural destiny of the human race, and that the restrictions which have been imposed on sensual gratification had no warrant in reason or sound ethics. These foolish notions brought forth fruits after their kind. Under the Directory, prostitutes were received into certain societies, and ladies of fashion became prostitutes. Even under the Empire it was not unusual for a lady to request her husband to pay her a visit, as it was well, perhaps, to avoid questions of legitimacy arising at any future period.
There was one branch of society in which morality had made great progress during the century: that was the Church. It still contained cardinals like Dubois, and bishops and abbés like Du Tencin, but the vast body of the country clergy led pure moral lives. This point is placed beyond a doubt by the silence of the parties opposed to the hierarchy when the Revolution broke out, and they were so disposed to assail the priesthood on every vulnerable point. It may be broadly stated that the vices which had infected the whole body of the clergy during the sixteenth century had disappeared by the eighteenth; despite the law of celibacy, the country curates were, as a rule, moral, austere, virtuous men.
CHAPTER IX.
FRANCE.—SYPHILIS.
First recorded Appearance in Europe.—Description by Fracastor.—Conduct of the Faculty.—First Hospitals in Paris.—Shocking Condition of the Sick.—New Syphilitic Hospital.—Plan of Treatment.—Establishment of the Salpétrière.—Bicêtre.—Capuchins.—Hospital du Midi.—Reforms there.—Visiting Physicians.—Dispensary.—Statistics of Disease.—Progress and Condition of Disease.