La Grande Mademoiselle

Mademoiselle de Scudéry did not exaggerate; our great-grandmothers did not see the utility of applying a knowledge of spelling to their letters. In that respect each one extricated herself by the grace of God.

The Marchioness of Sablé, who was serious and wise, and, according to the testimony of Sapho, "the type of the perfect précieuse" had peculiar ways of her own in her spelling. She wrote, J'hasse, notre broulerie votre houbly. Another "précieuse," Madame de Brégy, whose prose and verse both appeared in print, wrote to Madame de Sablé, when they were both in their old age:

Je vous diré que je vieus d'aprendre que samedi, Monsieur, Madame, et les poupons reviene a Paris, et que pour aujourd'hui la Rayue et Madame de Toscane vout a Saint-Clou don la naturelle bauté sera reausé de tout les musique possible et d'un repas magnifique don je quiterois tous les gous pour une écuelle non pas de nantille, mes pour une devostre potage; rien n'étan si délisieus que d'an mauger en vous écoutan parler. (19th September, 1672.)

It is but just to add that as far as orthography was concerned many of the men were women. The following letter of the Duke of Gesvres, "first gentleman of Louis XIV.," has no reason to envy the letter of the old Marchioness.

(Paris, this 20th September, 1677.) Monsieur me trouvant oblige de randre vuue bonne party de l'argan que mais enfant out pris de peuis quil sont en campane Monsieur cela m'oblije a vous suplier très humblement Monsieur de me faire la grasse de Commander Monsieur quant il vous plaira que l'on me pay le capitenery de Movsaux monsieur vous asseurant que vous m'oblijeres fort sansiblement Monsieur, comme ausy de me croire avec toute sorte de respec Monsieur vastre très humble et très obeissant serviteur.

Enough is as good as a feast! Though we stand in no superstitious awe of orthography, we can but laud Mademoiselle de Scudéry for having crossed lances in its favour. And well might she wish that to the first elements of an education might be added a certain amount of building material suitable for a foundation so solid that something more serious than dancing steps and chiffons might at a later date be introduced into the brains of young girls.

Seriously, [she said] is there anything stranger than the way they act when they prepare to enter upon the ordinary education of woman? One does not wish women to be coquettish or gallant, and yet they are permitted to learn carefully everything that has anything to do with gallantry; though they are not permitted to know anything that might fortify their virtue or occupy their minds. All the great scoldings given them in their first youth because they are not proper19– that is to say dressed in good taste, and because they do not apply themselves to their dancing lessons and their singing lessons – do they not prove what I say? And the strangest of all is that this should be so when a woman cannot, with any propriety, dance more than five or six years of all the years of her life! And this same person who has been taught to do nothing but to dance is obliged to give proof of judgment to the day of her death; and though she is expected to speak properly, even to her last sigh, nothing is done – of all that might be done – to make her speak more agreeably, nor to act with more care for her conduct; and when the manner in which these ladies pass their lives is considered, it might be said that they seem to have been forbidden to have reason and good sense, and that they were put in the world only that they might sleep, be fat, be handsome, do nothing, and say nothing but silly things… I know one who sleeps more than twelve hours every day, who takes three or four hours to dress herself, or, to speak more to the point: not to dress herself – for more than half of the time given to dressing is passed either in doing nothing or in doing over what has been done. Then she employs fully two or three hours in consuming her divers repasts; and all the rest of the time is spent receiving people to whom she does not know what to say, or in paying visits to people who do not know what to say to her.

In spite of her strictness, Mlle. de Scudéry was no advocate of the idea which makes a woman her husband's servant, or installs her as the slave of the stew-pan. Whenever she was urged to "tell precisely what a woman ought to know," the problem was so new to her that she did not know how to answer it. She evaded it, rejecting its generalities. She had only two fixed ideas: that science was necessary to women; and that the women who attained it must not let it be known that they had attained it. She expressed her two opinions clearly:

It [science] serves to show them the meaning of things; it makes it possible for them to listen intelligently when their mental superiors are talking – even to talk to the point and to express opinions – but they must not talk as books talk; they must try to speak as if their knowledge had come naturally, as if their inherent common sense had given them an understanding of the things in question.

Mademoiselle had in her mind one woman whom she would have liked to set up as a pattern for all other women. That one woman knew Latin, and because of her sense and propriety, was esteemed by Saint Augustine, and yet no one had ever thought of calling her a "Savante."

Mlle. de Scudéry was very grateful to the charming Mme. de Sévigné, because she plead the cause of woman's education by so fine an example, and she depicted her admirable character with visible complaisance, under the name of Clarinte.20

Her conversation is easy, diverting and natural. She speaks to the point, and evinces clear judgment; she speaks well; she even has some spontaneous expressions, so ingenuous and so witty that they are infinitely pleasing… Clarinte dearly loves to read; and what is better, without playing the wit, she is admirably quick to seize the hidden meaning of fine ideas. She has so much judgment that, though she is neither severe, nor shy, she has found the means to preserve the best reputation in the world… What is most marvellous in this person is that, young as she is, she cares for her household as prudently as if she had had all the experience that time can give to a very enlightened mind; and what I admire still more, is that whenever it is necessary she can do without the world, and without the Court; she is as happy in the country, she can amuse herself as well there, as if she had been born in the woods… I had nearly forgotten to tell you that she writes as she speaks; that is to say, most agreeably and as gallantly as possible.

The programme used for the distribution of studies by means of which the De Sévignés were fabricated is not revealed. Nature herself must have furnished a portion of the plan. As far as we can judge the part played by education was restricted to the adoption of some of the suggestions of very rich moral endowments.

Mlle. de Chantal had been admirably directed by her uncle, the Abbé de Coulanges, and, aside from the cares of the profession which now presides over the education of woman, it is probable that more efficient means could not be found for the proper formation of the character of a girl than it was Mademoiselle de Chantal's good fortune to enjoy.

Ménage and Chapelain had been her guides in rhetoric. She had read Tacitus and Virgil in the original all her life. She was familiar with Italian and with Spanish, and had ancient and modern history at her tongue's end, – also the moralists and the religious writers.

These serious and well-grounded foundations, which she continually strengthened and renewed until death, did not prevent her from "adoring" poetry, the drama, and the superior novels, – in short, all things of enlightenment and worth wherever she found them and under whatever form. She was graceful in the dance; she sang well, – her contemporaries said that her manner of singing was "impassioned."

The Abbé Coulanges had raised her so carefully that she was orderly; and, unlike the majority, she liked to pay her debts. She was a perfect type of woman. She even made a few mistakes in orthography, taking one, or more, letter, or letters, for another, or for others. In short, she made just the number of errors sufficient to permit her to be a writer of genius without detracting from her air of distinguished elegance, or from the obligations and the quality of her birth.

There were others at Court and in the city who confirmed their right to enlightenment, thereby justifying the theses of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. But a large number of women gave the lie to her theories by their resemblance to Damophile. Of these latter was "the worthy Gournay," Montaigne's "daughter by alliance," who, from the exalted heights of her Greek and Latin, and in a loud, insistent voice, discoursed like a doctor of medicine on the most ticklish of subjects, – subjects far from pleasing when rolled out of the mouth of a woman, even when so displaced in the name of antiquity and all that is venerable! (For in these names "the good Gournay" evoked them.) There was another pedant, the Viscountess d'Auchy, who had "founded conferences" in her own house; the people of the fine world flocked there to smother as they listened while it was proved, for their edification, that the Holy Trinity had natural reasons for its existence. On those "foundations" the Innate Idea also was proved by demonstrative reason by collecting and by analysing the ideas of young children concerning philosophy and theology. The lady who founded the conferences had bought some manuscript Homilies on the Epistles of St. Paul, of a doctor of theology. She had had them imprinted and attached to portraits of herself. Thus accoutred for their mission, they were circulated with great success, and their proceeds formed the endowment fund of the Conférence Library.

"The novelty of seeing a great lady of the Court commenting on the most obscure of the apostles caused every one to buy the book."21 It ended by the Archbishop of Paris intimating to the "Order of the Conferences" that they "would better leave Theology to the Sorbonne."

Mlle. Des Jardins declaimed her verses in the salons with great "contortions" and with eyes rolling as if in death; and she was not at all pleased when people preferred Corneille's writings to her own.

Mlle. Diodée frightened her hearers so that they took to their heels when she began to read her fine thoughts on Zoroaster or on Hermes Trismegistus. Another learned lady would speak of nothing but solar or lunar eclipses and of comets.

The pedantry of this high order of representative woman transported the "honest man" with horror. The higher the birth of the man the greater his fear lest by some occult means he might be led to slip his neck into the noose of a "Savante." But there was one counter-irritant for this virulent form of literary eruption. The young girls of the highest nobility were all extremely ignorant. Mlle. de Maillé-Brézé, niece of Cardinal de Richelieu, had not an idea of the most limited degree of the knowledge of books when she married the great Condé (1641). She knew nothing whatever. It was considered that ignorance carried to such length proved that neglect of instruction had gone too far, and when the great Condé went on his first campaign, friends seized the opportunity to add a few facets to the uncut jewel. She was turned and turned about, viewed in different lights, and polished so that her qualities could be seen to the best advantage. "The year after her marriage," says Mlle. de Scudéry, "she was sent to the Convent of the Carmelite Nuns of Saint Denis, to be taught to learn to read and write, during the absence of Monsieur her husband."

The Contes de Perrault– faithful mirror of the habits of those days – teaches us what an accomplished princess ought to be like. All the fairies to be found in the country had acted as godmothers to the Belle-au-Bois-dormant,

so that each one of them could bring her a gift … consequently the princess had acquired every imaginable perfection… The youngest fairy gave her the gift of being the most beautiful woman in the world; the one who came next gave her the spirit of an angel; the third endowed her with power to be graceful in everything that she did; the fourth gave her the art of dancing like a fairy; the fifth the art of singing like a nightingale; and the sixth endowed her with the power to play all kinds of instruments to perfection.

Perrault had traced his portraits over the strongly defined lines of real life. La Grande Mademoiselle was trained after the manner of the Belle-au-Bois-dormant. Her governess had had too much experience to burden her with a science that would have made her redoubtable in the eyes of men; so she had transferred to the fairies the task of providing her young charge with a suitable investiture. Unhappily for her eternal fame, when she distributed her powers of attorney some of the fairies were absent; so Mademoiselle neither sang like a nightingale, nor displayed classic grace in all her actions. But her resemblance to Perrault's heroines was striking. The fairies empowered to invest her with mind and delicacy of feeling had been present at her baptism, and they had left indisputable proof of the origin of her ideas. Like their predecessors, the elves of the Contes, they had never planned for anything less than the marriage of their god-daughter to the King's son. By all that she saw and heard, Mademoiselle knew that Providence had not closed an eye at the moment of her creation. She knew that her quality was essential. She knew that it was written on high that she should marry the son of a great King.

Her life was a conscientious struggle to "accomplish the oracle"; and the marriages that she missed form the weft of her history.

The first of the Mémoires show us the Court of Louis XIII. and the affairs of the day as seen by a little girl. This is an aspect to which historians have not accustomed us; and as a natural result of the infantine point of view the horizons are considerably narrowed. The little Princess did not know that anything important was taking place in Germany. She could not be ignorant of the fact that Richelieu was engaged in a struggle with the high powers of France; she read the general distress in the clouded faces surrounding her. But in her mind she decided that it was nothing but one of her father's quarrels with the Cardinal. The judgments she rendered against the high personages whose houses she frequented were dictated by purely sentimental considerations. "Some she liked; some she did not like"; consequently the former gained, and the latter lost. Many contestants were struggling before her young eyes; Louis XIII. was among the winners.

He was a good uncle, very affectionate to his niece, and deeply grateful that she was nothing worse than a girl. He could never rid himself of the idea that his brother might have endowed him with an heir. He had Mademoiselle brought to the Louvre by the gallery along the river, and allowed himself to be cheered by her turbulence and uncurbed indiscretions.

Anne of Austria exhibited a deep tenderness for Mademoiselle; but no one can deceive a child. "I think that all the love she showed me was nothing but the effect of what she felt for Monsieur," writes Mademoiselle; and further on she formally declares that the Queen, believing herself destined to a near widowhood, had formed the "plan" of marrying Monsieur. Whatever the Queen's plans may have been, it is certain that she caressed the daughter for love of the father. Anne of Austria never forgave Mademoiselle for the part that she had played before her birth, in the winter of 1626-1627, when the Duchess of Orleans so arrogantly promised to bring forth a Dauphin. Monsieur had no reason to fear the scrutiny of a child. He was a charming playfellow; gay, complaisant, fond of his daughter, at least for the moment, – no one could count upon the future!

Cardinal de Richelieu could not gain anything by thoughtful criticism. To the little Princess he was the Croquemitaine of the Court. When we think of his ogre face – spoil sport that he was! as he appeared to the millions of French people who were incapable of understanding his policy – the silhouette traced by the hand of Mademoiselle appears in a new light, and we are forced to own that its profound and simple ignorance is instructive.

Marie de Médicis had managed to disappear from the Luxembourg and from Paris, after the Journée des Dupes (11 November, 1630), and her little granddaughter had not noticed her departure. She writes: "I was still so young that I do not remember that I ever saw her." The case was not the same after the departure of Monsieur. He had continually visited the Tuileries, and when he came no more the child knew it well enough. She understood that her father had been punished, and she was not permitted to remain ignorant of the identity of the insolent personage who had placed him on the penitential stool. Mademoiselle, then less than four years old, was outraged in all her feelings by the success of Richelieu. She made war upon him in her own way; and, dating from that day, became dear to the people of Paris, who had always loved to vex and to humble the Government. She wrote with a certain pride: "On that occasion my conduct did not at all answer to my years. I did not want to be amused in any way; and they could not even make me go to the assemblies at the Louvre." As she had no better scapegoat, her bad humour was vented on the King. She constantly growled at him, demanding that he should bring back her "papa." But Mademoiselle was never able to pout to such purpose that she could stay away from the palace long, for she was a true courtier, firmly convinced that to be away from Court was to be in a desert, no matter how many servants and companions might surround her. She soon mended her broken relations with the assemblies and the collations of the Louvre, and could not refrain from "entering into the joy of her heart" when "Their Majesties" sent word to her guardians to take her to Fontainebleau. But she never laid down her arms where Richelieu was concerned. She knew all the songs that were written against him.

Meanwhile Monsieur had not taken any steps to make himself interesting. As soon as he had crossed the French frontier he entered upon a pleasure debauch which rendered him unfit for active service, for a time at least. He paid for his high flight in Spanish money. In 1632 he further distinguished himself by entering France at the head of a foreign army. On that occasion he caused the death of the Duke of Montmorency, who was executed for "rebellion."

Immediately after the Duke's execution, it was discovered that Monsieur had secretly married a sister of the Duke of Lorraine. He, Monsieur, crowned his efforts by signing a treaty with Spain (12 May, 1634), for which act France paid by yielding up strips of French territory.

But to his daughter Monsieur was always the victim of an impious persecution. Speaking of the years gorged with events so closely concerning her own life, she says:

Many things passed in those days. I was only a child; I had no part in anything, and could not notice anything; All that I can remember is that at Fontainebleau (5 May, 1663) I saw the Ceremony of the Chevaliers of the Order. During the ceremony they degraded from the Order Monsieur the Duke d'Elbœuf, and the Marquis de la Vieu Ville. I saw them tear off and break the arms belonging to their rank, – a rank equal to all the others; and when I asked the reason they told me they had insulted them "because they had followed Monsieur." Then I wept. I was so wounded by this treatment that I would have retired from Court; and I said that I could not look on this action with the submission that would become me.

The day after the ceremony an incident exciting much comment added to Mademoiselle's grief. Her enemy, the Cardinal, took part in the promotion of the Cordons Bleus. On this occasion Louis XIII. wished to exalt his Minister by giving him a distinguishing mark of superiority. He wished to distinguish him, and him only, by giving him a present. His choice of a present fell upon an object well fitted to evoke the admiration of a child. The chevaliers of the Saint Esprit were at a banquet. At dessert they brought to Richelieu the King's gift, an immense rock composed of various delicate confitures. From the centre of the rock jetted a fountain of perfumed water. Given under solemn circumstances and to a prince of the Church, it was a singular present. It attracted remark, its familiarity tended to give colour to the rumours circulating to the effect that an alliance then in process of incubation would eventually unite the House of France and the family of a very powerful Minister. The people voiced the current rumour volubly; they said that "Gaston's marriage with a Lorraine" would never be recognised, and that the young Prince would buy his pardon by marrying the niece of the Cardinal. Mademoiselle heard the rumours and her heart swelled with anguish at the thought of her father's dishonour.

I was not so busy with my play that I did not listen attentively when they spoke of the "accommodating ways" of Monsieur! The Cardinal de Richelieu, who was first minister and master of affairs, had made up his mind that it should be so, – that he should marry that one! and he had expressed his wishes with such shameful suggestions that I could not hear them mentioned without despair. To make peace with the King, Monsieur must break his marriage with Princesse Marguerite d'Orléans, and marry Mlle. de Combalet, niece of the Cardinal, now Madame d'Aguillon! From the time I first heard of the project I could not keep from weeping when it was spoken of; and, in my wrath, to avenge myself, I sang all the songs against the Cardinal and his niece that I knew. Monsieur did not let himself be "arranged" to suit the Cardinal. He came back to France without the assistance of the ridiculous condition. But how it was done I do not know. I cannot say anything about it, because I had no knowledge of it.

If it is true that Mademoiselle did not know the details of the quarrels in which the House of France engaged during her childhood, she was not inquisitive. Her knowledge in that respect had been at the mercy of her own inclination. By the thoughtful care of Richelieu, all the correspondence and all the official reports exposing the Court miseries were placed where all might read who ran. Richelieu had divined the power of the press over public opinion, although in that day there was no press in France. There were no journals to defend the Government. The Mercure Française22 was not a journal; it appeared once a year, and contained only a brief narration of "the most remarkable things that had come to pass" in the "four parts of the world." Renaudot's Gazette23 was hardly a journal, though it appeared every eight days, and numbered Louis XIII. among its contributors. Louis furnished its military news. Richelieu and "Father Joseph" furnished its politics. Neither Renaudot nor his protectors had any idea of what we call a "premier Paris" or an "article de fond"; they had never seen such things and they would not have been capable of compassing such inventions. The Gazette was not a sheet of official information; it did not contain matter enough for one page of the Journal des Débats. But the necessity of saying something to France was a crying one. It had become absolutely necessary to put modern royalty in communication with the nation, and to explain to the people at large the real meaning of the policy of the Prime Minister. The people must be taught why wars, alliances, and scaffolds were necessary. Something must be done to defend France against the attacks of Marie de Médicis and the cowardly Gaston. At that time placards and pamphlets rendered the services now demanded of the journals. By means of the placards the King could speak directly to the people and take them to witness that he was in difficulty, and that he was trying to do his best. In his public letters he confided to them his family chagrins, and the motives of his conduct toward the foreign powers. His correspondence with his mother and his brothers was printed as fast as it was written or received by him. Apologies for his conduct were supported by a choice of documents. From time to time the pamphlets were collected and put in volumes – the volumes which were the ancestors of our "yellow books."