VII.
OF THE TOWN.322
(1.)PEOPLE in Paris, without giving any notice beforehand, and as if it were some public assignation, meet every evening on the Cours323 or in the Tuileries, to stare around and criticise one another.
They cannot dispense with those very persons whom they do not like and whom they deride.
They wait for one another in these public walks,324 and they examine one another; carriages, horses, liveries, coats of arms, nothing escapes their gaze; everything is looked at keenly or maliciously, and they respect or contemn the persons they meet according to the greater or lesser splendour of their equipages.
(2.) Everybody knows that long bank325 which borders and confines the Seine where it joins the Marne on entering Paris; close by men come to bathe during the heat of the dog-days, and people at a little distance see them amuse themselves by jumping in and out of the water. Now, as long as there is no bathing, the city ladies never walk that way, and when the season is over they walk there no longer.326
(3.) In those places of general resort, where the ladies assemble only to show their fine dresses, and to reap the reward for the trouble they have taken with their apparel, people do not walk with a companion for the pleasure of conversation, but they herd together to get a little more confidence, to accustom themselves to the public, and to keep one another in countenance against criticisms. They talk but say nothing, or rather they talk to be taken notice of by those for whose sake they raise their voices, gesticulate, joke, bow carelessly, and walk up and down.
(4.) The town is split up into several sets, which, like so many little republics, have their peculiar laws, customs, dialects, and jests. As long as such a set remains in force, and as long as the conceit lasts, nothing is allowed to be well said or well done which it had no hand in, and it cannot enjoy anything from strangers; it even contemns those who have not been initiated in its mysteries. An intelligent man, whom chance has thrown amongst the members of such a set, is a stranger to them: he is, as it were, in a distant country, where he is ignorant of the roads, the language, the manners and the laws; he sees a sort of people who talk, rattle, whisper, burst out laughing, and presently relapse into a gloomy silence; he does not know what to do, and can hardly tell where to put in a word, or even when to listen. Some sorry buffoon is ever at hand who is the head and, as it were, the hero of such a set, and has always to keep them merry and to make them laugh before he has uttered a single word. If at any time a woman comes amongst them, who is not one of them, these jolly fellows are amazed she does not laugh at things she cannot understand, and appears not to be amused with some nonsense they would not understand themselves, if it were not their own; they will not overlook her tone of voice, her silence, her figure, her dress, her coming or going out of the room. This same set, however, does not last two years; in the first year are already sown those seeds of division which break it up the following year; quarrels about some woman, disputes at play, extravagant entertainments, which, though moderate at first, soon degenerate into pyramids of viands and sumptuous banquets, overthrow the commonwealth, and finally give it a mortal blow, and in a little while there is no more talk about them than about last yearʼs flies.
(5.) There are in town lawyers belonging to the grande robe, and others to the petite robe;327 and the first take on the second their revenge for the contempt and the supercilious way in which they are treated by a court of justice. It is not easy to know where the grande robe328 begins and the petite ends; there is even a large number of lawyers who refuse to belong to the second class and who are yet not considered to be of the first; they will, however, not abandon their pretensions, but, on the contrary, endeavour, by their sedate carriage and by the money they spend, to show themselves the equals of the magistrates; they have often been heard to say that their sublime duties, the independence of their profession, their eloquence, and their personal merits, balance at least the bags of money which the sons of financiers and bankers have paid for their offices.
(6.) You are very inconsiderate to sit musing, or perhaps dozing, in your carriage. Rouse yourself, and take a book or your papers, and begin to read; and hardly return the bows of those people who pass you in their carriages, for they will believe you to be very busy, and say everywhere that you are hard-working and indefatigable, and that you read and work even in the streets or on the highroad.329 You may learn from a pettifogger that you should ever seem to be immersed in business, knit your brows and muse most profoundly about nothing at all; that you should not always have the time for eating or drinking, and that as soon as you are in the house you should vanish like a ghost, and betake yourself to your dark private room, hide yourself from the public, avoid the theatre, and leave that to those who run no risk in appearing there, though they have hardly the leisure for it, to the Gomons and the Duhamels.330
(7.) There are a certain number of young magistrates with large estates and fond of pleasure, who have become acquainted with some of those men who are called at court “dandies;” they imitate them, behave in a manner unbecoming the gravity of a judge, and believe that on account of their youth and fortune they have no need to be discreet or passionless. They borrow from the court the very worst qualities, appropriate to themselves vanity, effeminacy, intemperance, and indecency, as if all those vices were their privilege, thus affecting a character quite the opposite to what they ought to maintain, and, in the end, according to their wishes, become exact copies of very wicked originals.331
(8.) A gentleman of the legal profession is not like the same man in the city and at court; when he has returned home he resumes his natural manners, look, and gestures, which he left behind, and is no longer so embarrassed nor so polite.
(9.) The Crispins join and club together to drive out with six horses to their carriage, and with a swarm of men in livery, to which each has furnished his share; they figure at the Cours or at Vincennes332 as brilliantly as a newly-married couple, or as Jason who is ruining himself, or as Thraso who wishes to get married, and who has deposited the money to buy an important place.333
(10.) I hear a good deal of talk about the Sannions; about “the same name, the same arms, the elder branch, the younger branch, the younger sons of the second branch; about the first bearing their arms plain, the second with a label, and the third with a bordure indented.” Their colour and metal are the same as those of the Bourbons, and, like them, they bear two and one;334 it is true these are not “fleurs de lis,” but they are satisfied; perhaps, in their inmost hearts, they believe their bearings as noble; at least, they are the same as those of lords of the highest rank who are quite content with them. We see them on their mourning hangings,335 and on the windows of their chapels, on the gates of their castle, on their justiciary pillar, where many a man is condemned to be hanged who only deserved banishment; they are visible anywhere, on their furniture and their locks, while their carriages are covered with them, and the liveries of their servants do not disgrace their escutcheon. I should like to tell the Sannions that their ostentation is too precipitate; that they should have waited at least until their race had existed a century; that those persons who knew and conversed with their grandfather are old and cannot live long, and that, after their death, no one will be able to say where he kept his shop, and what a very dear one it was.
The Sannions and the Crispins336 had rather be thought extravagant than covetous; they tell you a long story of a feast or a collation they gave, of their losses at play, and express aloud their regrets they have not lost more. They mention in their peculiar language certain ladies of their acquaintance; they have ever many pleasant things to tell each other, are always making new discoveries, and confide to one another their successes with the fair. One of them, coming lately to his country-house, hastens to bed, and rises with the dawn, then puts on his gaiters and a linen suit, and fastens on his belt and his powder-horn, ties back his hair, takes his gun, and is a sportsman, if he did but shoot well. He returns at night, wet and weary, without any game, but goes shooting again on the morrow, and spends the whole day in missing thrushes and partridges.
Another man337 speaks of some wretched dogs he has as “his pack of hounds;” he knows where the meet is held, and goes there; he is at the starting,338 and enters the thicket with the huntsmen, with his horn by his side; he does not ask, like Menalippus, “Do I enjoy myself?”339 but he thinks he does; he forgets the law and all lawsuits, and would be thought an Hippolytus.340 Menander, who yesterday was engaged in a lawsuit, paid him a visit, but to-day would not know again his judge. To-morrow you may see him at court, where a weighty and capital case is going to be tried; he gets his learned brethren about him, and informs them that he did not lose the stag, but that he is quite hoarse with hallooing after the hounds which lost the scent, or after those sportsmen who were at fault, and that, with half a dozen hounds, he was in at the death; but the clock strikes, and he has no more time to talk of the stag being at bay, or of the quarry: he must take his seat with the other magistrates and administer justice.
(11.) How great is the infatuation of certain men, who, being possessed of the wealth their fathers acquired by trade, which they have just inherited, imitate princes in their dress and retinue, and by excessive expenditure and ridiculous pomp provoke the remarks and sneers of the whole town they think to dazzle, and thus ruin themselves to be laughed at!
Some have not even the sorry advantage of having their follies talked about beyond their immediate neighbourhood, and the only spot where their vanity is displayed. They do not know in the Ile that André makes a figure and squanders his patrimony in the Marais.341 If he were only better known in town and in the suburbs, perhaps, amongst so large a number of citizens, who are not all able to judge sensibly of everything, possibly one of them might declare André has a magnificent spirit, and give him credit for his banquets to Xanthe and Ariston, and for his entertainments to Elamire; but he ruins himself obscurely, and hastens to become poor only for the sake of two or three persons, who do not esteem him in the least, and though at present he rides in his coach, in six months he will hardly be able to go on foot.342
(12.) Narcissus343 rises in the morning to lie down at night; he spends as many hours in dressing as a woman; he goes every day to mass at the Feuillants or the Minims;344 is very agreeable in company, and in his parish they reckon on him to make a third man at ombre or reversis.345 He sits for hours together at
Ariciaʼs, where every night he ventures his five or six golden pistoles;346 he never misses reading the Gazette de Hollande or the Mercure Galant;347 he has read Bergerac,348 Desmarets,349 Lesclache,350 Barbinʼs351 stories, and some collections of poetry; he walks with the ladies on the Plaine or the Cours,352 and is scrupulously punctual in his visits; he will do to-morrow precisely what he has done to-day and did yesterday; thus he lives, and thus he will die.
(13.) “I have seen this man somewhere,” youʼll say,353 “and, though his face is familiar to me, I have forgotten where it was.” It is familiar to many other people, and, if possible, I will assist your memory. Was it on the Boulevard,354 in a carriage, or in the large alley of the Tuileries, or else in the dress-circle at the theatre? Was it at church, at a ball, or at Rambouillet;355 or, rather, can you tell me where you have not seen him, and where he is not to be met with? If some well-known criminal is going to be executed, or if there are any fireworks, he makes his appearance at a window at the town-hall; if some one enters the town in state, you see him in the reserved seats; if a carousel356 is ridden, he enters and takes his place on some bench; if the king gives an audience to an ambassador, he sees the whole procession, is present at the reception, and thrusts himself in the ranks when it returns. His presence is as essential at the solemn renewal of the alliance between the Swiss Cantons as that of the Lord Chancellor or the Helvetian plenipotentiaries.357 You see his face on the almanacks amongst the people or the bystanders;358 if there is a public hunt going on or a Saint Hubert,359 he will be present on horseback; they say to him that a camp is going to be pitched or that a review is going to be held, and off he will start for Houilles or Achères;360 he is very fond of the army, the militia, and war, of which he has seen a good deal, even the taking of Fort Bernardi.361 Chamlay knows something of marches, Jacquier of the commissariate, du Metz of the artillery,362 but our gentleman is a looker-on, has grown old in the service of looking-on, and is a spectator by profession; he does not do anything that a man ought to do, and he does not know anything that a man ought to know; but he boasts that he has seen everything that was to be seen, and now does not regret to die. But what a loss will his death be for the whole town! Who will inform us, as he did, that the Cours is closed, and nobody is walking there, that the pond of Vincennes has been filled up and is now a raised moat, and that no carriage will any more be upset on that spot? Who will acquaint us when there is a concert, a choral service in church, or something wonderful to be seen at the fair? Who will let us know that Beaumavielle363 died yesterday, and that Rochois364 has got a cold and will not be able to sing for a week? Who will inform us that Scapin bears the “fleur de lis” on his arms, and who is very glad he does so? Who will pronounce, with the most boastful emphasis, the name of a mere citizenʼs wife, or who will be better provided with topical songs? Who will lend to the ladies the Annales Galantes and the Journal Amoureux?365 Who will sing at table a whole dialogue of an opera, or the madness of “Roland”366 in a ruelle, as well as he does?367 To conclude, since there are in the city and elsewhere some very foolish people as well as some dull and idle people, who have nothing to do, who will so exactly suit every one of them as he did?
(14.) Theramenes368 was rich and had some merit; some property was left him, and therefore he is now much wealthier and has a great deal more merit; all the women set to work to make him their gallant, and all the young girls to get him for a husband; he goes from house to house, to make the mothers believe that he is inclined to marry. As soon as he has taken his seat they withdraw, to leave full liberty to their daughters to be amiable and to Theramenes to declare his intentions. Here he is the rival of a magistrate;369 there he throws into the shade a military man or a nobleman. The ladies could not covet more passionately any rosy-cheeked, gay, brisk, witty young fellow, nor could he be better received; they snatch him out of one anotherʼs hands, and can hardly find leisure to vouchsafe a smile to any other person who visits them at the same time. How many gallants is he going to defeat! how many good matches will be broken off on his account! Will he bestow his hand on the large number of heiresses who court him? He is not only the terror of husbands, but the dread of all these who wish to be so, and to whom marriage is the only resource for obtaining a sufficient sum to replace the money they paid for their official situations.370 A man so happy and so wealthy371 ought to be banished from a well-governed city, and the fair sex should be forbidden, under pain of being considered insane or degraded, to treat him better than if he were merely a person of merit.
(15.) The people in Paris commonly ape the court, but they do not always know how to imitate it; they by no means resemble it in those agreeable and flattering outward civilities with which some courtiers, and particularly the ladies, affably treat a man of merit, who possesses nothing but merit. Such ladies never inquire after that manʼs means or his ancestors; they find him at court, and that is sufficient for them; they give themselves no airs, they esteem him, and do not ask whether he came in a carriage or on foot, or whether he has a post, an estate, or followers; as they are satiated with pomp, splendour, and honour, they like to recreate themselves with philosophy or virtue. If a city lady hears the rattling of a carriage stopping at her door, she is anxious to be acquainted with any person who is in it, and to be polite to him, without at all knowing him; but from her window she has caught a glance of a set of fine horses, a good many liveries, is dazzled by the numerous rows of finely gilt nails,372 and is very impatient to behold such a military man or a magistrate in her apartments. How well will he be received! Sheʼll never take her eyes off him. Nothing is lost upon her, and she has already given him credit for the double braces and springs of his carriage, which make it go easier, and she esteems him the more and loves him the better for them.
(16.) The infatuation of some city women in their wretched imitation of those at court is more offensive than the coarseness of the women of the people and the rusticity of country-women, since it is a mixture of both, and of affectation as well.
(17.) What a cunning contrivance to give during courtship valuable presents which cost nothing, and which after marriage have to be returned in kind!373
(18.) It is sensible and praiseworthy in a man to spend on his nuptials one-third of his wifeʼs dowry; to begin with deliberately impoverishing himself by buying and collecting superfluous things; and already to take from his capital in order to pay Gaultier,374 the cabinet-maker, and the milliner!
(19.) Truly it is a charming and judicious custom which, in defiance of modesty and decency, and through some kind of shamelessness, compels a newly-married bride to lie on her bed for show, and to render herself ridiculous for some days, by exposing her to the curiosity of a few men and women whom she may know, or who may be strangers to her, and who hasten from all quarters of the town to look on such a sight as long as it lasts.375 There is nothing wanting to make this custom seem very absurd and incomprehensible, except to see it mentioned in print in some book of travels in Mingrelia.
(20.) What a painful habit and what a troublesome kind of obligation it must be for certain persons to be continually anxious of meeting one another, yet when they meet to have nothing but trifles to say to one another, and to communicate reciprocally things which were previously known to both and of no matter of importance to either; to enter a room merely to leave it again; to go out after dinner,376 only to come home in the evening, highly satisfied with seeing in five hours three Swiss,377 a woman they hardly knew, and another they scarcely liked. Whoever will rightly consider the value of time, and how irreparable its loss is, must lament bitterly such wretched trifling.378
(21.) In town, people are brought up in complete ignorance of rural and country affairs; they can scarcely distinguish flax from hemp, wheat from rye, and neither of them from meslin; they are satisfied with eating, drinking, and dressing. Do not mention to a large number of townsfolk such words as fallowland, staddles, layers, or after-grass, if you wish to be understood, for they will not think it is their mother-tongue. Speak to some of them of measures, tariffs, taxes,379 and to others of appeals, petitions, decrees, and injunctions; for they know the world, and above all, what is ugly and vulgar in it; but they do not know Nature, its beginning, growth, gifts, and bounteousness. Their ignorance often is voluntary, and based on the conceit they have of their own callings and talents. There is not a low pettifogger in his dark and grimy room, his brain teeming with the most wicked legal quibbles, who does not prefer himself to a husbandman, who, blest of Heaven, cultivates the land, sows when it is needed, and gathers a rich harvest; and if at any time the former hears mention made of the first men or the patriarchs, their rural lives and their husbandry, he wonders how people could have been living in those days without lawyers, commissioners, presidents, or solicitors, and cannot understand how they could ever have done without rolls-offices, courts of judicature, and refreshment-rooms.
(22.) When the Roman emperors were making their triumphal entries, they never protected themselves in a more effeminate, easy, and efficacious manner against the wind, the rain, the dust, and the sun, than the citizens of Paris do when they are driven from one end of the town to another. What a difference between their habits and the mules on which their forefathers rode! The latter did not know how to deprive themselves of the necessaries of life to get superfluities, nor to prefer show to substance; their houses were never illuminated with wax-candles, and they never warmed themselves by a little fire, for in their time such candles were only used at the altar and in the Louvre;380 they never ate a bad dinner in order to keep a carriage; they were convinced that men had legs given them to walk, and they did walk. In dry weather they kept themselves clean; in wet they did not mind to dirty their shoes and stockings, and to cross a street or passage with the same alacrity as a sportsman rides over ploughed fields, or a soldier gets wet in the trenches. They had not then invented the harnessing of two men to carry them in a Sedan chair; then several magistrates walked to the two courts,381 and with as good a grace as Augustus formerly went on foot to the Capitol. Pewter in those days shone on the tables and the sideboards, brass and iron in the chimneys, whilst silver and gold lay safe in coffers. Women were then waited on by women, and there were even women in the kitchen. Such fine names as “governor” and “governess” were not unknown to our forefathers, for they knew to whom the children of kings and of great princes were intrusted;382 but their children had the same servants they had, and they themselves were satisfied to superintend their education. Everything they did was calculated; their expenses were in proportion to their means; their liveries, their carriages, their furniture, their household expenses, their town and country houses were all in accordance with their incomes and their station in life. Outward distinctions existed, however, amongst them, so that it was impossible to mistake the wife of an attorney for the wife of a judge, and a commoner or a mere servant for a nobleman. Less desirous to spend or enlarge their patrimony than to keep it, they left it entire to their heirs, led a tranquil life, and died a peaceful death; then, there was no complaint of hard times, of excessive misery, of scarcity of money; they had less than we have, and yet they had enough, richer through their economy and their moderation than through their incomes or estates. To conclude, in former days people observed this maxim, that what is splendour, pomp, and magnificence in nobles of high rank, is extravagance, folly, and stupidity in private gentlemen.383
VIII.
OF THE COURT.
(1.)THE most honourable thing we can say of a man is, that he does not understand the court; there is scarcely a virtue which we do not imply when saying this.384
(2.) A perfect courtier can command his gestures, his eyes, and his countenance; he is profound and impenetrable; he seems to overlook every injury; he smiles on his enemies, controls his temper, disguises his passions, belies his inclinations, and both speaks and acts against his opinions. Such a quintessence of refinement is usually called “falsehood,” and is, after all, sometimes of no more use to a courtierʼs success than frankness, sincerity, and virtue.
(3.) A court is like certain changeable colours; which vary according to the different lights they are exposed in. He who can define these colours can define the court.
(4.) A man who leaves the court for a single moment renounces it for ever; the courtier who was there in the morning must be there at night, and know it again next day, in order that he himself may be known there.
(5.) A man must appear small at court, and let him be never so vain, it is impossible to prevent it; but it is the common lot, and the highest nobles themselves are there of no consequence.
(6.) People who live in the provinces consider the court admirable; but if they visit it, its beauties diminish, like those of a fine drawing of perspective viewed too closely.
(7.) It is difficult to get accustomed to the spending of our lives in ante-chambers, courtyards, or on staircases.
(8.) The court does not satisfy a man, but it prevents him from being satisfied with anything else.
(9.) A cultured gentleman should have some experience of the court; as soon as he enters it he will discover a new world, as it were, wholly unknown to him, where vice and politeness have equal sway, and where good and evil alike may be of use to him.
(10.) The court is like a marble structure, for the courtiers are very polished and very hard.
(11.) Sometimes people go to court only to come back again, so that, on their return, they may be taken notice of by the nobility of their county or by the bishops of their diocese.
(12.) There would be no use for embroiderers and confectioners, and they would open their shops in vain, if all the people were modest and temperate; courts would be deserts and kings almost left alone, if every one was void of vanity and self-interest. Men are willing to be slaves in one place if they can only lord it in another. It seems that at court a proud, imperious, and commanding mien is delivered wholesale to the great for them to retail in the country; they do exactly what is done unto them, and are the true apes of royalty.
(13.) Nothing disparages some courtiers so much as the presence of a prince; their faces are scarcely to be recognised; their features are altered and their looks debased; the more proud and haughty they are, the greater is the change in them, because they have suffered a greater loss; whilst a gentlemanly and modest man bears it much better, as there is nothing in him to alter.
(14.) Courtly manners are contagious; they are caught at Versailles,385 as the Norman accent is at Rouen and Falaise; we partly find them amongst quartermasters, superintendents, and confectioners;386 a man with no very great intellect may become proficient in them; one with a lofty genius and of solid worth does not sufficiently value such accomplishments to make it his principal business387 to study and acquire them; he contracts them imperceptibly, and does not trouble himself to get rid of them.
(15.) N ...,388 in a great flutter, comes up to the kingʼs chamber, turns everybody aside, and clears the way; he scratches at the door, nay, almost raps; he gives his name, and the people around him recover now their breath; after some time he is admitted, but it is with the crowd.389
(16.) Courts are haunted by certain bold adventurers, of free-and-easy manners, who introduce themselves, pretend to possess greater abilities than others in their profession, and are believed on their sole assertion.390 In the meanwhile they take advantage of this general belief, or of the fondness of some men for novelty; they make their way through the crowd, and reach the ear of the prince, with whom the courtier sees them talking, whilst he thinks himself happy if he only obtains a glance. It is not difficult for great people to get rid of them, for as they are only admitted on sufferance, and are of no consequence, their dismissal is of no importance: then they disappear, at once rich and out of favour; and the very men who so lately were deceived by them are ready to be deceived by others.
(17.) Some men, on entering a room, make but a slight bow, stretch their shoulders and thrust out their chests like women; they ask you a question, look another way, and speak in a loud tone, to show that they think themselves above every one present; they stop, and everybody gathers around them; they do all the talking, and seem to take the lead. This ridiculous and simulated haughtiness continues until some really great person makes his appearance, when they shrink away at once, and are reduced to their natural level, for which they are all the better.
(18.) Courts cannot exist without a class of courtiers who can flatter, are complaisant, insinuating, devoted to the ladies, whose pleasures they direct, whose weaknesses they study, and whose passions they flatter; they whisper some naughty words to them, speak of their husbands and lovers in a proper manner, conjecture when they are sad, ill, or expect a baby; they head the fashions, refine on luxury and extravagance, and teach the fair to spend in a short time large sums on clothes, furniture, and carriages; they wear nothing themselves but what shows good taste and riches, and will not live in an old palace till it be repaired and embellished; they eat delicately and thoughtfully; there is no pleasure they have not tried and of which they cannot tell you something; they owe their position to themselves, and they keep it with the same ability they made it. Disdainful and proud, they no longer accost their former equals, and scarcely bow to them; they speak when every one else is silent; enter, and at inconvenient hours thrust themselves into places where men of the highest rank dare not intrude; and when such men, after long services, their bodies covered with wounds, filling great posts or occupying high official positions, do not look so confident, and seem embarrassed. Princes listen to what these courtiers have to say, who share all their pleasures and entertainments, and never stir out of the Louvre or the Castle,391 where they behave themselves as if quite at home and in their own house; they seem to be in a thousand different places at one and the same time; their countenances are sure always to attract the notice of any novice at court; they embrace and are embraced, they laugh, talk loud, are funny, tell stories, and are of an easy disposition; they are agreeable, rich, lend money, but, after all, are of no importance.392
(19.) Would any person not think that to Cimon and Clitandre alone are intrusted all the details of the State, and that they alone are answerable for them? The one manages at least everything concerning agriculture and land, and the other is at the head of the navy. Whoever will give a sketch of them must express bustle, restlessness, curiosity, activity, and paint Hurry itself. We never see them sitting, standing, or stopping; no one has ever seen them walk; for they are always running, and they speak whilst running, and do not wait for an answer; they never come from any place, or go anywhere, but are always passing to and fro. Stop them not in their hurried course, for you would break their machinery; do not ask them any questions, or, if you do, give them at least time to breathe and to remember that they have nothing to do, can stay with you long, and follow you wherever you are pleased to lead them. They do not, like Jupiterʼs satellites,393 crowd round and encompass their prince, but precede him and give notice of his coming: they rush with impetuosity through the crowd of courtiers, and all who stand in their way are in danger. Their profession is to be seen again and again, and they never go to bed without having acquitted themselves of such an important duty, so beneficial to the commonwealth. They know, besides, all the circumstances of every petty accident, and are acquainted with anything at court people wish to ignore; they possess all the qualifications necessary for a small post. Nevertheless they are eager and watchful about anything they think will suit them as well as slightly enterprising, thoughtless, and precipitate. In a word, they both carry their heads very high, and are harnessed to the chariot of Fortune, but are never likely to sit in it.
(20.) A courtier who has not a pretty name ought to hide it under a better;394 but if it is one that he dares own,395 he should then insinuate that his name is the most illustrious of all names, and his house the most ancient of all others; he ought to be descended from the princes of Lorraine, the Rohans, the Châtillons, the Montmorencys,396 and, if possible, from princes of the blood; he ought to talk of nothing but dukes, cardinals, and ministers; to introduce his paternal and maternal ancestors in all conversations, as well as the Oriflamme397 and the Crusades; to have his apartments adorned with genealogical trees, escutcheons with sixteen quarters, and portraits of his ancestors and of the relatives of his ancestors; to value himself on his having an old castle with turrets, battlements, and portcullises; to be always speaking of his race, his branch, his name, and his arms; to say of a man that he is not a man of rank, of a woman that she is not of noble extraction;398 or to ask whether Hyacinthus is a nobleman when they tell him he has drawn a great prize in the lottery.399 If some persons laugh at such absurd remarks, he lets them laugh on; if others make erroneous comments, they are welcome; he will always assert that he takes his place after the royal family, and, by constantly repeating it, he will finally be believed.
(21.) It shows a simple mind to acknowledge at court the smallest alloy of common blood, and not to set up for a nobleman.
(22.) At court people go to bed and rise only with a view to self; it is what they revolve in their own minds morning and evening, night and day; it is for this they think, speak, are silent or act; it is with this disposition that they converse with some and neglect others, that they ascend or descend; by this rule they measure all their assiduity, complaisance, esteem, indifference, or contempt. Whatever progress any of them seems to make towards moderation and wisdom, they are carried away by the first motive of ambition along with the most covetous, the most violent in their desires, and the most ambitious. Can they stand still when everything is in motion, when everything is stirring, and forbear running whither every one runs? Such people even think they only owe their success in life to themselves; and a man who has not made it at court is supposed not to have deserved it; and this judgment is without appeal. However, is it advisable for a man to leave the court without having obtained any advantage by his stay, or should he remain there without favour or reward? This question is so intricate, so delicate, and so difficult to decide, that a very large number of courtiers have grown old without coming to any affirmative or negative conclusion, and died, at last, without having arrived at any final resolution.
(23.) There is nothing at court so worthless and so contemptible as a man who cannot assist us in the least to better our position; I am amazed such a person dares appear there.
(24.) A man who sees himself raised far above his contemporaries, whose rank was formerly the same as his own, and who made their first appearance at court at the same time as he did, fancies it is a sure proof of his superior merit, and thinks himself better than those other people who could not keep up with him; but he forgets what he thought of himself before he became a favourite, and what he thought of those who had outstripped him.
(25.) It proves a good deal for a friend, after he has become a great favourite at court, still to keep up an acquaintance with us.
(26.) If a man who is in favour dares to take advantage of it before it is all over; if he makes use of a propitious gale to get on; if he keeps his eye on any vacancies, posts, or abbeys, asks for them, obtains them, and is stocked with pensions, grants, and reversions,400 people will blame him for being covetous and ambitious, and will say that everything tempts him and is secured by him, his friends and his creatures; and that through the numberless and various favours bestowed on him, he, in his own person, has monopolised several fortunes. But what should he have done? I judge not so much by what people say, as by what they would have done themselves under similar circumstances, and that is precisely what he has done.
We blame those persons who make use of their opportunities for bettering their positions, because we are in a very inferior situation, and, therefore, despair of being ever in such circumstances that will expose us to a similar reproach. But if we were likely to succeed them, we should begin to think they were not so much in the wrong as we imagined, and would be more cautious in censuring them, for fear of condemning ourselves beforehand.
(27.) We should not exaggerate things, nor blame the court for evils which do not exist there. Courtiers never endeavour to harm real merit, but they leave it sometimes without reward; they do not always despise it when they have once discerned it, but they forget all about it; for a court is a place where people most perfectly understand doing nothing, or very little, for those whom they greatly esteem.
(28.) It would be very wonderful indeed, if among all the instruments I employ for building up my fortune, some of them were not to miscarry. A friend of mine who promised to speak for me does not say a single word; another speaks without any spirit; a third speaks by accident against my interests, though it was not his intention to do so. One lacks the will, another sagacity and prudence; and none of them would be sufficiently delighted in seeing me happy, and do everything in their power for making me so. Every one remembers well enough what pains he took in establishing his own position, and what assistance he got in clearing his way to obtain it. We should not be averse to acknowledge the services which certain people have rendered us, by rendering to others some service on similar occasions, if our chief and only care were not to think of ourselves when we have made our fortune.
(29.) Courtiers never employ whatever intelligence, skill, or perspicacity they may possess to find out means of obliging those of their friends who implore their assistance, but they only invent evasive answers, plausible excuses, or what they call impossibilities for moving in the matter; and then they think they have satisfied all the duties which friendship and gratitude require.
No courtier cares to take the initiative in anything, but he will offer to second him who does, because, judging of others by himself, he thinks that no one will make a beginning, and that therefore he shall not be obliged to second any one. This is a gentle and polite way of refusing to employ his influence, good offices, and mediation in favour of those who stand in need of them.
(30.) How many men almost stifle you with their demonstrations of friendship, and pretend to love and esteem you in private, who are embarrassed when they meet you in public, and at the kingʼs levée, or at mass at Versailles, look another way, and do all they can to avoid you. There are few courtiers who have sufficient greatness of soul or confidence in themselves to dare to honour in public a man of merit but who does not occupy a grand post.
(31.) I see a man surrounded and followed by a crowd, but he is in office. I see another to whom every one says a few words, but he is a court favourite; a third is embraced and caressed even by persons of high rank, but he is wealthy; a fourth is stared at by all, and pointed at, but he is learned and eloquent. I perceive one whom nobody omits bowing to, but he is a bad man. I should like to see a man courted who is merely good and nothing else.
(32.) When a man is appointed to a new post he is inundated with praises, which flood the courtyards, the chapel, overflow the grand staircase, the vestibules, the galleries, and all the rooms of the palace;401 he has quite enough of them, and can no longer bear it. There are not two different opinions about him; those of envy and jealousy are the same as those of adulation; every one is carried away by the raging torrent which forces a person to say what he thinks of such a man, or what he does not think of him, and often to commend a man of whom he has no knowledge. If such a man has any intelligence, merit, or valour, he becomes in one moment a genius of the first order, a hero, a demi-god; he is so extravagantly flattered in all the portraits painted of him that he appears disagreeably ugly when compared with any of them; it is impossible for him ever to reach the point to which servility and adulation would have him rise; he blushes at his own reputation. But let him not be so firmly established in the post in which he has been placed as people thought he was, and the world will without difficulty entertain another opinion. If his downfall be complete, then the very men who were instrumental in raising him so high by their applause and praise are quite ready to overwhelm him with the greatest contempt; I mean, there are none who will despise him more, blame him with greater acrimony, or deny him with more contumely than those very men who were most impassioned in speaking well of him.402
(33.) It may be justly said that it is easier to get appointed to an eminent and difficult post than to keep it.
(34.) We see men fallen from a high estate for those very faults for which they were appointed to it.
(35.) At court there are two ways of dismissing or discharging servants and dependants; to be angry with them, or to make them so angry with us that they leave us of their own accord.
(36.) Courtiers speak well of a man for two reasons: firstly, that he may know they have commended him; and secondly, that he may say the same of them.
(37.) It is as dangerous at court to make any advances as it is embarrassing not to make them.
(38.) There are some people who, if they do not know the name or the face of a man, make this a pretence for laughing at him. They ask who that man is; it is not Rousseau, Fabry, or La Couture,403 for then they would know him.
(39.) I am told so many bad things of this man, and see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has some merit which is so vexatious that it eclipses the merit of others.
(40.) You are an honest man,404 and do not make it your business either to please or displease the favourites. You are merely attached to your master and to your duty; you are a lost man.
(41.) None are impudent by choice; but they are so constitutionally, and though it is quite wrong, yet it is natural; a man who is not born so is modest and cannot easily pass from one extreme to another. It would be useless to advise such a man to be impudent in order to be successful; a bad imitation will not do him any good, and would ensure his failure. Without real and ingenious effrontery there is not doing anything at court.
(42.) We seek, we hurry, we intrigue, we worry ourselves, we ask and are refused; we ask again and get what we ask for; but we pretend we obtained it without ever having asked for it, or so much as thought about it, and even when we had quite another thing in view. This is an obsolete style, a silly falsehood, which deceives nobody.
(43.) A man intrigues to obtain an eminent post, lays all his plans beforehand, takes all the right measures, and is on the point of being as successful as he wishes; some people are to initiate the business in hand, others are to second it; the bait is already laid, and the mine ready to be sprung; and then the candidate absents himself from the court. Who would dare suspect that Artemon ever aimed at so fine a post when he is ordered to leave his seat or his government to fill it?405 Such an artifice and such a policy has become so stale, and the courtiers have so often employed it, that if I would impose upon the world and mask my ambition, I should always be about the prince to receive from his own hand that favour which I had solicited so passionately.
(44.) Men do not like us to pry into their prospects of bettering their position, or to find out what post they are anxious to occupy, because, if they are not successful, they fancy their failure brings some discredit upon them; and if they succeed, they persuade themselves it redounds more to their credit that the giver thought them worthy of it than that they thought themselves worthy of it, and, therefore, intrigued and plotted; they appear decked in their stateliness as well as in their modesty.406
Which is the greater shame, to be refused the post which we deserve, or to be put into one we do not deserve?
Difficult as it is to obtain a place at court, it is yet harder and more difficult to be worthy of filling one.
A man had better be asked by what means he obtained a certain post than why he did not obtain it.
People become candidates for any municipal office, or try to get a seat in the French Academy,407 but formerly they endeavoured to obtain a consulship. Why should a man not labour hard during the early years of his life to render himself fit for eminent posts, and then ask openly and fearlessly, without mystery and without any intriguing, to serve his fatherland, his prince, and the commonwealth?
(45.) I never yet have seen a courtier whom a prince has appointed governor of a wealthy province, given a first-rate place, or a large pension, who does not protest, either through vanity, or to show himself disinterested, that he is less pleased with the gift than with the manner in which it was given. What is certain and cannot be doubted is that he says so.
To give awkwardly denotes the churl; the most difficult and unpleasant part is to give; then, why not add a smile?
There are, however, some men who refuse with more politeness to grant you what you ask than others know how to give;408 and some of whom it has been said that you have to ask them so long, and they give so coldly and impose such disagreeable conditions on whatever favour you have to tear from them, that their greatest favour would be to excuse us from receiving any.409
(46.) There are some men at court so covetous that they catch hold of any rank or condition to reap its benefits; governments of provinces, offices, benefices, nothing comes amiss to them; they are so situated that, by virtue of their official position, they can accept any kind of favour; they are amphibious, live by the church and the sword, and one day or other will discover the secret of including the law also.410 If you ask what those men do at court, you will be told that they receive and envy every one to whom anything is given.
(47.) A thousand people at court wear out their very existence by embracing, caressing, and congratulating all persons who have received favours, and die without having any bestowed on themselves.
(48.) Menophilus411 borrows his manners from one profession and his dress from another; he goes masked all the year, though he does not conceal his countenance; he appears at court, in town, and elsewhere, always under a certain name and in the same disguise. He is found out and known by his face.
(49.) There is a highroad or a beaten road, as it is called, which leads to grand offices, and there is a cross or bye-way which is much the shortest.
(50.) We run to get a look at some wretched criminals, we line one side of the street, and we stand at the windows to observe the features and the bearing of a man who is doomed and knows he is going to die, impelled by a senseless, malignant, inhuman curiosity. If men were wise, they would avoid public executions, and then it would even be considered infamous to be present at such spectacles.412 If you are of such an inquisitorial turn of mind, exercise your curiosity on a noble subject, and look on a happy man on the very day he has been appointed to a new post, and when he is congratulated on his nomination; read in his eyes, through his affected composure and feigned modesty, his delight and latent exultation; observe how quiet his heart beats and how serene his countenance looks now that he has obtained all he wished; how he thinks of nothing but his long life and health; how, at last, his joy bursts forth and can no longer be concealed; how he bends beneath the weight of his happiness, and how coolly and stiffly he behaves towards those who are no longer his equals; he vouchsafes them no answer, and seems not to see them; the embraces and demonstrations of friendship of men of high rank, whom he views now no more from a distance, finish his ruin; he becomes bewildered, dazed, and for a short time his brain is turned. You who would be happy and in your princeʼs favour, consider how many things you will have to avoid.413
(51.) When a man has once got into office, he neither makes use of his reason nor of his intelligence to regulate his behaviour and manners towards others, but shapes them according to his office and his position; this is the cause of his forgetfulness, pride, arrogance, harshness, and ingratitude.414
(52.) Theonas having been an abbé415 for thirty years, grows weary of being so any longer. Others show less anxiety and impatience in being clad in purple than he displays in wearing a golden cross on his breast;416 and because no great festival at court has ever made any alteration in his position,417 he rails at the times, declares the state badly governed, and forebodes naught but ill for the future. Convinced in his heart that in courts merit is prejudicial to a man who wishes to better his position, he at last makes up his mind to renounce the prelacy; but some one hastens to inform him that he has been appointed to a bishopric, and full of joy and conceit at news so unexpected he says to a friend, “Youʼll see I shall not remain a bishop for ever; I shall be an archbishop yet.”
(53.) There must be knaves at court418 about the great and the Ministers of State, even if those are animated with the best intentions; but to know when to employ them is a very difficult question, and requires a certain amount of shrewdness. There are times and seasons when others cannot fill their places; for honour, virtue, and conscience, though always worthy of our respect, are frequently useless, and therefore in certain emergencies an honest man419 cannot be employed.
(54.) An ancient author, whose very words I shall take the liberty to quote,420 for fear I should weaken the sense of them by my translation, says: “To forsake the common herd, nay, oneʼs very equals, to despise and vilify them; to get acquainted with rich men of rank; to join them in their private amusements, deceits, tricks, and bad business; to be brazen-faced, shameless, bankrupt in reputation; to endure the gibes and jokes of all men, and, in spite of all this, not to fear to go on, and that skilfully, has been the cause of many a manʼs fortune.”
(55.) The youth of a prince is the making of many courtiers.
(56.) Timantes,421 still the same, and possessed of that very merit which at first got him reputation and rewards, has deteriorated in the opinion of the courtiers, who are weary of respecting him; they bow to him coldly, forbear smiling on him, no longer accost nor embrace him, nor take him into a corner to talk mysteriously about some trivial affair; they have nothing more to say to him. He receives a pension, or is honoured by being appointed to a new post; and his virtues, almost dead in their memories, revive whilst their thoughts are refreshed; now they treat him as they did at the beginning, and even better.
(57.) How many friends, how many relatives of a new Minister, spring up in a single night! Some men pride themselves on their former acquaintance, on their having been his fellow-students or neighbours; others ransack their genealogy, go back to their great-grandfather, and recall their father and motherʼs side, for in some way or other every one wishes to be related to him; several times a day people affirm they are his relatives, and they would even gladly print it. They say presently: “The Minister is my friend; I am very glad of his promotion, and I ought to share in it, for he is a near relative of mine.” Would those silly men, those servile votaries of fortune, those effete courtiers, have said this a week ago? Has the Minister become a more virtuous man, or more worthy of his sovereignʼs choice, or were they waiting for this appointment to know him better?422
(58.) What supports me and comforts me when sometimes men of high rank or my equals slight me, is the feeling that perhaps those very men only despise my position; and they are quite right, for it is a very humble one; but they would doubtless worship me if I were a Minister.
Am I suddenly to obtain some post, and do people know it, or foresee it, because they forestall me and bow to me first?
(59.) A man who tells us he has dined the day before at Tibur, or is going to have supper there tonight, and repeats it often, who brings in the name of Plancusʼ423 about a dozen times during a few minutes conversation, such as, “Plancus asked me....” or “I said to Plancus....” is told that very moment that his hero has been snatched away by sudden death. He starts off at a tangent, gathers around him the people in the market-place or underneath the porticoes; accuses the deceased, rails at his conduct, and blackens his administration; he even denies him a knowledge of those details which the public own he had mastered, will not allow him to have had a good memory, refuses to praise him for his steadiness of character and power of work, and will not do him the honour to believe that among all the enemies of the State there was one who was Plancusʼ enemy.
(60.) I think it must be a pretty sight for a man of merit to observe at a meeting, or at a public entertainment, that the very seat which has been refused him is given up before his face to a man who has neither eyes to see nor ears to hear,424 nor sense to know and to judge, and who has nothing to recommend him but his court-dress as a favourite,425 which now he himself is above wearing.
(61.) Theodotus426 is staid in dress, whilst his countenance, as theatrical as an actorʼs who has to appear on the stage, harmonises with his voice, his carriage, gestures, and attitude. He is cunning, cautious, insinuating, mysterious; he draws near you and whispers, “It is fine weather; it is thawing.” If he has no grand qualifications, he has all the little ones, even those which would scarcely become a youthful précieuse.427 Imagine the application of a child building a house of cards or catching a butterfly; such is Theodotus, engaged on an affair of no consequence, and which is not worth any oneʼs attention; he, however, treats it seriously, and as if it were of the greatest importance; he moves about, bestirs himself, and is successful; then he takes breath and rests awhile, as indeed he should, for he has given himself a good deal of trouble. Some people are intoxicated, and bewitched with the favour of the great; they think of them all day, and dream of them all night; they are always trotting up and down the stairs of a Ministerʼs apartment, go in and come out of his ante-chamber, but they have nothing to say to him, though they speak to him; they speak to him a second time, and they are highly pleased, for they have spoken. Press them, squeeze them, and nothing will be got from them but pride, arrogance, and presumption; address them, and they do not answer; they know you not, they look bewildered, and their brain is turned; their relatives should take care of them and lock them up, lest in time their folly should drive them frantic, and make them harm some one. Theodotus has a gentler hobby; he immoderately loves favour, but his passion is less impetuous, and he worships it secretly, and fosters and serves it mysteriously; he is ever on the watch to discover who are the new favourites of the king;428 if these wish for anything, he offers to serve them, and to intrigue for them; and stealthily sacrifices to them merit, connections, friendship, engagements, and gratitude. If the place of Cassini429 were vacant, and a Swiss porter or postillion of a favourite were applying for it, he would support his pretensions, judge him worthy of the place, and think him capable of making observations and calculations, and of discussing about parhelions and parallaxes.430 Should you like to know whether Theodotus be an author or a plagiary, original or a copyist, I will give you one of his works, and bid you read and judge. Who can decide, from the picture I have drawn, whether he is really pious, or merely a courtier?431 I can with more assurance proclaim whether the stars will be propitious to him. Yes, Theodotus, I have calculated your nativity; you will obtain an appointment, and that very soon; so abandon your lucubrations, and print no more any of your writings; the public begs for quarter.