The Women of the French Salons [93]
herself to us as two distinct characters. The one best known is hard, bitter, coldly analytic, and mocks at everything bordering upon sentiment or feeling. The other, which underlies this, and of which we have rare glimpses, is frank, tender, loving even to weakness, and forever at war with the barrenness of a period whose worst faults she seems to have embodied, and whose keenest penalties she certainly suffered.
Voltaire, the lifelong friend whom she loved, but critically measured, was three years old when she was born; Mme. de Sevigne had been dead nearly a year. Of a noble family in Burgundy, Marie de Vichy-Chamroud was brought to Paris at six years of age and placed in the convent of St. Madeleine de Traisnel, where she was educated after the superficial fashion which she so much regrets in later years. She speaks of herself as a romantic, imaginative child, but she began very early to shock the pious sisters by her dawning skepticism. One of the nuns had a wax figure of the infant Jesus, which she discovered to have been a doll formerly dressed to represent the Spanish fashions to Anne of Austria. This was the first blow to her illusions, and had a very perceptible influence upon her life. She pronounced it a deception. Eight days of solitude with a diet of bread and water failed to restore her reverence. "It does not depend upon me to believe or disbelieve," she said. The eloquent and insinuating Massillon was called in to talk with her. "She is charming," was his remark, as he left her after two hours of conversation; adding thoughtfully, "Give her a five-cent catechism."
Skeptical by nature and saturated with the free-thinking spirit of the time, she reasoned that all religion was au fond, only paganism disguised. In later years, when her isolated soul longed for some tangible support, she spoke regretfully of the philosophic age which destroyed beliefs by explaining and analyzing everything.
But a beautiful, clever, high-spirited girl of sixteen is apt to feel her youth all suffering. It is certain that she had no inclination towards the life of a religieuse, and the country quickly became insupportable after her return to its provincial society. Ennui took possession of her. She was glad even to go to confessional, for the sake of telling her thoughts to some one. She complained bitterly that the life of women compelled dependence upon the conduct of others, submission to all ills and all consequences. Long afterwards she said that she would have married the devil if he had been clothed as a gentleman and assured her a moderate life. But a husband was at last found for her, and merely to escape the monotony of her secluded existence, she was glad, at twenty-one, to become the wife of the Marquis du Deffand--a good but uninteresting man, much older than herself.
Brilliant, fascinating, restless, eager to see and to learn, she felt herself in her element in the gay world of Paris. She confessed that, for the moment, she almost loved her husband for bringing her there. But the moment was a short one. They did not even settle down to what a witty Frenchman calls the "politeness of two indifferences." It is a curious commentary upon the times, that the beautiful but notorious Mme. de Parabere, who introduced her at once into her own unscrupulous world and the petits soupers of the Regent, condoled with the young bride upon her marriage, regretting that she had not taken the easy vows of a chanoinesse, as Mme. de Tencin had done. "In that case," she said, "you would have been free; well placed everywhere; with the stability of a married woman; a revenue which permits one to live and accept aid from others; the independence of a widow, without the ties which a family imposes; unquestioned rank, which you would owe to no one; indulgence, and impunity. For these advantages there is only the trouble of wearing a cross, which is becoming; black or gray habits, which can be made as magnificent as one likes; a little imperceptible veil, and a knitting sheath."
Under such teaching she
Voltaire, the lifelong friend whom she loved, but critically measured, was three years old when she was born; Mme. de Sevigne had been dead nearly a year. Of a noble family in Burgundy, Marie de Vichy-Chamroud was brought to Paris at six years of age and placed in the convent of St. Madeleine de Traisnel, where she was educated after the superficial fashion which she so much regrets in later years. She speaks of herself as a romantic, imaginative child, but she began very early to shock the pious sisters by her dawning skepticism. One of the nuns had a wax figure of the infant Jesus, which she discovered to have been a doll formerly dressed to represent the Spanish fashions to Anne of Austria. This was the first blow to her illusions, and had a very perceptible influence upon her life. She pronounced it a deception. Eight days of solitude with a diet of bread and water failed to restore her reverence. "It does not depend upon me to believe or disbelieve," she said. The eloquent and insinuating Massillon was called in to talk with her. "She is charming," was his remark, as he left her after two hours of conversation; adding thoughtfully, "Give her a five-cent catechism."
Skeptical by nature and saturated with the free-thinking spirit of the time, she reasoned that all religion was au fond, only paganism disguised. In later years, when her isolated soul longed for some tangible support, she spoke regretfully of the philosophic age which destroyed beliefs by explaining and analyzing everything.
But a beautiful, clever, high-spirited girl of sixteen is apt to feel her youth all suffering. It is certain that she had no inclination towards the life of a religieuse, and the country quickly became insupportable after her return to its provincial society. Ennui took possession of her. She was glad even to go to confessional, for the sake of telling her thoughts to some one. She complained bitterly that the life of women compelled dependence upon the conduct of others, submission to all ills and all consequences. Long afterwards she said that she would have married the devil if he had been clothed as a gentleman and assured her a moderate life. But a husband was at last found for her, and merely to escape the monotony of her secluded existence, she was glad, at twenty-one, to become the wife of the Marquis du Deffand--a good but uninteresting man, much older than herself.
Brilliant, fascinating, restless, eager to see and to learn, she felt herself in her element in the gay world of Paris. She confessed that, for the moment, she almost loved her husband for bringing her there. But the moment was a short one. They did not even settle down to what a witty Frenchman calls the "politeness of two indifferences." It is a curious commentary upon the times, that the beautiful but notorious Mme. de Parabere, who introduced her at once into her own unscrupulous world and the petits soupers of the Regent, condoled with the young bride upon her marriage, regretting that she had not taken the easy vows of a chanoinesse, as Mme. de Tencin had done. "In that case," she said, "you would have been free; well placed everywhere; with the stability of a married woman; a revenue which permits one to live and accept aid from others; the independence of a widow, without the ties which a family imposes; unquestioned rank, which you would owe to no one; indulgence, and impunity. For these advantages there is only the trouble of wearing a cross, which is becoming; black or gray habits, which can be made as magnificent as one likes; a little imperceptible veil, and a knitting sheath."
Under such teaching she