Beacon Lights of History Volume Vii Part 6

But the angry and disappointed d.u.c.h.ess gave vent to her wrath and vengeance in letters to her husband and in speech to G.o.dolphin. She entreated them to avenge her quarrel. She employed spies about the Queen. She brought to bear her whole influence on the leaders of the Whigs. She prepared herself for an open conflict with her sovereign; for she saw clearly that the old relations of friends.h.i.+p and confidence between them would never return. A broken friends.h.i.+p is a broken jar; it may be mended, but never restored,--its glory has departed. And this is one of the bitterest experiences of life, on whomsoever the fault may be laid. The fault in this instance was on the side of the d.u.c.h.ess, and not on that of her patron. The arrogance and dictation of the favorite had become intolerable; it was as hard to bear as the insolence of a petted servant.

The Duke of Marlborough and Lord G.o.dolphin took up the quarrel with zeal. They were both at the summit of power, and both were leaders of their party. The victories of the former had made him the most famous man in Europe and the greatest subject in England. They declined to serve their sovereign any longer, unless Harley were dismissed from office; and the able secretary of state was obliged to resign.

But Anne could not forget that she was forced to part with her confidential minister, and continued to be ruled by his counsels. She had secret nocturnal meetings in the palace with both Harley and Mrs.

Masham, to the chagrin of the ministers. The court became the scene of intrigues and cabals. Not only was Harley dismissed, but also Henry St.

John, afterwards the famous Lord Bolingbroke, the intimate friend and patron of Pope. He was secretary of war, and was a man of great ability, of more genius even than Harley. He was an infidel in his religious opinions, and profligate in his private life. Like Harley, he was born of Puritan parents, and, like him, repudiated his early principles. He was the most eloquent orator in the House of Commons, which he entered in 1700 as a Whig. At that time he was much admired by Marlborough, who used his influence to secure his entrance into the cabinet. His most remarkable qualities were political sagacity, and penetration into the motives and dispositions of men. He gradually went over to the Tories, and his alliance with Harley was strengthened by personal friends.h.i.+p as well as political sympathies. He was the most interesting man of his age in society,--witty, bright, and courtly. In conversational powers he was surpa.s.sed only by Swift.

Meanwhile the breach between the Queen and the d.u.c.h.ess gradually widened. And as the former grew cold in her treatment of her old friend, she at the same time annoyed her ministers by the appointment of Tory bishops to the vacant sees. She went so far as to encroach on the prerogatives of the general of her armies, by making military appointments without his consent. This interference Marlborough properly resented. But his influence was now on the wane, as the nation wearied of a war which, as it seemed to the Tories, he needlessly prolonged. Moreover, the Duke of Somerset, piqued by the refusal of the general to give a regiment to his son, withdrew his support from the Government. The Duke of Shrewsbury and other discontented n.o.blemen left the Whig party. The unwise prosecution of Dr. Sacheverell for a seditious libel united the whole Tory party in a fierce opposition to the Government, which was becoming every day more unpopular. Harley was indefatigable in intrigues. "He fasted with religious zealots and feasted with convivial friends." He promised everything to everybody, but kept his own counsels.

In such a state of affairs, with the growing alienation of the Queen, it became necessary for the proud d.u.c.h.ess to resign her offices; but before doing this she made one final effort to regain what she had lost. She besought the Queen for a private interview, which was refused. Again importuned, her Majesty sullenly granted the interview, but refused to explain anything, and even abruptly left the room, and was so rude that the d.u.c.h.ess burst into a flood of tears which she could not restrain,--not tears of grief, but tears of wrath and shame.

Thus was finally ended the memorable friends.h.i.+p between Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, which had continued for twenty-seven years. The Queen and d.u.c.h.ess never met again. Soon after, in 1710, followed the dismissal of Lord G.o.dolphin, as lord treasurer, who was succeeded by Harley, created Earl of Oxford. Sunderland, too, was dismissed, and his post of secretary of state was given to St. John, created Viscount Bolingbroke.

Lord Cowper resigned the seals, and Sir Simon Harcourt, an avowed adherent of the Pretender, became lord chancellor. The Earl of Rochester, the bitterest of all the Tories, was appointed president of the council. The Duke of Marlborough, however, was not dismissed from his high command until 1711. One reason for his dismissal was that he was suspected of aiming to make himself supreme. On his return from the battle of Malplaquet, he had coolly demanded to be made captain-general for life. Such a haughty demand would have been regarded as dangerous in a great crisis; it was absurd when public dangers had pa.s.sed away. Even Lord Cowper. his friend the chancellor, shrunk from it with amazement.

Such a demand would have been deemed arrogant in Wallenstein, amid the successes of Gustavus Adolphus.

No insignificant cause of the triumph of the Tory party at this time was the patronage which the Tory leaders extended to men of letters, and the bitter political tracts which these literary men wrote and for which they were paid. In that age the speeches of members of Parliament were not reported or published, and hence had but little influence on public opinion. Even ministers resorted to political tracts to sustain their power, or to undermine that of their opponents; and these were more efficient than speeches in the House of Commons. Bolingbroke was the most eloquent orator of his day; but no orators arose in Anne's reign equal to Pitt and Fox in the reign of George III. Hence the political leaders availed themselves of the writings of men of letters, with whom they freely a.s.sociated. And this intercourse was deemed a great condescension on the part of n.o.bles and cabinet ministers. In that age great men were not those who were famous for genius, but those who were exalted in social position. Still, genius was held in high honor by those who controlled public affairs, whenever it could be made subservient to their interests.

Foremost among the men of genius who lent their pen to the service of n.o.bles and statesmen was Jonathan Swift,--clergyman, poet, and satirist.

But he was more famous for his satire than for his sermons or his poetry. Everybody winced under his terrible a.s.saults. He was both feared and hated, especially by the "great;" hence they flattered him and courted his society. He became the intimate friend and companion of Oxford and Bolingbroke. He dined with the prime minister every Sunday, and in fact as often as he pleased. He rarely dined at home, and almost lived in the houses of the highest n.o.bles, who welcomed him not only for the aid he gave them by his writings, but for his wit and agreeable discourse. At one time he was the most influential man in England, although poor and without office or preferment. He possessed two or three livings in Ireland, which together brought him about 500, on which he lived,--generally in London, at least when his friends were in power. They could not spare him, and he was intrusted with the most important secrets of state. His insolence was superb. He affected equality with dukes and earls; he "condescended" to accept their banquets. The first time that Bolingbroke invited him to dine, his reply was that "if the Queen gave his lords.h.i.+p a dukedom and the Garter and the Treasury also, he would regard them no more than he would a groat."

This a.s.sumed independence was the habit of his life. He indignantly returned 100 to Harley, which the minister had sent him as a gift: he did not work for money, but for influence and a promised bishopric. But the Queen--a pious woman of the conventional school--would never hear of his elevation to the bench of bishops, in consequence of the "Tale of a Tub," in which he had ridiculed everything sacred and profane. He was the bitterest satirist that England has produced. The most his powerful friends could do for him was to give him the deanery of St. Patrick's in Dublin, worth about 800 a year.

Swift was first brought to notice by Sir William Temple, in the reign of William and Mary, he being Sir William's secretary. At first he was a Whig, and a friend of Addison; but, neglected by Marlborough and G.o.dolphin,--who cared but little for literary genius,--he became a Tory.

In 1710 he became a.s.sociated with Harley, St. John, Atterbury, and Prior, in the defence of the Tory party; but he never relinquished his friends.h.i.+p with Addison, for whom he had profound respect and admiration. Swift's life was worldly, but moral. He was remarkably temperate in eating and drinking, and parsimonious in his habits. One of his most bitter complaints in his letters to Stella--to whom he wrote every day--was of the expense of coach-hire in his visits to n.o.bles and statesmen. It would seem that he creditably discharged his clerical duties. He attended the daily service in the cathedral, and preached when his turn came. He was charitable to the poor, and was a friend to Ireland, to whose people he rendered great services from his influence with the Government. He was beloved greatly by the Irish nation, in spite of his asperity, parsimony, and bad temper. He is generally regarded by critics as a selfish and heartless man; and his treatment of the two women whose affections he had gained was certainly inexplicable and detestable. His old age was miserable and sad. He died insane, having survived his friends and his influence. But his writings have lived. His "Gulliver's Travels" is still one of the most famous and popular books in our language, in spite of its revolting and vulgar details. Swift, like Addison, was a great master of style,--clear, forcible, and natural; and in vigor he surpa.s.sed any writer of his age.

It was the misfortune of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough to have this witty and malignant satirist for an enemy. He exposed her peculiarities, and laid bare her character with fearless effrontery. It was thus that he attacked the most powerful woman in England: "A lady of my acquaintance appropriated 26 a year out of her allowance for certain uses which the lady received, or was to pay to the lady or her order when called for.

But after eight years it appeared upon the strictest calculation that the woman had paid but 4, and sunk 22 for her own pocket. It is but supposing 26 instead of 26,000, and by that you may judge what the pretensions of modern merit are when it happens to be its own paymaster." Who could stand before such insinuations? The d.u.c.h.ess afterwards attempted to defend herself against the charge of peculation as the keeper of the privy purse; but no one believed her. She was notoriously avaricious and unscrupulous. Swift spared no personage in the party of the Whigs, when by so doing he could please the leaders of the Tories. And he wrote in an age when libels were scandalous and savage,--libels which would now subject their authors to punishment. The acrimony of party strife at that time has never since been equalled.

Even poets attacked each other with savage recklessness. There was no criticism after the style of Sainte-Beuve. Writers sought either to annihilate or to extravagantly praise. The jealousy which poets displayed in reference to each other's productions was as unreasonable and bitter as the envy and strife between country doctors, or musicians at the opera.

There was one great writer in the age of Queen Anne who was an exception to this nearly universal envy and bitterness; and this was Addison, who was as serene and calm as other critics were furious and unjust. Even Swift spared this amiable and accomplished writer, although he belonged to the Whig party. Joseph Addison, born in 1672, was the most fortunate man of letters in his age,--perhaps in any succeeding age in English history. He was early distinguished as a writer of Latin poems; and in 1699, at the age of twenty-seven, the young scholar was sent by Montague, at the recommendation of Somers, to the Continent, on a pension of 300 a year, to study languages with a view to the diplomatic service. On the accession of Anne, Addison was obliged to return to literature for his support. Solicited by G.o.dolphin, under the advice of Halifax, to write a poem on the victories of Marlborough, he wrote one so popular that he rapidly rose in favor with the Whig ministry. In 1708 he was made secretary for Ireland, under Lord Wharton, and entered Parliament. He afterwards was made secretary of state, married a peeress, and spent his last days at Holland House.

But Addison was no politician; nor did he distinguish himself in Parliament or as a political writer. He could not make a speech, not having been trained to debate. He was too timid, and his taste was too severe, for the arena of politicians. He is immortal for his essays, in which his humor is transcendent, and his style easy and graceful, As a writer, he is a great artist. No one has ever been able to equal him in the charming simplicity of his style. Macaulay, a great artist himself in the use of language, places Addison on the summit of literary excellence and fame as an essayist. One is at loss to comprehend why so quiet and un.o.btrusive a scholar should have been selected for important political positions, but can easily understand why he was the admiration of the highest social circles for his wit and the elegance of his conversation. He was the personification of urbanity and every gentlemanly quality, as well as one of the best scholars of his age; but it was only in an aristocratic age, when a few great n.o.bles controlled public affairs, that such a man could have been so recognized, rewarded, and honored. He died beloved and universally lamented, and his writings are still cla.s.sics, and likely to remain so.

He was not an oracle in general society, like Mackintosh and Macaulay; but among congenial and trusted friends he gave full play to his humor, and was as charming as Was.h.i.+ngton Irving is said to have been in his chosen circle of admirers. Although he was a Whig, we do not read of any particular intimacy with such men as Marlborough and G.o.dolphin.

Marlborough, though an accomplished and amiable man, was not fond of the society of wits, as were Halifax, Montague, Harley, and St. John. As for the d.u.c.h.ess, she was too proud and grand for such a retired scholar as Addison to feel at ease in her worldly coteries. She cared no more for poetry or severe intellectual culture than politicians generally do. She shone only in a galaxy of ladies of rank and fas.h.i.+on. I do not read that she ever took a literary man into her service, and she had no more taste for letters than the sovereign she served. She was doubtless intellectual, shrewd, and discriminating; but her intellect was directed to current political movements, and she was coa.r.s.e in her language. She would swear, like Queen Elizabeth, when excited to anger, and her wrath was terrible.

On the dismissal of the great Duke from all his offices, and the "disgrace" of his wife at court, they led a comparatively quiet life abroad. The d.u.c.h.ess had parted with her offices with great reluctance.

Even when the Queen sent for the golden keys, which were the badge of her office, she refused to surrender them. No one could do anything with the infuriated termagant, and all were afraid of her. She threatened to print the private correspondence of the Queen as Mrs. Morley. The ministers dared not go into her presence, so fierce was her character when offended. To take from her the badge of office was like trying to separate a fierce lioness from her whelps. The only person who could manage her was her husband; and when at last he compelled her to give up the keys, she threw them in a storm of pa.s.sion at his head, and raved like a maniac. It is amazing how the Queen could have borne so long with the d.u.c.h.ess's ungovernable temper, and still more so how her husband could. But he was always mild and meek in the retirement of his home,--a truly domestic man, to whom pomp was a weariness. Moreover, he was a singularly fortunate man. His ambition and pride and avarice were gratified beyond precedent in English history. He had become the foremost man in his country, and perhaps of his age. And his wife was still looked to as a great personage, not only because of her position and rank, but for her abilities, which were doubtless great. She was still a power in the land, and was surrounded by children and grandchildren who occupied some of the highest social positions in England.

But she was not happy. What can satisfy a restless and ambitious woman whose happiness is in external pleasures? There is a limit to the favors which fortune showers; and when the limits of success are reached, there must be disappointment. The d.u.c.h.ess was discontented, and became morose, quarrelsome, and hard to please. Her children did not love her, and some were in bitter opposition to her. She was perpetually embroiled in family quarrels. Nothing could soften the asperity of her temper, or restrain her unreasonable exactions. At last England became hateful to her, and she and her husband quitted it, and resided abroad for several years. In the retirement of voluntary exile she answered the numerous accusations against her; for she was maligned on every side, and generally disliked, since her arrogance had become insupportable, even to her daughters.

Meanwhile the last days of Queen Anne's weary existence were drawing to a close. She was a.s.sailed with innumerable annoyances. Her body was racked with the gout, and her feeble mind was distracted by the contradictory counsels of her advisers. Any allusion to her successor was a knell of agony to her disturbed soul. She became suspicious, and was even alienated from Harley, whom she dismissed from office only a few days before her death, which took place Aug. 1, 1714. She died without signing her will, by which omission Mrs. Masham was deprived of her legacy. She died childless, and the Elector George of Hanover ascended her throne.

On the death of the Queen, Marlborough returned to England; and it was one of the first acts of the new king to restore to him the post of captain-general of the land forces, while his son-in-law Sunderland was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland. A Whig cabinet was formed, but the Duke never regained his old political influence, and he gradually retired to private life, residing with the d.u.c.h.ess almost wholly at Holywell. His peaceful retirement, for which he had longed, came at last. He employed his time in surveying the progress of the building of Blenheim,--in which palace he was never destined to live,--and in simple pleasures, for which he never lost a taste. His wife occupied herself in matrimonial projects for her grandchildren, seeking alliances of ambition and interest.

In 1716 the Duke of Marlborough was attacked with a paralytic fit, from the effects of which he only partially recovered. To restore his health, he went to Bath,--then the fas.h.i.+onable and favorite watering-place, whose waters were deemed beneficial to invalids; and here it was one of the scandals of the day that the rich n.o.bleman would hobble from the public room to his lodgings, in a cold, dark night, to save sixpence in coach-hire. His enjoyments were now few and transient. His nervous system was completely shattered, after so many labors and exposures in his numerous campaigns. He lingered till 1722, when he died leaving a fortune of a million and a half pounds sterling, besides his vast estates. No subject at that time had so large an income. He left a military fame never surpa.s.sed in England,--except by Wellington,--and a name unstained by cruelty. So distinguished a man of course received at his death unparalleled funeral honors. He was followed to his temporary resting-place in the vaults of Westminster by the most imposing procession that England had ever seen.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough was now the richest woman in England.

Whatever influence proceeds from rank and riches she still possessed, though the t.i.tles and honors of the dukedom descended by act of Parliament, in 1706, to the Countess of G.o.dolphin, with whom she was at war. The d.u.c.h.ess was now sixty-two, with unbroken health and inextinguishable ambition. She resided chiefly at Windsor Lodge, for she held for life the office of ranger of the forest. It was then that she was so severely castigated by Pope in his satirical lines on "Atossa,"

that she is said to have sent 1000 to the poet, to suppress the libel,--her avarice and wrath giving way to her policy and pride. For twenty years after the death of her husband she continued an intriguing politician, but on ill-terms with Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister, whom she cordially hated, more because of money transactions than political disagreement. She was a very disagreeable old woman, yet not without influence, if she was without friends. She had at least the merit of frankness, for she concealed none of her opinions of the King, nor of his ministers, nor of distinguished n.o.bles. She was querulous, and full of complaints and exactions. One of her bitterest complaints was that she was compelled to pay taxes on her house in Windsor Park.

She would even utter her complaints before servants. Litigation was not disagreeable to her if she had reason on her side, whether she had law or not.

It was not the good fortune of this strong-minded but unhappy woman to a.s.semble around her in her declining years children and grandchildren who were attached to her. She had alienated even them. She had no intimate friends. "A woman not beloved by her own children can have but little claim to the affections of others." As we have already said, the d.u.c.h.ess was at open variance with her oldest daughter Henrietta, the Countess of G.o.dolphin, to whom she was never reconciled. Her quarrels with her granddaughter Lady Anne Egerton, afterwards d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, were violent and incessant. She lived in perpetual altercation with her youngest daughter, the d.u.c.h.ess of Montague. She never was beloved by any of her children at any time, since they were in childhood and youth intrusted to the care of servants and teachers, while the mother was absorbed in political cabals at court. She consulted their interest merely in making for them grand alliances, to gratify her family pride.

Her whole life was absorbed in pride and ambition. Nor did the mortification of a dishonored old age improve her temper. She sought neither the consolation of religion nor the intellectual stimulus of history and philosophy. To the last she was as worldly as she was morose. To the last she was a dissatisfied politician. She reviled the Whig administration of Walpole as fiercely as she did the Tory administration of Oxford. She haughtily refused the Order of the Bath for her grandson the Duke of Marlborough, which Walpole offered, contented with nothing less than the Garter. "Madam," replied Walpole, "they who take the Bath will sooner have the Garter." In her old age her ruling pa.s.sion was hatred of Walpole. "I think," she wrote, "'tis thought wrong to wish anybody dead, but I hope 'tis none to wish he may be hanged." Her wishes were partly gratified, for she lived long enough to see this great statesman--so long supreme--driven to the very threshold of the Tower. For his son Horace she had equal dislike, and he returned her hatred with malignant satire. "Old Marlborough is dying,"

said the wit; "but who can tell? Last year she had lain a great while ill, without speaking, and her physician told her that she must be blistered, or she would die. She cried out, 'I won't be blistered, and I won't die,'"

She did indeed last some time longer; but with increasing infirmities, her amus.e.m.e.nts and pleasures became yearly more circ.u.mscribed. In former years she had sometimes occupied her mind with the purchase of land; for she was shrewd, and rarely made a bad bargain. Even at the age of eighty she went to the city to bid in person for the estate of Lord Yarmouth.

But as her darkened day approached its melancholy close, she amused herself by dictating in bed her "Vindication," After spending thus six hours daily with her secretary, she had recourse to her chamber organ, the eight tunes of which she thought much better to hear than going to the Italian opera. Even society, in which she once shone,--for her intellect was bright and her person beautiful,--at last wearied her and gave her no pleasure. Like many lonely, discontented women, she became attached to animals; she petted three dogs, in which she saw virtues that neither men nor women possessed. In her disquiet she often changed her residence. She went from Marlborough House to Windsor Lodge, and from Windsor Lodge to Wimbledon, only to discover that each place was damp and unhealthy. Wrapt up in flannels, and wheeled up and down her room in a chair, she discovered that wealth can only mitigate the evils of humanity, and realized how wretched is any person with a soul filled with discontent and bitterness, when animal spirits are destroyed by the infirmities of old age. All the views of this spoiled favorite of fortune were bounded by the scenes immediately before her. While she was not sceptical, she was far from being religious; and hence she was deprived of the highest consolations given to people in disappointment and sorrow and neglect. The older she grew, the more tenaciously did she cling to temporal possessions, and the more keenly did she feel occasional losses. Her intellect remained unclouded, but her feelings became callous. While she had no reverence for the dead, she felt increasing contempt for the living,--forgetting that no one, however exalted, can live at peace in an atmosphere of disdain.

At last she died, in 1744, unlamented and unloved, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, and was interred by the side of her husband, in the tomb in the chapel of Blenheim. She left 30,000 a year to her grandson, Lord John Spencer, provided he would never accept any civil or military office from the Government. She left also 20,000 to Lord Chesterfield, together with her most valuable diamond; but only small sums to most of her relatives or to charities. The residue of her property she left to that other grandson who inherited the t.i.tle and estates of her husband. 60,000 a year, her estimated income, besides a costly collection of jewels,--one of the most valuable in Europe,--were a great property, when few n.o.blemen at that time had over 30,000 a year.

The life of Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, is a sad one to contemplate, with all her riches and honors. Let those who envy wealth or rank learn from her history how little worldly prosperity can secure happiness or esteem, without the solid virtues of the heart. The richest and most prosperous woman of her times was the object of blended derision, contempt, and hatred throughout the land which she might have adorned.

Why, then, it may be asked, should I single out such a woman for a lecture,--a woman who added neither to human happiness, national prosperity, nor the civilization of her age? Why have I chosen her as one of the Beacon Lights of history? Because I know of no woman who has filled so exalted a position in society, and is so prominent a figure in history, whose career is a more impressive warning of the dangers to be shunned by those who embark on the perilous and troubled seas of mere worldly ambition. G.o.d gave her that to which she aspired, and which so many envy; but "He sent leanness into her soul."

AUTHORITIES.

Private Correspondence of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough; Mrs. Thompson's Life of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough; "Conduct," by the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, Life of Dr. Tillotson, by Dr. Birch; c.o.xe's Life of the Duke of Marlborough; Evelyn's Diary; Lord Mahon's History of England; Macaulay's History of England; Lewis Jenkin's Memoirs of the Duke of Gloucester; Burnet's History of his own Times; Lamberty's Memoirs; Swift's Journal to Stella; Liddiard's Life of the Duke of Marlborough; Boyer's Annals of Queen Anne; Swift's Memoir of the Queen's Ministry; Cunningham's History of Great Britain; Walpole's Correspondence, edited by c.o.xe; Sir Walter Scott's Life of Swift; Agnes Strickland's Queens of England; Marlborough and the Times of Queen Anne; Westminster Review, lvi. 26; Dublin University Review, lxxiv. 469; Temple Bar Magazine, lii.

333; Burton's Reign of Queen Anne; Stanhope's Queen Anne.

MADAME ReCAMIER.

A. D. 1777-1849.

THE WOMAN OF SOCIETY.

I know of no woman who by the force of beauty and social fascinations, without extraordinary intellectual gifts or high birth, has occupied so proud a position as a queen of society as Madame Recamier. So I select her as the representative of her cla.s.s.

It was in Italy that women first drew to their _salons_ the distinguished men of their age, and exercised over them a commanding influence. More than three hundred years ago Olympia Fulvia Morata was the pride of Ferrara,--eloquent with the music of Homer and Virgil, a miracle to all who heard her, giving public lectures to n.o.bles and professors when only a girl of sixteen; and Vittoria Colonna was the ornament of the Court of Naples, and afterwards drew around her at Rome the choicest society of that elegant capital,--bishops, princes, and artists,--equally the friend of Cardinal Pole and of Michael Angelo, and reigning in her retired apartments in the Benedictine convent of St.

Anne, even as the d.u.c.h.esse de Longueville shone at the Hotel de Rambouillet, with De Retz and La Rochefoucauld at her feet. This was at a period when the Italian cities were the centre of the new civilization which the Renaissance created, when ancient learning and art were cultivated with an enthusiasm never since surpa.s.sed.

The new position which women seem to have occupied in the sixteenth century in Italy, was in part owing to the wealth and culture of cities--ever the paradise of ambitious women--and the influence of poetry and chivalry, of which the Italians were the earliest admirers.

Provencal poetry was studied in Italy as early as the time of Dante; and veneration for woman was carried to a romantic excess when the rest of Europe was comparatively rude. Even in the eleventh century we see in the southern part of Europe a respectful enthusiasm for woman coeval with the birth of chivalry. The gay troubadours expounded and explained the subtile metaphysics of love in every possible way: a peerless lady was supposed to unite every possible moral virtue with beauty and rank; and hence chivalric love was based on sentiment alone. Provence gave birth both to chivalry and poetry, and they were singularly blended together. Of about five hundred troubadours whose names have descended to us, more than half were n.o.ble, for chivalry took cognizance only of n.o.ble birth. From Provence chivalry spread to Italy and to the north of France, and Normandy became pre-eminently a country of n.o.ble deeds, though not the land of song. It was in Italy that the poetical development was greatest.

After chivalry as an inst.i.tution had pa.s.sed away, it still left its spirit on society. There was not, however, much society in Europe anywhere until cities arose and became centres of culture and art. In the feudal castle there were chivalric sentiments but not society, where men and women of cultivation meet to give expression and scope to their ideas and sentiments. Nor can there be a high society without the aid of letters. Society did not arise until scholars and poets mingled with n.o.bles as companions. This sort of society gained celebrity first in Paris, when women of rank invited to their _salons_ literary men as well as n.o.bles.

The first person who gave a marked impulse to what we call society was the Marquise de Rambouillet, in the seventeenth century. She was the first to set the fas.h.i.+on in France of that long series of social gatherings which were a sort of inst.i.tution for more than two hundred years. Her father was a devoted friend of Henry IV., belonged to one of the first families of France, and had been amba.s.sador to Rome. She was married in the year 1600, at the age of fifteen. When twenty-two, she had acquired a distaste for the dissipations of the court and everything like crowded a.s.semblies. She was among the first to discover that a crowd of men and women does not const.i.tute society. Nothing is more foreign to the genius of the highest cultivated life than a crowded _salon_, where conversation on any interesting topic is impossible; where social life is gilded, but frivolous and empty; where especially the loftiest sentiments of the soul are suppressed. From an early period such crowds gathered at courts; but it was not till the seventeenth century that the _salon_ arose, in which woman was a queen and an inst.i.tution.

The famous queens of society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do not seem to have mixed much in miscellaneous a.s.semblies, however brilliant in dress and ornament. They were more exclusive. They reserved their remarkable talents for social reunions, perhaps in modest _salons_, where among distinguished men and women they could pour out the treasures of the soul and mind; where they could inspire and draw out the sentiments of those who were gifted and distinguished. Madame du Deffand lived quietly in the convent of St. Joseph, but she gathered around her an elegant and famous circle, until she was eighty and blind.

The Sat.u.r.day a.s.semblies of Mademoiselle de Scudery, frequented by the most distinguished people of Paris, were given in a modest apartment, for she was only a novelist. The same may be said of the receptions of Madame de la Sabliere, who was a childless widow, of moderate means. The d.u.c.h.esse de Longueville--another of those famous queens--saw her best days in the abbey of Port Royal. Madame Recamier reigned in a small apartment in the Abbaye-au-Bois. All these carried out in their _salons_ the rules and customs which had been established by Madame de Rambouillet, It was in her _salon_ that the French Academy originated, and its first members were regular visitants at her hotel. Her conversation was the chief amus.e.m.e.nt. We hear of neither cards nor music; but there were frequent parties to the country, walks in the woods,--a perpetual animation, where ceremony was banished. The brilliancy of her parties excited the jealousy of Richelieu. Hither resorted those who did not wish to be bound by the stiffness of the court. At that period this famous hotel had its pedantries, but it was severely intellectual. Hither came Mademoiselle de Scuderi; Mademoiselle de Montpensier, granddaughter of Henry IV.; Vaugelas, and others of the poets; also Balzac, Voiture, Racan, the Duc de Montausier, Madame de Sevigne, Madame de la Fayette, and others. The most marked thing about this hotel was the patronage extended to men of letters. Those great French ladies welcomed poets and scholars, and encouraged them, and did not allow them to starve, like the literary men of Grub Street. Had the English aristocracy extended the same helping hand to authors, the condition of English men of letters in the eighteenth century would have been far less unfortunate. Authors in France have never been excluded from high society; and this was owing in part to the influence of the Hotel de Rambouillet, which sought an alliance between genius and rank.

It is this blending of genius with rank which gave to society in France its chief attraction, and made it so brilliant.

Mademoiselle de Scudery, Madame de la Sabliere, and Madame de Longueville followed the precedents established by Madame de Rambouillet and Madame de Maintenon, and successively reigned as queens of society,--that is, of chosen circles of those who were most celebrated in France,--raising the intellectual tone of society, and inspiring increased veneration for woman herself.

But the most celebrated of all these queens of society was Madame Recamier, who was the friend and contemporary of Madame de Stael. She was born at Lyons, in 1777, not of high rank, her father, M. Bernard, being only a prosperous notary. Through the influence of Calonne, minister of Louis XVI., he obtained the lucrative place of Receiver of the Finances, and removed to Paris, while his only daughter Juliette was sent to a convent, near Lyons, to be educated, where she remained until she was ten years of age, when she rejoined her family. Juliette's education was continued at home, under her mother's superintendence; but she excelled in nothing especially except music and dancing, and was only marked for grace, beauty, and good-nature.