Chapter II (3)

Having passed a large parterre, and great gardens, all full of
orange trees, we arrived at a wood which the sunlight had not
entered in more than an hundred years, until it entered there (in
the person of Madame). At the foot of an avenue so long that we
could not fathom its vista with our eyes until we had reached the
end of it, we found a fountain which threw out more water than was
ever thrown by all the fountains of Tivoli put together. Around the
fountain were ranged twenty-four violinists with their violins, and
their music was hardly able to cover the music of the fountain.
When we drew near them we discovered a niche in the palisado, and
in the niche was a Diana eleven or twelve years old, more beautiful
than any goddess of the forests of Greece or of Thessaly. She
bore her arrows in her eyes, and all the rays of the halo of her
brother surrounded her. In another niche was one of Diana's nymphs,
beautiful and sweet enough to attend Diana. They who doubt fables
said that the two visions were only Mlle. de Bourbon and la Pucelle
Priande; and, to tell the truth, there was some ground for their
belief, for even we who have always put faith in fables, we who
knew that we were looking upon a supernatural vision, recognised
a close resemblance. Every one was standing motionless and
speechless, with admiration for all the objects so astonishing both
to ear and to eye, when suddenly the goddess sprang from her niche
and with grace that cannot be described, began a dance around the
fountain which lasted some time, and in which every one joined.

(Here Voiture, who was under obligations to his correspondent, Cardinal de La Valette, represents himself as having wept because the Cardinal was not there. According to Voiture's account he communicated his grief to all the company.)

... And I should have wept, and, in fact, we all should have
mourned too long, had not the violins quickly played a saraband so
gay that every one sprang up and danced as joyously as if there
had been no mourning; and thus, jumping, dancing, whirling,
pirouetting, and capering, we arrived at the house, where we found
a table dressed as delicately as if the faëries had served it. And
now, Monseigneur, I come to a part of the adventure which cannot be
described! Truly, there are no colours nor any figures of rhetoric
to represent the six kinds of luscious soups, all different, which
were first placed before us before anything else was served. And
among other things were twelve different kinds of meats, under
the most unimaginable disguises, such as no one had ever heard
of, and of which not one of us has learned the name to this day!
As we were leaving the table the music of the violins called us
quickly up the stairs, and when we reached the upper floor we found
an audience-room turned into a ball-room, so well lighted that it
seemed to us that the sun, which had entirely disappeared from
earth, had gone around in some unknown way and climbed up there to
shine upon us and to make it as bright as any daylight ever seen.
There the dance began anew, and even more perfectly than when we
had danced around the fountain; and more magnificent than all else,
Monseigneur, is this, that _I danced there!_ Mlle. de Bourbon said
that, truth to tell, I danced badly, but that doubtless I should
make an excellent swordsman, because, at the end of every cadence,
I straightened as if to fall back on guard.

The fête ended in a display of fireworks, after which the company "took the road" for Paris by the light of twenty flambeaux, singing with all the strength of their lungs. When they reached the village of La Villette they caught up with the violinists, who had started for the city as soon as the dance was ended and before the party left the château. One of the gayest of the company insisted that the violinists should play, and that they should dance right there in the street of the village. It was between two and three o'clock in the morning and Voiture was tired out; he "blessed Heaven" when it was discovered that the violins had been left at La Barre.

At last [Voiture wrote to the Cardinal] we reached Paris....
Impenetrable darkness wrapped the city, silence and solitude lay on
every hand, the streets were deserted, and we saw no people, but
now and then small animals, frightened by the glaring flames of
our torches, fled before us, and we saw them hiding on the shadowy
corners.

We learn from this letter how the companions of the Hôtel de Rambouillet passed their evenings.

In Paris and in the distant provinces there were many imitations of the Salon; the germs of the enterprise had taken root all over France with literary results, which became the subject of serious study. The political consequences of the literary and social innovations claimed less attention. The domestication of the nobility originated in the Salon. When delicacy of manner was introduced as obligatory, the nobleman was in full possession of the rights of power; he could hunt and torture animals and inferior men, he could make war upon his neighbours, he could live in egotistical isolation, enjoying the luxuries bestowed by his seigniory, while the lower orders died of hunger at his door, because his rank was manifested by his freedom from rules which bound classes below his quality. The diversions introduced at the Salon de Rambouillet exacted sacrifice of self to the convenience of others. In the abstract this was an excellent thing, but its reaction was felt by the aristocracy; from restraining their selfishness the gallant courtiers passed on to the self-renunciation of the ancient Crusaders, and when Louis XIV. saw fit (for his own reasons) to turn his nobles into peaceful courtiers and grand barons of the ante-chamber, he found that his work had all been done; it was not possible to convert his warriors into courtiers, for he had no warriors; all the warriors had turned to knights of the carpet; their swords were wreathed with roses, and the ringing notes which had called men to arms had changed to the sighing murmurs of Durandarte; every man sat in a perfumed bower busily employed in making "sonnets to his mistress's eyebrows." Louis XIV. fumed because his Court resembled a salon; the incomparable Arthénice had given the restless cavaliers a taste for fine conversation and innocent pleasures, and by doing so she had minced the King's spoonmeat too fine; the absolute monarch could only modify a transformation accomplished independent of his will.

FROM AN OLD PRINT]

We have now to determine how much of their false exalted sentiment and their false ambition the princes, the chevaliers of the Fronde, and all the gallants of the quality owed to the dramatic theatre of their day; that estimated, we shall have gained a fair idea of the chief elements of the social body idealised by Corneille,--of all the elements save one, the element of Religion; that was a thing apart, to be considered especially and in its own time.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 27: _Relation de ce que c'est passé en l'affaire de la reyne au mois d'août, 1637, sui le sujet de la Porte et de l'Abbesse du Val-de-Grâce._ See document in the Bibliothèque National.]

[Footnote 28: The first part appeared in 1610, or perhaps [says M. Brunetière], in 1618. The rest followed at long intervals. The four last volumes bear date 1627 and consequently are posthumous. The part written by d'Urfé cannot be distinguished from the part written by Baro, who continued the work begun by d'Urfé.]

[Footnote 29: _Manuel de l'histoire de la littérature française_, by M. Ferdinand Brunetière. Cf. _En Bourbonnais et en Forez_, by Emile Montégut, and _Le roman_ (XVII. Century) by Paul Morillot in _L'histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, published under the direction of M. Petit de Julleville. _Les vendanges de Suresnes_, by Pierre du Ryer.]

[Footnote 30: Waliszeffski: _Marysienka_.]

[Footnote 31: Paul Morillot, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 32: In the Dedication of _Place Royale_.]

[Footnote 33: In the Dedication of _Place Royale_.]

[Footnote 34: M. Lemaître's address, delivered at Port Royal. (Racine's Centennial.)]

[Footnote 35: _Histoire de l'art, pendant la renaissance._]

[Footnote 36: Sauval, _Les antiquités de Paris_.]

[Footnote 37: Dulaure, _Environs de Paris_.]

[Footnote 38: _Astrée._]

[Footnote 39: Montégut, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 40: Somaize's _Dictionnaire des Précieuses_.]

[Footnote 41: _Mémoires_, Conrart.]

[Footnote 42: _Gazette de Loret._ (Letter bearing date August 13, 1651.)]

[Footnote 43: Tallemant.]

[Footnote 44: _Mémoires_, de Richelieu.]

[Footnote 45: Young Louvigny was killed in a duel in 1629; he was entering his twenty-first year.]

[Footnote 46: Vicomte d'Avenel, _Richelieu et la Monarchie absolue_.]

[Footnote 47: See Gamboust's map, _Paris en 1652_.]

[Footnote 48: Tallemant.]

[Footnote 49: In one of the angles at the end of the courtyard (Tallemant).]

[Footnote 50: M. Bourciez _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 51: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 52: Bussy-Rabutin, _Histoire amoreuse des Gaules_.]

[Footnote 53: Oh, no! not such a good boy as all that!--Arvède Barine.]

[Footnote 54: Mme. de Sévigné.]

[Footnote 55: _Valentin Conrart_, Réné Kerviler and Ed. de Barthélemy.]

[Footnote 56: Mme. de Kerviler and Ed. de Barthélemy, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 57: Tallemant.]

[Footnote 58: Cardinal La Valette.]

[Footnote 59: Near Enghien.]