At a later period, the sacred name of friendship was unfortunately used to veil relations that had lost all the purity and delicacy of their primitive character. This fact has sometimes been rather illogically cited, as an argument not only against the moral influence of the salons but against the intellectual development of women. There is neither excuse nor palliation to be offered for the Italian manners and the recognized system of amis intimes, which disgraced the French society the next century. But, while it is greatly to be deplored that the moral sense has not always kept pace with the cultivation of the intellect, there is no reason for believing that license of manners is in any degree the result of it. There is striking evidence to the contrary, in the incredible ignorance and laxity that found its reaction in the early salons; also in the dissolute lives of many distinguished women of rank who had no pretension to wit or education. The fluctuation of morals, which has always existed, must be traced to quite other causes.
Virtue has not invariably accompanied intelligence, but it has been still less the companion of ignorance.
It was Mme. de Sable who set the fashion of condensing the thoughts and experiences of life into maxims and epigrams. This was her specific gift to literature; but her influence was felt through what she inspired others to do rather than through what she did herself. It was her good fortune to be brought into contact with the genius of a Pascal and a La Rochefoucauld,--men who reared immortal works upon the pastime of an idle hour. One or two of her own maxims will suffice to indicate her style as well as to show the estimate she placed upon form and measure in the conduct of life:
A bad manner spoils everything, even justice and reason. The HOW constitutes the best part of things, and the air which one gives them gilds, modifies, and softens the most disagreeable.
There is a certain command in the manner of speaking and acting, which makes itself felt everywhere, and which gains, in advance, consideration and respect.
We find here the spirit that underlies French manners, in which form counts for so much.
There is another, which suggests the delicate flavor of sentiment then in vogue:
Wherever it is, love is always the master. It seems truly that it is to the soul of the one who loves, what the soul is to the body it animates.
Among the eminent men who lent so much brilliancy to this salon was the great jurist Domat. He adds his contribution and falls into the moralizing vein:
A little fine weather, a good word, a praise, a caress, draws me from a profound sadness from which I could not draw myself by any effort of meditation. What a machine is my soul, what an abyss of misery and weakness!
Here is one by the Abbe d'Ailly, which foreshadows the thought of the next century:
Too great submission to books, and to the opinions of the ancients, as to the eternal truths revealed of God, spoils the head and makes pedants.
The finest and most vigorous of these choice spirits was Pascal, who frequented more or less the salon of Mme. de Sable previous to his final retirement to the gloom and austerity of the cloister. His delicate platonism and refined spirituality go far towards offsetting the cold cynicism of La Rochefoucauld. Each gives us a different phase of life as reflected in a clear and luminous intelligence. The one led to Port Royal, the other turned an electric light upon the selfish corruption of courts.
Many of the pensees of Pascal were preserved among the records of this salon, and Cousin finds reason for believing that they were first suggested and discussed here; he even thinks it possible, if not probable, that the "Discours sur les Passions de L'amour," which pertains to his mundane life, and presents the grave and ascetic recluse in a new light, had a like origin.
But the presiding genius was La Rochefoucauld. He complains that the mode of relaxation is fatiguing, and that the mania for sentences troubles his repose. The subjects were suggested for conversation, and the thoughts were condensed and reduced to writing at leisure. "Here are all the maxims I have," he writes to Mme. de Sable; "but as one gives nothing for nothing, I demand a potage aux carottes, un ragout de mouton, etc."
"When La Rochefoucauld had composed his sentences," says Cousin, "he talked them over before or after dinner, or he sent them at the end of a letter. They were discussed, examined, and observations were made, by which he profited. One could lessen their faults, but one could lend them no beauty. There was not a delicate and rare turn, a fine and keen touch, which did not come from him."
