Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (594 page)

“‘Malheureuse est l’ignorance
Et plus malheureux le savoir.”

“Having through this lost a confidence which alone rendered life supportable to me, it is impossible for me to take the journey so
much thought of.  For would there be any propriety in travelling sixty miles in this season, in order to burden you with a person so little suited to you, that after years of a passion without parallel, you cannot help thinking that the greatest pleasure of your life would be to pass it without her?  I return, then, into my solitude, to examine the defects which cause me so much unhappiness, and unless I can correct them, I should have less joy than confusion in seeing you.”

It speaks strongly for the charm of Madame de Sablé’s nature that she was able to retain so susceptible a friend as Mademoiselle d’Attichy in spite of numerous other friendships, some of which, especially that with Madame de Longueville, were far from lukewarm — in spite too of a tendency in herself to distrust the affection of others toward her, and to wait for advances rather than to make them.  We find many traces of this tendency in the affectionate remonstrances addressed to her by Madame de Longueville, now for shutting herself up from her friends, now for doubting that her letters are acceptable.  Here is a little passage from one of these remonstrances which indicates a trait of Madame de Sablé, and is in itself a bit of excellent sense, worthy the consideration of lovers and friends in general: “I am very much afraid that if I leave to you the care of letting me know when I can see you, I shall be a long time without having that pleasure, and that nothing will incline you to procure it me, for I have always observed a certain lukewarmness in your friendship after our
explanations
, from which I have never seen you thoroughly recover; and that is why I dread explanations, for however good they may be in themselves, since they serve to reconcile people, it must always be admitted, to their shame, that they are at least the effect of a bad cause, and that if they remove it for a time they
sometimes leave a certain facility in getting angry again
, which, without diminishing friendship, renders its intercourse less agreeable.  It seems to me that I find all this in your behavior to me; so I am not wrong in sending to know if you wish to have me to-day.”  It is clear that Madame de Sablé was far
from having what Sainte-Beuve calls the one fault of Madame Necker — absolute perfection.  A certain exquisiteness in her physical and moral nature was, as we shall see, the source of more than one weakness, but the perception of these weaknesses, which is indicated in Madame de Longueville’s letters, heightens our idea of the attractive qualities which notwithstanding drew from her, at the sober age of forty, such expressions as these: “I assure you that you are the person in all the world whom it would be most agreeable to me to see, and there is no one whose intercourse is a ground of truer satisfaction to me.  It is admirable that at all times, and amidst all changes, the taste for your society remains in me; and,
if one ought to thank God for the joys which do not tend to salvation
, I should thank him with all my heart for having preserved that to me at a time in which he has taken away from me all others.”

Since we have entered on the chapter of Madame de Sablé’s weaknesses, this is the place to mention what was the subject of endless raillery from her friends — her elaborate precaution about her health, and her dread of infection, even from diseases the least communicable.  Perhaps this anxiety was founded as much on æsthetic as on physical grounds, on disgust at the details of illness as much as on dread of suffering: with a cold in the head or a bilious complaint, the exquisite
précieuse
must have been considerably less conscious of being “the ornament of the world,” and “made to be adored.”  Even her friendship, strong as it was, was not strong enough to overcome her horror of contagion; for when Mademoiselle de Bourbon, recently become Madame de Longueville, was attacked by small-pox, Madame de Sablé for some time had not courage to visit her, or even to see Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, who was assiduous in her attendance on the patient.  A little correspondence
à propos
of these circumstances so well exhibits the graceful badinage in which the great ladies of that day were adepts, that we are attempted to quote one short letter.

“
Mlle. de Rambouillet to the Marquise de Sablé
.”

“Mlle, de Chalais (
dame de compagnie
to the Marquise) will please to read this letter to Mme. la Marquise,
out of
a draught.

“Madame, I do not think it possible to begin my treaty with you too early, for I am convinced that between the first proposition made to me that I should see you, and the conclusion, you will have so many reflections to make, so many physicians to consult, and so many fears to surmount, that I shall have full leisure to air myself.  The conditions which I offer to fulfil for this purpose are, not to visit you until I have been three days absent from the Hôtel de Condé (where Mme. de Longueville was ill), to choose a frosty day, not to approach you within four paces, not to sit down on more than one seat.  You may also have a great fire in your room, burn juniper in the four corners, surround yourself with imperial vinegar, with rue and wormwood.  If you can feel yourself safe under these conditions, without my cutting off my hair, I swear to you to execute them religiously; and if you want examples to fortify you, I can tell you that the Queen consented to see M. Chaudebonne, when he had come directly from Mme. de Bourbon’s room, and that Mme. d’Aiguillon, who has good taste in such matters, and is free from reproach on these points, has just sent me word that if I did not go to see her she would come to me.”

Madame de Sablé betrays in her reply that she winces under this raillery, and thus provokes a rather severe though polite rejoinder, which, added to the fact that Madame de Longueville is convalescent, rouses her courage to the pitch of paying the formidable visit.  Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, made aware through their mutual friend Voiture, that her sarcasm has cut rather too deep, winds up the matter by writing that very difficult production a perfectly conciliatory yet dignified apology.  Peculiarities like this always deepen with age, and accordingly, fifteen years later, we find Madame D’Orleans in her “Princesse de Paphlagonia” — a romance in which she describes her court, with the little quarrels and other affairs that agitated it — giving the following amusing picture, or rather caricature, of the extent to which Madame de Sablé carried her pathological mania, which seems to have been shared by her friend the Countess de Maure (Mademoiselle
d’Attichy).  In the romance, these two ladies appear under the names of Princesse Parthénie and the Reine de Mionie.

“There was not an hour in the day in which they did not confer together on the means of avoiding death, and on the art of rendering themselves immortal.  Their conferences did not take place like those of other people; the fear of breathing an air which was too cold or top warm, the dread lest the wind should be too dry or too moist — in short, the imagination that the weather might not be as temperate as they thought necessary for the preservation of their health, caused them to write letters from one room to the other.  It would be extremely fortunate if these notes could be found, and formed into a collection.  I am convinced that they would contain rules for the regimen of life, precautions even as to the proper time for applying remedies, and also remedies which Hippocrates and Galen, with all their science, never heard of.  Such a collection would be very useful to the public, and would be highly profitable to the faculties of Paris and Montpellier.  If these letters were discovered, great advantages of all kinds might be derived from them, for they were princesses who had nothing mortal about them but the
knowledge
that they were mortal.  In their writings might be learned all politeness in style, and the most delicate manner of speaking on all subjects.  There is nothing with which they were not acquainted; they knew the affairs of all the States in the world, through the share they had in all the intrigues of its private members, either in matters of gallantry, as in other things, on which their advice was necessary; either to adjust embroilments and quarrels, or to excite them, for the sake of the advantages which their friends could derive from them; — in a word, they were persons through whose hands the secrets of the whole world had to pass.  The Princess Parthénie (Mme. de Sablé) had a palate as delicate as her mind; nothing could equal the magnificence of the entertainments she gave; all the dishes were exquisite, and her cleanliness was beyond all that could be imagined.  It was in their time that writing came into use; previously nothing was written but marriage contracts, and letters were never heard of; thus it is to them that we owe a practice so convenient in intercourse.”

Still later in 1669, when the most uncompromising of the Port Royalists seemed to tax Madame de Sablé with lukewarmness that she did not join them at Port-Royal-des-Champs, we find her writing to the stern M. de Sévigny: “En vérité, je
crois que je ne pourrois mieux faire que de tout quitter et de m’en aller là. 
Mais que deviendroient ces frayeurs de n’avoir pas de médicines à choisir, ni de chirurgien pour me saigner?”

Mademoiselle, as we have seen, hints at the love of delicate eating, which many of Madame de Sablé’s friends numbered among her foibles, especially after her religious career had commenced.  She had a genius in
friandise
, and knew how to gratify the palate without offending the highest sense of refinement.  Her sympathetic nature showed itself in this as in other things; she was always sending
bonnes bouches
to her friends, and trying to communicate to them her science and taste in the affairs of the table. 
Madame de Longueville, who had not the luxurious tendencies of her friend, writes: “Je vous demande au nom de Dieu, que vous ne me prépariez aucun ragoût.  Surtout ne me donnez point de festin.  Au nom de Dieu, qu’il n’y ait rien que ce qu’on peut manger, car vous savez que c’est inutile pour moi; de plus j’en ai scrupule.” 
But other friends had more appreciation of her niceties.  Voiture thanks her for her melons, and assures her that they are better than those of yesterday; Madame de Choisy hopes that her ridicule of Jansenism will not provoke Madame de Sablé to refuse her the receipt for salad; and La Rochefoucauld writes: “You cannot do me a greater charity than to permit the bearer of this letter to enter into the mysteries of your marmalade and your genuine preserves, and I humbly entreat you to do everything you can in his favor.  If I could hope for two dishes of those preserves, which I did not deserve to eat before, I should be indebted to you all my life.”  For our own part, being as far as possible from fraternizing with those spiritual people who convert a deficiency into a principle, and pique themselves on an obtuse palate as a point of superiority, we are not inclined to number Madame de Sablé’s
friandise
among her defects.  M. Cousin, too, is apologetic on this point.  He says:

“It was only the excess of a delicacy which can be really understood, and a sort of fidelity to the character of
précieuse
.  As the
précieuse
did nothing according to common usage, she could not dine
like another.  We have cited a passage from Mme. de Motteville, where Mme. de Sablé is represented in her first youth at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, maintaining that woman is born to be an ornament to the world, and to receive the adoration of men.  The woman worthy of the name ought always to appear above material wants, and retain, even in the most vulgar details of life, something distinguished and purified.  Eating is a very necessary operation, but one which is not agreeable to the eye.  Mme. de Sablé insisted on its being conducted with a peculiar cleanliness.  According to her it was not every woman who could with impunity be at table in the presence of a lover; the first distortion of the face, she said, would be enough to spoil all.  Gross meals made for the body merely ought to be abandoned to
bourgeoises
, and the refined woman should appear to take a little nourishment merely to sustain her, and even to divert her, as one takes refreshments and ices.  Wealth did not suffice for this: a particular talent was required.  Mme. de Sablé was a mistress in this art.  She had transported the aristocratic spirit, and the
genre précieux
, good breeding and good taste, even into cookery.  Her dinners, without any opulence, were celebrated and sought after.”

It is quite in accordance with all this that Madame de Sablé should delight in fine scents, and we find that she did; for being threatened, in her Port Royal days, when she was at an advanced age, with the loss of smell, and writing for sympathy and information to Mère Agnès, who had lost that sense early in life, she receives this admonition from the stern saint: “You would gain by this loss, my very dear sister, if you made use of it as a satisfaction to God, for having had too much pleasure in delicious scents.” 
Scarron describes her as

“La non pareille Bois-Dauphine,
Entre dames perle très fine
,”

and the superlative delicacy implied by this epithet seems to have belonged equally to her personal habits, her affections, and her intellect.

Madame de Sablé’s life, for anything we know, flowed on evenly enough until 1640, when the death of her husband threw upon her the care of an embarrassed fortune.  She found a friend in Réné de Longueil, Seigneur de Maisons, of whom we are content to know no more than that he helped
Madame de Sablé to arrange her affairs, though only by means of alienating from her family the estate of Sablé, that his house was her refuge during the blockade of Paris in 1649, and that she was not unmindful of her obligations to him, when, subsequently, her credit could be serviceable to him at court.  In the midst of these pecuniary troubles came a more terrible trial — the loss of her favorite son, the brave and handsome Guy de Laval, who, after a brilliant career in the campaigns of Condé, was killed at the siege of Dunkirk, in 1646, when scarcely four-and-twenty.  The fine qualities of this young man had endeared him to the whole army, and especially to Condé, had won him the hand of the Chancellor Séguire’s daughter, and had thus opened to him the prospect of the highest honors.  His loss seems to have been the most real sorrow of Madame de Sablé’s life.  Soon after followed the commotions of the Fronde, which put a stop to social intercourse, and threw the closest friends into opposite ranks.  According to Lenet, who relies on the authority of Gourville, Madame de Sablé was under strong obligations to the court, being in the receipt of a pension of 2000 crowns; at all events, she adhered throughout to the Queen and Mazarin, but being as far as possible from a fierce partisan, and given both by disposition and judgment to hear both sides of the question, she acted as a conciliator, and retained her friends of both parties.  The Countess de Maure, whose husband was the most obstinate of
frondeurs
, remained throughout her most cherished friend, and she kept up a constant correspondence with the lovely and intrepid heroine of the Fronde, Madame de Longueville.  Her activity was directed to the extinction of animosities, by bringing about marriages between the Montagues and Capulets of the Fronde — between the Prince de Condé, or his brother, and the niece of Mazarin, or between the three nieces of Mazarin and the sons of three noblemen who were distinguished leaders of the Fronde.  Though her projects were not realized, her conciliatory position enabled her to preserve all her friendships intact, and when the political
tempest was over, she could assemble around her in her residence, in the Place Royal, the same society as before.  Madame de Sablé was now approaching her twelfth
lustrum
, and though the charms of her mind and character made her more sought after than most younger women, it is not surprising that, sharing as she did in the religious ideas of her time, the concerns of “salvation” seemed to become pressing.  A religious retirement, which did not exclude the reception of literary friends or the care for personal comforts, made the most becoming frame for age and diminished fortune.  Jansenism was then to ordinary Catholicism what Puseyism is to ordinary Church of Englandism in these days — it was a
récherché
form of piety unshared by the vulgar; and one sees at once that it must have special attractions for the
précieuse
.  Madame de Sablé, then, probably about 1655 or ‘56, determined to retire to Port Royal, not because she was already devout, but because she hoped to become so; as, however, she wished to retain the pleasure of intercourse with friends who were still worldly, she built for herself a set of apartments at once distinct from the monastery and attached to it.  Here, with a comfortable establishment, consisting of her secretary, Dr. Valant, Mademoiselle de Chalais, formerly her
dame de compagnie
, and now become her friend; an excellent cook; a few other servants, and for a considerable time a carriage and coachman; with her best friends within a moderate distance, she could, as M. Cousin says, be out of the noise of the world without altogether forsaking it, preserve her dearest friendships, and have before her eyes edifying examples — “vaquer enfin à son aise aux soins de son salut et à ceux de sa santé.”