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she felt with her people—( though real dramatic faculty is superior to all personal likes and dislikes)—and this seemed borne out by the curious apology she makes somewhere respecting the profligacy she is with " deep reluctance" forced to mention ; but such a supposition is unfounded : her virtuous characters are quite as faintly drawn as her daring debauchees . It was doubtless a delicate task for a woman to portray the life and manners df the eighteenth century ; and Miss Kavanagh has secured the chance of a of her
wider public by the colourless purity portraits , against which , as critics , we protest . The " Wives and Mothers of England " would have shown little favour to the true thing ; the present pretty version of it may be entrusted to their daughters in safety : for not only is there no sanction of immorality in fascinating pictures of its brilliancy and wit , but there is at times even a bigoted intolerance , which , however it may displease the far-sighted , will assuredly chime in with the prevalent tone . We select , as an example , the ungenerous interpretation of Madame de Parab&re ' s very natural
conduct : — " The idleness to which noble women were , like all persons of their rank , reduced , added to their degradation and heartlessness . Notwithstanding , however , the general profligacy , the convenances were still strictly observed . Any high-born lady , chiefly known for the irregularity of conduct , could , like Madame de Parabere , the mistress of the Regent , act the part of a heroic and
devoted wife . If her husband was attacked with the smallpox , then so fatal , she made her will , bade her relations farewell , and became the patient ' s nurse ; her own life often being the price of this sacrifice to vanity and ostentation : when , like Madame de Parabere , she was so fortunate as to survive the trial , she did not fail , as soon as it was over , to return to her intrigues ; whilst the world still rang with praise , which all knew to be as false and hollow as this seeming devotedness . "
If Miss Kavanagh knew more of the world she would know that even in the vicious sections of it , generous feelings are not swayed by notions of " virtue ; " and she would understand how Madame de Parabere could be scrupulously oblivious of the seventh commandment—or regard it only as a shopkeepers' prejudice—and yet have a thorough affection for M . de Parabore , and be willing at any time to
risk her life for him . We altogether disbelieve in the motive attributed . It was not " display : " it was genuine impulse ; at any rate one should believe that , till the contrary can be established by better evidence than an insinuation . Yet Miss Kavanagh , mid the poor feeble-eyed many who cannot or will not look morals plainly in the face , first assuming that if a woman loses her *' virtue" she loses her
humanity , find it an easy task to explain all contradictions to their theory by motives of " vanity " and " display . " We scarcely know how to characterise the loose tone in which the authoress speaks of " Atheism , '' throwing that word with strange recklessness upon puople who were anything but Atheists , and occasionally twaddling in this style : — " His mingled atheism and superstition were the natural result of a mind too conscious of its own immorality not to wish to
deny the existence of an Almighty Being , and too much imbued with native faith to do so with impunity . " If this passage be not claptrap , it exhibits profound ignorance of human nature . And surely atheism is foolish enough and meagre enough , without needing the additional infamy of being " the natural result of conscious immorality . " ? It isdangurouH—it is worse , it is ungenerous—to attribute motives to those who differ from us in opinion ; and half the heartburnings and malevolences which perplex the world are owing to this want of generosity .
In general , wo should say , Miss Kavanagh takes tho commonplace view of all her people . We met with no delicate or subtle remark indicating n perception of the shades nml complexities of character . On the other hand , let us hasten to add , we mot with no extravagance : nothing oracular , paradoxical , or impertinent . The whole style of the book is such as might be expected from < i well-informed , sensible , pains-taking woman : agreeably written ( with some
vulgarisms , among winch we wore pained at finding t Ifu odious "talented ") and carefully compiled . Of its general accuracy we can speak . Details and dates are avoided , so that tho chances of error are few . Wo could mention two or three errors , but they are iniinportant ; und we only a 9 k how Madame du Chdelet cume possessed of blue f » yes ? ( she was a brunette , incl was famous for her black eyes ) , because the letiil , trivial in itself , indicates how little Miss
Kavanagh has realised to her own mind the physique of her heroines . The essay-like structure of this book has destroyed that which might have formed its most agreeable and most useful object—the union of biographical sketches with a distinct purpose . Here it is the purpose which prevails : the sketches are incomplete and meagre . With facts before her she resolutely avoids them , substituting generalities in their place . Madame du Ghatelet , she tells us , " received a classical education , to which was united every accomplishment then in fashion . " This somewhat useless phrase is meant to supply the not insignificant facts that Madame du Chatelet began a translation of Virgil at fifteen , and the fragments extant give a good idea of her appreciation of the original ; she had also made grammatical and literary studies of the great writers of the seventeenth century , thus forming that polished taste which was subsequently so serviceable to " Voltaire ; she had a charming voice , and learned music , declamation , as well as dancing , equitation , and cardplaying , details which we borrow from the same source that Miss Kavanagh has consulted for her portrait , and which give a much more definite idea than a hundred generalities would give ; since it is with such details than an artist makes up a picture . As an essay the work embraces a distinct view of the Regency , the . Reign of Louis XV ., that of Louis XVI ., and the Reign of Terror , with sketches of some of the most celebrated women of the epochs . But it is * a serious omission to pass over the actresses arid opera dancers in a work of the kind ; Sophie Arnould , for example , one of the wittiest of Prench women , and one whose empire was far more extensive than that of several mentioned in these pages , deserved a place because she was a type . Better , however , omit her altogether than spoil the subject by a sermonising judgment ; for , to confess the truth , Sophie was undeniably " frivolous , " and had the faintest possible notiona of chastity . She held a salon , and her salon was more powerful than a newspaper . In it D'Alembert , Diderot , Mably , Helvetius , Duclos , Rousseau , and the rest , assembled to ridicule the universe , and to tear away the mask from hypocrisy . She herself , the daring queen of these daring innovators , uttered things which flew all over Paris , and which , if uttered by a man , would have met with but one answer—the Bastille . One of her brilliant mots we quote , because it so energetically characterizes the laxity of the period . " Marriage , " she said , " is the sacrament of adultery . " Everybody applauded . As we said before , it is rather in the essay department that Miss Kavanagh ' s strength lies ; and , as an example , we quote the following passage from her somewhat exaggerated but , on the whole , striking retjospect of the regency : — " The free development of philosophy was greatly favoured by the personal characters of Fleury and the young king ; for both , though through different motives , forbore to interfere wijh the professors of the new doctrines . The ambitious vanity of Louis XIV ., as well as his natural tastes , had led him , in the spirit of his contemporaries , to identify himself with almost every remarkable movement which took place . It was thus that he controlled literature by becoming its patron , and completely ruled French society . The indolent and apathetic Louis XV ., on the contrary , gave up the political power to his ministers and mistresses , and abandoned to women and literary men that social influence which an unerring instinct had injured his predecessor to secure . The j name of Louis XIV . is connected with every event of j his reign ; that of his descendant might almost be omitted 1 in the history of the eighteenth century . In this indifference of Louis XV . to the personal exercise of power , originated a wide separation between the . court and Prench society , unknown until his reign . Hitherto the monarch had been the great aibitcr of ¦ public opinion . He might be influenced , but tho influence was at least exercised in his name . The court | ruled everything , from the state matters to the success of a new play . What the court praised was inevitably rvdmirod in Paris . Such nt loast . had been the case during j the long reign of Louis XIV . The little heed Louis XV . took of anything not concerning his pleasures , and the timid scruples of Floury—both so much opposed to the ardent and progressive spirit of the ago—first created a > feeling of independence in Parisian society . This feeling i noon became one of antagonism , at first scarcely concealed j and openly declared in the end . The court long affected i to contemn the new power which had thus sprung up into existence , and vainly attempted to supersede it when it had , in time , become the organ of the age . The attempt was , from its nature , doomed to fail ; and , after a brief struggle , Versailles boned before the decrees of a world from which it had , until then , held aloof with contempt . It need scarcely be mentioned that this now powor was ¦ under the sole and immediate control of women . Whilst I men of talent were neglected by I . ho court , the clever !
ladies of Parisian society received them m their saloons It was the women who complied with the demands of the age , which neither Fleury nor Louis XV . understood . The cardinal feared and disliked literature , which he considered of a dangerous tendency ; the king was SvhoIIy indifferent to it . A few women seized on that important power : they gave evening and dinner parties , and soon drew together the great men of the day . When it was found that they could raise men to reputation and to social power more securely than ministers or favourites , their court superseded that of royalty . Thus it was that women were among the first who paved the way to those great changes , in the religious and political state of the nationwhich occurred towards the close of the century .
, " During the earlier portion of Louis XV . ' s reign , the philosophic power developed itself slowly , but not wholly unperceived . Already every literary production , history , play , tragedy , or romance , introduced those significant declamations against fanaticism and the priesthood , which , at a later period , were directed against religion itself . It was natural antl inevitable , under an absolute government , that books should be rendered an organ of publio opinion . Though the laws granted no institutions , literature was invested with all the force of one , by the general and tacit consent of society . Had Fleury been a man of daring and commanding mind , he might easily have conciliated the philosophic party , and softened , if not
subdued , the vehemence of their attacks oh religion . But , though aware of their dangerous influence , the cardinal would neither conciliate them by protection , nor irritate them by persecution . He never ventured beyond a timid repression , which they scarcely heeded . " This medium course was that which the prudent and cautious priest adopted in governing France . By merely allowing the country to recover in peace and quietness from the disasters inflicted by the ambition of Louis XIV ., he effected much good . But even whilst he made peace and economy the basis of his government , Cardinal Fleury was well aware of the numberless evils , in which , though he felt his utter pbwerlessness to remove them ,
he partly foresaw the approaching riiin of the state . The accumulated miseries of centuries lay beyond his reach ; they required no less than the vigorous and personal interference of the nation : in other words , a revolution . This Fleury felt ; and with the gloom natural to old age , he considered this dissolution of the existing order of things as the end of the world : the increasing spirit of irreligion confirmed him in this belief . With a strange infatuation , the cardinal , however , persisted in his conduct towards that power of which he perceived the gradual and fatal advances . Without venturing on
serious opposition , he rigidly refused to allow the philosophers any other influence than that social one of which they were already possessed ; either undervaluing this influence , or feeling his own inability to repress it . " When the young and libertine Abbe de Bemis—la bouquetiere du Parnasse , as his frivolous talent for versifying had made him be called—asked the old cardinal for a living , Fleury peremptorily refused . ' You shall never , ' he observed , ' obtain a living whilst 1 live . ' ' I shall wait , then , ' was the prompt and audacious reply . And a lew years later Cardinal Bernis governed France , with Madame de Pompadour .
" It has been observed , and with great truth , that the philosophers weie treated too much like the young abbe . As long as the cardinal lived , they could do little outwardly ; but , like the abbe * , the whole body bided their time , inwardly exclaiming , ' we shall wait ; ' and like him , too , when the old cardinal was in his grave , they governed France—as they had longed to govern her—by the power of ideas . " Thus , favoured by the indifference of the monarch and the timidity of the ministers , philosophic literature developed itself freely . We have used the term ' philosophic literature , ' because literature , which in France had been learned and religious during the sixteenth century , poetical and brilliant in the seventeenth , became
almost exclusively philosophic in the eighteenth century . Never , indeed , was there an age less fitted for faith or poetry : the deep and withering corruption of the regency seemed to have destroyed the very root of these faculties in man . To know and study himself—not , however , in an elevated point of view—became his greatest intellectual want . Abstract reasoning superseded feeling and imagination : a cold analytical tendency is remarkable in the earliest productions ofthis period . But however heartless the action of intellect may have then been , it was full of life and energy . After the grossness and licence of the regency , a reaction took place in the feelings of the nation , and there arose a universal wish for intellectual excitement . "
A little caution is necessary in reading this book to correct its hasty generalisations . Thus , thiuking only of the encyclopaedist , she says , " Tho whole nation seemed to have gathered up its strength , in order to bring down the old and tottering social edifice . " Not the whole nation—there was a strong Conservative party ; or else why should Helvetius have made that humiliating retraction of his doctrines—why should La Mcttrie have been so bitterly persecuted—why should Diderot and Voltaire havo been forced to such subterfuges ? We do not find so many passages for extract as might have been expected ; but in justice to the authoress we will give this touching narrative of the close of Mademoiselle Aisse ' s story : —
" It was the bond of an affection so true , so lender , and so constant , which AYssc * had now to sever . She accomplished her task mournfully , but without weakness . The Chevalier d Ay die had been w ** ll aware of Madame Calundrini ' s efforts to reclaim his mistress . Ho never sought to oppose that lady's influence , but in the mu .-t
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64 © IN SUafre * . [ Satorpay ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 13, 1850, page 64, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1840/page/16/
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