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Hugo P. Thieme - Women of Modern France

H >> Hugo P. Thieme >> Women of Modern France



Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents
was added by the Transcriber.



WOMAN

in all ages and in all countries


WOMEN OF MODERN FRANCE

by

HUGO P. THIEME, Ph.D.

Of the University of Michigan


THE RITTENHOUSE PRESS PHILADELPHIA




Copyrighted at Washington and entered at Stationer's Hall, London,

1907--1908

and printed by arrangement with George Barrie's Sons.


PRINTED IN U.S.A.




CONTENTS

PREFACE

Chapter I. Woman in politics

Chapter II. Woman in Family Life, Education, and Letters

Chapter III. The Seventeenth Century: Woman at Her Best

Chapter IV. Woman in Society and Literature

Chapter V. Mistresses and Wives of Louis XIV

Chapter VI. Mme. de Sevigne, Mme. de La Fayette, Mme. Dacier,
Mme. de Caylus

Chapter VII. Woman in Religion

Chapter VIII. Salon Leaders Mme. de Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme.
du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespinasse, Mme. du Chatelet

Chapter IX. Salon Leaders--(Continued): Mme. Necker, Mme.
d'Epinay, Mme. de Genlis: Minor Salons


Chapter X. Social Classes

Chapter XI. Royal Mistresses

Chapter XII. Marie Antoinette and the Revolution

Chapter XIII. Women of the Revolution and the Empire

Chapter XIV. Women of the Nineteenth Century




PREFACE


Among the Latin races, the French race differs essentially in one
characteristic which has been the key to the success of French
women--namely, the social instinct. The whole French nation has always
lived for the present time, in actuality, deriving from life more of
what may be called social pleasure than any other nation. It has been
a universal characteristic among French people since the sixteenth
century to love to please, to make themselves agreeable, to bring joy
and happiness to others, and to be loved and admired as well. With
this instinctive trait French women have always been bountifully
endowed. Highly emotional, they love to charm, and this has become
an art with them; balancing this emotional nature is the mathematical
quality. These two combined have made French women the great leaders
in their own country and among women of all races. They have developed
the art of studying themselves; and the art of coquetry, which
has become a virtue, is a science with them. The singular power of
discrimination, constructive ability, calculation, subtle intriguing,
a clear and concise manner of expression, a power of conversation
unequalled in women of any other country, clear thinking: all these
qualities have been strikingly illustrated in the various great women
of the different periods of the history of France, and according to
these they may by right be judged; for their moral qualities have not
always been in accordance with the standard of other races.

According as these two fundamental qualities, the emotional and
mathematical, have been developed in individual women, we meet the
different types which have made themselves prominent in history. The
queens of France, in general, have been submissive and pious, dutiful
and virtuous wives, while the mistresses have been bold and frivolous,
licentious and self-assertive. The women outside of these spheres
either looked on with indifference or regret at the all-powerfulness
of this latter class, unable to change conditions, or themselves
enjoyed the privilege of the mistress.

It must be remembered that in the great social circles in France,
especially from the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries,
marriage was a mere convention, offences against it being looked upon
as matters concerning manners, not morals; therefore, much of the
so-called gross immorality of French women may be condoned. It will
be seen in this history that French women have acted banefully on
politics, causing mischief, inciting jealousy and revenge, almost
invariably an instrument in the hands of man, acting as a disturbing
element. In art, literature, religion, and business, however, they
have ever been a directing force, a guide, a critic and judge, an
inspiration and companion to man.

The wholesome results of French women's activity are reflected
especially in art and literature, and to a lesser degree in religion
and morality, by the tone of elegance, politeness, _finesse_,
clearness, precision, purity, and a general high standard which man
followed if he was to succeed. In politics much severe blame and
reproach have been heaped upon her--she is made responsible for
breaking treaties, for activity in all intrigues, participating in
and inciting to civil and foreign wars, encouraging and sanctioning
assassinations and massacres, championing the Machiavelian policy and
practising it at every opportunity.

It has been the aim of this history of French women to present the
results rather than the actual happenings of their lives, and
these have been gathered from the most authoritative and scholarly
publications on the subject, to which the writer herewith wishes to
give all credit.

Hugo Paul Thieme.

_University of Michigan._




Chapter I

Woman in politics


French women of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,
when studied according to the distinctive phases of their influence,
are best divided into three classes: those queens who, as wives,
represented virtue, education, and family life; the mistresses, who
were instigators of political intrigue, immorality, and vice; and the
authoresses and other educated women, who constituted themselves the
patronesses of art and literature.

This division is not absolute by any means; for we see that in the
sixteenth century the regent-mother (for example, Louise of Savoy and
Catherine de' Medici), in extent of influence, fills the same position
as does the mistress in the eighteenth century; though in the former
period appears, in Diana of Poitiers, the first of a long line of
ruling mistresses.

Queen-consorts, in the sixteenth as in the following centuries,
exercised but little influence; they were, as a rule, gentle and
obedient wives--even Catherine, domineering as she afterward showed
herself to be, betraying no signs of that trait until she became
regent.

The literary women and women of spirit and wit furthered all
intellectual and social development; but it was the mistresses--those
great women of political schemes and moral degeneracy--who were vested
with the actual importance, and it must in justice to them be said
that they not infrequently encouraged art, letters, and mental
expansion.

Eight queens of France there were during the sixteenth century,
and three of these may be accepted as types of purity, piety, and
goodness: Claude, first wife of Francis I.; Elizabeth of France, wife
of Charles IX.; and Louise de Vaudemont, wife of Henry III. These
queens, held up to ridicule and scorn by the depraved followers of
their husbands' mistresses, were reverenced by the people; we find
striking contrasts to them in the two queens-regent, Louise of Savoy
and Catherine de' Medici, who, in the period of their power, were
as unscrupulous and brutal, intriguing and licentious, jealous and
revengeful, as the most wanton mistresses who ever controlled a
king. In this century, we find two other remarkable types: Marguerite
d'Angouleme, the bright star of her time; and her whose name comes
instantly to mind when we speak of the Lady of Angouleme--Marguerite
de Navarre, representing both the good and the doubtful, the broadest
sense of that untranslatable term _femme d'esprit_.

The first of the royal French women to whom modern woman owes a great
and clearly defined debt was Anne of Brittany, wife of Louis XII.
and the personification of all that is good and virtuous. To her
belongs the honor of having taken the first step toward the social
emancipation of French women; she was the first to give to woman an
important place at court. This precedent she established by requesting
her state officials and the foreign ambassadors to bring their wives
and daughters when they paid their respects to her. To the ladies
themselves, she sent a "royal command," bidding them leave their
gloomy feudal abodes and repair to the court of their sovereign.

Anne may be said to belong to the transition period--that period
in which the condition of slavery and obscurity which fettered the
women of the Middle Ages gave place to almost untrammelled liberty.
The queen held a separate court in great state, at Blois and Des
Tournelles, and here elegance, even magnificence, of dress was
required of her ladies. At first, this unprecedented demand caused
discontent among men, who at that time far surpassed women in
elaborateness of costume and had, consequently, been accustomed to
the use of their surplus wealth for their own purposes. Under Anne's
influence, court life underwent a complete transformation; her
receptions, which were characterized by royal splendor, became the
centre of attraction.

Anne of Brittany, the last queen of France of the Middle Ages and the
first of the modern period, was a model of virtuous conduct, conjugal
fidelity, and charity. Having complete control over her own
immense wealth, she used it largely for beneficent purposes; to her
encouragement much of the progress of art and literature in France was
due. Hers was an example that many of the later queens endeavored to
follow, but it cannot be said that they ever exerted a like influence
or exhibited an equal power of initiation and self-assertion.

The first royal woman to become a power in politics in the period that
we are considering was Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I., a type
of the voluptuous and licentious female of the sixteenth century. Her
pernicious activity first manifested itself when, having conceived
a violent passion for Charles of Bourbon, she set her heart upon
marrying him, and commenced intrigues and plots which were all the
more dangerous because of her almost absolute control over her son,
the King.

At this time there were three distinct sets or social castes at the
court of France: the pious and virtuous band about the good Queen
Claude; the lettered and elegant belles in the coterie of Marguerite
d'Angouleme, sister of Francis I.; and the wanton and libertine young
maids who formed a galaxy of youth and beauty about Louise of Savoy,
and were by her used to fascinate her son and thus distract him from
affairs of state.

Louise used all means to bring before the king beautiful women through
whom she planned to preserve her influence over him. One of these
frail beauties, Francoise de Foix, completely won the heart of the
monarch; her ascendency over him continued for a long period, in spite
of the machinations of Louise, who, when Francis escaped her control,
sought to bring disrepute and discredit upon the fair mistress.

The mother, however, remained the powerful factor in politics. With an
abnormal desire to hoard money, an unbridled temper, and a violent and
domineering disposition, she became the most powerful and dangerous,
as well as the most feared, woman of all France. During her regency
the state coffers were pillaged, and plundering was carried on on all
sides. One of her acts at this time was to cause the recall of Charles
of Bourbon, then Governor of Milan; this measure was taken as much
for the purpose of obtaining revenge for his scornful rejection of her
offer of marriage as for the hope of eventually bringing him to her
side.

Upon the return of Charles, she immediately began plotting against
him, including in her hatred Francoise de Foix, the king's mistress,
at whom Bourbon frequently cast looks of pity which the furiously
jealous Louise interpreted as glances of love. As a matter of fact,
Bourbon, being strictly virtuous, was out of reach of temptation by
the beauties of the court, and there were no grounds for jealousy.

This love of Louise for Charles of Bourbon is said to have owed most
of its ardor to her hope of coming into possession of his immense
estates. She schemed to have his title to them disputed, hoping that,
by a decree of Parliament, they might be taken from him; the idea in
this procedure was that Bourbon, deprived of his possessions, must
come to her terms, and she would thus satisfy--at one and the same
time--her passion and her cupidity.

Under her influence the character of the court changed entirely;
retaining only a semblance of its former decency, it became utterly
corrupt. It possessed external elegance and _distingue_ manners, but
below this veneer lay intrigue, debauchery, and gross immorality. In
order to meet the vast expenditures of the king and the queen-mother,
the taxes were enormously increased; the people, weighed down by the
unjust assessment and by want, began to clamor and protest. Undismayed
by famine, poverty, and epidemic, Louise continued her depredations
on the public treasury, encouraging the king in his squanderings;
and both mother and son, in order to procure money, begged, borrowed,
plundered.

Louise was always surrounded by a bevy of young ladies, selected
beauties of the court, whose natural charms were greatly enhanced by
the lavishness of their attire. Always ready to further the plans of
their mistress, they hesitated not to sacrifice reputation or honor to
gratify her smallest whim. Her power was so generally recognized that
foreign ambassadors, in the absence of the king, called her "that
other king." When war against France broke out between Spain and
England, Louise succeeded in gaining the office of constable for the
Duc d'Alencon; by this means, she intended to displace Charles of
Bourbon (whom she was still persecuting because he continued cold to
her advances), and to humiliate him in the presence of his army; the
latter design, however, was thwarted, as he did not complain.

To the caprice of Louise of Savoy were due the disasters and defeats
of the French army during the period of her power; by frequently
displacing someone whose actions did not coincide with her plans, and
elevating some favorite who had avowed his willingness to serve her,
she kept military affairs in a state of confusion.

Many wanton acts are attributed to her: she appropriated forty
thousand crowns allowed to Governor Lautrec of Milan for the
payment of his soldiers, and caused the execution of Samblancay,
superintendent of finances, who had been so unfortunate as to incur
her displeasure. It was Charles of Bourbon, who, with Marshal Lautrec,
investigated the episode of the forty thousand crowns and exposed the
treachery and perfidy of the mother of his king.

Finding that Bourbon intended to persist in his resistance to her
advances, Louise decided upon drastic measures of retaliation. With
the assistance of her chancellor (and tool), Duprat, she succeeded in
having withheld the salaries which were due to Bourbon because of the
offices held by him. As he took no notice of these deprivations, she
next proceeded to divest him of his estates by laying claim to them
for herself; she then proposed to Bourbon that, by accepting her hand
in marriage, he might settle the matter happily. The object of her
numerous schemes not only rejected this offer with contempt, but added
insult to injury by remarking: "I will never marry a woman devoid of
modesty." At this rebuff, Louise was incensed beyond measure, and when
Queen Claude suggested Bourbon's marriage to her sister, Mme. Renee
de France (a union to which Charles would have consented gladly), the
queen-mother managed to induce Francis I. to refuse his consent.

After the death of Anne of Beaujeu, mother-in-law of Charles of
Bourbon, her estates were seized by the king and transferred to
Louise while the claim was under consideration by Parliament. When
the judges, after an examination of the records of the Bourbon estate,
remonstrated with Chancellor Duprat against the illegal transfer, he
had them put into prison. This rigorous act, which was by order of
Louise, weakened the courage of the court; when the time arrived for a
final decision, the judges declared themselves incompetent to decide,
and in order to rid themselves of responsibility referred the matter
to the king's council. This great lawsuit, which was continued for a
long time, eventually forced Charles of Bourbon to flee from France.
Having sworn allegiance to Charles V. of Spain and Henry VIII. of
England against Francis I., he was made lieutenant-general of the
imperial armies.

When Francis, captured at the battle of Pavia, was taken to Spain,
Louise, as regent, displayed unusual diplomatic skill by leaguing the
Pope and the Italian states with Francis against the Spanish king.
When, after nearly a year's captivity, her son returned, she welcomed
him with a bevy of beauties; among them was a new mistress, designed
to destroy the influence of the woman who had so often thwarted the
plans of Louise--the beautiful Francoise de Foix whom the king had
made Countess of Chateaubriant.

This new beauty was Anne de Pisseleu, one of the thirty children of
Seigneur d'Heilly, a girl of eighteen, with an exceptional education.
Most cunning was the trap which Louise had set for the king. Anne was
surrounded by a circle of youthful courtiers, who hung upon her words,
laughed at her caprices, courted her smiles; and when she rather
confounded them with the extent of the learning which--with a sort of
gay triumph--she was rather fond of showing, they pronounced her "the
most charming of learned ladies and the most learned of the charming."

The plot worked; Francis was fascinated, falling an easy prey to the
wiles of the wanton Anne. The former mistress, Francoise de Foix, was
discarded, and Louise, purely out of revenge and spite, demanded the
return of the costly jewels given by the king and appropriated them
herself.

The duty assigned to the new mistress was that of keeping Francis
busy with fetes and other amusements. While he was thus kept under the
spell of his enchantress, he lost all thought of his subjects and the
welfare of his country and the affairs of the kingdom fell into the
hands of Louise and her chancellor, Duprat. The girl-mistress, Anne,
was married by Louise to the Duc d'Etampes whose consent was gained
through the promise of the return of his family possessions which,
upon his father's departure with Charles of Bourbon, had been
confiscated.

The reign of Louise of Savoy was now about over; she had accomplished
everything she had planned. She had caused Charles of Bourbon, one of
the greatest men of the sixteenth century, to turn against his king;
and that king owed to her--his mother--his defeat at Pavia, his
captivity in Spain, and his moral fall. Spain, Italy, and France were
victims of the infamous plotting and disastrous intrigues of this one
woman whose death, in 1531, was a blessing to the country which she
had dishonored.

At the time of the marriage of Francis I. to Eleanor of Portugal
(one of the last acts of Louise), Europe was beginning to look upon
France as ahead of all other nations in the "superlativeness of
her politeness." The most rigid etiquette and the most punctilious
politeness were always observed, fines being imposed for any
discourtesy toward women.

After the death of Louise, the lot of managing the king and directing
his policy fell to the share of his mistress, the Duchesse d'Etampes,
who at once became all-powerful at court; her influence over him was
like that of the drug which, to the weak person who begins its use,
soon becomes an absolute necessity.

After the death of the dauphin, all the court flatteries were directed
toward Henry, the eldest son of Francis. Though his mistress, Diana
of Poitiers, ruled him, she exercised no influence politically; that
she was not lacking in diplomacy, however, was proved by her attitude
toward Henry's wife, Catherine, whom she treated with every indication
of friendship and esteem, in marked contrast to the disdain exhibited
by other ladies of the court. These two women became friends, working
together against the mistress of the king--the Duchesse d'Etampes--and
causing, by their intrigues, dissensions between father and son.

The duchess was not a bad woman; her dissuasion of Francis I. from
undertaking war with Solyman II. against Charles V. is one instance of
the use of her influence in the right direction. By some historians,
she is accused of having played the traitress, in the interest of
Emperor Charles V., during the war of Spain and England against
France. It was she who urged the Treaty of Crepy with Charles V.; by
it, through the marriage of the French king's second son, the Duke of
Orleans, to the niece of Charles V., the duchess was sure of a safe
retreat when her bitter enemy, Henry's mistress, should reign after
the king's death. Her plans, however, did not materialize, as the duke
died and the treaty was annulled.

The death of Francis I. occurred in 1547; with his reign ends the
first period of woman's activity--a period influenced mainly by Louise
of Savoy, whose relations to France were as disastrous as were those
of any mistress. The influence exerted by her may in some respects be
compared with that of Mme. de Pompadour; though, were the merits and
demerits of both carefully tested, the results would hardly be
in favor of Louise. Strong in diplomacy and intrigue, she was
unscrupulous and wanton--morally corrupt; she did nothing to further
the development of literature and art; if she favored men of genius it
was merely from motives of self-interest.

With the accession of Henry II. his mistress entered into possession
of full power. The absolute sway of Diana of Poitiers over this
weakest of French kings was due to her strong mind, great ability,
wide experience, fascination of manner, and to that exceptional beauty
which she preserved to her old age. Immediately upon coming into
power, she dispatched the Duchesse d'Etampes to one of her estates
and at the same time forced her to restore the jewels which she had
received from Francis I., a usual procedure with a mistress who knew
herself to be first in authority.

After being thus displaced, the duchess spent her time in doing
charitable work, and is said to have afforded protection to the
Protestants. Eventually, hers was the fate of almost all the
mistresses. Compelled to give up many of her possessions, miserable
and forgotten by all, her last days were most unhappy.

Early in her career, Henry made Diana Duchesse de Valentinois. So
powerful did she become that Sieur de Bayard, secretary of state,
having referred in jest to her age (she was twenty years the king's
senior), was deprived of his office, thrown into prison, and left to
die. In her management of Queen Catherine, Diana was most politic;
she never interfered, but constituted herself "the protectress of the
legitimate wife, settling all questions concerning the newly born,"
for which she received a large salary. When, while the king was in
Italy, the queen became ill, she owed her recovery to the watchful
care of the mistress. The latter appointed to the vacant estates and
positions members of her house--that of Guise. In time, this house
gained such an ascendency that it conceived the project of setting
aside all the princes of the blood royal.

Having (through one of her favorites) gained control of the royal
treasury, Diana appropriated everything--lands, money, jewels. Her
influence was so astonishing to the people that she was accused of
wielding a magic power and bewitching the king who seemed, verily,
to be leading an enchanted existence; he had but one thought, one
aim--that of pleasing and obeying his aged mistress. To make
amends for his adultery, he concluded to extirpate heretics. Such
a combination of luxury and extravagance with licentiousness and
brutality, such wholesale murder, persecution, and burning at the
stake have never been equalled, except under Nero.

Michelet reveals the character of Diana in these words: "Affected by
nothing, loving nothing, sympathizing with nothing; of the passions
retaining only those which will give a little rapidity to the
blood; of the pleasures preferring those that are mild and without
violence--the love of gain and the pursuit of money; hence, there was
absence of soul. Another phase was the cultivation of the body, the
body and its beauty uniquely cared for by virile treatment and a rigid
regime which is the guardian of life--not weakly adored as by women
who kill themselves by excessive self-love." M. Saint-Amand continues,
after quoting the above: "At all seasons of the year, Diana plunges
into a cold bath on rising. As soon as day breaks, she mounts a horse,
and, followed by swift hounds, rides through dewy verdure to her royal
lover to whom--fascinated by her mythological pomp--she seems no
more a woman but a goddess. Thus he styles her in verses of burning
tenderness:

"'Helas, mon Dieu! combien je regrette
Le temps que j'ai perdu en ma jeunesse!
Combien de fois je me suis souhaite
Avoir Diane pour ma seule maitresse.
Mais je craignais qu'elle, qui est deesse,
Ne se voulut abaisser jusque la.'"

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