I’m about to work again, but life changed drastically today (29 November). I took my cat Belaud to his vet. Cancer was diagnosed. Dr de Vette (that is his real name) thought the only humane thing to do was euthanasia. Belaud was the French chartreux who was my constant and beloved companion since 2008.
He had stopped eating several days ago, drank smaller and smaller amounts of fresh water, and he wouldn’t eat his treats. The last two nights, he didn’t sleep on the bed. This was unusual because he was always as close to me as possible.
I took him to the vet’s knowing what I would be told, yet hoping I was wrong.
—ooo—
Dom Garcie de Navarre and Les Fâcheux have both been considered Précieux plays and both are a discussion on jealousy. Is jealousy a sign of love or is it destructive? The question was discussed in Salons, one of France’s major cultural and social institutions. Salons have now closed. In French seventeenth-century salons, questions d’amour were dissected by men and women. Topics discussed in salons changed from century to century and, to some extent, from salon to salon. In earlier posts, we have seen la carte du Tendre, the map of love. It appeared in Clélie, Histoire romaine, a novel by Madeleine de Scudéry. The Map of Tendre was engraved by François Chauveau. In Dom Garcie de Navarre, jealousy is as we have seen it in Molière’s Amphitryon. The seventeenth-century masterpiece on the subject of jealousy is Madame de La Fayette‘sPrincesse de Clèves, published in 1678.
—ooo—
I’m so sorry my little Belaud has left us. He was affectionate, quiet, friendly, and always happy. He had been with me since he was old enough to be adopted and ran my life in a manner that suited us both. Belaud was named after Joachim du Bellay‘s Belaud, also a chartreux.
In Baroque music, galanteries were also suites of dances (see Galanteries). For instance, most ‘suites’ included a minuet, which is a dance. J. S. Bach composed French Suites, English Suites, and Partitas. Baroque music, however, was considered rather complex: intricate counterpoint, etc. The galant style would advocate simpler and more sentimental music. Bach’s sons composed music in the “galant” style. (See Fêtes galantes: Watteau & Verlaine in RELATED ARTICLES.)
La Galanterie
galanterie
l’honnête homme
préciosité
But galanterie, as we know it, is not music. It is polite behaviour and, in particular, polite behaviour on the part of men courting women. In 17th-century France, l’honnête homme was quietly galant and préciosité demanded galanterie on the part of men. However, galanterie was not a synonym of honnêteté.
La Vraye Histoire comique de Francion, illustration by Martin van Maële (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nicolas Faret’s L’Honnête Homme, ou l’Art de plaire à la cour
Antoine Gombaud, chevalier de Méré’s letters and L’Honnête Homme et De la Vraie Honnêteté
In 1644, Charles Sorel (c. 1602 – 7 March 1674) published LesLoix de la galanterie, a short book. Sorel’s Loix de la galanterie is a book about the requirements of galanterie: money, fashionable clothes, acceptable manners, cleanliness, and étiquette in general. “Propreté, Civilité, Politesse, Éloquence, Adresse, Accortise, et Prudence mondaine [.]” (See Les Loix de la galanterie.)
As for honnêteté, it was described by Nicolas Faret in L’Honnête Homme, ou l’Art deplaire à la cour, (… the Art of Pleasing at Court) published in 1633, and Antoine Gombaud, known as the “chevalier de Méré ” (1607 – 29 december 1684). Gombaud was a godchild to Antoine de la Rochefoucauld and the author of L’honnête homme et De la vraie honnêteté. (See Antoine Gombaud, Wikipedia.) Honnêteté has social, moral and intellectual goals and honnêteté is not a synonym of galanterie, but l’honnête homme is always impeccable.
However, Antoine Gombaud is best-known for his contribution, with Blaise Pascal, to the development of the théorie des probabilités, the theory of probability, calculating the odds. L’honnête hommeetDe la vraie honnêteté were published posthumously. The chevalier‘s writings are listed under his Wikipedia entry: Antoine Gombaud, Chevalier de Méré. Britannica is in the process of refreshing certain entries.
The Chevalier de Méré, an aristocrat, contributed to the development of the salon,the birthplace of honnêteté and préciosité. Literature was the main activity of salonniers and salonnières but Mademoiselle de Scudéry‘s Clélie, histoire romaine, which contains the map of Tendre, a map of the country of love, has affinities with galanterie. I rather like Petits Soins (tender loving care) (seeCarte du Tendre).
L‘honnête homme avoided extreme views and he had a good jugement; he was not vain nor boastful, he was insightful, and he was polite, which at times precluded frankness. According to François de la Rochefoucauld, the moralist, “l’honnête homme ne se pique de rien[.]” L’honnête homme never boasts.
Among the dramatis personæ of Molière’s comedies are honnête gens (plural for honnête homme): such as Cléante in Le Tartuffe (1664 – 1669) and Philinte in Le Misanthrope.
In Molière’s Misanthrope, Philinte, who is an honnête homme, would not tell an aging Émilie, la vieille Émilie, that she uses makeup (le blanc) and behaves (faire la jolie) in a manner that does not suit an aging woman (I. i):
Quoi ! vous iriez dire à la vieille Émilie Qu’à son âge il sied mal de faire la jolie, Et que le blanc qu’elle a scandalise chacun ? (I. i)
What! would you tell old Emilie
that ’tis unbecoming at her age to play the pretty girl;
or that the paint she wears shocks every one? Le Misanthrope (I. 1)
The truth would hurt Émilie, which neither galanterie nor honnêteté would allow. If at all possible, one does not offend others in the name of frankness or “truth.”
In scene two, Oronte walks in with a copy of a poem he wishes to read to Alceste, the misanthrope. The poem is mediocre and, although he hesitates for the longest time, Alceste ends up saying that “Franchement, il [le poème] est bon à mettre au cabinet.” Frankly, it’s good for the garbage.) Cabinet is an ambiguous word. It can mean a drawer (cabinet making), but can also mean a toilet. Alceste is franc, but he is not civil. He is acting offensively in the name of sincerity or “honnêteté” in its literal sense.
The above are examples of the polemical nature of many of Molière’s plays. They could lead to debates. When it was first staged, in 1664, Le Tartuffe, whose protagonist feigns devotion and nearly ruins Orgon’s family, was not seen as falsely devout by Orgon and, given its subject matter, the play was banned. It took Molière five years to make Le Tartuffe acceptable.
L’École des femmes, 1719 edition (Wikipedia)
L’École des femmes (Google images)
Les Précieuses ridicules by Moreau le Jeune (Wikipedia)
Les Précieuses ridicules (Google images)
Préciosité
false précieuses
a farce
Similarly, Les Précieuses ridicules (18 November 1661; Petit-Bourbon) was not a depiction of préciosité, except for allusions, such as the use of a purer language. Magdelon and Cathos, who have just arrived in Paris, are besotted by préciosité and salons, but they have yet to set foot in a salon. Real précieuses and salonnières would know that Mascarille and Jodelet are not salonniers. They would not let themselves be courted and amused by the valets of Du Croisy and La Grange, the two suitable young men Magdelon and Cathos rejected. The Précieuses ridicules has the plot of a farce: le trompeur trompé (the deceiver deceived). The tables are turned on Magdelon and Cathos.
Yet, Molière was criticized for portraying Les Précieuses ridicules. In the Preface to Les Précieuses ridicules, he wrote that Magdelon and Cathos were false précieuses and that “Les plusexcellentes choses sont sujettes à être copiées par de mauvaissinges.” (The most excellent things are apt to be copied by bad monkeys.) Besides, comedies of manners are “miroirs publics.”
Louis XIV and Molière by Jean-Léon Gérôme(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Aristocrats and Comédies héroïques
Molière wrote comédies-ballets, but he also wrote comedies featuring gentilshommes, aristocrats and gods: Dom Garcie de Navarre (comédie héroïque; 1661), La Princesse d’Élide (1664), Dom Juan (1665), Amphitryon(1668)… Moreover, as an actor, Molière was fond of playing roles in comédies-héroïques. Critic Paul Bénichou[2] dispelled the commonly held view that Molière advocated bourgeois common sense.
Molière was a human being and humans dream of worlds that are or seem better than the world they inhabit. Aristocrats were privileged individuals. So Molière featured aristocrats in a few of his comedies. For Molière, theatre was at times the goal of theatre. He created a comforting spectacle, an illusion.
Molière neither served nor disserved the “querelle des femmes,” feminists. Moreover, if there is a galant in the comedies of Molière, it is the young man who courts a woman who loves him, but whose marriage to her is threatened by a blocking character. Molière’s honnête homme is Philinte (Le Misanthrope), Cléante (Le Tartuffe) and other figures often called the raisonneur. L’honnête homme does not vilify women.
In L’École des femmes (1662) (The School for Wives), Agnès, who has been raised by Arnolphe to be his faithful wife, falls in love with Horace, whom she sees through her window. She rejects Arnolphe saying that the way Arnolphe’s speaks of marriage makes it sound terrible. Horace, on the other hand, presents marriage as pleasurable, which makes her feel like marrying:
Chez vous le mariage est fâcheux et pénible, Et vos discours en font une image terrible; Mais, las ! il le fait, lui, si rempli de plaisirs, Que de se marier il donne des désirs. (V. iv)
With you, marriage is a trouble and a pain,
and your descriptions give a terrible picture of it;
but there — he makes it seem so full of joy
that I long to marry. (V. 4) The School for Wives (V. 4)
Horace is galant and earns Agnès’ love. In comedy, galanterie is conventional, the goal of comedy being the marriage of young lovers, which would not be possible if the young man were not galant (love). But, as noted above, it is not honnêteté, at least not altogether.
I apologize for the long delay. I couldn’t concentrate due to a bout of mental fatigue and difficulties in gathering recent articles and books. I require these to write my book on Molière. All is not lost. I have contacted a number of sources and have used Jstor for several years, as a private scholar. Would that I still lived across the street from a library. However, when I quote 17th-century authors whose work I do not own, I use Internet Archives, the Project Gutenberg, and Google e-books. These e-books are seldom edited or annotated, but they are immensely useful tools.
[1] Charles Sorel wrote La Vraie Histoire comique de Francion, in the hope of dealing a blow to Honoré d’Urfé‘s pastoral romances. La Vraie Histoire comique de Francion (1623) was a success, but Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée remained popular. However, Le Berger extravagant (1627-1628) did tarnish pastoral romances, or very long novels featuring shepherds and shepherdesses. (See Charles Sorel, Wikipedia.)
[2] Paul Bénichou, Morales du Grand Siècle (Paris : Gallimard, 1948), p. 263.
There came a point when Préciosité went too far. Playing shepherds and shepherdesses in a salon could not last forever. So by the time Molière, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, presented his Précieusesridicules, préciosité had become what Jean-Claude Tournand[i]terms “une fuite poétique,”(a poetical flight).
However, it would be unfortunate to trivialise préciosité and especially salons. For one thing, they did have a civilising influence on members of Paris’ affluent upper middle-class and on aristocrats, many of whom made a point of becoming honnêtes hommes, in the worldly acceptation of honnêteté.
Molière‘s Précieuses ridicules were played for the first time on 18 November 1659. It is a farce and therefore resembles the Italian commedia dell’arteone-act or short improvised plays. These featured characters such as Pantalone, Dottore Gratiano, Il Capitano (mostly jealous characters), the occasional miles gloriosus (braggart-soldier), Arlecchino, Brighella, Pierrot, Pulcinella: lazzi, zanni (clever servants who help the lovers) vecchi (old and jealous characters), inamorate and inamorati (lover, lovers).
The plot of Les Précieuses ridicules shows the typical reversal of farces, that of the trompeur trompé (or deceiver deceived). Cathos and Magdelon have just moved to Paris and dream of becoming part of the beau monde (the elegant world, that of salons). However, Gorgibus, Cathos’s father and Magdelon’s uncle has different ideas concerning the fate of his daughter and his niece. He wants them to marry sensible and well-to-do young men, in which case “all [would be] well that ends well,” the final outcome of comedies.
Two perfectly suitable young men, Du Croisy and La Grange, come a-courting but they are immediately rejected by Cathos and Madgelon. They are not précieux and call a chair a chair rather than a commodité de la conversation (what is useful to conversation). In their attempt to give the French language a purer taste, the précieuses had indeed renamed many objects.
So the young men are shown the door, which infuriates Gorgibus. He pays a visit on his daughter and his niece as they are “greasing-up” their faces (se graisser le museau [muzzle]). They tell Gorgibus that courting should be as in the country of Tendre, the map of courting featured in Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Clélie. They name the villages of Tendre: Billets-Doux (love letters), Petits-Soins (tender loving care), Jolis-Vers (pretty or lovely poems). Moreover, they complain because the young men did not wear feathered hats and designer clothes: “de la bonne faiseuse” (from the right maker or designer clothes). They then announce that they are changing their names. Cathos, Gorgibus’s daughter, wants to be called Polixène and her cousin Magdelon, Aminthe.
So the stage is set for a reversal: the deceiver deceived. The young men both decide that they will each clothe their laquais, or men servant, into garments worn in salons and send them to court our would-be salonnières.
Cathos and Magdelon are so blinded by their own wishes, that Mascarille’s entrance in a chair carried by porteurs is not viewed as inappropriate and ridiculous. Mascarille (played by Molière) is a marquis. He recites an inferior poem, an impromptu, he has written, pausing frequently to comment on the ingenuous manner in which he has worded his poem.
As for the other laquais, Jodelet (played by Jodelet FR), he plays the part of a vicomte and arrives later in the play (Scene xi). Jodelet is a famous but older French actor playing himself, a valet. His face is white because it is covered with flour (enfariné). The marquis and the vicomte start boasting about their life in various salons and about their abilities as poets and dancers.
The spectators are in stitches, but Cathos and Magdelon so wish to be précieuses that they admire the disguised laquais. A few unacceptable words and references are used, but Cathos and Madgelon do not know the difference. They are totally deceived.
The fantasy comes to an end during a dance. Violinists had been hired, etc. Du Croisy and La Grange come back and undress their valets so they can be seen for what they are. Earlier (Scene iv) Cathos had remarked that the thought of sleeping next to a naked man was repulsive.
Gorgibus returns and the violinists demand to be paid for their services. Gorgibus starts beating them up in the harmless fashion of comedy. So the farce has been played out to its bitter end, bitter for the would-be précieuses and salonnières, and bitter for Gorgibus.
This article was posted in 2011.To my knowledge, it is new to most if not all of you.
With kind regards to all of you. ♥
[i] Jean-Claude Tournand, Introduction à la vie littéraire du XVIIe siècle (Paris : Armand Colin, 1984 [1970]), pp. 47-75.
Les Précieuses ridicules de Molière
avec : M-M Lozac’h à la mise en scène et dans le rôle de magdelon Marie Moriette dans cathos – François Floris dans Mascarille
M-M Losac’h: Magdelon & producer
Marie Moriette: Cathos
François Floris: Mascarille
Other than polite and witty conversation, the main activity of salonniers and salonnières (salonists) was writing. They had been influenced by Giovanni Battista Guarini’s (1538-1612) IlPastor Fido (1590), a pastoral tragicomedy, and Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (1607-1628), a lengthy novel featuring shepherds and shepherdesses living in bucolic settings resembling Il Pastor Fido‘s Arcadia.
Salonniers and salonnières wrote abundantly and love was their favourite topic. Among the books they wrote, we know about La Guirlande de Julie. It was a gift to Julie d’Angennes, Madame de Rambouillet’s daughter, and contained sixty-two madrigals each of which compared Julie to a flower. According to the rules of Préciosité, a movement born in Salons, women looked upon themselves as precious or précieuses. Moreover, Préciosité had banished unrefined behaviour, in general, and unrefined courtship, in particular. So the Duc de Montausier courted Julie d’Angennes for fourteen years before she consented to marry him.
— Carte du Tendre (the map of love)
This map was included in Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s novel: Clélie.
Moreover, as we will now see, love was subjected to various rules. For instance, Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) described the towns, villages and rivers of her Arcadia, called Tendre. A map of the pays de Tendre was actually designed. It was probably engraved by François Chauveau (1613-1676).
Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) had been a member of l’Hôtel deRambouillet, the first famous salon of seventeenth-century France. But as the Marquise de Rambouillet grew older, salonniers and salonnières started to gather every Saturday at the home of Madeleine de Scudéry whose pseudonym was Sappho. Thus was born the Société du samedi (Saturday Society). It flourished during the second half of the seventeenth century, called le Grand Siècle (the Great Century), the age of Louis XIV (1638-1715), the Sun King.
Clearly outlined on the Carte de Tendre are three forms of love each depicted as towns on the side of three rivers: Inclination (inclination), Estime (esteem) and Reconnaissance (gratitude). So love had three forms: inclination, estime, reconnaissance. There were villages along the way, all of which were allegorical: Jolis-vers (lovely poems), Billet-doux (love letter) and others.
If lovers allowed themselves to enter untamed passion, they sailed on a dangerous sea, called Mer dangeureuse. However, if passions were restrained, love could be a source of happiness. Interestingly, although she had a gentleman-friend, Paul Pelisson, Mademoiselle de Scudéry never married.
As may be expected, Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Carte de Tendre was satirized. In fact, Molière (1622-1673) wrote his first Parisian play on the Précieuses:Les Précieuses ridicules(1659). By 1659, the Précieuses had much too high an opinion of themselves. Molière’s comedy was a slight blow to the movement, but the one-act play was a great success and Molière went on to bigger and better things, including a personal friendship with Louis XIV.
Passions were abundantly discussed in seventeenth-century France. Both Descartes and Pascal contributed a treatise on passion. Descartes wrote a treatise on the Passions de l’âme(The Passions of the Soul) and Pascal, a Discourse on the Passion of Love.
However, passionate love was never so dangerous than in Madame de La Fayette’s La Princesse deClèves (1678), a psychological novel in which love is viewed as a source of endless pain. It feeds on jealousy as does Phèdre’s love for Hippolyte. Interestingly, dramatist Jean Racine‘s (1639-1699) Phèdre, a tragedy, was first performed in 1678, the year Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693) published, anonymously, La Princesse de Clèves.
There came a point when Préciosité went too far. Playing shepherds and shepherdess in a salon could not last forever. So by the time Molière, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, presented his Précieusesridicules, préciosité had become what Jean-Claude Tournand[i]would be unfortunate to trivialize préciosité and salons. For one thing, they did have a civilizing influence on members of Paris’ affluent upper middle-class and on aristocrats, many of whom made of point of becoming honnêtes hommes, in the worldly acceptation of honnêteté.
Molière‘s Précieuses ridicules (1659) were played for the first time on 18 November 1659. It is a farce, and therefore resembles the Italian commedia dell’arte, one-act or short improvised plays featuring stock characters such as Pantalone, Dottore Gratiano, Il Capitano (mostly jealous characters), the occasional miles gloriosus (braggart-soldier), Arlecchino, Brighella, Pierrot, Pulcinella: zanni (clever servants who help the lovers), vecchi (old and jealous characters), inamorate and inamorati (lover, lovers).
The plot of Les Précieuses ridicules shows the typical reversal of farces, that of the trompeur trompé (or deceiver deceived). Cathos and Magdelon have just moved to Paris and dream of becoming part of the beau monde (the elegant world, that of salons). However, Gorgibus, Cathos’s father and Magdelon’s uncle has different ideas concerning the fate of his daughter and his niece. He wants them to marry sensible and well-to-do young men, in which case “all [would be] well that ends well,” the final outcome of comedies.
Two perfectly suitable young men, Du Croisy and La Grange, come a-courting but they are immediately rejected by Cathos and Madgelon. They are not précieux and call a chair a chair rather than commodité de la conversation (what is useful to conversation). In their attempt to make the French language more elegant, the précieuses have indeed renamed many objects.
So the young men are shown the door, which infuriates Gorgibus. He pays a visit on his daughter and his niece as they are “greasing-up” their faces (se graisser le museau [muzzle]). They tell Gorgibus that courting should be as in the country of Tendre, the map of courting featured in Mademoiselle de Scudery ’s Clélie. They name the villages of Tendre : Billets-Doux (love letters), Petits-Soins (tender loving care), Jolis-Vers (pretty or lovely poems). Moreover, they complain because the young men did not wear feathered hats and designer clothes: “de la bonne faiseuse” (from the right maker). They then announce that they are changing their names. Cathos, Gorgibus’s daughter, wants to be called Polixène and her cousin Magdelon, Aminthe.
So the stage is set for a reversal: the deceiver deceived. The young men both decide that they will each clothe their laquais, or men servant, into garments worn in salons and send them to court our would-be salonnières.
Cathos and Magdelon are so blinded by their own wishes, that Mascarille’s entrance in a chair carried by porteurs is not viewed as inappropriate and ridiculous. Mascarille (played by Molière) is a marquis. He recites an inferior poem, an impromptu, he has written, pausing frequently to comment on the ingenuous manner in which he has worded his poem.
As for the other laquais, Jodelet (played by Jodelet FR), he plays the part of a vicomte and arrives later in the play (Scene XI). Jodelet is a famous but older French actor playing himself, a valet. His face is white because he covers it with flour. The marquis and the vicomte start boasting about their life in various salons and about their abilities as poets and dancers.
The spectators are in stitches, but Cathos and Magdelon so wish to be précieuses that they admire the disguised laquais. A few unacceptable words and references are used, but Cathos and Madgelon do not know the difference. They are totally deceived.
The fantasy comes to an end during a danse. Violinists had been hired, etc. Du Croisy and La Grange come back and undress their valets so they can be seen for what they are. Earlier (Scene iv) Cathos had remarked that the thought of sleeping next to a naked man was repulsive.
Gorgibus returns and the violinists demand to be paid for their services. Gorgibus starts beating them up in the harmless fashion of comedy. So the farce has been played out to its bitter end, bitter for the would-be précieuses and salonnières, and bitter for Gorgibus.
With kind regards to all of you. ♥
[i] Jean-Claude Tournand, Introduction à la vie littéraire du XVIIe siècle (Paris : Bordas 1984 [1970]), pp. 47-75.
Les Précieuses ridicules de Molière
avec : M-M Lozac’h à la mise en scène et dans le rôle de magdelon Marie Moriette dans cathos – François Floris dans Mascarille
La Carte de Tendre, in Clélie(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here is Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Carte de Tendre. It is not clear. In fact, I suspect that only the original map is still clear. It was probably engraved by François Chauveau.
However, one can see the three rivers, Inclinaison, Estime, Reconnaissance (gratitude) and the Mer dangereuse, or dangerous sea. Inclinaison is romantic love.
Other than polite and witty conversation, the main activity of salonniers and salonnières was writing. They had been influenced by Giovanni Battista Guarini’s (1538-1612) IlPastor Fido (1590), a pastoral tragicomedy, and Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (1607-1628), a lengthy novel featuring shepherds and shepherdesses living in bucolic settings resembling Il Pastor Fido’s Arcadia.
Salonniers and salonnières wrote abundantly and love was their favourite topic. Among the books they wrote, we know about La Guirlande de Julie. It was a gift to Julie d’Angennes, Madame de Rambouillet’s daughter, and contained sixty-two madrigals each of which compared Julie to a flower. According to the rules of Préciosité, a movement born in Salons, women looked upon themselves as precious or précieuses. Moreover, Préciosité had banished unrefined behaviour, in general, and unrefined courtship, in particular. So the Duc de Montausier courted Julie d’Angennes for fourteen years before she consented to marry him.
— Carte du Tendre (the map of love)
This map was included in Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s novel: Clélie
Moreover, as we will now see, love was subjected to various rules. For instance, Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) described the towns, villages and rivers of her Arcadia, called Tendre. A map of the pays de Tendre was actually designed. It was engraved by François Chauveau (1613-1676).
Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) had been a member of l’Hôtel deRambouillet, the first famous salon of seventeenth-century France. But as the Marquise de Rambouillet grew older, salonniers and salonnières started to gather every Saturday at the home of Madeleine de Scudéry whose pseudonym was Sappho. Thus was born the Société du samedi (Saturday Society). It flourished during the second half of the seventeenth century, called le Grand Siècle (the Great Century), the age of Louis XIV (1638-1715), the Sun-King.
Clearly outlined on the Carte de Tendre are three forms of love each depicted as towns on the side of three rivers: Inclination, Estime (esteem) and Reconnaissance (gratitude). So, love had three forms: inclination, estime, reconnaissance. Villages on the side of Rivers are allegorical: Jolis-vers (lovely poems), Billet-doux (love letter) and others.
If lovers allowed themselves to enter untamed passion, they sailed on a dangerous sea, called Mer dangeureuse. However, if passions were restrained, love could be a source of happiness. Interestingly, although she had a gentleman-friend, Paul Pelisson, Mademoiselle de Scudéry never married.
As may be expected, Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Carte de Tendre was satirized. In fact, Molière (1622-1673) wrote his first Parisian play on the Précieuses : Les Précieuses ridicules. By 1659, the Précieuses had a high an opinion of themselves. Molière did not condemn Préciosité, but Cathos and Magdelon are affected women. Although Molière’s comedy may have been a bit of a blow to the movement, it was a great success and Molière went on to bigger and better things, including a friendship with Louis XIV.
Passions were abundantly discussed in seventeenth-century France. Both Descartes and Pascal contributed a treatise on passion. Descartes wrote a treatise on the Passions de l’âme(The Passions of the Soul) and Pascal, a Discourse on the Passion of Love.
However, passionate love was never so dangerous than in Madame de La Fayette’s La Princesse deClèves (1678), a psychological novel in which love is viewed as a source of endless pain. It feeds on jealousy as does Phèdre’s love for Hippolyte. Interestingly, dramatist Jean Racine‘s (1639-1699) Phèdre, a tragedy, was first performed in 1678, the year Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693) published, anonymously, La Princesse de Clèves.
Airs de Cour – French Court Music from the 17th Century
Salons are often looked upon as a French institution when in fact Italians brought salons to France. However, although the salon was imported, it became a French institution and it never fully disappeared.
Born in Rome to Jean de Vivonne (marquis of Pisani [1530-1599]) and Giulia Savelli, Madame de Rambouillet (1588-1665) opened the first famous seventeenth-century French salon. Salons were a gathering of persons, aristocrats of all ranks, cardinals, and l’honnête homme. They were, for the most part, well-educated men and women and shared an interest in literature, philosophy and music. However, l’incomparable Arthénice, an anagram of Catherine, who married Charles d’Angennes, marquis de Rambouillet (1577–1652) also turned the salon into a room.
Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, lived in a private house, l’Hôtel de Rambouillet, rue Saint-Honoré, but l’Hôtel moved to rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre in 1618. She received her distinguished guests in a blue room: la chambre bleue d’Arthénice. Arthénice’s guests gathered in a ruelle, perhaps a side of the bed. Beds were not as they are today. They were canopy beds featuring sumptuous drapes that were drawn closed at night, especially on wintry days.
Salons are remembered as places that did not admit anything crude. Only the purest French could be spoken in a salon and one’s manners had to be refined. A male guest was, at the very least, an honnête homme French galanterie goes back to courtly love, but reached a summit in seventeenth-century French salons.
But later in the seventeenth-century, they were rooms where people made believe they were not what they seemed. The salonniers and salonnières, gave themselves new names and, at one point, the aficionados of salons were so influenced by Guarini’s Il Pastor fido, a pastoral set in Arcadia and published in Venice in 1590, and later, by Honoré d’Urfée’s L’Astrée (1607-1627), that they played shepherds and shepherdessess. Fantasy took over.
As well, salons are one of the birthplaces of feminism. Medieval courtly love was revived and revised to emerge as a movement called Préciosité. Women looked upon themselves as precious, hence the noun préciosité and, in some cases, kept suitors waiting for for several years. The Duc de Montausier (1610–1690), courted Julie d’Angennes (1607-1671), Madame de Rambouillet’s daughter, from 1631 until 1645, before she consented to marry him.
Out of this courtship, a book emerged, entitled La Guirlande de Julie. It was given as a present to Julie in 1641 and contained sixty-two madrigals (poems not songs), each featuring a flower. Montausier wrote sixteen of the madrigals, but the preparation of the book was a bit of a contest disguised as a game. Among the authors are Racan, Tallemant des Réaux and others. The challenge consisted in finding the best pointe or conceit, a clever and witty way of saying “little nothings.”
© Micheline Walker
2 October 2011
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