The women of the renaissance; a study of feminism

Front matter

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Introduction

Italian origin of the Renaissance feminist movement—Protests against war, force, the materialisation of the religious spirit and the hollowness of learning—Recourse to the affections—Quest of true happiness—Idealism : woman chooses the method—“ Love and faith”—Crusade of love—Worship of life and hatred of death— Women the motive-force of life—Active and tranquillising réle of Italian women in the 16th century-—Conquest of France by the new spirit—General sentiment of the new society. Pages 6-20

Chapter I

Marriage, its realist character and its difficulties—The aim of marriage not personal satisfaction—The girl married blindfold—The father —Marriageable age—Interviews—Reflections of the father—Ideas of the bridegroom elect—His physical and moral criterion —His uneasiness—Final crisis—Ideas of Michelangelo and

Xii CONTENTS

Raphael—Marriage ceremonies and festivities—Weddings at Naples, Florence, and Venice—Behind the scenes—Weddings in France—Brides’ journeys—-Moral aspects. Pages 21-44

Chapter II The Married Woman

The genius of motherhood—Marriage a physical science—Domestic difficulties—Platonism in marriage—Semi-wives— Wives in name only—Vocation of women for medicine— Women as sick-nurses— as doctors—Enfranchisement of women as regards medicine— Intimacies between women and doctors—Women’s medical collections—Hygienic rules— Neurasthenia—Woman as home-ruler— The chatelaine—Her management of retainers—The science of charity—Principles of great houses. Pages 45-69

Chapter III The Children

1. Maternity.—Tendency to small families, its various causes—Marital misfortunes—How new arrivals were. received—Unpopularity of feeding by the mothers—Children educated by the mother till the age of seven—Old system of hardening—New system based on reason. 2. The Boys.—Necessity of developing individualism among them—Paternal education—Growing influence of the mother— College life—Greatness and decadence of tutors—Understanding between tutors and mothers—Excessive production of young men of fashion—Influence of the new ideas—Decline of the spirit of toil and discipline. Pages 70-85

Chapter IV The Education Of Girls

Girls brought up solely by their mothers—Old theory of early marriage —Education, especially physical and moral—Opinion of moralists and physicians: counsels of Anne of France—Utilitarian system of Germany—The intensive school: Vivés; St. Theresa; the Spanish system—The aesthetic school: Dolce; the Italian system— Louise of Savoy—New theory of late marriage—Protests against

CONTENTS Xi the realism of education —Tutors of girls—Moral freedom of girls —Protests against what they read—The story for girls, after Anne of France—The flirt—The hunt for a husband—Various ideas on that matter—Coquetry, intrigue, chambermaids—Jean Raulin’s sermon—Open-air life. Pages 86-108 CHAPTER V THE HUSBAND, AND THE VARIOUS WAYS OF SLIPPING HIS YOKE

The husband lord and master: his absolute authority—The stick—The wife’s insignificance—The husband’s grievances against marriage —The wife’s grievances—Beware love!—Modus vivendi— Women dowered or not: growth of women’s influence on the dowry system —Practical philosophy—Unsatisfied affections—Wives separated or divorced—Widows—Sentimental finery—The wife of a dead husband—Classical widows: their spirit of order and piety—Gay widows— Widows’ virtue—Advantages and disadvantages of widowhood—Re-marriage—Sincerity of women’s praise of marriage. Pages 109-135

Chapter I Philosophy Of Life

Individualistic and anti-philosophic spirit of France—Flourishing of the salons—Reign of money : legitimated in Italy—The Roman programme-—French society—Proposed remedies against Christian socialism—Anne of France—School of Cardinal d’Amboise— Principles of sentimental sociology—Social raison @étre of platonism—Its Florentine origin—Development of the doctrine-—Intellectual aristocracy—Platonism a fashionable craze—Discussions on the real character of love—Cataneo—Eloquent Bembo—Petrarchism — Elevation of sentiments by platonism — Michelangelo — French opposition to platonism—Triumph of platonism through Italianism and feminism—Anne of France—Margaret of France and her general philosophy. Pages 137-176

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER II Is platonism dangerous for women ?—Double system for catching men

passion and sensibility—To spread love the end of life and the secret of happiness—Platonic virtue—Criticism of this virtue in practice—School of Anne of France— Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo—Philosophie school—Multiplication and withdrawal of favours—Love through duty—Love of princesses—The veil of mystery—Practical recruiting of platonism—Sources of love or second love. Pages 177-193

Chapter III

Science consists in extracting the element of happiness from everything, first of all from oneself—Beauty a social duty—Charm has no physical rules—Women slight or the reverse; blondes ; the skin, the eyes—Corporeal beauty—Michelangelo and Diirer— Portraits of women as Venus—Prudence of women—Artists and their fancies—Jeanne of Aragon—Margaret of France—Receptions in the morning—The ‘ Innocents’—Art of retaining youth, or of restoring youthfulness—A_ lady’s toilette—Fashion—Spiritual significance of colours—Luxury—Architecture—Taste for fine furniture. Pages 194-227

Chapter IV

The science of dining—Table-talk—Balls and dancing: custom of kissing—Protests of the Reformers—Church— Pilgrimages— Gardens and country life—Flowers—Pugs and parrots—The horse—Hunting, Roman and platonist—Hunting philosophised ; Budé and Blondo—Park animals—Nature—Life at watering-places; pure water; gravity and fun. Pages 228-260

CONTENTS XV

Chapter V Intellectual Resources

The library—Curiosity divided and dilettante in character—Taste for tales, jest-books, romances—The old poets— Music — Instruments, the human voice—Intellectual music—Harmony—Sacred music—Chamber music—The orchestra—Discussion on the abuse of music—The theatre—‘ Phaedra,’ Bibbiena—The Calandra— Opposition to the theatre—French ideas. Pages 261-283

° CHAPTER VI CONVERSATION

Art of conversation: its supreme rdle—Women’s triumph—Tone of conversation—Philosophical spirit—Variety of form—Subjects of conversation—French conversation—Quips and cranks—Conversational dallyings—Stories—Dissertations—Gaieties—Correspondence, its revival—Family letters—Letters in the grand style— Tone of letters—Some Italian letters. Pages 284-310

BOOK Ill. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN

Chapter I Political Influence

Women remain strangers to the keener activities: war, justice— Women, political in spite of themselves—Isabella of Aragon— Jeanne of Aragon—Anne of France—Return from ambition to love—Restless women—Renée of France—Purely defensive heroism of women—Ladies of Sienna and Pisa—Isabella the Catholic—Catherine Sforza—Woman according to Michelangelo.

Chapter II Moral Influence

The good old times—Moral degeneration—Ambition, money—Evil, to be cured homeopathically as in Italy, or allopathically: as in Germany ?—Virtue, must it necessarily be tiresome ?—Raphael’s

Xvi CONTENTS embarrassment—The antiplatonists—Louise of Savoy, Rabelais— The work of amelioration by two methods. (i) The softening of virtue—Different systems in regard to marriage; free union; system of contract ; the double marriage—Firenzuola—Marriages of affection—Secondary platonism, a compromise—Alms without significance, to lure the human animal—Sipping at love, by way of Italian dilettantism—The attack—Love a dream—Pyrayer. (ii) The ennoblement of vice—Attempt at purification of carnal love—The Italian courtesans, and their moral influence—Tullia d’Aragona—Imperia— Venice—Francis I.—French system of the double household—Diana of Poitiers—Bembo in tears—Infatuation—The feminising of men—The question of the beard.

Chapter III Intellectual Influence

Conquest of men by mind—Army of intellectual women—lIsabella d’Este—Anne of France—Margaret of France: her theory—The friends and guests of Margaret—Intellectual headquarters of France—Egerias —Difficulty of this government— Vittoria Colonna and Aretino—Flatteries and compliments—Supervision of manuscripts—A ffection—Pecuniary aid—Necessity of feminine patronage. Pages 372-397

CHAPTER IV INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE (Continued)

Results of feminine influence—Literature in praise of women—Pompeo Colonna-—Two schools of taste : passion, sensibility —Castiglione— Literature of conversation—Fugitive poems—Temples of high poetry—Literature of poodles and birds—The ancestor of Vert- Vert—Spanish women—France, Lyons—Accusation of frivolity— German scepticism—The struggle in France—For or against women—Timidity of Frenchwomen—Spirit of the prelates.

Chapter V Religious Influence

Progress of religious sensibility—-Women compared to the moon— Entrance of the sentimental spirit—Free enquiry at Rome and in

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Italy—Philosophic religion—Entrance on the scene of women as priests, as well as physicians—Religious traditions of women in France—Decay of faith—Roman liberalism—Situation of the French clergy-——Alliance between women and the aesthetic clergy — Liberal principles of this alliance—The bzbliennes—Aristocratic religion— Writings of the mystic women: Gabrielle de Bourbon, Catherine d’Amboise—The mystic writings of Margaret of France, her ideas—Her relations with the palinods—The mystics—The mysticism of divided application—Direct communion with God— Smiling character of the new mysticism—Spiritual petrarchism— Correggio— Vittoria Colonna—Vergerio. Pages 422-453

CHAPTER VI RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE (Continued)

Scorners of mystic liberalism—The savants—Reproaches addressed to the liberal party: paganism, materialism—Women’s struggle against these tendencies—The monks: the monastic spirit— Struggle against the monks: the pros and cons—Rabelais— Folengo—The German monks—Rising of the lower clergy against liberalism and aestheticism: Luther, Calvin—Struggle of the Reformers against women and liberty of thought— Vittoria Colonna and Ochino—Direction of the liberal and aesthetic party in France —Margaret of France and her active rdle—Feminist theory of Postel—Replies of Luther, the Sorbonne, the theological parties.

Conclusion

Total want of success of the feminist movement —Disappointments of Margaret of France—Reaction against cosmopolitanism and intellectualism—The spirit of the Pléiade—Love of free air— Margaret of Savoy—Fall of the Roman spirit—Montaigne—Last effects of feminism—The triumph of Death—The mistakes of the Renaissance feminism—Disappearance of the aesthetic system— Sensualism of the 18th century—The naturalism of Ruskin.

INDEX. Pages 504-510

PREAMBLE

THE woman question—what is more absorbing ?

What do women want? What do they demand? They have been shamefully neglected. To judge by the code, there never were such beings on earth. But the code has hallowed iniquities. The education of women is pitiable. They ought to know everything—and are taught nothing. They are deficient in intelligence—they are too intelligent, They ought to have their separate careers, their separate circles, their independence—to be the equals of their husbands, to be men and yet remain women. They ought to have votes—that, it appears, forms one element of happiness. Many people in England are even dreaming of suppressing marriage; and it must be observed that, as Englishmen largely expatriate themselves, there is no lack of involuntary spinsters, who are by no means the least ardent in prosecuting the campaign. In short, it is a very babel. Everyone has something to say. The press, the stage, the pulpit, all resound with these questions—to say nothing of public meetings, private meetings, at-homes, lectures. The subject is well-nigh done to death; it has, moreover, a special tendency to lose itself in mist, and there is no sort of cohesion in outlook or aim.

Nowhere is this anarchy more patent than in education. How are you to tell young girls what they ought to be, what they ought to learn and think and know, when you are absolutely in the dark as to what you want to make of them? Are they to play the same part in life as men, or to perform public duties, equal, perhaps superior, to theirs, but different? Are they to marry early, or late? Ought they to see and know, before marriage, all there is to see and know? Or is it their blissful privilege to enjoy the pleasant

yi | things of life in deliberate ignorance of all the rest, and, in their piping time of peace, to turn the divine hours of youth to the best advantage? Once married, what is their mission to be? How far will it profit them to have learnt the whole art of household management? Should they exercise any influence out of doors? If so, what? Will their influence consist in preserving their good looks and their skill in dancing? Or is their influence to be a serious thing? Is it to be intellectual, or religious, or moral, or artistic, or scientific? These questions jostle one another in some confusion.

And the confusion is irritating, because it compels us to grope our way haphazard. The education of girls has seriously suffered thereby ; it has been frittered away, has bred a habit of easy contentment with superficial ideas rather than of resolutely, earnestly, thoroughly mastering what it is proper to know. The mind, like the body, has its nervous system, and to obtain its full measure of energy it is needful to husband its resources.

Now, we may get some light on this complicated problem if we refer it to experience, or, in other words, apply the lessons of the past. We often encounter in the world, in regard to history, and more especially the history of morals, a singular prejudice in the form of a certain optimism (or pessimism) which imbues us with the idea that we are the first or almost the first denizens of the globe—that all the generations whose blood flows in our veins, whose feelings throb in our breasts, whose traditions govern our thoughts, were composed of beings essentially unlike ourselves, upon whom things must necessarily have made different impressions. This idea is not absolutely correct ; in reality, we depend on our ancestors to an almost incredible degree. We are fettered by innumerable bonds of their bequeathing—bonds of love and hate, and prejudices of every kind; they hold us in leash as we ourselves hold our descendants. The generations flit by so swiftly that they have barely time to transmit life ere they are

one. y Especially in regard to the condition of women, the questions that are agitated to-day with more or less airiness or vehemence are almost as old as the hills. At certain periods they have been investigated more closely

PREAMBLE 3 than at others, and then learning, philosophy, and experience have said their say.

The Renaissance was one of the epochs at which these questions pushed to the front. Like our own age, it was a period of transition; its conclusions were often very different from our own, but in some points it bore a wonderful likeness to the present day. The position of women then underwent an almost inevitable transformation, both material and moral. Up to that time women had been regarded as inferior to men; opinion was built up on the practical and utilitarian basis still cherished in the Anglo-Saxon countries: all modes of activity belonged to the men, while the women’s duty was to remain at home as domestic ornaments, precious, but fragile.

Yet society was not wholly averse to granting women what we call the right to a career. The Salic law was exclusively a French invention, and the product of special circumstances ; in the political world there was nothing to prevent the acceptance of aid from women, even in the midst of the gravest perils. It was a woman—and a woman to the finger-tips—Isabel of Bavaria, who all but ruined us; Joan of Arc was our salvation. It is not too much to say that, in later years, the honour and might of France were saved by Anne of Beaujeu and Louise of Savoy. The same thing holds from top to bottom of the social ladder. In certain towns women might have been seen taking part in elections in the public square ;1 in many of the chateaux the lady of the place, in the absence of her husband, fulfilled the most trying and masculine of tasks, administering justice, commanding the men-at-arms. Christine de Pisan speaks of this, not as a right, but as a rigorous duty.2, Among the working classes female labour was extensively employed, at a fairly high rate of pay.

But no one saw in this, as the opinion of Christine de Pisan shows, a direct and natural outlet for women’s activities. A woman was regarded as the subject of her husband, and his deputy in case of need; hers was not a personal

1 Madame Vincent has reminded us, in an interesting memoir, that ladies at one time sat as peers of France.

2 As administrative authority depended on territorial possessions, it was quite natural that women should exercise it on occasion. The village gilds, though composed of men, sometimes elected a woman as president.

part; she was only the shadow or the extension of another person—a sort of half-man, or, as caustic folk said, an homme d’occasion, mas occasionnatus—a man marred in the making. (It must be confessed that this idea is rather hard on the ladies, and even on us men, more particularly because Providence does not take us into consultation in these matters, and all of us, men and women alike, have the assurance of remaining to the end of our days male or female as God made us.) On that system, it was allowable for women in cases of absolute necessity to perform the tasks of men, though the men could scarcely offer to reciprocate; if there was no help for it, women might adopt a trade or profession, but that appeared undesirable. All the countries faithful to these ideas were utilitarian countries, where men had incontestably the upper hand, and where no great need was felt for lofty flights.

In the countries of Latin blood and spirit they start from a principle absolutely the reverse. Women are not at all “men for the nonce”; in the picturesque words of good Francois de Moulins, addressed to his pupil Francis L., “Never forget that women came from Adam’s side, not from his feet.” They are not substitutes for men, but have their own proper sphere. Castiglione has given us the typical formula in his famous book The Courtier. “Man,” says he, “has for his portion physical strength and external activities; all doing must be his, all inspiration must come from woman.” She is, in his own words, the “motive force.” One recalls the smiling remark of the charming Duchess of Burgundy: “I am always delighted when it is women who govern, because then it is men who direct.” But according to Castiglione, the world ought to show the very opposite: men should govern and women direct; men act, women think, or mayhap dream. The former should have the material tasks of administration and practical affairs; the latter the spiritual and idealist realm. Looked at in this way, it is obvious how much larger the woman’s part suddenly becomes, and what supreme importance it holds in the life of the world. Instead of serving her husband merely as the material replenisher of his stock and an under-manager for his affairs, the woman will carve out

PREAMBLE 5 her own path and enjoy personal freedom, and will be the better able to lift up her head at home and in society for knowing that she represents there something more than the flesh; she will be the soul, the seeker after noble thoughts—thoughts necessary to happiness, but which the practical spirit of men scarcely permits them to pursue. There will be no question (to the great disappointment of certain modern aesthetes, who after all profit very largely by the railways and telegraphs) of declaring a relentless war against industry, manufactures, the business of administration; this unpleasing but serviceable sphere must simply be left to men, and upon this sordid earthly existence must be erected the frail edifice of general happiness—the true life—a life of enthusiasm, beauty, and thought; in other words, we~must relax the bonds of the material life, take time to fetch our breath, and infuse into realism a new and brighter spirit by means of the love of the beautiful. That is women’s task; in the words of Ecclesiastes, “Their hearts are snares and nets, their hands are as chains.” They are the queens of happiness, and they must compel us to be happy and to enjoy the happiness necessary to us.

With this end in view, the women of the Renaissance formed a league: they accomplished on behalf of the rights of the heart a sort of cowp d’état, the story of which we are about to relate. Finally, no one was happy after all. But it is interesting to know why.

First, let us explain in a few words how it came about that in a country like France women were able to assume so important a part. Then, we shall proceed to show how vast was their effort, how ardent their quest for happiness, and we shall see why the formula they discovered has not come down to us.

INTRODUCTION

FRANCE is a singular country. We are slightly Greek, half Latin or Ligurian, very Gallic or very German, and in the West, the country of an intellectual gulf-stream, we are dreamers—the Celts of M. Legouvé’s enthusiasm. All of us, whatever our stock, professed in the Middle Ages to adore women; the author of an old fabliaw makes the Virgin ask of one of our gallant knights the subtle and searching question, ‘Is thy lady fairer than [?” But in practice—in other words, in our home life— we treated women like animals, with the whip.

We must remark also that, during the whole course of the fifteenth century, France had no time for philosophising : the Hundred Years War and the awful distresses resulting from it; the iron hand and heavy taxation of Louis XL, whose rule was regenerative but very severe; then the Civil War and the Italian expedition—all these circumstances left us no breathing-space, and are in some measure the justification of an aftermath of brutality. It was only in the last years of the century that peace allowed us to reflect, and then activity, prosperity, and happiness burst out like a lightning-flash. Louis XI., who had clear and definite rights over France, had dealt with her like a strenuous husband; Louis XII., who wedded her by chance, treated her with the delicate worship of a lover who has thrown off the every-day concerns of life.

By what happy chance did the French, till then so apt, whatever they professed, to value women only on the physical side, take under the influence of kindly peace and individual well-being a step further towards the South, and come to think that women might serve as social guides? The genesis of these ideas was very remarkable.

They came from elsewhere.

During our convalescence, Italy had become transformed. A great revolution, moral, religious, scientific, and above all aesthetic, had brought once more upon the arena the two eternal protagonists—the Roman spiritualists, and the friends of material force, that is, of imperial Germany.

Men are in general inclined to the side of force; their idea of happiness consists in imposing their will upon others, no matter how brutally, or at any rate in donning a uniform—they are born fighters or jockeys.

Women, on the contrary, can only hope to exert direct and effectual action by the spiritualising of society; and it is not by handing themselves over to the tender mercies of men, whoever they may be—husbands, lovers, doctors, hydrotherapists—or by aping the manners and talk of men, that they acquire their liberty. They are taken at their own valuation, provided they accentuate their purely feminine qualities.

This was thoroughly understood by the women of Italy, who managed so well that the crisis turned quite naturally to their advantage, without any theories whatever. Neither the accepted classics nor Plato gave them any assistance ; they triumphed of themselves, and often at their own cost, because they accomplished their own education before undertaking that of others. Many of them, instructed, stout-hearted, nobly generous, while men were wasting their activities abroad, consistently embodied at home the superb saying of Christ, “Let not your heart be troubled’’—the only prescription yet discovered for the cure of neurasthenia. People poked fun at them, accused them of “wanting to wear the breeches.”? Italian husbands were no more inclined than others to fall at their wives’ feet and proclaim their divinity: they accustomed themselves to them gradually, almost unawares. It was natural that the disappointments, vexations and trials of politics or business should throw them in this direction; what was more fortu-

1<¢The history of marriage is the history of a relation in which women have gradually triumphed over the passions, prejudices, and selfish interests of men: that is the picture of true progress.” (F. Brunetiére. )

2 An Italian caricature of about the year 1450 (repeated by the French in the sixteenth century) gives a satirical representation of women violently struggling to wear trunk-hose.

nate and less expected was that, women having monopolised all that made life worth living, men one day awoke to the fact that women were the glory of all distinguished families, and that, thanks to them, life had become an art, a passion.

They began, then, by shedding a domestic radiance; it was by filling their own home with light and hope and joy that they began to quicken the world at large. The science of happiness established itself under a wholly practical and empirical form, like the science of medicine; for the heart needs the ministry of healing, a more difficult and perhaps more delicate art than that of the body. Where can you apply a thermometer to test the temperature of the soul ? Moral sufferings have the peculiarity of concealing themselves, even when physical collapse is the result; they are not easily diagnosed, and no one understands them: and, further, they manifest themselves oddly. It is in the pride of life, when one feels strongest, that one is weak and in danger; peace is more treacherous than strife, health more perilous than sickness, strength feebler than weakness. Or, if one is conscious of the mischief, one despairs of finding the remedy, which consists of compassion and generosity. Women’s medicines are love and hate.

Love—that is to give something derived from herself; to act, not through that long-armed vulgar charity (though this, too, has its merits—and is often very tiresome) which aims at heading a subscription list or presiding at a public meeting, but through that modest individual charity which humbly and quietly diffuses a little affection, cheerfulness, and enthusiasm. These are the real great ladies; to them, giving is a necessity, a second nature. They are born generous. They seek their own happiness in the happiness of others, without stopping to ask themselves if their conduct is philosophic.

Hate! They detest and resolutely combat the elements of force in which men most delight, but which, as women believe, produce the worst ills ; and these are, the power of money, the power of war.

The egotism of wealth they regard as the very source of materialism, against which they cannot but struggle. On this point the women of the Renaissance bore the brunt of a long and skilfully fought battle, which we shall follow in all its phases.

As for war, that is the arch-enemy against which their first blows are aimed. The little Italian wars of the Middle Ages did not resemble the vast hecatombs of to-day, but they bred a swarm of atrocities, tumults and feuds; war is less cruel, perhaps, when it is not a mere pastime. To storm a place at the opening of a campaign is regarded as a humane act and good tactics, since in the long run it shortens the struggle; but the horror of it! Naturally, women are the worst sufferers. In vain do they push their way through the flames to the feet of some cold stone angel or some Madonna with her eternal smile; you see poor girls flinging themselves into the water, and noble ladies going about serenely and deftly to save what can be saved—their husbands’ lives or their own fortunes. Many centuries had passed since St. Augustine had offered his tender consolations to the victims of the barbarians; they might appropriately have been offered when the French captured Padua or the Germans Rome, or even at that obscure assault of Rivolta in 1509, when an Italian captain devoured the heart of one of his political enemies, disembowelled the man’s wife, and made horse-troughs of their corpses.

Even if we ignore gross infamies like these, war was not more humane. The historian of Bayard cannot find words to celebrate the magnanimity of his hero in so generously respecting two high-born maidens of Brescia who had received him into their house, tended him and healed his wounds with the devotion of sisters of mercy. And even in times of peace military habits were commonly so intolerable that quiet folk fervently prayed for a war to bring them relief.

For centuries sages and philosophers had been expatiating on the evils of war; councils had attempted to intervene; but war continued to flourish. The idea of suppressing it seemed a mere Utopian dream.

They might have tried at least to stem its flood by an appeal to the co-operation of moral forces; but, singularly enough, the more brilliant the fifteenth century in Italy became in art and intellect, the more its moral forces appeared to decline.

Christianity, too often sunk into mere mechanical routine, teeming with abuses, overloaded with observances, had practically lost all influence. Side by side with a few clergy somewhat above the rank and file in culture, there was a crowd of empirics who rarely troubled their heads with thinking things out for themselves; they discoursed, not of love or hope, but only of faith—a faith which brutish men wished to destroy,and the more refined few wished to vivify, and which was thus doubly imperilled. The common

eople were indifferent, and allowed themselves still to be lulled by the old crooning melodies to which they were accustomed ; they remained Christian from sheer indolence, like many men of quality; but it was open to question whether the first shock would not set them clamouring for a more lively tune—an “ air of flutes and violins,” as Heine sald; paradise instead of hell.

As to learning, the cultured were agreed in recognising its failure; that, indeed, was beyond question. Men were tired of reasoning, reading, writing, worrying! Learning in tragic dismay sought only to prostrate itself before faith; or rather, men asked themselves whether learning really existed. Tiphernus, an eminent professor at the Sorbonne, and in high favour at Rome, confesses that all this learning so much belauded and paraded seemed to him nothing but a means of earning a living for professors, a combination of all the vanities, the technical slang of a crowd of pedants, critics more or less ignorant, and shameless imitators, who formed little cliques beyond whose pale there was no salvation. “To believe them,” he exclaimed, “we are not equal to the ancients”: then lions forsooth have lost their ferocity, and hares their cowardice, for Providence shines for the whole world, and it cannot be that man alone has degenerated! A league of falsehood! he reiterates. Under cloak of high culture men conceal their vices, and especially their idleness. Do what we may, we are progressing : every one of us is conscious of a forward impulsion. The pontiffs of reason, who have painfully climbed the steep ascent, wish to keep everything to themselves, and to set up their books as a balk to the world, but all in vain; they will never persuade us that their collapse is that of nature.

Tiphernus died about 1466. From that time forth science was flouted. It gave the world, nevertheless, what it was destined to give—tire-arms, Greece, many admirable things—everything but happiness, which it had never undertaken to provide. And it was precisely on this point that the great mistake was made. What, men asked, is the good of learning, money, labour, or even semblances of joy, if we are oppressed by a life of contention and heaviness ? Why are we born with wits, why should we rule multitudes, thrill men’s souls, dwell in palaces, if our hearts are empty ? Suppose we wrest Nature’s secrets from her, work every vein of ore, crop every blade of grass: suppose the race of men to form one magnificent herd, fat and flourishing, and even peaceably inclined—what is the good of it all if there is no joy? All things live by love; the heart makes itself heard above the claims of work, above the intellect, demanding for life a recompense, agoal. We perish for lack of something to love; out of mere self-pity we ought to bestow on ourselves the alms of life, which is love. All is vanity save this vanity, for before our birth, until our death, throughout our whole existence, it bears in front of us the torch of life.