No More Learning

That being granted, it appears to me that the ordinary fur-
nishing of an English head becomes discernible. As well as I
can judge, an educated Englishman possesses a stock of facts
three or four times in excess of that possessed by a Frenchman
of corresponding position,- at least in all that relates to language,
geography, political and economical truths, and the personal im-
pressions gained in foreign parts by contact with men and living
objects. On the other hand, it frequently happens that the Eng-
lishman turns his big trunk to less account than the Frenchman
does his little bag. This is perceptible in many books and
reviews; the English writer, though very well informed, being
limited in his range.
Nothing is rarer among them than free
and full play of the soaring and expanding intellect. Determined
to be prudent, they drag their car along the ground over the
beaten track; with two or three exceptions, not one now makes
readers think. More than once, when in England, after having
conversed with a man, I was surprised at his store of knowledge,
alike varied and sound, and also to find him so deficient in ideas.
At this moment I can recall five or six who were so largely
endowed as to be entitled to take general views. They paused,
however, half-way, arriving at no definite conclusion. They did
not even experience a desire to co-ordinate their knowledge in a
sort of system: they possessed only partial and isolated ideas;
they did not feel either the inclination or the power to connect
them together under a philosophical conception. Their language
bears the best witness to this, it being extremely difficult to
translate somewhat lofty abstractions into English. Compared
with French, and above all with German, it is what Latin is to
Greek.
Their library of words is wanting in an entire
row of compartments, — namely, the upper ones; they have no
ideas wherewith to fill them.


## p. 14412 (#606) ##########################################

14412
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
TYPICAL ENGLISH MEN AND WOMEN
From Notes on England
Since my
A
.
T BOTTOM the essential thing in a country is man.
arrival I have made a collection of types, and I class them
with those I had collected last year.
Arranged in
groups, the following are those which have struck me most:
First, the robust individual, largely and solidly built, the fine
colossus, at times six feet high and broad in proportion. This is
very common among soldiers, notably among the Life Guards, a
select body of men. Their countenance is fresh and blooming,
their flesh magnificent; it might be supposed they had been
chosen for an exhibition of human products, like picked prize
beets and cauliflowers. They have a fund of good-humor, some-
times of good-nature, generally of awkwardness.
In point
of mass they are monuments; but there may be too much of
a good thing, and movement is so essential to matter! Other
monuments, rather less tall, but even fresher and more varnished,
are the servants of a great house. They wear white cravats
with large faultless bows, scarlet or canary-colored knee-breeches;
they are magnificent in shape and amplitude — their calves espe-
cially are enormous. . . . The coachmen are prodigiously broad-
shouldered and well developed: how many yards of cloth must
be required to clothe such figures ? These are the favorites of
creation, the best fed, the most easy-going, all chosen and picked
in order to act as specimens of the nation's physique.
There is the same athletic and full-fleshed type among the
gentlemen; I know four or five specimens among my acquaint-
ances. Sometimes the excess of feeding adds a variety. This
was true of a certain gentleman in my railway carriage on the
Derby day: large ruddy features, with flabby and pendent cheeks,
large red whiskers, blue eyes without expression, an enormous
trunk in a short light jacket, noisy respiration; his blood gave
a tinge of pink to his hands, his neck, his temple, and even
underneath his hair: when he compressed his eyelids, his physi-
ognomy was as disquieting and heavy as that seen in the por-
traits of Henry VIII. ; when in repose, in presence of this mass
of flesh, one thought of a beast for the butcher, and quietly com-
puted twenty stone of meat. Toward fifty, owing to the effect of
the same diet seasoned with port wine, the figure and the face
are spoiled, the teeth protrude, the physiognomy is distorted, and
they turn to horrible and tragical caricature.


## p. 14413 (#607) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14413
The last variety is seen among the common people, where
spirits take the place of port, among other places in the low
streets which border the Thames: several apoplectic and swollen
faces, whereof the scarlet hue turns almost to black; worn-out,
blood-shot eyes like raw lobsters; the brute brutalized. Lessen
the quantity of blood and fat, while retaining the same bone and
structure, and increasing the countrified look; large and wild
beard and mustache, tangled hair, rolling eyes, truculent muzzle,
big knotted hands — this is the primitive Teuton issuing from his
woods: after the portly animal, after the overfed animal, comes
the fierce animal, the English bull.
All this is rare enough; these are the extremes of type. Much
more common is the laboring animal: the great bony body, full of
protuberances and projections, not well set up, ungainly, clumsy,
slightly automatic, but of strong build, and as capable of resist-
ance as of effort. It is not less common among gentlemen, clergy-
men, the liberal professions, than among the people.
Place in this powerful frame of bones and muscles the lucid,
calm, active intelligence developed by special education, or by
complete education, and you will have the fine variety of the
same type: the serious, capable man, worthy of commanding, in
whom during the hour of need one may and one ought to place
confidence, who will accomplish difficult tasks. In spick-span
new clothes, in too light a dress, the disparity between the habit
and its wearer is not far from being grotesque. But fancy him
on the bridge of a vessel, in battle,- or simply in a counting-
house at the head of twenty clerks, on the bench and pronoun-
cing decisions, governing fortunes or lives, he will be beautiful,
morally beautiful. This body can contain the soul without suc-
cumbing
Many of the women have the same power of growth and
structure, more frequently indeed than in France; out of every
ten young girls one is admirable, and upon five or six a natural-
ist painter would look with pleasure. On horseback especially, and
in full gallop, they are amazons; not only by their skill and the
firmness of their seat, but on account of their figure and their
health. In their presence one thinks of the natural form of life,
Grecian and gymnastic. Yesterday one of them in a drawing-
room, tall, with well-developed bust and shoulders, blooming
cheeks, active, and without too much expression, seemed to me
to be made to live in the avenues of a park, or in the great hall
of a castle, like her sister the antique statue, in the free air of


## p. 14414 (#608) ##########################################

14414
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
the mountains, or under the portico of a temple upon the sea-
shore; neither the one nor the other could breathe in our small
Parisian dwellings. The mauve silk of the dress follows the
form from the neck to the hips, descends and spreads forth like
a lustrous wave: in order to depict her as a goddess it would
require the palette of Rubens, his rosy red spread over a tint of
milk, his large masses of flesh fixed by one dash of the brush;
only here the contour is more severe, and the head is nobler.
Yet, even when the physiognomy and the form are common-
place the whole satisfies the mind: a solid bony structure, and
upon it healthy flesh, constitute what is essential in a living
creature.
There are two probable causes: the one, which is of a special
character, - the hereditary conformation of the race; the other,
which is the custom of open-air living and bodily exercise. A
review spoke recently about the rude, unfeeling health which
slightly startles delicate foreign ladies, and attributes it to riding
on horseback and the long walks which English ladies take in
the country. To these advantages are joined several inconven-
iences: the fair complexion is easily and quickly spoilt; in the
case of many young ladies, the nose reddens early; they have
too many children, and this deteriorates them.
You marry a
blonde, slender, and clear-complexioned woman: ten years after-
wards you will perhaps have at your side a housekeeper, a nurse,
a sitting hen. I have in my mind two or three of these matrons,
broad, stiff, and destitute of ideas; red face, eyes the color of
blue china, huge white teeth — forming the tricolor flag. In other
cases the type becomes exaggerated: one sees extraordinary
asparagus-sticks planted in spreading dresses. Moreover, two out
of every three have their feet shod with stout masculine boots;
and as to the long projecting teeth, it is impossible to train one-
self to endure them. Is this a cause, or an effect, of the carniv-
orous régime? The too ornate and badly adjusted dress completes
these disparities. It consists of violet or dark-crimson silks,
of grass-green flowered gowns, blue sashes, jewelry — the whole
employed sometimes to caparison gigantic jades who recall dis-
charged heavy-cavalry horses, sometimes vast well-hooped butts
which burst in spite of their hoops. Of this cast was a lady
in Hyde Park one of these days, on horseback, followed by her
She was fifty-five, had several chins, the rest in pro-
portion, an imperious and haughty mien; the whole shook at the
slightest trot, and it was hard not to laugh.
a
groom.


## p. 14415 (#609) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14415
THE RACE CHARACTERS EXPRESSED IN ART
From (Art in the Netherlands. ) Copyright 1870, by Leypoldt & Holt
LET
us consider the common characteristics of the Germanic
race, and the differences by which it is opposed to the
Latin race. Physically we find a whiter and softer skin,
generally speaking; blue eyes, often of a porcelain or pale hue,
paler as you approach the north, and sometimes glassy in Hol-
land; hair of a flaxy blond, and with children, almost white.
The body is generally large, but thick-set or burly, heavy and
inelegant. In a similar manner the features are apt to be irreg-
ular; especially in Holland, where they are flabby, with project-
ing cheek-bones and strongly marked jaws. They lack, in short,
sculptural nobleness and delicacy. You will rarely find the feat-
ures regular, like the numerous pretty faces of Toulouse and Bor-
deaux, or like the spirited and handsome heads which abound in
the vicinity of Rome and Florence. You will much oftener find
exaggerated features, incoherent combinations of form and tones,
curious fleshy protuberances, so many natural caricatures. Taking
them for works of art, living forms testify to a clumsy and fan-
tastic hand through their more incorrect and weaker drawing.
Observe now this body in action, and you will find its ani-
mal faculties and necessities of a grosser kind than among the
Latins: matter and mass seem to predominate over motion and
spirit; it is voracious and even carnivorous. Compare the appe-
tite of an Englishman, or even a Hollander, with that of a
Frenchman or an Italian: those among you who have visited the
countries can call to mind the public dinner-tables,-- and the
quantities of food, especially meat, tranquilly swallowed several
times a day by a citizen of London, Rotterdam, or Antwerp. In
English novels people are always lunching; the most sentimental
heroine, at the end of the third volume, having consumed an
infinite number of buttered muffins, cups of tea, bits of chicken,
and sandwiches. The climate contributes to this: in the fogs of
the North, people could not sustain themselves, like a peasant of
the Latin race, on a bowl of soup or a piece of bread flavored
with garlic, or on a plate of macaroni. For the same reason the
German is fond of potent beverages.
Enter, in Amsterdam, one of these little shops, garnished with
polished casks, where glass after glass is swallowed of white,


## p. 14416 (#610) ##########################################

14416
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
yellow, green, and brown brandy, strengthened with pepper and
pimento. Place yourself at nine o'clock in the evening in a
Brussels brewery, near a dark wooden table, around which the
hawkers of crabs, salted rolls, and hard-boiled eggs circulate:
observe the people quietly seated there, each one intent on him-
self; sometimes in couples, but generally silent, smoking, eating,
and drinking bumpers of beer, which they now and then warm
up with a glass of spirits: you can understand sympathetically
the strong sensation of heat and animal plenitude they feel in
their speechless solitude, in proportion as superabundant solid
and liquid nourishment renews in them the living substance, and
as the whole body partakes in the gratification of the satisfied
stomach.
One point more of their exterior remains to be shown, which
especially strikes people of southern climes, and that is the slug-
gishness and torpidity of their impressions and movements.
Many a time have I passed before a shop-window to contemplate
some rosy, placid, and candid face,-a mediæval madonna making
up the fashions.
It is the very reverse of this in our land and
in Italy, where the grisette's eyes seem to be gossiping with the
chairs for lack of something better, and where a thought, the
moment it is born, translates itself into gesture. In Germanic
lands the channels of sensation and expression seem to be ob-
structed: delicacy, impulsiveness, and readiness of action, appear
impossible; a southerner has to exclaim at their awkwardness
and lack of adroitness.
In brief, the human animal of this race is more passive and
more gross than the other. One is tempted to regard him as
inferior on comparing him with the Italian or southern French-
man, so temperate, so quick intellectually, who is naturally apt
in expression, in chatting and in pantomime, possessing taste and
attaining to elegance; and who without effort, like the Proven-
çals of the twelfth and the Florentines of the fourteenth cen-
tury, become cultivated, civilized, and accomplished at the first
attempt.
This same
reason and this same good sense establish and
maintain amongst them diverse descriptions of social engagements,
and first the conjugal bond.
But very lately, a wealthy
and noble Hollander named to me several young ladies of his
family who had no desire to see the great Exposition, and who
remained at home whilst their husbands and brothers visited
.


## p. 14417 (#611) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14417
>
Paris. A disposition so calm and so sedentary diffuses much
happiness throughout domestic life; in the repose of curiosity
and of desire, the ascendency of pure ideas is much greater;
the constant presence of the same person not being wearisome,
the memory of plighted faith, the sentiment of duty and of self-
respect, easily prevails against temptations which elsewhere tri-
umph because they are elsewhere more powerful.
I can say as much of other descriptions of association, and
especially of the free assemblage. This, practically, is a very
difficult thing To make the machine work regularly without
obstruction, those who compose it must have calm nerves and be
governed by the end in view. One is expected to be patient in
a meeting,” to allow himself to be contradicted and even vili
fied, await his turn for speaking, reply with moderation, and sub-
mit twenty times in succession to the same argument enlivened
with figures and documentary facts. It will not answer to fling
aside the newspaper the moment its political interest flags, nor
take up politics for the pleasure of discussion and speech-making,
nor excite insurrections against officials the moment they become
distasteful, which is the fashion in Spain and elsewhere. You
yourselves have some knowledge of a country where the gov-
ernment has been overthrown because inactive and because the
nation felt ennui. Among Germanic populations, people meet
together not to talk but to act: politics is a matter to be wisely
managed; they bring to bear on it the spirit of business: speech
is simply a means, while the effect, however remote, is the end in
view. They subordinate themselves to this end, and are full of
deference for the persons who represent it. How unique! Here
the governed respect the governing; if the latter prove objection-
able they are resisted, but legally and patiently; if institutions
prove defective, they are gradually reformed without being dis-
rupted. Germanic countries are the patrimony of free parlia-
mentary rule. . To act in a body, no one person oppressing
another, is a wholly Germanic talent, and one which gives them
such an empire over matter; through patience and reflection they
conform to the laws of physical and human nature, and instead
of opposing them profit by them.
If now from action we turn to speculation, - that is to say, to
the mode of conceiving and figuring the world, — we shall find
the same imprint of this thoughtful and slightly sensualistic
genius. The Latins show a decided taste for the external and
XXIV-902


## p. 14418 (#612) ##########################################

14418
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
decorative aspect of things, for a pompous display feeding the
senses and vanity, for logical order, outward symmetry, and pleas-
ing arrangement,-in short, for form. The Germanic people, on
,
the contrary, have rather inclined to the inward order of things,
to truth itself, - in fact, to the fundamental. Their instinct leads
them to avoid being seduced by appearances, to remove mystery,
to seize the hidden even when repugnant and sorrowful, and not
to eliminate or withhold any detail, even when vulgar and un-
sightly. Among the many products of this instinct, there are
two which place it in full light through the strongly marked con-
trast in each of form and substance; namely, literature and reli-
gion. The literatures of Latin populations are classic, and nearly
or remotely allied to Greek poesy, Roman eloquence, the Italian
Renaissance, and the age of Louis XIV. ; they refine and ennoble,
they embellish and prune, they systematize and give proportion.
Their latest masterpiece is the drama of Racine, who is the
painter of princely ways, court proprieties, social paragons, and
cultivated natures; the master of an oratorical style, skillful com-
position, and literary elegance. The Germanic literatures, on the
contrary, are romantic: their primitive source is the Edda' and
the ancient sagas of the north; their greatest masterpiece is the
drama of Shakespeare, - that is to say, the crude and complete
representation of actual life, with all its atrocious, ignoble, and
commonplace details, its sublime and brutal instincts, the entire
outgrowth of human character displayed before us, now in a
familiar style bordering on the trivial, and now poetic even to
lyricism, always independent of rule, incoherent, excessive, but of
an incomparable force, and filling our souls with the warm and
palpitating passion of which it is the outcry.
This race, thus endowed, has received various imprints, accord-
ing to the various conditions of its abiding-place. Sow a number
of seeds of the same vegetable species in different soils, under
various temperatures, and let them germinate, grow, bear fruit
and reproduce themselves indefinitely, each on its own soil, and
each will adapt itself to its soil, producing several varieties of the
same species so much the more distinct as the contrast is greater
between the diverse climates. Such is the experience of the
Germanic race in the Netherlands. Ten centuries of habitation
have done their work: the end of the Middle Ages shows us
that in addition to its innate character, there is an acquired char.
acter.


## p. 14419 (#613) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14419
(
>
The country is an outflow of mighty waters, which, as they
reach it, become sluggish and remain stagnant for want of a fall.
Dig a hole anywhere and water comes. Examine the landscapes
of Van der Neer and you will obtain some idea of the vast slug-
gish streams, which, on approaching the sea, become a league
wide, and lie asleep, wallowing in their beds like some huge,
flat, slimy fish, turbid and feebly glimmering with scaly reflec-
tions. The plain is oftentimes below their level, and it is only
protected by levées of earth. You feel as if some of them were
going to give way; a mist is constantly rising from their sur-
faces, and at night a dense fog envelops all things in a bluish
humidity. Follow them down to the sea, and here a second and
more violent inundation, arising from the daily tides, completes
the work of the first. The northern ocean is hostile to man.
Look at the Estacade of Ruysdael, and imagine the frequent
tempests casting up ruddy waves and monstrous foaming billows
on the low, flat band of earth, already half submerged by the
enlargement of the rivers.
Here there had to be good sound heads, a capacity to sub-
ject sensation to thought, to endure patiently ennui and fatigue,
to accept privation and labor in view of a remote end, - in short,
a Germanic race; meaning by this, men organized to co-operate
together, to toil, to struggle, to begin over and over again and
ameliorate unceasingly, to dike streams, to oppose tides, to drain
the soil, to turn wind, water, flats, and argillaceous mud to
account, to build canals, ships, and mills, to make brick, raise
cattle, and organize various manufacturing and commercial
enterprises. The difficulty being very great, the mind was
absorbed in overcoming it; and turned wholly in this direction,
was diverted from other things. To subsist, to obtain shelter,
food, and raiment, to protect themselves against cold and damp,
to accumulate stores and lay up wealth, left the settlers no time
to think of other matters: the mind got to be wholly positive
and practical.
Compared with other nations of the same stock, and with a
genius no less practical, the denizen of the Netherlands appears
better balanced and more capable of being content. We do not
see in him the violent passions, the militant disposition, the over-
strained will, the bulldog instincts, the sombre and grandiose
pride, which three permanent conquests and the secular establish-
ment of political strife have implanted in the English; nor that
7


## p. 14420 (#614) ##########################################

14420
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
restless and exaggerated desire for action which a dry atmo-
sphere, sudden changes from heat to cold, a surplus electricity,
have implanted in the Americans of the United States. He lives
in a moist and equable climate: one which relaxes the nerves
and develops the lymphatic temperament, which moderates the
insurrections, explosions, and impetuosity of the spirit; soothing
the asperities of passion, and diverting the character to the side
of sensuality and good-humor.
All circumstances, moral and physical, their geographical and
political state, the past and the present, combine to one end, -
namely, the development of one faculty and one tendency at the
expense of the rest, shrewd management and temperate emotions,
a practical understanding and limited desires; they comprehend
the amelioration of outward things, and this accomplished they
crave no more.
Consider their work: its perfection and lacunæ indicate at
once the limits and the power of their intellect. The profound
philosophy which is so natural in Germany, and the elevated
poetry which flourishes in England, they lack. They fail to
overlook material things and positive interests in order to yield
to pure speculation, to follow the temerities of logic, to attenuate
the delicacy of analysis, and to bury themselves in the depths of
abstraction. They ignore that spiritual turmoil, those eruptions
of suppressed feeling, which give to style a tragic accent; and
that vagabond fancy, those exquisite and sublime reveries, which
outside of life's vulgarities reveal a new universe.
They
are epicureans as well as gourmands in the matter of comfortable
living; regularly, calmly, without heat or enthusiasm, they glean
up every pleasing harmony of savor, sound, color, and form that
arises out of their prosperity and abundance, like tulips on a
heap of compost. All this produces good sense somewhat limited,
and happiness somewhat gross.
Such, in this country, is the human plant; we have now to
examine its art, which is the flower. Among all the branches of
the Germanic trunk, this plant alone has produced a complete
flower; the art which develops so happily and so naturally
in the Netherlands proves abortive with the other Germanic
nations, for the reason that this glorious privilege emanates from
the national character as we have just set it forth.
To comprehend and love painting requires an eye sensitive to
forms and to colors, and without education or apprenticeship, one
a


## p. 14421 (#615) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14421
.
which takes pleasure in the juxtaposition of tones, and is delicate
in the matter of optical sensations; the man who would be a
painter must be capable of losing himself in viewing the rich
consonance of red and green, in watching the diminution of light
as it is transformed into darkness, and in detecting the subtle
hues of silks and satins, which according to their breaks, recesses,
and depths of fold, assume opaline tints, vague luminous gleams,
and imperceptible shades of blue. The eye is epicurean like the
palate, and painting is an exquisite feast served up to it. For
this reason it is that Germany and England have had no great
pictorial art. In Germany the too great domination of abstract
ideas has left no room for the sensuousness of the eye.
One of the leading merits of this art is the excellence and
delicacy of its coloring. This is owing to the education of the
eye, which in Flanders and in Holland is peculiar.
Here,
as at Venice, nature has made man a colorist. Observe the differ-
ent aspect of things according as you are in a dry country, like
Provence and the neighborhood of Florence, or on a wet plain
like the Netherlands. In the dry country the line predominates,
and at once attracts attention: the mountains cut sharp against
the sky, with their stories of architecture of a grand and noble
style; all objects projecting upward in the limpid air in varied
prominence. Here the low horizon is without interest, and the
contours of objects are softened, blended, and blurred out by the
imperceptible vapor with which the atmosphere is always filled;
that which predominates is the spot. A cow pasturing, a roof in
the centre of a field, a man leaning on a parapet, appear as one
tone among other tones. The object emerges: it does not start
suddenly out of its surroundings as if punched out; you are
struck by its modeling, - that is to say, by the different degrees
of advancing luminousness, and the diverse gradations of melting
color, which transform its general tint into a relief, and give to
the eye a sensation of thickness. You would have to pass many
days in this country in order to appreciate the subordination of
the line to the spot. A bluish or gray vapor is constantly rising
from the canals, the rivers, the sea, and from the saturated soil; a
universal haze forms a soft gauze over objects, even in the finest
weather. Flying scuds, like thin, half-torn white drapery, float
over the meadows night and morning. I have repeatedly stood
on the quays of the Scheldt contemplating the broad, pallid, and
slightly rippled water, on which float the dark hulks. The river


## p. 14422 (#616) ##########################################

14422
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
an
shines; and on its flat surface the hazy light reflects here and
there unsteady scintillations. Clouds ascend constantly around the
horizon; their pale, leaden hue and their motionless files sug-
gesting an army of spectres,- the spectres of the humid soil,
like so many phantoms, always revived and bringing back the
eternal showers. Towards the setting sun they become ruddy;
while their corpulent masses, trellised all over with gold, remind
one of the damascene copes, the brocaded simarres, and the em-
broidered silks, with which Jordaens and Rubens envelop their
bleeding martyrs and their sorrowful Madonnas. Quite low down
on the sky the sun seems enormous blaze subsiding into
smoke. On reaching Amsterdam or Ostend the impression again
deepens; both sea and sky have no form; the fog and inter-
posed showers leave nothing to remember but colors. The water
changes in hue every half-hour — now of a pale wine tinge, now
of a chalky whiteness, now yellow like softened mortar, now
black like liquid soot, and sometimes of a sombre purple striped
with dashes of green. After a few days' experience you find
that in such a nature, only gradations, contrasts, and harmonies-
in short, only the value of tones is of any importance.
You have seen the seed, the plant, and the flower. A race
with a genius totally opposed to that of the Latin peoples makes
for itself, after and alongside of them, its place in the world.
Among the numerous nations of this race, one there is in which
a special territory and climate develop a particular character
predisposing it to art and to a certain phase of art. Painting is
born with it, lasts, becomes complete; and the physical milieu sur-
rounding it, like the national genius which founds it, gives to
and imposes on its subjects its types and its coloring. We find
four distinct periods in the pictorial art of the Netherlands; and
through a remarkable coincidence, each corresponds to a distinct
historic period. Here, as everywhere, art translates life; the talent
and taste of the painter change at the same time, and in the
same sense as the habits and sentiments of the public.
The first period of art lasts about a century and a half (1400–
1530). It issues from a renaissance; that is to say, from a great
development of prosperity, wealth, and intellect. Here, as in Italy,
the cities at an early period are flourishing, and almost free.
In these swarming hives an abundance of food and habits
of personal activity maintain courage, turbulence, audacity, and
even insolence, — all excesses of brutal and boundless energy;


## p. 14423 (#617) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14423
-
these weavers were men, and when we encounter men we may
expect soon to encounter the arts.
At the end of the fourteenth century Flanders, with Italy, is
the most industrious, the wealthiest, the most flourishing coun-
try in Europe.
A Flemish renaissance underneath Christian ideas, - such in
effect is the twofold nature of art under Hubert and John Van
Eyck, Roger Van der Weyde, Hemling, and Quintin Matsys; and
from these two characteristics proceed all the others. On the
one hand, artists take interest in actual life; their figures are
no longer symbols like the illuminations of ancient missals, nor
purified spirits like the Madonnas of the school of Cologne, but
living beings and bodies. They attend to anatomy, the perspect-
ive is exact, the minutest details are rendered of stuffs, of archi. .
tecture, of accessories, and of landscape; the relief is strong,
and the entire scene stamps itself on the eye and on the mind
with extraordinary force and sense of stability; the greatest mas-
ters of coming times are not to surpass them in all this, nor
even go so far. Nature evidently is now discovered by them.
The scales fall from their eyes: they have just mastered, almost
in a flash, the proportions, the structure, and the coloring of
visible realities; and moreover they delight in them. Consider
the superb copes wrought in gold and decked with diamonds,
the embroidered silks, the flowered and dazzling diadems, with
which they ornament their saints and divine personages, all of
which represents the pomp of the Burgundian court. Look at
the calm and transparent water, the bright meadows, the red
and white flowers, the blooming trees, the sunny distances, of
their admirable landscapes. Observe their coloring,- the strong-
est and richest ever seen,- the pure and full tones side by side
in a Persian carpet, and united solely through their harmony,
the superb breaks in the folds of purple mantles, the azure
recesses of long falling robes, the green draperies like a summer
field permeated with sunshine, the display of gold skirts trimmed
with black, the strong light which warms and enlivens the whole
scene: you have a concert in which each instrument sounds its
proper note, and the more true because the more sonorous.
They see the world on the bright side and make a holiday of it,
- a genuine fête, similar to those of this day, glowing under a
more bounteous sunlight; and not a heavenly Jerusalem suffused
with supernatural radiance, such as Fra Angelico painted. They


## p. 14424 (#618) ##########################################

14424
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
•
copy the real with scrupulous accuracy, and all that is real: the
ornaments of armor, the polished glass of a window, the scrolls
of a carpet, the hairs of fur, the undraped body of an Adam
and an Eve, a canon's massive, wrinkled, and obese features,
a burgomaster's or soldier's broad shoulders, projecting chin, and
prominent nose, the spindling shanks of a hangman, the over-
large head and diminutive limbs of a child, the costumes and
furniture of the age; their entire work being a glorification of
this present life. But on the other hand, it is a glorification of
Christian belief.
When a great change is effected in human affairs, it brings
on by degrees a corresponding change in human conceptions.
After the discovery of the Indies and of America, after the
invention of printing and the multiplication of books, after the
restoration of classic antiquity and the Reformation of Luther,
any conception of the world then formed could no longer remain
monastic and mystic. The tender and melancholy aspiration of
a soul sighing for the celestial kingdom, and humbly subjecting
its conduct to the authority of an undisputed Church, gave way
to free inquiry nourished on so many fresh conceptions, and dis-
appeared at the admirable spectacle of this real world which man
now began to comprehend and to conquer,
While the
mind is expanding, the temperature around it becomes modified
and establishes the conditions of a new growth.
Society,
ideas, and tastes, have undergone a transformation, and there is
room for a new art.
Already in the preceding epoch we see premonitory symp-
toms of the coming change.
From Hubert Van Eyck to Quintin
Matsys, the grandeur and gravity of religious conceptions have
diminished, Nobody now dreams of portraying the whole of
Christian faith and doctrine a single picture; scenes
selected from the Gospel and from history,-Annunciations, shep-
herd adorations, Last Judgments, martyrdoms, and moral legends.
Painting, which is epic in the hands of Hubert Van Eyck,
becomes idyllic in those of Hemling, and almost worldly in those
of Quintin Matsys. It gets to be pathetic, interesting, and pleas-
ing. The charming saints, the beautiful Herodias, and the little
Salome of Quintin Matsys, are richly attired noble dames, and
already laic: the artist loves the world as it is and for itself, and
does not subordinate it to the representation of the supernatural
world; he does not employ it as a means but as an end. Scenes
in
are


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HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14425
(
of profane life multiply: he paints townspeople in their shops,
money-changers, amorous couples, and the attenuated features
and stealthy smiles of a miser. Lucas of Leyden, his contem-
porary, is an ancestor of the painters whom we call the lesser
Flemings: his Presentation of Christ' and 'The Magdalen's
Dance' have nothing religious about them but their titles; the
evangelical subject is lost in the accessories: that which the
picture truly presents is a rural Flemish festival, or a gather-
ing of Flemings on an open field. Jerome Bosch, of the same
period, paints grotesque, infernal scenes. Art, it is clear, falls
from heaven to earth; and is no longer to treat divine but human
incidents. Artists in other respects lack no process and no
preparation: they understand perspective, they know the use of
oil, and are masters of modeling and relief; they have studied
actual types; they know how to paint dresses, accessories, archi-
tecture, and landscape, with wonderful accuracy and finish; their
manipulative skill is admirable.
One defect only still chains
them to hieratic art, which is the immobility of their faces, and
the rigid folds of their stuffs. They have but to observe the
rapid play of physiognomies and the easy movement of loose
drapery, and the renaissance is complete; the breeze of the age
is behind them, and already fills their sails. On looking at their
portraits, their interiors, and even their sacred personages, as in
the Entombment' of Quintin Matsys, one is tempted to address
them thus: « You are alive - one effort more!
Come, bestir
yourselves! Shake off the Middle Age entirely! Depict the
modern man for us as you find him within you and outside of
you. Paint him vigorous, healthy, and content with existence.
Forget the meagre, ascetic, and pensive spirit, dreaming in the
chapels of Hemling. If you choose a religious scene for the
motive of your picture, compose it, like the Italians, of active
and healthy figures, only let these figures proceed from your
national and personal taste. You have a soul of your own, which
is Flemish and not Italian: let the flower bloom; judging by the
bud it will be a beautiful one. ” And indeed when we regard
the sculptures of the time, such as the chimney of the Palais de
Justice, the tomb of Charles the Bold at Bruges, and the church
and monuments of Brou, we see the promise of an original and
complete art, less sculptural and less refined than the Italian, but
more varied, more expressive, and closer to nature; less subject
to rule but nearer to the real; more capable of manifesting spirit


## p. 14426 (#620) ##########################################

14426
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
It is so
and personality, the impulses, the unpremeditated, the diversities,
the lights and darks of education, temperament, and age, of the
individual; in short, a Germanic art which indicates remote suc-
cessors to the Van Eycks and remote predecessors of Rubens.
They never appeared; or at all events, they imperfectly ful.
filled their task. No nation, it must be noted, lives alone in the
world: alongside of the Flemish renaissance there existed the
Italian renaissance, and the large tree stifled the small plant.
It flourished and grew for a century: the literature, the ideas,
and the masterpieces of precocious Italy imposed themselves on
sluggish Europe; and the Flemish cities through their commerce,
and the Austrian dynasty through its possessions and its Italian
affairs, introduced into the North the tastes and models of the
new civilization. Towards 1520 the Flemish painters began to
borrow from the artists of Florence and Rome. John of Mabuse
is the first one who, in 1513, on returning from Italy, introduced
the Italian into the old style, and the rest followed.
natural in advancing into an unexplored country to take the path
already marked out! This path, however, is not made for those
who follow it; the long line of Flemish carts is to be delayed
and stuck fast in the disproportionate ruts which another set of
wheels has worn. There are two traits characteristic of Italian
art, both of which run counter to the Flemish imagination. On
the one hand, Italian art centres on the natural body: healthy,
active, and vigorous,- endowed with every athletic aptitude, that
is to say, - naked or semi-draped, frankly pagan, enjoying freely
and nobly in full sunshine every limb, instinct, and animal fac-
ulty, the same as an ancient Greek in his city or palæstrum; or,
as at this very epoch, a Cellini on the Italian streets and high-
ways. Now a Fleming does not easily enter into this conception.
He belongs to a cold and humid climate; a man there in a state
of nudity shivers. The human form here does not display the
fine proportions nor the easy attitudes required by classic art: it
is often dumpy or too gross; the white, soft, yielding flesh, easily
flushed, requires to be clothed. When the painter returns from
Rome and strives to pursue Italian art, his surroundings oppose
his education; his sentiment being no longer renewed through
his contact with living nature, he is reduced to his souvenirs.
Moreover, he is of Germanic race: in other terms, he is organi-
cally good in his moral nature, and modest as well: he has diffi-
culty in appreciating the pagan idea of nudity; and still greater


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HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14427
difficulty in comprehending the fatal and magnificent idea which
governs civilization and stimulates the arts beyond the Alps,-
namely, that of the complete and sovereign individual, emanci-
pated from every law, subordinating all else, men and things, to
the development of his own nature and the growth of his own
faculties.
Translated by J. Durand.
THE COMEDY OF MANNERS AT VERSAILLES
From "The Ancient Régime. Copyright 1876, by Henry Holt
10 APPROACH the King, to be a domestic in his household, an
usher, a cloak-bearer, a valet, is a privilege that is pur-
chased, even in 1789, for thirty, forty, or a hundred thou-
sand livres; so much greater the reason why it is a privilege to
form a part of his society,-- the most honorable, the most useful,
and the most coveted of all. In the first place, it is a proof of
race. A man to follow the King in the chase, and a woman to
be presented to the Queen, must previously satisfy the genealo-
gist, and by authentic documents, that his or her nobility goes
back to the year 1400. In the next place, it insures good for.
tune, This drawing-room is the only place within reach of royal
favors; accordingly, up to 1789, the great families never stir away
from Versailles, and day and night they lie in ambush. The
valet of the Marshal de Noailles says to him one night on clos-
ing his curtains, “At what hour will Monseigneur be awakened ? »
"At ten o'clock, if no one dies during the night. ” Old courtiers
are again found who, "eighty years of age, have passed forty-five
on their feet in the antechambers of the King, of the princes,
and of the ministers. ”
“You have only three things to
do,” says one of them to a 'débutant: «speak well of everybody,
ask for every vacancy, and sit down when you can. ”
Hence the King always has a crowd around him. The Com-
tesse du Barry says, on presenting her niece at court, the first of
August, 1773, “The crowd is so great at a presentation, one can
scarcely get through the antechambers. ” In December 1774, at
Fontainebleau, when the Queen plays at her own table every
evening, “the apartment, though vast, is never empty.
The crowd is so great that one can talk only to the two or three
persons with whom one is playing. ” The fourteen apartments,
»


## p. 14428 (#622) ##########################################

14428
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
C
at the receptions of ambassadors, are full to overflowing with
seigniors and richly dressed women. On the first of January,
1775, the Queen “counted over two hundred ladies presented to
her to pay their court. ” In 1780, at Choisy, a table for thirty
persons is spread every day for the King, another with thirty
places for the seigniors, another with forty places for the officers
of the guard and the equerries, and one with fifty for the offi.
cers of the bedchamber. According to my estimate, the King, on
getting up and on retiring, on his walks, on his hunts, at play,
has always around him at least forty or fifty seigniors, and gen-
erally a hundred, with as many ladies, besides his attendants on
duty; at Fontainebleau, in 1756, although “there were neither
fêtes nor ballets this year, one hundred and six ladies were
counted. ” When the King holds a "grand appartement,” when
play or dancing takes place in the gallery of mirrors, four or
five hundred guests, the elect of the nobles and of the fashion,
range themselves on the benches or gather around the card and
cavagnole tables.
This is a spectacle to be seen, not by the imagination, or
through imperfect records, but with our own eyes and on the
spot, to comprehend the spirit, the effect, and the triumph, of
monarchical culture. In an elegantly furnished house, the dining-
room is the principal room; and never was one more dazzling
than this. Suspended from the sculptured ceiling peopled with
sporting cupids, descend, by garlands of flowers and foliage,
blazing chandeliers, whose splendor is enhanced by the tall mir-
rors; the light streams down in floods on gildings, diamonds, and
beaming, arch physiognomies, on fine busts, and on the capacious,
sparkling, and garlanded dresses. The skirts of the ladies ranged
in a circle, or in tiers on the benches, form a rich espalier cov-
ered with pearls, gold, silver, jewels, spangles, flowers, and fruits,
with their artificial blossoms, gooseberries, cherries, and strawber-
ries,” a gigantic animated bouquet of which the eye can scarcely
support the brilliancy. There are no black coats, as nowadays,
to disturb the harmony. With the hair powdered and dressed,
with buckles and knots, with cravats and ruffles of lace, in silk
coats and vests of the hues of fallen leaves, or of a delicate
rose tint, or of celestial blue, embellished with gold braid and
embroidery, the men as elegant as the women. Men and
women, each is a selection: they are all of the accomplished class,
gifted with every grace which race, education, fortune, leisure,
and custom, can bestow; they are perfect of their kind. There
are


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HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14429
is not a toilet here, an air of the head, a tone of the voice, an
expression in language, which is not a masterpiece of worldly
culture, the distilled quintessence of all that is exquisitely elabo-
rated by social art. Polished as the society of Paris may be, it
does not approach this; compared with the court, it seems pro-
vincial. It is said that a hundred thousand roses are required
to make an ounce of the unique perfume used by Persian kings:
such is this drawing-room, — the frail vial of crystal and gold
containing the substance of a human vegetation. To fill it, a
great aristocracy had to be transplanted to a hot-house, and
become sterile in fruit and flowers, and then, in the royal alem-
bic, its pure sap is concentrated into a few drops of aroma. The
price is excessive, but only at this price can the most delicate per-
fumes be manufactured.
An operation of this kind absorbs him who undertakes it as
well as those who undergo it. A nobility for useful purposes is
not transformed with impunity into a nobility for ornament: one
falls himself into the ostentation which is substituted for action.
The King has a court which he is compelled to maintain. So
much the worse if it absorbs all his time, his intellect, his soul,
the most valuable portion of his active forces and the forces of
the State. To be the master of a house is not an easy task,
especially when five hundred persons are to be entertained; one
must necessarily pass his life in public, and be on exhibition.
Strictly speaking, it is the life of an actor who is on the stage
the entire day. To support this load, and work besides, required
the temperament of Louis XIV. : the vigor of his body, the extraor-
dinary firmness of his nerves, the strength of his digestion, and
the regularity of his habits; his successors who come after him
grow weary or stagger under the same load. But they cannot
throw it off; an incessant, daily performance is inseparable from
their position, and it is imposed on them like a heavy, gilded,
ceremonial coat.
The King is expected to keep the entire aristocracy busy;
consequently to make a display of himself, to pay back with his
own person, at all hours, even the most private, even on get-
ting out of bed, and even in his bed. In the morning, at the
hour named by himself beforehand, the head valet awakens him;
five series of persons enter in turn to perform their duty, and,
(although very large, there are days when the waiting-rooms can
hardly contain the crowd of courtiers. ” The first one admitted
is "l'entrée familière,” consisting of the children of France, the
(


## p. 14430 (#624) ##########################################

14430
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
prince and princesses of the blood, and besides these, the chief
physician, the chief surgeon, and other serviceable persons. Next
comes the "grande entrée,” which comprises the grand chamber-
lain, the grand master and master of the wardrobe, the first gen-
tlemen of the bedchamber, the Dukes of Orleans and Penthièvre,
some other highly favored seigniors, the ladies of honor and in
waiting of the Queen, Mesdames, and other princesses, without
enumerating barbers, tailors, and various descriptions of valets.
Meanwhile spirits of wine are poured on the King's hands from
a service of plate, and he is then handed the basin of holy-water;
he crosses himself and repeats a prayer. Then he gets out of
bed before all these people, and puts on his slippers. The grand
chamberlain and the first gentleman hand him his dressing-gown;
he puts this on and seats himself in the chair in which he is to
put on his clothes.
At this moment the door opens, and a third group enters,
which is the entrée des brevets," - the seigniors who compose
this enjoy in addition the precious privilege of assisting at the
"petit coucher”; while at the same moment there enters a
detachment of attendants, consisting of the physicians and sur-
geons in ordinary, the intendants of the amusements, readers,
and others, and among the latter those who preside over physi-
cal requirements. The publicity of a royal life is so great that
none of its functions can be exercised without witnesses. At the
moment of the approach of the officers of the wardrobe to dress
the King, the first gentleman, notified by an usher, advances
to read him the names of the grandees who are waiting at the
door: this is the fourth entry, called “la chambre," and larger
than those preceding it; for, not to mention the cloak-bearers,
gun-bearers, rug-bearers, and other valets, it comprises most of
the superior officials, the grand almoner, the almoners on duty,
the chaplain, the master of the oratory, the captain and major
of the body-guard, the colonel-general and major of the French
guards, the colonel of the King's regiment, the captain of the
Cent Suisses, the grand huntsman, the grand wolf-huntsman, the
grand provost, the grand master and master of ceremonies, the
first butler, the grand master of the pantry, the foreign ambas-
sadors, the ministers and secretaries of State, the marshals of
France, and most of the seigniors and prelates of distinction.
Ushers place the ranks in order, and if necessary, impose silence.
Meanwhile the King washes his hands and begins his toilet.
Two pages remove his slippers; the grand master of the wardrobe


## p. 14431 (#625) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14431
draws off his night-shirt by the right arm, and the first valet of
the wardrobe by the left arm, and both of them hand it to an
officer of the wardrobe, whilst a valet of the wardrobe fetches
the shirt, wrapped up in white taffeta. Things have now reached
the solemn point, the culmination of the ceremony: the fifth
entry has been introduced; and in a few moments, after the King
has put his shirt on, all that is left of those who are known,
with other household officers waiting in the gallery, complete the
influx. There is quite a formality in regard to this shirt. The
honor of handing it is reserved to the sons and grandsons of
France; in default of these, to the princes of the blood or those
legitimated; in their default, to the grand chamberlain or to the
first gentleman of the bedchamber; — the latter case, it must be
observed, being very rare, the princes being obliged to be pres-
ent at the King's lever as well as the princesses at that of the
Queen. At last the shirt is presented, and a valet carries off the
old one; the first valet of the wardrobe and the first valet-de-
chambre hold the fresh one, each by a right and left arm respect-
ively; while two other valets, during this operation, extend his
dressing-gown in front of him to serve as a screen. The shirt is
now on his back, and the toilet commences.
A valet-de-chambre supports a mirror before the King, while
two others on the two sides light it up, if occasion requires, with
flambeaux, Valets of the wardrobe fetch the rest of the attire;
.
the grand master of the wardrobe puts the vest on and the doub-
let, attaches the blue ribbon, and clasps his sword around him;
then a valet assigned to the cravats brings several of these in a
basket, while the master of the wardrobe arranges around the
King's neck that which the King selects. After this a valet
assigned to the handkerchiefs brings three of these on a silver
salver; while the grand master of the wardrobe offers the salver
to the King, who chooses one. Finally the master of the ward-
robe hands to the King his hat, his gloves, and his cane. The
King then steps to the side of the bed, kneels on a cushion, and
says his prayers; whilst an almoner in a low voice recites the
orison Quæsumus, deus omnipotens. This done, the King announces
the order of the day, and passes with the leading persons of his
court into his cabinet, where he sometimes gives audience. Mean-
while the rest of the company await him in the gallery, in order
to accompany him to mass when he comes out.
Such is the lever, a piece in five acts. Nothing could be con-
trived better calculated to fill up the void of an aristocratic life:


## p. 14432 (#626) ##########################################

14432
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
a hundred or thereabouts of notable seigniors dispose of a couple
of hours in coming, in waiting, in entering, in defiling, in taking
positions, in standing on their feet, in maintaining an air of
respect and of ease suitable to a superior class of walking
gentlemen, while those best qualified are about to do the same
thing over in the Queen's apartment. The King, however, to
offset this, suffers the same torture and the same inaction as
he imposes. He also is playing a part: all his steps and all his
gestures have been determined beforehand; he has been obliged
to arrange his physiognomy and his voice, never to depart from
an affable and dignified air, to award judiciously his glances and
his nods, to keep silent or to speak only of the chase, and to sup-
press his own thoughts if he has any. One cannot indulge in
revery, meditate, or be absent-minded, when before the foot-
lights: the part must have due attention. Besides, in a drawing-
room there is only drawing-room conversation; and the master's
thoughts, instead of being directed in a profitable channel, must
be scattered about as if they were the holy-water of the court.
All hours of the day are thus occupied, except three or four
in the morning, during which he is at the council or in his
private room; it must be noted, too, that on the days after his
hunts, on returning home from Rambouillet at three o'clock in
the morning, he must sleep the few hours he has left to him.
The ambassador Mercy, nevertheless, a man of close application,
seems to think it sufficient; he at least thinks that “Louis XVI.
is a man of order, losing no time in useless things": his prede-
cessor indeed worked much less, scarcely an hour a day. Three
quarters of his time is thus given up to show. The same retinue
surrounds him when he puts on his boots, when he takes them
off, when he changes his clothes to mount his horse, when he
returns home to dress for the evening, and when he goes to
his room at night to retire. "Every evening for six years,” says
a page, “either myself or one of my comrades has seen Louis
XVI. get into bed in public,” with the ceremonial just described.
“It was not omitted ten times to my knowledge, and then acci-
dentally or through indisposition. The attendance is yet more
numerous when he dines and takes supper; for besides men there
are women present,- duchesses seated on the folding-chairs, also
others standing around the table. It is needless to state that
in the evening when he plays, or gives a ball, or a concert,
the crowd rushes in and overflows. When he hunts, besides the
ladies on horses and in vehicles, besides officers of the hunt and
((
:
»
»


## p. 14433 (#627) ##########################################

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14433
»
(
of the guards, the equerry, the cloak-bearer, gun-bearer, surgeon,
bone-setter, lunch-bearer, and I know not how many others, all
the gentlemen who accompany him are his permanent guests.
And do not imagine that this suite is a small one: the day
M. de Châteaubriand is presented, there are four fresh additions;
and “with the utmost punctuality” all the young men of high
rank join the King's retinue two or three times a week.
Not only the eight or ten scenes which compose each of
these days, but again the short intervals between the scenes, are
besieged and carried. People watch for him, walk by his side,
and speak with him on his way from his cabinet to the chapel,
between his apartment and his carriage, between his carriage and
his apartment, between his cabinet and his dining-room. And
still more, his life behind the scenes belongs to the public. If
he is indisposed and broth is brought to him, if he is ill and
medicine is handed to him, "a servant immediately summons the
'grande entrée. » Verily the King resembles an oak stifled by
the innumerable creepers which from top to bottom cling to its
trunk.
Under a régime of this stamp there is a want of air; some
opening has to be found: Louis XV. availed himself of the chase
and of suppers; Louis XVI. of the chase and of lock-making.
And I have not mentioned the infinite detail of etiquette, the
extraordinary ceremonial of the state dinner, the fifteen, twenty,
and thirty beings busy around the King's plates and glasses, the
sacramental utterances of the occasion, the procession of the reti-
nue, the arrival of “la nef,” “l'essai des plats, all as if in a
Byzantine or Chinese court. On Sundays the entire public, the
public in general, is admitted; and this is called the grand cou-
vert,” as complex and as solemn as a high mass. Accordingly,
to eat, to drink, to get up, to go to bed, to a descendant of Louis
XIV. , is to officiate. Frederick II. , on hearing an account of
this etiquette, declared that if he were the King of France his
first edict would be to appoint another king to hold court in his
place. In effect, if there are idlers to salute, there must be an
idler to be saluted. Only one way was possible by which the
monarch could have been set free; and that was to have recast
and transformed the French nobles, according to the Prussian
system, into a hard-working regiment of serviceable function.
aries. But so long as the court remains what it is, – that is
to say, a pompous parade and a drawing-room decoration, the
XXIV-903


## p. 14434 (#628) ##########################################

14434
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
King himself must likewise form a showy decoration, of little use
or of none at all.
THE TASTES OF GOOD SOCIETY
From «The Ancient Régime. Copyright 1876, by Henry Holt
IMILAR circumstances have led other aristocracies in Europe to
S
has given birth to the court, and the court to a refined
society. But the development of this rare plant has been only
partial. The soil was unfavorable, and the seed was not of the
right sort. In Spain, the King stands shrouded in etiquette like
a mummy in its wrappings; while a too rigid pride, incapable of
yielding to the amenities of the worldly order of things, ends in
a sentiment of morbidity and in insane display. In Italy, under
petty despotic sovereigns, and most of them strangers, the con-
stant state of danger and of hereditary distrust, after having tied
all tongues, turns all hearts toward the secret delights of love,
or toward the mute gratifications of the fine arts. In Germany
and in England, a cold temperament, dull and rebellious to cult-
ure, keeps man up to the close of the last century within the
Germanic habits of solitude, inebriety, and brutality. In France,
on the contrary, all things combine to make the social sentiment
flourish; in this the national genius harmonizes with the political
régime, the plant appearing to be selected for the soil before-
hand.
The Frenchman loves company through instinct; and the rea-
son is, that he does well and easily whatever society calls on him
to do. He has not the false shame which renders his northern
neighbors awkward, nor the powerful passions which absorb his
neighbors of the south. Talking is no effort to him, he having
none of the natural timidity which begets constraint, and no
constant preoccupation to overcome. He accordingly converses at
his ease, ever on the alert; and conversation affords him extreme
pleasure. For the happiness which he requires is of a peculiar
kind, - delicate, light, rapid, incessantly renewed and varied, in
which his intellect, his self-love, all his emotional and sympa-
thetic faculties, find nutriment; and this quality of happiness is
provided for him only in society and in conversation. Sensitive
as he is, personal attention, consideration, cordiality, delicate flat-
tery, constitute his natal atmosphere, out of which he breathes


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HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
14435
with difficulty. He would suffer almost as much in being im-
polite as in encountering impoliteness in others. For his instincts
of kindliness and vanity there is an exquisite charm in the habit
of being amiable; and this is all the greater because it proves
contagious. When we afford pleasure to others there is a desire
to please us, and what we bestow in deference is returned in
attentions. In company of this kind one can talk; for to talk is
to amuse another in being oneself amused, a Frenchman find-
ing no pleasure equal to it. Lively and sinuous conversation to
him is like the flying of a bird: he wings his way from idea to
idea, alert, excited by the inspiration of others, darting forward,
wheeling round and unexpectedly returning, now up, now down,
now skimming the ground, now aloft on the peaks, without sink-
ing into quagmires or getting entangled in the briers, and claim-
ing nothing of the thousands of objects he slightly grazes but
the diversity and the gayety of their aspects.
Thus endowed and thus disposed, he is made for a régime
which for ten hours a day brings men together; natural feeling
in accord with the social order of things renders the drawing-
room perfect. The King, at the head of all, sets the example.
Louis XIV. had every qualification for the master of a house-
hold: a taste for pomp and hospitality, condescension accompanied
with dignity, the art of playing on the self-love of others and of
maintaining his own position, chivalrous gallantry, tact, and even
charms of intellectual expression. "His address was perfect:
whether it was necessary to jest, or he was in a playful humor,
or deigned to tell a story, it was ever with infinite grace, and a
noble refined air which I have found only in him. ” “Never was
man so naturally polite, nor of such circumspect politeness, so
powerful by degrees, nor who better discriminated age, worth,
and rank, both in his replies and in his deportment.
His salutations, more or less marked, but always slight, were of
incomparable grace and majesty.
He was admirable
in the different acknowledgments of salutes at the head of the
army and at reviews.
But especially toward women
there was nothing like it.
Never did he pass the most
indifferent woman without taking off his hat to her; and I mean
chambermaids whom he knew to be such.
Never did
he chance to say anything disobliging to anybody.
Never
before company anything mistimed or venturesome; but even to
the smallest gesture, his walk, his bearing, his features, all being


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14436
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
(
(
ness.
proper, respectful, noble, grand, majestic, and thoroughly nat-
ural. ”
Such is the model; and nearly or remotely, it is imitated up
to the end of the ancient régime. If it undergoes any change,
it is only to become more sociable. In the eighteenth century,
except on great ceremonial occasions, it is seen descending step
by step from its pedestal. It no longer imposes that stillness
“
around it which lets one hear a fly walk. ” “Sire,” said the Mar-
shal de Richelieu (who had seen three reigns), addressing Louis
XVI. , “under Louis XIV. no one dared utter a word; under
Louis XV. people whispered; under your Majesty they talk
aloud. ” If authority is a loser, society is the gainer: etiquette,
insensibly relaxed, ailows the introduction of ease and cheerful-
Henceforth the great, less concerned in overawing than in
pleasing, cast off stateliness like an uncomfortable and ridiculous
garment,“ seeking respect less than applause. It no longer suf-
fices to be affable: one has to appear amiable at any cost, with
one's inferiors as with one's equals. ” The French princes, says
again a contemporary lady, "are dying with fear of being defi-
cient in graces. ” Even around the throne “the style is free and
playful. ” The grave and disciplined court of Louis XIV. became
at the end of the century, under the smiles of the youthful
Queen, the most seductive and gayest of drawing-rooms. Through
this universal relaxation, a worldly existence gets to be perfect.
"He who was not living before 1789,” says Talleyrand at a later
period, knows nothing of the charm of living. ”
It was too great: no other way of living was appreciated; it
engrossed men wholly.