I. Its Barrenness and Artificiality

     Its Barrenness and Artificiality.—Return to Nature and
     sentiment.

Mere pleasure, in the long run, ceases to gratify, and however agreeable this drawing room life may be, it ends in a certain hollowness. Something is lacking without any one being able to say precisely what that something is; the soul becomes restless, and slowly, aided by authors and artists, it sets about investigating the cause of its uneasiness and the object of its secret longings. Barrenness and artificiality are the two traits of this society, the more marked because it is more complete, and, in this one, pushed to extreme, because it has attained to supreme refinement. In the first place naturalness is excluded from it; everything is arranged and adjusted,—decoration, dress, attitude, tone of voice, words, ideas and even sentiments. "A genuine sentiment is so rare," said M. de V—, "that, when I leave Versailles, I sometimes stand still in the street to see a dog gnaw a bone."2301 Man, in abandoning himself wholly to society, had withheld no portion of his personality for himself while decorum, clinging to him like so much ivy, had abstracted from him the substance of his being and subverted every principle of activity.

"There was then," says one who was educated in this style,2302 "a
certain way of walking, of sitting down, of saluting, of picking up a
glove, of holding a fork, of tendering any article, in short, a complete
set of gestures and facial expressions, which children had to be taught
at a very early age in order that habit might become a second nature,
and this conventionality formed so important an item in the life of men
and women in aristocratic circles that the actors of the present day,
with all their study, are scarcely able to give us an idea of it."

Not only was the outward factitious but, again, the inward; there
was a certain prescribed mode of feeling and of thinking, of living and
of dying. It was impossible to address a man without placing oneself at
his orders, or a woman without casting oneself at her feet, Fashion, 'le
bon ton,' regulated every important or petty proceeding, the manner
of making a declaration to a woman and of breaking an engagement, of
entering upon and managing a duel, of treating an equal, an inferior and
a superior. If any one failed in the slightest degree to conform to this
code of universal custom, he is called "a specimen." A man of heart
or of talent, D'Argenson, for example, bore a surname of "simpleton,"
because his originality transcended the conventional standard. "That has
no name, there is nothing like it!" embodies the strongest censure.
In conduct as in literature, whatever departs from a certain type is
rejected. The quantity of authorized actions is as great as the number
of authorized words. The same super-refined taste impoverishes the
initiatory act as well as the initiatory expression, people acting as
they write, according to acquired formulas and within a circumscribed
circle. Under no consideration can the eccentric, the unforeseen, the
spontaneous, vivid inspiration be accepted. Among twenty instances I
select the least striking since it merely relates to a simple gesture,
and is a measure of other things. Mademoiselle de—obtains, through
family influence, a pension for Marcel, a famous dancing-master, and
runs off, delighted, to his domicile to convey him the patent. Marcel
receives it and at once flings it on the floor: "Mademoiselle, did I
teach you to offer an object in that manner? Pick up that paper and hand
it to me as you ought to." She picks up the patent and presents it to
him with all suitable grace. "That's very well, Mademoiselle, I accept
it, although your elbow was not quite sufficiently rounded, and I thank
you."2303 So many graces end in becoming tiresome; after having eaten
rich food for years, a little milk and dry bread becomes welcome.

Among all these social flavorings one is especially abused; one which, unremittingly employed, communicates to all dishes its frigid and piquant relish, I mean insincerity (badinage). Society does not tolerate passion, and in this it exercises its right. One does not enter company to be either vehement or somber; a strained air or one of concentration would appear inconsistent. The mistress of a house is always right in reminding a man that his emotional constraint brings on silence. "Monsieur Such-a-one, you are not amiable to day." To be always amiable is, accordingly, an obligation, and, through this training, a sensibility that is diffused through innumerable little channels never produces a broad current. "One has a hundred friends, and out of these hundred friends two or three may have some chagrin every day; but one could not award them sympathy for any length of time as, in that event, one would be wanting in consideration for the remaining ninety-seven;"2304 one might sigh for an instant with some one of the ninety-seven, and that would be all. Madame du Deffant, having lost her oldest friend, the President Hénault, that very day goes to sup in a large assemblage: "Alas," she exclaimed, "he died at six o'clock this evening; otherwise you would not see me here." Under this constant régime of distractions and diversions there are no longer any profound sentiments; we have nothing but an epidermic exterior; love itself is reduced to "the exchange of two fantasies."—And, as one always falls on the side to which one inclines, levity becomes deliberate and a matter of elegance.2305 Indifference of the heart is in fashion; one would be ashamed to show any genuine emotion. One takes pride in playing with love, in treating woman as a mechanical puppet, in touching one inward spring, and then another, to force out, at will, her anger or her pity. Whatever she may do, there is no deviation from the most insulting politeness; the very exaggeration of false respect which is lavished on her is a mockery by which indifference for her is fully manifested.—But they go still further, and in souls naturally unfeeling, gallantry turns into wickedness. Through ennui and the demand for excitement, through vanity, and as a proof of dexterity, delight is found in tormenting, in exciting tears, in dishonoring and in killing women by slow torture. At last, as vanity is a bottomless pit, there is no species of blackness of which these polished executioners are not capable; the personages of Laclos are derived from these originals.2306—Monsters of this kind are, undoubtedly, rare; but there is no need of reverting to them to ascertain how much egotism is harbored in the gallantry of society. The women who erected it into an obligation are the first to realize its deceptiveness, and, amidst so much homage without heat, to pine for the communicative warmth of a powerful sentiment.—The character of the century obtains its last trait and "the man of feeling comes on the stage.