Chapter II: Moral Influence (2)

And it need not be supposed that in such circumstances they remained satisfied with words or menaces, even in dealing with ladies of the most exalted station. There were violent characters who stuck at nothing, like Bonnivet! It also happened at critical moments, even in the most platonic of circles, that love turned into rage. “Unico Aretino,” one of the Urbino talkers, upset by what he thought a piece of base ingratitude on the part of the charming duchess Elizabeth, got so beside himself with anger as to call his sovereign lady “Urbino’s traitress, witch, trickster.” (Aretino was an exceedingly clever man, but after all he was only the fourth part of a prelate; he filled at Rome the fourth-rate office of “apostolic abbreviator,” and pretty badly at that; but as he afforded the Sacred College a deal of amusement he was licensed to indulge in all sorts of jocularities.) He never forgave the duchess, and even after her death pursued both her and her daughter with persistent rancour.[325]

The ideas of men in these matters simply beggar imagination. They fancied that they erred on the side of bashfulness, that they suffered wrong when ladies suggested “reckonings,” to use their term. They thought it would be ridiculous to die of despair like the heroes of romance, and that it was “folly and cruelty” to praise the beauty of a fountain to a poor, thirsty fellow and then kill him because he wished to drink.[326] “Whom will you get to believe,” cries Henri d’Albret, “that we ought to die for women, who were made for us, and that we should hesitate to require of them what God bids them give us?”[327] That was the conclusion that must be expected: everyone knows, in Calvin’s words, whither “all roads” lead. So a woman was neither surprised nor panic-stricken in the hour of battle. She had taken or ought to have taken her precautions; her first care, as we have said, was to distribute her favours. She went forth to the fight with a gallantry which some old fogies called impudence; her sins were no longer sins of omission, like those of her grandmothers. And that she often triumphed there is no manner of doubt. Margaret of France, at the turning-point of the battle, is found as firmly fixed on principles as Anne of France. Billon assures us that in Normandy, a land of pretty women, where he would not care to go bail for a single man, he would not hesitate to name a very large number of women whose virtue he could guarantee with every confidence. Assuredly there existed stainless women,—just the women to play with fire!

But did they always come off scatheless? No one will believe it.

Further, it must be remarked that the point of view of casuistry had changed. The body was, so to speak, the sign-manual of the soul; just as the base, passionless, sensual vice prevalent in the world seemed ignoble and disgusting, so it was remembered that love had a purifying power. The merciful words of the Gospel were recalled, and, remarkably enough, it was those who were most rigorous in regard to themselves who showed the most indulgence towards an error springing from sincere affection.

Margaret of France spreads her nets, like the Gioconda, but for the good of others, for she knows whither the mist-enveloped paths lead; she cannot tear her eyes from the vast and gloomy background of life, and all that passes in front of it inspires her at times with cruel loathing. She loves mankind, but without the least touch of fetishism; to look aloft and not believe in any individual man is the condition of her love; her sole consolation is the thought that Italian morals are worse than French. Her approval of a German husband, who had the fantastic notion of locking his wife up along with the skeleton of her lover,[328] was so exaggerated that all her friends were compelled to laugh. And yet, when pulled up short about the ethics of love, and asked if the sin is venial or worse, she gets a little muddled. Assuredly, nothing is more “untuneable and harsh” among the joyous strains of the divine concert than the frailty of the flesh: “truth compels us to condemn it”; but is there any need to get huffy, to decline to see any extenuating circumstances, because the spiders web that has been centuries aweaving is rent by one dab of the paw—because, in spite of all the cooings and flutings, no one has succeeded in turning men into big babies instead of villains, or even (I go this length) because in the heat of the battle some women may have lost their heads and gone over to the enemy? Is the conclusion inevitable that the outcome of platonism is necessarily evil—more evil than anything else?

How stood the fashionable ladies who rebelled against platonism?... On the principle that “the honour of a man and that of a woman are the same,” and that a wife, whether from love or vengeance, has a right to the same independence as her husband, it was the husbands’ game to wink at things. Far from making an outcry and playing the Othello, they meditated philosophically on their own position[329] and the virtue of silence, and, drawing in their horns with something of fatalism, could not find fault with their wives for “using their power” as they themselves did. It was rare for a husband to kill his wife; wedlock had become a stagnant pool of mutual indulgence, in which unlawful love was but an incident so long as it left no more trace than a pebble cast into the surface slime, or a bird flitting through the air. As to believing that Lauras or Beatrices could still exist, not only did the sceptics deny it outright, but they even declared that if Laura or Beatrice were to revisit the glimpses of the moon, great would be her disillusionment.[330]

The only matter that Louise of Savoy troubled about was to keep things dark.[331]

Can we wonder that, in an atmosphere so saturated with immorality, many even of the best-intentioned women allowed themselves to drift with the tide, or that Salel, the Attic friend of Margaret, represents them even on the shore of Acheron as still enchained to ungovernable love, and imploring pardon for their tyrant?

When they succumbed, it was with a sublimity of passion which the world almost always misconstrued. “The fortress of the heart, where honour dwells, was so battered that the poor lady granted what she was never a whit inclined to refuse.”[332] “You mean to say, then,” says a lady, “that all is lawful to those that love, provided no one knows?” “In good sooth,” replies the other, “’tis only fools who are found out.”[333] Their love, fashioned out of dreams, thus dissolves into reality. Pure women, platonists armed at all points, let themselves go from a spirit of gentleness (“for pity in their spirits rules”), from a tenderness of compassion, out of charity toward others, if not for themselves. They are almost martyrs of love or kindliness, since their kindliness goes such lengths as to be taken for love, just as their love, reserved as it is, may be taken for kindliness. Unlike the anti-platonists, though they may perchance be surprised into a fault, they surprise no one, they commit no follies. It is the fault of poor human nature that platonic love does not remain always a “stork love,”[334] as Montaigne calls it. There is never a battle but some dead and wounded are left on the field. Pity the dead by all means, but the survivors are already inviting those who have never sinned to cast the first stone!

A woman “so cozened,” concludes Castiglione philosophically, unquestionably merits such indulgence as is accorded to _messieurs les assassins_. She was toiling, as Michelangelo said, “to lift souls to perfection. Sensuality slays the soul.”

And hence Margaret of France, in her profound yearning to blot out and pardon the sins of the world, is herself inspired with a tender, helpful tolerance. Assuredly the wounds she observes are deplorable, but they do not necessarily point to absolute frowardness of heart; they may result from a “naïve folly,” from “the misfortune of loving not wisely but too well”; in other words, from an over-abundance of natural goodness, the very consequence of our organisation. The perfect being would clearly be an androgyne; but we are imperfect beings, an odd mixture, godlike, and yet profoundly, lamentably human. The power of love

vient de la divinité,
Et son tourment de nostre humanité.[335]

We seem to hear this spotless woman crying to God: “O Christ, Christ of the Magdalene, gasping and crucified, how Thou didst suffer, how Thou didst love! This streaming blood, these wounds gaping eternally,—these are the handiwork of the hate of men, whom Thou didst bid to love one another with a pure heart. Thou wilt not pardon their hate! Thou wilt not pardon their fierce lust of wealth, nor their pride and naughtiness of heart, nor their wild anger, nor their shameful sloth of soul. Thou wilt pardon nothing but the error of love, the error of a moment, since this is but the overflow of the goodness Thyself hast given, the wofulness of too great love!”

2. THE ENNOBLEMENT OF VICE.

The second moral effect of the theory of beauty and love was still more pertinent than the first. It consisted in an extraordinary levelling up of purely terrestrial and unlawful loves. From the principle, with which we are already acquainted, that the virginity of the heart survives the professional ordeals in which the heart has no concern, we shall find that moral deductions were drawn, in Italy and even in France, so important that we cannot pass them by in silence.

In Italy, among the women whose trade was pleasure, there was formed an aristocracy so real that some of them presided over salons, were part and parcel of the court world, and truly merited the name of “courtesans.” Their bearing was irreproachable, their distinction extreme; we are bound to say, indeed, that, apart from their origin, they were absolutely indistinguishable from virtuous women—except that perhaps their manners were a trifle more correct.

Their high influence is explained by the fact that in the official world of Rome there was a plentiful lack of women. Etiquette required that none but birds of passage should be seen at court, a restriction which gave cruel but entirely honourable pain to the heart of more than one platonic prelate. It was believed for a moment that the half-sister of Leo X., Philiberta of Savoy, was about to take up her abode at the Vatican: “God be praised!” cried Bibbiena exultantly, “all we lack is a court with women!” This happiness was not realised; women continued to be conspicuous by their absence. We see how it was that, in the supreme sanctuary of human glory, in the Eternal City that served as beacon to the world, the Ninons de l’Enclos,[336] for want of better women, fulfilled in their own way a singular apostolic mission by playing the part of court ladies, and by magnificently entertaining the pick of poets, savants, artists, prelates and diplomatists, at a period when every man plumed himself on bearing one of those labels and on sporting it about some petticoat.

Bewitching pictures of the receptions of these ladies have been bequeathed to us; many a poet who knew the world chiefly in this quarter has vaunted with enthusiasm the aroma of grace pervading their noble salons, the honour of admission to them, the relations established there, the superb fêtes which consecrated their charm and set a seal upon the connection. This was no new thing; Socrates and Pliny testify how keenly the society of ancient Greece and Rome had felt the need of guidance by women more deeply experienced in life and more naturally active than high-born ladies are likely to be. To name these ladies Ninons de l’Enclos, however, would be to give a very imperfect and mean idea of them, for their influence was at once moral and intellectual. Doubtless they could pretend to no virginity but that of the heart, but since that was the better part, they honoured pure love quite as conscientiously, if not more than others did. Energy of a very special and sincere kind impelled them to react strongly against the scorn of a world they had an equal right to scorn; and further, they felt the necessity of stopping their ears if they were to save themselves from blank hopelessness, and of setting up noble illusions about themselves.

Several of them were genuine patricians, whose only possible reproach was a tincture of pride. One would flaunt her descent, which she possibly traced back to the Colonna or even the Massimo[337]; another would modestly sign herself “Roman patrician.” The entrée to their salons was particularly difficult; some of them imposed somewhat rigorous conditions, insisting for instance that a man should mount guard for two months with the Swiss at the palace gate, or should pay his devoir on his knees. The style of their houses and appointments left nothing to be desired; they maintained an extreme decorum. It is not for us to boast of their virtue: their talent consisted in being as virtuous as possible and getting rich more particularly by way of legacies; it would have been a great mistake to deal with them cavalierly. Tullia d’Aragona, who thoughtlessly allowed some rather broad pasquinades to be addressed to her, was unfortunate enough, on a visit with which she honoured the court of Ferrara, to turn all the gentlemen’s heads. But the most diverse ordeals found her inflexible; she rejected with indignation the miserable offer of a golden necklace worth three hundred crowns. The daughter of another of these ladies had been so excellently brought up that she has a place among the martyrs of virtue and patriotism; she slew herself to escape the importunities of the governor of Sienna.

They were queens of elegance, and never a brunette among them. At their houses people discoursed most excellent music. They were great dancers. They were the happy owners of fine jewels, fine pictures, fine statuary; on their tables might be seen the newest books, choice editions, sometimes adorned with a manuscript dedication in verse. They knew Greek and Latin; they corresponded with their absent friends in gracious and affectionate letters, Ciceronian in style, and with no lack of wit. In conversation it required very little pressure to tap a bountiful spring of elegant extracts from the classics—most often got second-hand from Petrarch or Boccaccio—or even, on occasion, a learned disquisition on Roman archaeology. Sometimes they shot out a phrase in the high pietistic fashion of the day. What lady of recognised position could have written more charming sonnets than Imperia or Veronica Franco?

They excelled in keeping wit in play: Aretino confesses that, without an incentive of this sort, he would have been good for nothing. Occasionally some poor devil was graciously permitted to give a taste of his quality, but, as a rule, the mistress of the house preferred to inspire men who had well-lined purses. Yes, it was a grave and distinguished society, and if sometimes the conversation touched on subjects but indifferently mystical, what immaculate drawing-room but was open to the same reproach?

On saints’ days these ladies went to pay their devotions at the neighbouring basilica, and if they were not very devout they were at any rate beautifully dressed. Their accustomed air of good breeding and conscious dignity, which drove many ladies to despair, gave them genuine rank, and made them the indispensable ornaments of important festivities. Thus several of them lent lustre to the magnificent reception given in 1513 by the Cardinal of Mantua to young Federico Gonzaga, then in his fourteenth year, as he passed through on the way to Rome. In truth, there were some who behaved exactly like high-born dames, and were pre-eminent in all deeds of devotion, whole-hearted love, and even disinterestedness. Poets innumerable have vouched for their virtue. Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo dedicated sonnets to them.

Not infrequently they ended their days in the odour of piety, and were buried in the churches[338]; to this day prayers are offered in the shadow of their tombs. Michelangelo wrote an epitaph for one of them. Others prosaically married men of the world, and these ladies, as a rule, took rather a superior pride in their virtue and their coat-of-arms. A clever woman of the time philosophically hit off the subject: “Life is a comedy: so long as the last act is successful, the whole piece is fine.”

Nevertheless these interesting creatures necessarily had their detractors. They have been accused of trickery and deception. With all allowance for the prejudice of their enemies, it cannot be denied that eccentricities here and there gave a handle to the slanderers. The lady, for instance, who wore slippers covered with diamonds, and made men kiss her feet (like the pope), alleging that her foot too was beautiful enough to merit adoration, was considered to have overstepped the bounds. But with the general public, and even with connoisseurs, such dainty exactions did not produce the same astonishment that they would produce to-day. The religion of beauty touched such deep chords that the beautiful appeared always beautiful under all forms, so much so that in certain Italian collections of “Lives of illustrious women,” saints and courtesans stand cheek by jowl.

Men professed for these ladies the same veneration and idolatrous respect as for a princess; they plied them with the same sighs, the same verses, the same little tendernesses. The game cost a little dearer, but in reality they were not unwilling to regard a courtesan’s drawing-room as more moral than certain reputable drawing-rooms, since a man was not likely to meet a ridiculous husband there, or embarrassing young cousins of both sexes, or certain fashionable girls whose tongues had a tang. And it was much less compromising.

Was there a moral advantage in elevating what had till then been so degraded? For a long time it was sincerely believed there was, and this belief was held almost throughout Italy. On this point it is sufficient to read a very curious letter addressed by some unknown person, concealing himself under the pseudonym “Apollo,” to the witty and eminently virtuous Isabella d’Este. It is dated Ferrara, June 13, 1537, and refers to a visit then being paid to the city by Tullia d’Aragona. It runs: “There has just arrived here a very pretty lady, so staid in deportment, so fascinating in manner, that we cannot help finding in her something truly divine. She sings all sorts of airs and motets at sight; her conversation has matchless charm; she knows everything, and there is nothing you cannot talk to her about. There is no one here to hold a candle to her, not even the Marchioness of Pescara.” An ambassador exceeded even these rhapsodies, and wrote gravely to his government that he was composing his despatches under the eye of this pretty woman, who assisted him with her advice.

Tullia d’Aragona, who was, we may remark, very proud of the noble blood in her veins, thus played Egeria to the most exalted personages, and they had no hesitation in comparing her to a mother of the church like Vittoria Colonna, or in placing her even higher. She justified this enthusiasm, not only by her physical beauty and her wit, but by real moral qualities. She proved that the spirit of the beautiful elevates the basest things, and if she did not turn Trappist, if she continued to live the life she was born to, she brought to it a contempt of money which was itself a purifying virtue. This admirable creature, after holding all Italy spellbound by the charm of her velvety eyes, died in destitution; she gave instructions that she should be buried in the quietest way beside her poor mother in the church of Sant Agostino, where she had endowed masses; her belongings had to be sold by auction, and they realised twelve crowns and a half.

Imperia attained even a higher place than Tullia, and we are compelled to believe that the aegis of virtue, like charity, can cover a multitude of sins, since we find Sadoleto, the type of sincere piety, singing the praises of this amiable woman, and Raphael setting her, so it is said, at the foot of his Parnassus in the apartments of Julius II.

We do not know (and it is almost better so) what Imperia had done to excite so general an enthusiasm: she died at twenty-six! All that we know is that August 15, 1511, the day of her death, was observed at Rome as a day of public mourning. On her tomb was engraved an epitaph in the purest lapidary style. The poets, maybe with a very subtle irony, lauded her to the skies as a new goddess of Latium: we hardly need to repeat these fine phrases. “Our fathers mourned the Empire (_Imperium_); we mourn Imperia. They had lost the world: we have lost our hearts, our very selves.” “The whole city was moved when this young deity was snatched away on Tiber banks,” exclaims Vitalis—“the whole city, even the old pagan walls, even the _fasti_ of the consuls!” “No longer is she beneath this marble,” cries Silvanus; “henceforth she holds her place among the constellations, she will guide our fleets.” But Silvanus becomes a little mixed in his mythology, and in connection with the new star unaccountably couples the names of Julius II. and Jupiter.

For all this glory and honour, Imperia and her kind inevitably became rather burdensome, and the most aesthetic of the popes, Leo X., struck them a fatal blow when he expelled them from Rome in 1520. They took refuge at Venice, despite the heroic opposition of the senate.

But at Venice they lost all their peculiar charm: Venice, the metropolis of pleasure, “the foam of the sea,” set its stamp upon them. Venice was the earthly paradise of matter-of-fact folk like Brantôme and Aretino. The latter wrote to an amiable lady: “You cannot picture these water-parties in the open air, these coaching expeditions on _terra firma_, these secluded groves, these banquets, these unaccustomed consolations.... From your windows you will have a panorama of musicians, singers and buffoons,” a tempest of pleasure. “You would fancy yourself a queen.” But at Venice such queens did not govern, as at Rome; men added them to their collection, that was all.

Thus disappeared one of the most striking curiosities of the platonist society,—the one which has left the most vivid memories. It was only possible under the caressing warmth of the Roman sky.

Leo’s decree evoked loud cries of distress, and the loudest of all came from the French, who, though they had never understood this art of harlotry and had made great fun of it, thought it a capital thing all the same. Rome, they as good as said, was no longer Rome: “How doleful the Jubilee will be!” cries a pilgrim: “what shall I do in Rome now?” Du Bellay, while a melancholy guest of the gloom-beclouded city, apostrophised this new ruin in well-known verses. (O Rome, sad, tender Rome, to whom every passing generation must needs bequeath a new triumphal arch, new catacombs!) Many years later, distinguished travellers like Henri III. and Montaigne did their best to hunt up the last of the courtesans.

We cannot but confess that the attempt to rehabilitate the demi-monde and to employ it in the heavenward voyage strikes us as extremely venturesome; the younger Dumas, like a true Frenchman, was not bold enough to persevere. Our ancestors felt the same qualms: unhappily, it was not from virtuous scruples. They recognised the work accomplished by platonism, so bent were they on transfiguring love through coquetry,[339] and so hopeful, in the interests of humanity, of rendering virtuous women more come-at-able. But when it was suggested to them, as necessary to complete their work, that they should render come-at-able women more virtuous, they were steadfast as rock.

They discovered another way of giving an aristocratic stamp to things that could not be spiritualised. We are bound to touch upon it, because this also throws back a vague reflexion of platonism; besides, in approaching these delicate problems in morality, which it is so expedient to look at dispassionately, we have no intention of dedicating our work to girls.

It was sought to blend the idea of an immaterial union of hearts—an idea borrowed from platonism, and one whose beauty and importance were not disputed—with the other idea that such a compact must necessarily be sealed by an absolute and unreserved intimacy, or it would remain chimerical and oppressive. This idea the French could not part with; and consequently there arose the notion of what may be called a second marriage, supplementary to the authorised marriage—a union _de facto_, recognised, acknowledged, declared, and so highly honoured that one would be tempted to call it an eighth sacrament. Similar unions, recognised by the world, were still known at the end of the 18th century, and even under the Restoration during the early years of the 19th, having survived the worst trials of the Revolution, the Emigration, penury, and exile, to say nothing of the still more ruthless test of time.

This custom of giving publicity to secret unions was not a direct outgrowth of platonism; yet platonist women looked on it by no means unfavourably. In the first place, they thought it rather lucky that their husbands, enjoying an irregularity in some sort regularised, more highly respected their wives’ dignity, quiet and health.[340] Secondly, we have already shown how little platonism there was in morals under Francis I., and what unbridled licence reigned at court. Melin de Saint-Gelais portrays the king as a cock in a hen-run—or as a sun in a firmament of stars, amid Canaples, star of the morning; the lovely Saint-Paul, star of evening; Diana, the crescent-moon; and many other stellar beauties eager to shine—Helly, Rieux, Tallard, Lestrange—who, if their names were not mentioned, “would have thought it strange.”

Francis I. said plainly that a man without a mistress was only a nincompoop. In that case was it not a mark of progress to arrive at the institution of a regular mistress, recognised and with no rivals? Margaret of France would have been only too glad to see her brother fix his affections prudently on some eminent lady, who would rank next the queen and might be called the queen and “mirror of all propriety.” That explains, no doubt, the affectionate, obsequious, humble welcome she gave to the duchess d’Etampes, whose reign seemed for a moment likely to be lasting. She wrote for this noble lady the _Coche_ or _Débat d’Amour_, a little treatise intended to prove that, apart from pure platonism, there can still exist a laudable love; and in the presentation copy Margaret, the king’s sister, had herself represented, in complete black, before the queen of the day in all the brilliance of her beauty and her jewels, and saying to her: “_Plus vous que moy_”; in other words, “You are more than I.”

With a like feeling of feminine delicacy, perhaps somewhat exaggerated, Veronica Gambara, who was probably virtuous and quite certainly platonic, went into raptures over the good fortune of the “siren” who succeeded in holding for some time the volatile heart of Aretino; the words of Laura and Beatrice rose instantly to her lips, as if the ideal were on the point of attainment.

Henri II. showed himself a platonist in this sense; his double establishment did not constitute an infidelity. He was faithful to two wives, one official, responsible for perpetuating his dynasty and acting for him in affairs, after the old tradition; the other personal, to satisfy his heart as a man.

Diana of Poitiers, it must be admitted, besides her beauty which long retained its ripeness, had all the qualities for beguiling and captivating a lofty heart—birth almost as good as the queen’s (who was only a Medici), wit, warm-heartedness, self-devotion. She has herself explained, in excellent verse, how her position, false as it seems to us, was born of a genuine passion. One fine morning, she tells us, a young Cupid in all his fresh, light-footed, bashful youth came roaming in her neighbourhood, filling her mantle with marjoram and jonquilles, casting a spell upon her. She resisted, shutting eyes and ears against him, though she felt her heart melting; she would listen to no promises, no oaths. He held out to her a wonderful laurel wreath, a queen’s crown. “No,” she replied, “better far be good than a queen,” and yet she felt herself “thrilling and trembling.”

Et comprendrez sans peine
Duquel matin je prétends reparler.[341]

Love did not speak her false: he offered her a kingdom, a great part to play, and kept his word, as the walls of the Louvre testify. To all her contemporaries the position of Diana appeared magnificent, divine. Du Bellay has sung of it as the most beautiful of marriages, the marriage of true minds:

Dieu vous a fait entre nous
Comme un miracle apparoistre,
Afin que de ce grand Roy,
D’une inviolable foy,
Vous peussiez posséder l’âme,
Et que son affection,
Par vostre perfection,
Brulast d’une sainte flamme.
Les Roys monstrent aux humains
De Dieu l’exemple et l’image.[342]

To the French, this was the perfect type of platonism, at once practical and sacred.

Vous avez acquis le cœur de toute la France.[343]

And Ronsard is not less explicit:

Seray-je seul, vivant en France de vostre âge,
Sans chanter vostre nom, si craint et si puissant?
Diray-je point l’honneur de vostre beau croissant?
Feray-je point pour vous quelque immortel ouvrage?[344]

In spite of all these dithyrambs, it is very clear that the platonism of Diana of Poitiers is a sign of decadence. It was the ideal of platonist women to be loved for their soul; men’s ideal being the opposite, there had been a compromise.[345]

The compromise, indeed, was greater than they were willing to admit, even in Italy, and in the purest centres of platonism. Our readers are already acquainted with the charming Bembo, the quintessence of platonism, the admirable chiseller of phrases, the secretary of Leo X., the friend of everything beautiful, noble and aesthetic, the magnificent collector, the apostle of Plato and Petrarch, of Boccaccio and Dante, the idol of the ladies, in short, one of the men who clung to the skirts of princesses, parading their everlasting sentimentalities under the most perfect, exquisite, elevated form. We have a moving letter of his. Among that numerous bevy of princesses who nourished him on ethereal glances from their bright eyes, there was one he loved, the Morosina, a pure and charming woman, to whom, as Monsignor Beccadelli has said, “he had the good sense to devote himself,”[346] and who had given him, in the most common, everyday fashion, a goodly number of children. He lost her. The unhappy man was stricken to the core; his whole being bled. What a state in which to find the divine Bembo, the prophet of the celestial felicities! Death has plunged a knife into his heart. Love—yes, he too had loved. He unbosoms himself to one of his friends, Gabriele Trifon. We were struck with surprise when we first came upon the letter; it was the intimate revelation of a soul; a Bembo of real flesh and blood, grief-stricken, palpitating. “You,” he writes, “have softened the anguish which overwhelms me, in speaking to me as a man, not as a philosopher platonic and divine.”

He adds that he has sought to reason with himself, to preach himself lessons of wisdom, to find relief in his passion for work; but the most delightful book slips from his hand. Between the book and his eyes the sweet image re-appears to him in a mist of tears; and as he makes this confession, tears gush out afresh and soil the paper, his heart is stripped bare; the whole man is before us. “I have lost the dearest heart in the world, a heart which tenderly watched over my life, which loved it and sustained it neglectful of its own; a heart so much the master of itself, so disdainful of vain embellishments and adornments, of silk and gold, of jewels and treasures of price, that it was content with the single and (so she assured me) supreme joy of the love I bore it. This heart, moreover, had for vesture the softest, gracefulest, daintiest of limbs; it had at its service pleasant features, and the sweetest, most graciously endowed form that I have ever met in this country. I cannot forbear lamenting, I cannot but curse the stars that have deprived us of enjoying each other in so innocent a life.”

What a singular underside of platonism! What a warmth of grief! Where is all the platonic paraphernalia—the beautiful ladies all smiles and ice, the careless disdain of physical beauty, the adoration of social life, the horror of solitude? Where are the many-faceted phrases, the philosophic dissertations? Bembo has turned pious like all the unhappy; he will not accuse Providence unjustly; though it has snatched happiness from him, he gives thanks for the happiness enjoyed. But sentiments are not snapped in a moment—sentiments “which with time have rooted themselves so deeply in our humanity that ’twould seem impossible to eradicate them.” He writes, effusively, thanking the friend whom he knew to have been bound by genuine friendship “to this beautiful and precious lady.” He speaks of the children; he will care for them, since he is their father, and because ere she died the Morosina, having fulfilled her religious duties, had faintly whispered these words, which pierced his soul like a hot iron: “‘I commend our sons to you, and beseech you to have care of them, both for my sake and for yours. Be sure they are your own, for I have never done you wrong; that is why I could take our Lord’s body just now with soul at peace.’ Then after a long pause she added: ‘Rest with God,’ and a few minutes afterwards closed her eyes for ever, those eyes which had been the clear-shining faithful stars of my weary pilgrimage through life.”

Ah, these tears! They had hearts, then, these fashionable platonists. Never in any of his fine discourses has Bembo touched us, nor even (if we may say so) rejoiced us as by this simple stifled cry, these tears of solitude. He is prone upon the earth, having lost the wings that bore him on from flower to flower.... Four years after the death of the Morosina, we find that, despite his good resolutions and the counsels of his friends, he is as profoundly crushed as on the first day. He seeks consolation from poetry; he has begun a canzone on the death of his “fair and good Morosina”; he has finished the first strophe and sketched out the second, and he sends these still formless attempts to his intimates, to show them all that his feeble faltering hand can accomplish.

To sum up, the great moral movement of platonism resulted in a wide dissemination of sensibility, and a general softening—a softening of virtue and vice, of women and men. This was no small thing; there is certainly an advantage in cutting the claws of men but scantly idyllic, and in doing nothing rather than in doing ill.

This softening was often only external, and not without an admixture of hypocrisy. But why deplore it? For men to appear worse than they are is no proof that they are better. Men showed signs of sensibility, even though they knew little of love. Under a mask of amiability and tenderness their egotism remained intact; they talked of contemplation, of devotion, of the worship beauty required,—without conviction, it may be; but then they might have employed their time worse, and they unconsciously contributed to spread salutary ideas. One of those ridiculous creatures who spent their lives in haunting their idols like a shadow, perceived with horror that on entering a church his lady refused alms to a beggar. He was so deeply shocked that one of his friends had much ado to prove to him, while chafing him back to life, that the beggar was ill-bred, importunate, impudent, and unworthy of assistance. Here at any rate was a man of sensibility.

But an untoward thing happened. In cultivating sensibility to the utmost, women enfeebled men instead of forming them. Anne of France undoubtedly foresaw this danger when she so ardently commended vigorous and matter-of-fact occupations, and uttered a warning against the abuses of the religion of beauty. Many other ladies, unhappily, genuine artists in refinement, took a complacent pleasure in the very perfection of their conduct, with the result that always ensues in such cases: their art became degraded, and in sinking into a matter of routine, came to ruin. In true love there is, as it were, an outpouring of one’s nature, a vivifying joy, a sort of intense feeling which strengthens; but in love in the more vulgar sense there is a spurious and meretricious poetry which enervates. An old French proverb ran: “When the woman rules the man, he hasn’t much will of his own.” This the anti-feminists repeated, with too much reason. “Ah yes!” cries Nifo, “’tis in good sooth a fine dream of yours. What a magnificent moral state if all men loved one another! No more war, no more crime!... But is that the result you have obtained? You have distilled I know not what mawkishness. Where are the energetic, young-witted, happy, high-minded men born of your affections?” And what was the age of love which was to spring from this generation?

We cannot impute to platonism the creatures of watery blood and hang-dog look who were to form the nucleus of the court of the Valois—these Panurges, false from top to toe, who had early wasted their substance physical and moral—these young tired-eyed voluptuaries whom Lotto paints so well, too weak to pluck the petals of a rose, their hand on their heart as though to point out the source of the mischief. But alas! we cannot but ascribe to sheer gallantry the mob of carpet knights, pale-faced, gilded cap-a-pie, gay ornaments of tourneys, sleek and fawning, ready like Ariosto to sing imaginary exploits, “provided that beauty, which every hour robs them of some fresh portion of intelligence, leaves them enough for the fulfilment of their promise.” They are rigged out as elaborately as the ladies, if not more elaborately (save that instead of displaying the bosom they display the leg), with flying plumes; in winter, smothered under furs; in summer all unbraced, not being able to endure even a loose garment; loaded with diamonds, so that you would take them for walking showcases of the king of Naples or the duke of Berry. They are philosophical, in the sense that they soar high above ideas of patriotism, and prove it by disguising themselves in costumes of all nations, the Turks included. They are learned, that is to say, they think it smart to stuff the French language with heteroclite words, as though eager to tear from it its pith and heart, and make this also a delusion and a snare, as universally acceptable as blonde wigs and padded busts.

The great, wonderful reform effected by platonism in the higher ranks of society was—that the men, copying the ancient sages and the orientals, let their beards grow! Up till then, no man could pretend to style unless he shaved, or even, for the sake of greater perfection, depilated his chin; there had been one cry of horror when Cardinal Bessarion appeared with his beard at the court of Louis XI. But now that Castiglione, the Roman prelates, and the high platonist society sported the philosophic beard, there was a sudden craze for going unshorn among the young snobs of Louis XII.’s court,—the Bonnivets and others.

This reform, strange to say, excited between the higher and lower clergy one of the most acrimonious disputes with which we are acquainted. Vicars and curates belaboured the bishops with texts against the beard. The prelates parried with abstruse disquisitions; they claimed that a good beard did no offence to honour and probity; they sifted the sentiments of the ancient Romans in regard to the beard and found them in sympathy with their own; they made out that the apostles had never dreamt of shaving, and proved to demonstration that a decree of a council of Carthage, appealed to by the lower clergy, was an interpolation, and in any case was of no authority, the infallibility of the Church not dating back so far; and a decree of Alexander III., which they were also clamorous about, applied only to the hair of the head.

For the other part, to say nothing of the beard of Julius II.,[347] one only had to turn over the leaves of church history to find on every page bearded saints, sometimes of high eminence; bearded hermits, strangers alike to the care of the body, to Plato, and to women. The dispute occasioned a terrible waste of eloquence, erudition, vivacity, irony and earnestness. It was of the highest importance, and bore on the most sacred interests of what some eminent personages called platonism.

And now it cannot fail to be asked by what strange and cruel logic a century, cradled at its birth in the idea of the beautiful, of love and happiness, was to become a hotbed of hatred, the arena in which the most savage animosities were implacably to contend. Must we believe that in throwing down the barriers of a rigorous code and invoking liberty we must inevitably bruise ourselves against force, rendered thereby freer and more ferocious? That would be a sad and disheartening conclusion, for then we should have to consider human progress as a perpetual recommencement, seeing that, though the lawless rise insurgent against tender hearts, though gospel wisdom warns us of the eternal despotism of the violent, there are still found and will ever be found among us incorrigible wretches, hungering for sympathy, and unable to live without a ray of love.