Chapter IV (3)

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—I have the good fortune to be thought so. There are people in the world who are satisfied with this, though, to be plain with you, it is not at all my case, I have always exceedingly regretted your company.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—I understand you. In the midst of your grandeur you were sensible of the want of friendship; and I, on the other hand, who am entirely engrossed by friendship, never had occasion to wish for grandeur; but how then comes it to pass you forgot me so long?

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—You know the necessity I was under to seem at least to forget you. Believe me, amidst all the misfortunes attached to my elevation I always considered this restraint the chief.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—As for my part, I neither forget my former pleasures nor my old friends; but if you are really unhappy, as you say you are, you impose prodigiously on the whole world who believe you otherwise.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—I was the first person deceived in this manner myself. If, while we were at supper together, in company with Villarfaux and Nantouillet at our little house the Tournelles, when the mediocrity of our fortune was scarce worth thinking of, somebody had said, You will, before ’tis long, approach very near to the throne; the most powerful monarch in the world will soon make you his sole confidante; all favors will pass through your hands; you will be regarded as a sovereign: if, said I, any one had made me such predictions I should have answered, The accomplishment of this strange prognostication must certainly kill one with mere astonishment. The whole of it was actually accomplished. I felt some surprise in the first moments but, in hoping for joy, I found myself entirely mistaken.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—A philosopher might possibly believe this, but the public will with great difficulty be brought to believe you were dissatisfied, and should they really think so they would certainly blame you for it.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—The world must then be as much in the wrong as I was. This world of ours is a vast amphitheatre where every one is placed on his bench by mere chance. They imagine the supreme degree of felicity to be on the uppermost benches. What an egregious mistake!

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—I take this mistake to be necessary to human nature: they would never give themselves any trouble about getting higher were they not led by an opinion that happiness is placed above them. Both of us are acquainted with pleasures infinitely less deceiving or fanciful, but, for Heaven’s sake, how did you contrive to be so exceedingly wretched on your exalted seat?

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—Alas! my dear Ninon! from the time I left off calling you anything but Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, I from that moment began to be less happy. It was decreed I must be a prude. This is telling all in one word. My heart is empty, my mind under restraint. I make the first figure in France, but it is really no more than a figure, a shadow! I live only a kind of borrowed life. Ah! did you but know what a burden it must be to a drooping soul to animate another soul or to amuse a mind no longer capable of amusement!

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—I easily guess the uneasiness of your situation. I fear insulting you should I mention the reflection that Ninon is happier at Paris in her little house with the Abbé de Châteauneuf, and some friends, than you at Versailles in the company of the most respectable personage in all Europe, who lays all his power at your feet. I am afraid to show you the superiority of my situation; I know it is wrong to discover too sensible a relish of our felicity in the presence of the unhappy. Endeavor, madam, to bear the load of your grandeur with patience, try to forget that delightful obscurity in which we formerly lived together, in the same manner you have been obliged to forget your ancient friends. The sole remedy in your painful state is to avoid reflection as much as possible, crying out with the poet,

_Félicité passée,_ _Qui ne peut revenir,_ _Tourment de ma pensée,_ _Que n’ai-je en te perdant, perdu le souvenir!_

Tormenting thought of former happiness gone, never to return! Why, when I was bereft of the joy, did I not lose the remembrance of it also!

Drink of the river Lethe, and above all, comfort yourself with having before your eyes so many royal dames whose time lies as heavy on their hands as yours can do.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—Ah, my dear! what felicity can one find in being alone? I would fain make a proposal to you but I am afraid to open myself.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—Indeed, madam, to be plain with you, you have reason to be a little mistrustful, but take courage.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—I mean that you will barter, at least in appearance, your philosophy for prudery, and then you will become a truly respectable woman. You shall live with me in Versailles, you shall be more my friend than ever, and help me to support my present condition.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—I still have a great affection for you, madam, but I must freely own to you I love myself still better, and can never consent to turn hypocrite and render myself miserable forever because fortune has treated you cruelly.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—Ah, cruel Ninon! you have a heart more hard than even the very courtiers themselves. Can you then abandon me without the least remorse?

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—By no means; I am still but too sensible. You really melt me, and, to convince you I have the same regard for you as ever I now make you the last offer in my power; quit Versailles and come and live with me at the rues des Tournelles.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—You pierce my very heart. I cannot be happy near the throne, nor can I enjoy pleasure in a retired life. This is one of the fatal effects of living in a court.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—There is no remedy for an incurable disorder. I shall take the opinion of the philosophers who frequent my house concerning your malady, but I cannot promise you they will effect impossibilities.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—Good heavens! what a cruel situation! to behold myself on the very pinnacle of greatness, to be worshipped as a deity, and yet not to be able to taste of happiness!

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—Hold, my dear friend, I fancy there is some mistake in this; you believe yourself unhappy merely on account of your greatness, but may not the misfortune proceed from another cause, that your eyes have no longer the same lustre, your appetite no longer so good, nor your relish for pleasures so lively as heretofore? You have lost your youth, beauty, and feelings; this, this is your real misfortune. This is the reason why so many women turn devotees at fifty and so fly from one chagrin into the arms of another.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—But, after all, you have more years over your head than I have and you are neither unhappy nor a devotee.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—Let us understand each other. We ought not to imagine that at your age and mine we can enjoy complete happiness. It requires a soul glowing with the most exquisite sensations and the five senses in their highest perfection to taste this kind of felicity. But with a few friends, a little philosophy, and liberty, one may be as much at one’s ease as this age will admit of. The mind is never unhappy but when out of its sphere. So e’en take my advice and come and live with me and my philosophical friends.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.—I see two ministers of state coming this way. They are very different company from philosophers, so fare you well, my dear Ninon.

MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—Adieu, illustrious unfortunate.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Madame de Maintenon and Mademoiselle Ninon de l’Enclos had lived long together. The author has often heard the late Abbé de Châteauneuf say, that Madame de Maintenon had used her utmost endeavors to engage Ninon to turn nun, and to come and comfort her at Versailles.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A SAVAGE
AND A BACHELOR OF ARTS.

A governor of Cayenne, having brought over with him a savage from Guiana, who had a great share of good natural understanding, and spoke French tolerably well; a bachelor of arts at Paris had the honor of entering into the following conversation with him:

BACHELOR.—I suppose, Mr. Savage, you have seen a number of your country people who pass their lives all alone, for it is said that this is the true way of living natural to man, and that society is only an artificial depravity?

SAVAGE.—Indeed I never did see any of those people you speak of. Man appears to me to be born for society, as well as several other species of animals. Each species follows the dictates of its nature; as for us, we live all together in a community.

BACHELOR.—How! in community? Why, then, you have fine towns, and cities with walls, and kings who keep a court. You have shows, convents, universities, libraries, and taverns, have you?

SAVAGE.—No; but have I not frequently heard it said that in your continent you have Arabians and Scythians who never knew anything of these matters, and yet form considerable nations? Now we live like these people; neighboring families assist each other. We inhabit a warm climate, and so have very few necessities; we can easily procure ourselves food; we marry; we get children; we bring them up, and then we die. You see this is just the same as among you; some few ceremonies excepted.

BACHELOR.—Why, my good sir, then you are not a savage?

SAVAGE.—I do not know what you mean by that word.

BACHELOR.—Nor, to tell you the truth, do I myself—stay—let me consider a little—Oh!—a savage?—Why—a savage is—what we call a savage, is a man of a morose, unsociable disposition, who flies all company.

SAVAGE.—I have told you already that we live together in families.

BACHELOR.—We also give the name of savage to those beasts who are not tamed, but roam wild about the forests; and from hence we have transferred that appellation to men who inhabit the woods.

SAVAGE.—I go into the woods sometimes, as well as you do, to hunt.

BACHELOR.—Pray, now, do you think sometimes?

SAVAGE.—It is impossible to be without some sort of ideas.

BACHELOR.—I have a great curiosity to know what your ideas are. What think you of man?

SAVAGE.—Think of him! Why, that he is a two-footed animal, who has the faculty of reasoning, speaking, and who uses his hands much more dexterously than the monkey. I have seen several kinds of men, some white, like you, others copper-colored, like me, and others black, like those that wait upon the governor of Cayenne. You have a beard, we have none; the negroes have wool, you and I have hair. They say, that in your more northerly climates the inhabitants have white hair, whereas that of the Americans is black. This is all I know about man.

BACHELOR.—But your soul, my dear sir? your soul? what notion have you of that? whence comes it? what is it? what does it do? how does it act? where does it go?

SAVAGE.—I know nothing about all this, indeed; for I never saw the soul.

BACHELOR.—Apropos; do you think that brutes are machines?

SAVAGE.—They appear to me to be organized machines, that have sentiment and memory.

BACHELOR.—Well; and pray now, Mr. Savage, what do you think that you, you yourself, I say, possess above those brutes?

SAVAGE.—The gifts of an infinitely superior memory, a much greater share of ideas, and, as I have already told you, a tongue capable of forming many more sounds than those of brutes; with hands more ready at executing; and the faculty of laughing, which a long-winded argumentator always makes me exercise.

BACHELOR.—But tell me, if you please, how came you by all this? What is the nature of your mind? How does your soul animate your body? Do you always think? Is your will free?

SAVAGE.—Here are a great number of questions; you ask me how I came to possess what God has given to man? You might as well ask me how I was born? For certainly, since I am born a man, I must possess the things that constitute a man in the same manner as a tree has its bark, roots, and leaves. You would have me to know what is the nature of my mind. I did not give it to myself, and therefore I cannot know what it is; and as to how my soul animates my body, I am as much a stranger to that, too; and, in my opinion, you must first have seen the springs that put your watch in motion before you can tell how it shows the hour. You ask me if I always think? No, for sometimes I have half-formed ideas, in the same manner as I see objects at a distance, confusedly; sometimes my ideas are much stronger, as I can distinguish an object better when it is nearer to me; sometimes I have no ideas at all, as when I shut my eyes I can see nothing. Lastly, you ask me, if my will is free? Here I do not understand you; these are things with which you are perfectly well acquainted, no doubt, therefore I shall be glad you will explain them to me.

BACHELOR.—Yes, yes, I have studied all these matters thoroughly; I could talk to you about them for a month together without ceasing, in such a manner as would surpass your understanding. But tell me, do you know good and evil, right and wrong? Do you know which is the best form of government? which the best worship? what is the law of nations? the common law? the civil law? the canon law? Do you know the names of the first man and woman who peopled America? Do you know the reason why rain falls into the sea; and why you have no beard?

SAVAGE.—Upon my word, sir, you take rather too great advantage of the confession I made just now, that man has a superior memory to the brutes; for I can hardly recollect the many questions you have asked me; you talk of good and evil, right and wrong; now, I think that whatever gives you pleasure, and does injury to no one, is very good and very right; that what injures our fellow-creatures, and gives us no pleasure, is abominable; and what gives us pleasure but, at the same time, hurts others, may be good with respect to us for the time, but it is in itself both dangerous to us, and very wrong in regard to others.

BACHELOR.—And do you live in society with these maxims?

SAVAGE.—Yes, with our relatives and neighbors, and, without much pain or vexation, we quietly attain our hundredth year; some indeed reach to a hundred and twenty, after which our bodies serve to fertilize the earth that has nourished us.

BACHELOR.—You seem to me to have a clear understanding, I would very fain puzzle it. Let us dine together, after which we will philosophize methodically.

* * * * *

SAVAGE.—I find that I have swallowed foods that are not made for me, notwithstanding I have a good stomach; you have made me eat after my stomach was satisfied, and drink when I was no longer dry. My legs are not so firm under me as they were before dinner; my head feels heavy, and my ideas are confused. I never felt this diminution of my faculties in my own country. For my part, I think the more a man puts into his body here, the more he takes away from his understanding. Pray, tell me, what is the reason of all this damage and disorder?

BACHELOR.—I will tell you. In the first place, as to what passes in your legs, I know nothing about the matter, you must consult the physicians about that; they will satisfy you in a trice. But I am perfectly well acquainted with how things go in your head. You must know, then, that the soul being confined to no place, has fixed her seat either in the pineal gland, or callous body in the middle of the brain. The animal spirits that rise from the stomach fly up to the soul, which they cannot affect, they being matter and it immaterial. Now, as neither can act upon the other, therefore the soul takes their impression, and, as it is a simple principle, and consequently subject to no change, therefore it suffers a change, and becomes heavy and dull when we eat too much; and this is the reason that so many great men sleep after dinner.

SAVAGE.—What you tell me appears very ingenious and profound, but I should take it as a favor if you would explain it to me in such a manner as I might comprehend.

BACHELOR.—Why, I have told you everything that can be said upon this weighty affair; but, to satisfy you, I will be a little more explicit. Let us go step by step. First, then, do you know that this is the best of all possible worlds?

SAVAGE.—How! is it impossible for the Infinite Being to create anything better than what we now see?

BACHELOR.—Undoubtedly; for nothing can be better than what we see. It is true, indeed, that mankind rob and murder each other, but they all the while extol equity and moderation. Several years ago they massacred about twelve millions of your Americans, but then it was to make the rest more reasonable. A famous calculator has proved that from a certain war of Troy, which you know nothing of, to the last war in North America, which you do know something of, there have been killed in pitched battles no less than five hundred and fifty-five million six hundred and fifty thousand men, without reckoning young children and women buried under the ruins of cities and towns which have been set on fire; but this was all for the good of community; four or five thousand dreadful maladies, to which mankind are subject, teach us the true value of health; and the crimes that cover the face of the earth greatly enhance the merit of religious men, of which I am one; you see that everything goes in the best manner possible, at least as to me.

Now things could never be in this state of perfection, if the soul was not placed in the pineal gland. For—but let me take you along with me in the argument. Let us go step by step. What notion have you of laws, and of the rule of right and wrong; of the _to Kalon_, as Plato calls it?

SAVAGE.—Well, but my good sir, while you talk of going step by step, you speak to me of a hundred different things at a time.

BACHELOR.—Every one converses in this manner. But tell me who made the laws in your country?

SAVAGE.—The public good.

BACHELOR.—That word _public good_ means a great deal. We have not any so expressive; pray, in what sense do you understand?

SAVAGE.—I understand by it that those who have a plantation of cocoa trees or maize, have forbidden others to meddle with them, and that those who had them not, are obliged to work, in order to have a right to eat part of them. Everything that I have seen, either in your country or my own, teaches me that there can be no other spirit of the laws.

BACHELOR.—But as to women, Mr. Savage, women?

SAVAGE.—As to women, they please me when they are handsome and sweet-tempered; I prize them even before our cocoa trees; they are a fruit which we are not willing to have plucked by any but ourselves. A man has no more right to take my wife from me than to take my child. However, I have heard it said, that there are people who will suffer this; they have it certainly in their will; every one may do what he pleases with his own property.

BACHELOR.—But as to successors, legatees, heirs, and collateral kindred?

SAVAGE.—Every one must have a successor. I can no longer possess my field when I am buried in it, I leave it to my son; if I have two, I divide it equally between them. I hear that among you Europeans, there are several nations where the law gives the whole to the eldest child, and nothing to the younger. It must have been sordid interest that dictated such unequal and ridiculous laws. I suppose either the elder children made it themselves, or their fathers, who were willing they should have the pre-eminence.

BACHELOR.—What body of laws appears to you the best?

SAVAGE.—Those in which the interests of mankind, my fellow creatures, have been most consulted.

BACHELOR.—And where are such laws to be found?

SAVAGE.—In no place that I have ever heard of.

BACHELOR.—You must tell me from whence the inhabitants of your country first came? Who do you think first peopled America?

SAVAGE.—God—whom else should we think?

BACHELOR.—That is no answer. I ask you from what country your people first came?

SAVAGE.—The same country from which our trees came; really the Europeans appear to me a very pleasant kind of people, to pretend that we can have nothing without them; we have just as much reason to suppose ourselves your ancestors as you have to imagine yourselves ours.

BACHELOR.—You are an obstinate little savage.

SAVAGE.—You a very babbling bachelor.

BACHELOR.—But, hark ye, Mr. Savage, one word more with you, if you please. Do you think it right in Guiana to put those to death who are not of the same opinion with yourselves?

SAVAGE.—Undoubtedly, provided you eat them afterwards.

BACHELOR.—Now you are joking. What do think of the constitution?

SAVAGE.—Your servant.

A TREATISE ON TOLERATION.