La Grande Mademoiselle. Barine Arvède
house one saw fewer books than she had read.
More than that, Damophile used only great words, which she pronounced in a grave and imperious voice; though what she said was unimportant; and Sapho, on the contrary, used only short, common words to express admirable things. Besides that, Damophile, believing that knowledge did not accord with her family affairs, never had anything to do with domestic cares; but as to Sapho, she took pains to inform herself of everything necessary to know in order to command even the least things pertaining to the household.
Damophile not only talked as if she were reading out of a book, but she was always talking about books; and, in her ordinary conversation, she spoke as freely of unknown authors as if she were giving public lessons in some celebrated academy.
She tries … with peculiar and strange carefulness, to let it be known how much she knows, or thinks that she knows. And that, too, the first time that a stranger sees her. And there are so many obnoxious, disagreeable, and troublesome things about Damaphile, that one must acknowledge that if there is nothing more amiable nor more charming than a woman who takes pains to adorn her mind with a thousand agreeable forms of knowledge, – when she knows how to use them, – nothing is as ridiculous and as annoying as a woman who is "stupidly wise."
Mlle. de Scudéry raged when people, who had no tact, took her for a Damophile, and, meaning to compliment her, consulted her "on grammar," or "touching one of Hesiod's verses." Then the vials of her wrath were poured out upon the "Savantes" who gave the prejudiced reason for condemning the education of woman, and who provoked annoying and ridiculous misconception by their insupportable pedantry; when there were so many young girls of the best families who did not even learn their own language, and who could not make themselves understood when they took their pens in hand.
"The majority of women," said Nicanor, "seem to try to write so that people will misunderstand them, so strange is their writing and so little sequency is there in their words."
"It is certain," replied Sapho, "that there are women who speak well who write badly; and that they do write badly is purely their own fault… Doubtless it comes from the fact that they do not like to read, or that they read without paying any attention to what they are doing, and without reflecting upon what they have read. So that although they have read the same words they use when they write, thousands and thousands of times, when they come to write they write them all wrong. And by putting some letters where other letters ought to be, they make a confused tangle which no one can distinguish unless he is well used to it."
"What you say is so true," answered Erinne, "that I saw it proved no longer ago than yesterday. I visited one of my friends, who has returned from the country, and I carried her all the letters she wrote to me while she was away, so that she might read them to me and let me know what was in them."
Mademoiselle de Scudéry did not exaggerate; our great-grandmothers did not see the utility of applying a knowledge of spelling to their letters. In that respect each one extricated herself by the grace of God.
The Marchioness of Sablé, who was serious and wise, and, according to the testimony of Sapho, "the type of the perfect précieuse" had peculiar ways of her own in her spelling. She wrote, J'hasse, notre broulerie votre houbly. Another "précieuse," Madame de Brégy, whose prose and verse both appeared in print, wrote to Madame de Sablé, when they were both in their old age:
Je vous diré que je vieus d'aprendre que samedi, Monsieur, Madame, et les poupons reviene a Paris, et que pour aujourd'hui la Rayue et Madame de Toscane vout a Saint-Clou don la naturelle bauté sera reausé de tout les musique possible et d'un repas magnifique don je quiterois tous les gous pour une écuelle non pas de nantille, mes pour une devostre potage; rien n'étan si délisieus que d'an mauger en vous écoutan parler. (19th September, 1672.)
It is but just to add that as far as orthography was concerned many of the men were women. The following letter of the Duke of Gesvres, "first gentleman of Louis XIV.," has no reason to envy the letter of the old Marchioness.
(Paris, this 20th September, 1677.) Monsieur me trouvant oblige de randre vuue bonne party de l'argan que mais enfant out pris de peuis quil sont en campane Monsieur cela m'oblije a vous suplier très humblement Monsieur de me faire la grasse de Commander Monsieur quant il vous plaira que l'on me pay le capitenery de Movsaux monsieur vous asseurant que vous m'oblijeres fort sansiblement Monsieur, comme ausy de me croire avec toute sorte de respec Monsieur vastre très humble et très obeissant serviteur.
Enough is as good as a feast! Though we stand in no superstitious awe of orthography, we can but laud Mademoiselle de Scudéry for having crossed lances in its favour. And well might she wish that to the first elements of an education might be added a certain amount of building material suitable for a foundation so solid that something more serious than dancing steps and chiffons might at a later date be introduced into the brains of young girls.
Seriously, [she said] is there anything stranger than the way they act when they prepare to enter upon the ordinary education of woman? One does not wish women to be coquettish or gallant, and yet they are permitted to learn carefully everything that has anything to do with gallantry; though they are not permitted to know anything that might fortify their virtue or occupy their minds. All the great scoldings given them in their first youth because they are not proper19– that is to say dressed in good taste, and because they do not apply themselves to their dancing lessons and their singing lessons – do they not prove what I say? And the strangest of all is that this should be so when a woman cannot, with any propriety, dance more than five or six years of all the years of her life! And this same person who has been taught to do nothing but to dance is obliged to give proof of judgment to the day of her death; and though she is expected to speak properly, even to her last sigh, nothing is done – of all that might be done – to make her speak more agreeably, nor to act with more care for her conduct; and when the manner in which these ladies pass their lives is considered, it might be said that they seem to have been forbidden to have reason and good sense, and that they were put in the world only that they might sleep, be fat, be handsome, do nothing, and say nothing but silly things… I know one who sleeps more than twelve hours every day, who takes three or four hours to dress herself, or, to speak more to the point: not to dress herself – for more than half of the time given to dressing is passed either in doing nothing or in doing over what has been done. Then she employs fully two or three hours in consuming her divers repasts; and all the rest of the time is spent receiving people to whom she does not know what to say, or in paying visits to people who do not know what to say to her.
In spite of her strictness, Mlle. de Scudéry was no advocate of the idea which makes a woman her husband's servant, or installs her as the slave of the stew-pan. Whenever she was urged to "tell precisely what a woman ought to know," the problem was so new to her that she did not know how to answer it. She evaded it, rejecting its generalities. She had only two fixed ideas: that science was necessary to women; and that the women who attained it must not let it be known that they had attained it. She expressed her two opinions clearly:
It [science] serves to show them the meaning of things; it makes it possible for them to listen intelligently when their mental superiors are talking – even to talk to the point and to express opinions – but they must not talk as books talk; they must try to speak as if their knowledge had come naturally, as if their inherent common sense had given them an understanding of the things in question.
Mademoiselle had in her mind one woman whom she would have liked to set up as a pattern for all other women. That one woman knew Latin, and because of her sense and propriety, was esteemed by Saint Augustine, and yet no one had ever thought of calling her a "Savante."
Mlle. de Scudéry was very grateful to the charming Mme. de Sévigné, because she plead the cause of woman's education by so fine an example, and she depicted her admirable character with visible complaisance, under the name of Clarinte.20
Her conversation is easy, diverting and natural. She speaks to the point, and evinces clear judgment; she speaks well; she even has some spontaneous expressions,
Mademoiselle de Scudéry uses the word
In