Mademoiselle de Maupin. Theophile Gautier

      PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      One of the most burlesque incidents of the glorious epoch in which we have the good fortune to live side by side with Deutz and General Bugeaud, is, beyond question, the rehabilitation of virtue undertaken by all the newspapers, of whatever color they may be, red, green, or tri-colored.

      Virtue is most assuredly a very respectable thing, and we have no wish to fail in our devotion to the excellent, worthy creature—God forbid!—We consider that her eyes shine with sufficient brilliancy through her spectacles, that her stockings are reasonably well put on, that she takes snuff from her gold snuff-box with all imaginable grace, that her little dog courtesies like a dancing-master.—We agree to all that.—We are even willing to admit that her figure is not bad for her age, and that she carries her years as well as any one could. She is a very agreeable grandmother, but she is a grandmother. It seems to me to be natural to prefer to her, especially when one is twenty years old, some little immorality, very pert, very coquettish, very wanton, with the hair a little out of curl, the skirt rather short than long, the foot and eye alluring, the cheek slightly flushed, a smile on the lips and the heart in the hand.—The most horribly virtuous journalists can hardly be of a different opinion; and, if they say the contrary, it is very probable that they do not think it. To think one thing and write another is something that happens every day, especially among virtuous folk.

      I remember the epigrams uttered before the Revolution—I refer to the Revolution of July—against the ill-fated and virginal Vicomte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, who lengthened the skirts of the dancers at the Opéra and applied with his own patrician hands a chaste plaster around the middle of all the statues.—Monsieur le Vicomte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld is far surpassed.—Modesty has been greatly perfected since his day, and we go into refinements that he would never have imagined.

      I, who am not accustomed to look at statues in certain places, considered, as others did, the vine-leaf cut by the scissors of Monsieur le Chargé des Beaux-Arts, the most absurd thing in the world. It seems that I was wrong, and that the vine-leaf is one of the most meritorious of institutions.

      I have been told, but I refused to believe it, it seemed to me so extraordinary, that there were people who, when looking at Michael Angelo's fresco of the Last Judgment, had seen nothing therein but the episode of the lewd priests, and had veiled their faces, crying out at the abomination of desolation!

      Such people know nothing of the romance of Rodrigue except the couplet of the snake.—If there is any nudity in a book or a picture, they go straight to it as the swine to the mire, and pay no attention to the blooming flowers or the golden fruit that hang within reach on all sides.

      I confess that I am not virtuous enough for that. Dorine, the brazen-faced soubrette, may display before me her swelling bosom, I certainly will not draw my handkerchief to cover it so that it cannot be seen.—I will look at her bosom as at her face, and if it is fair and well-shaped I will take pleasure in it.—But I will not touch Elmire's dress to see if it is soft, nor will I push her reverently upon the table as that poor devil of a Tartuffe did.

      This great affectation of morality that reigns to-day would be very laughable if it were not very tiresome.—Every feuilleton becomes a pulpit; every journalist a preacher; only the tonsure and the little neckband are wanting. The weather is rainy and homiletic; one can defend one's self against both by going out only in a carriage and reading Pantagruel between one's bottle and one's pipe.

      Blessed Jesus! what an outcry! what a frenzy!—Who bit you? who pricked you? what the devil's the matter with you that you cry so loud, and what has poor vice done to you that you should bear him such a grudge, he is such a good fellow, so easy to live with, and asks nothing except to be allowed to amuse himself and not bore others, if such a thing can be? Act with vice like Serre with the gendarme: embrace and have done with it all.—Believe me, you will be the better for it.—Eh! Mon Dieu! my worthy preachers, what would you do without vice? You would be reduced to beggary to-morrow, if the world should become virtuous to-day.

      The theatres would be closed to-night.—What would you take for the subject of your feuilleton?—No more Opéra balls to fill your columns—no more novels to dissect; for balls, novels, plays, are the real pomps of Satan, if we are to believe our holy Mother Church.—The actress would dismiss her protector and could no longer pay you for puffing her.—Nobody would subscribe to your newspapers; people would read Saint Augustine, they would go to church, they would tell their beads. That would be very praiseworthy, perhaps, but you would gain nothing by it. If people were virtuous, what would you do with your articles on the immorality of the age? You see plainly that vice is good for something.

      But it is the fashion nowadays to be virtuous and Christ-like, it is an attitude people affect; they pose as Saint Jeromes just as they used to pose as Don Juans; they are pale and wasted, they wear their hair as the apostles did, they walk with folded hands and eyes glued to the ground, they assume an expression sugared to perfection; they have an open Bible on the mantel, a crucifix and consecrated box-wood above their beds; they never swear, they smoke but little, and they chew almost not at all.—With that they become Christians, they talk about the sanctity of art, the lofty mission of the artist, the poesy of Catholicism, about Monsieur de La Mennais, about the painters of the angelic school, about the Council of Trent, about progressive humanity, and about a thousand other fine things.—Some infuse a little republicanism into their religion, they are not the least interesting. They couple Robespierre and Jesus Christ in the most cheerful way and amalgamate with praiseworthy gravity the Acts of the Apostles and the decrees of the Holy Convention—that is the sacramental title; others add, for a final ingredient, some Saint-Simonian ideas.—These latter are complete, they rest upon a square foundation; after them we can