reign through the affections; her most assiduous flatterers only extolled her heart; even after her death a pious respect continued to watch over her works, of which a selection was published. And yet she gave only her intelligence to the world. Her theory of love is peculiar enough. Love of course appears to her the corner-stone of the social edifice: in itself it is always good, only becoming bad by the use made of it. Margaret is eminently platonist in the sense that she proclaims the existence of two loves, a good and a bad; but to her the distinction between them is simplicity itself: the one is man's love, the other, woman's; men love with an evil, earthly love, women alone can love celestially. Sometimes they chance to allow themselves to be caught in the snares of men; let them flee then, for "briefest follies are always the best.' Thus loving is for women. The love of a woman, established firmly in God and on honour, the same love that Henri d'Albret styles "hypocrisy or covert malice," forges a divine and holy chain. Margaret never tires of expatiating on the virtues of women's love, a pure and ardent love, the instrument and the end of civilisation, the highest form of human activity, the prayer admirable beyond all other prayers that a living creature can address to the Creator. In the nineteenth tale of the Heptameron she gives this love a very catholic definition, borrowed almost word for word from Castiglione : "I call perfect lovers those who seek some perfection, either goodness, beauty or grace, in the object of their love, those who incline always to virtue and have so lofty and refined a heart that, even at the price of death, they would not aim at base things that honour and conscience condemn. The soul was created but to return to the supreme good, and so long as it is encased in the body, it can only long and strive for holiness. But the sin of our first parent has rendered dark and sensual the senses, the soul's inevitable intermediary; seeing only through them the visible objects which approach perfection, the soul hastens to find in outward beauty, in visible grace and the moral virtues, the sovereign beauty, grace, and virtue. It seeks them, and finds them not, and passes by; it essays to mount higher, like children who, as they grow bigger, must needs change their dolls. And when at length mature experience shows that neither perfection nor felicity is to be met with in this world, the soul pants after the great Author and the very source of the beautiful. But then may God open its eyes! otherwise it must speedily stray into the paths of false philosophy. For faith alone can reveal and bestow what is good, which carnal, natural man by himself never could attain.' Thus the worship of beauty is not necessarily mystical, but it is a true religion. We come from God, and we return to God through hope and love much more surely than through any sort of reasoning. The holy love of the beautiful, of perfection, purifies the soul better than any practical efforts, and little by little raises it to the ideal perception of perfect beauty. The soul then wings its flight towards God, sustained by faith above unfathomable abysses. And so it is necessary to proclaim happiness, peace, gentleness, joy to men of good will, and even to others, if they are to be lifted above themselves, their ambitions, their hatreds, their coarsenesses. What a mistake it is to preach a religion of terror to poor creatures too wretched as it is! Oh, que je voy d'erreur la teste ceindre A ce Dante, qui nous vient icy peindre Let women learn their duty! They are priestesses in the religion of Beauty. They must win love, they must themselves love! They must be balm poured upon aching wounds, the beauty that soothes, the love that accomplishes a new Passion, taking upon itself all the sorrows of others. Of old, a great noble had been recognised by his knowing how to give, and by his giving, not of his superfluity, but a portion of himself -his blood to his country, his strong arm or his affection to his brethren. It only remained to feminise and spiritualise this superb tradition. Women will give their hearts, in other words, they will diffuse happiness, fellowship in the supreme life, life itself! "Love is that which really makes a man, and without which he is nought." 1 Margaret to the King, 1534. [Ah, with what error Dante's head is crowned, Life! Alas! at this word Margaret shudders. She longs to penetrate the great secret of our destiny. She stoops over one of her gentlewomen lying at the point of death, to see if she can catch the passing of her soul! She receives a lover at the tomb of the lady he came to meet, and with a tragic gesture cries "She is there!" She loves and preaches nothing but life. She knows that death is inevitable, but hopes that this accident may come to her without lingering in long "suburbs," and she casts herself with confidence upon the God of platonism whom she believes in, whom she feels to be all love. From terrestrial love she expects to escape at one bound into the arms of the other, the Great Love; "from the felicity which alone in this world can be called felicity, to fly suddenly to that which is eternal." And thus in her eyes man's natural end is enfolded in love and hope resting on faith. There, in the heart of the villages, covered with moss and honeysuckle, are the humble tombs, the sacred shelter of those we have loved, clothed all about with life hard by the radiant crucifix! A sunbeam floods them in light, like a stream of love from on high. The same ray penetrates our hearts, telling us that all is not ended, and that a little joy is still blossoming upon this spot of earth. Let us leave God to count the flying moments-leave it to Him in full confidence and peace! Like all human things, platonism cannot attain perfection; it necessarily has little to say in regard to man's birth and death. To complete the reformation it would perhaps be necessary, as Goethe suggests in the second part of Faust, to discover a means of manufacturing homunculus, in other words, of effecting human reproduction in some other way than the old; moreover, instead of being allowed to die, men might comfortably be translated to other worlds. But, meanwhile, platonism is the philosophy of the living, and in truth it is remarkable to see a secular movement basing itself on such lofty systems, and turning to such noble account, intellectually, morally and religiously, the natural desire which the world always has of amusing itself. A strange generation was arising. Between 1483 and 1515 Luther, Calvin and St. Ignatius, Rabelais and St. Theresa, were born pell-mell. And yet, thanks to this philosophy, everyone wore the livery of happiness. Dagger 1Heptameron, Tale 40. and poison hid themselves in the shade. Never were the most agitating problems more cheerfully discussed. Yes; women know the real value of the visionary and the immaterial, of something higher than hoards of mere gold and silver-the value of the riches of the soul. The Latin world was at this moment becoming a vast workshop of beauty, the real worker being no longer the digger or the merchant, the mason or the hodman, but whatever man lived a life of thought and love. There was extension and broadening out in all directions; material barriers were being overthrown; the religion of Beauty was bringing nations as well as individuals together. And the women, the ministers of the affections, had for their mission to watch, to judge, to temper, to develop the faculties of men. They thought it a beautiful mission. Can we wonder at it? They burned with the ardour of paladins; they fancied themselves knights-errant, and displayed devices-Non inferiora secutus, a masculine hemistich which men had relinquished, but which Margaret of France resumed, to show that she bore high her white petals and her heart of gold: "Love and Faith," in other words, "Women and God," the motto of Madame de Lorraine-a motto full of joy and charm, for if men love because they believe, and believe because they love, life becomes an unalloyed delight. Between mysticism and debauchery a middle term had been found, namely, love. When women know how to attach men to them by means of pure love, all individual forces gain vigour, a nation flourishes, and the people are at peace. That, at any rate, was the new conviction. CHAPTER II THE SCIENCE OF PLATONISM THE doctrine we have just indicated never excited any very determined opposition as a theory; its adversaries reserved their objections for its practical working. The New Law, it is true, had redeemed us in love; but the politicians held the same opinions as the moralists of Du Four's school. From Machiavelli to Calvin, many men thought the bludgeon a simpler and more effectual guide for humanity than sentiment. At best they would have favoured a sort of sentimental sociology. They regarded everything else as a mere philosophic dream-Eden, of which barely a glimpse had been caught before it was guarded by the angel with the terrible sword; the burning bush from which issued the voice of God, but near which Moses dared not kneel for fear his garments should take fire and the flame scorch his flesh. Assuredly, the practical science of platonism is more difficult than its metaphysic; it assumes that women have the knack of cleverly taming men by means of love's blandishments, without getting scratched themselves. The cleverest lion-tamers are sometimes clawed, but they have been known to die in their beds. Here is the question in a nutshell: Are women capable of following this tamer's vocation and making themselves sufficiently invulnerable? and secondly: Are men tamable? On the first point the friends of the beautiful displayed the utmost confidence. They made their appeal to women, sensitive-more than sensitive, refined-fortified by marriage against materialities, and inspired only with disgust by the vulgar vice that came under their eyes and even in their |