CHAPTER IV THE EMBROIDERY OF LIFE MEANWHILE, there is a life to live, there are things to do! A woman must get happiness from the exercise of all her activities, both spontaneous and enforced-even more than from her drawing-room or her jewels. We propose to pass in review as large a number of these occupations as possible, to show that, small or great, there is not one but appears to a woman a source of joy and glory if she mingles love with it. Everything she does, however infinitely humble, be it kneading bread for her husband or washing his feet, is vivified with a transfiguring radiance whenever the spirit of abnegation animates her toil, whenever she reflects that this husband is not the sole man existing in the world, nor a sort of domestic drill-sergeant, but represents the eternal idea sounding in every heart. We have already seen these noble women in days of trouble quivering with devotion at the bedside of their sick husbands; it is the same in days of happiness. They find strength in abstraction; the things that surround us so marvellously change their aspect, contract, expand, according as we take them for what they are or glorify them with thoughts of higher things-thoughts, not idle fancies, whether roseate or gloomy, whether too brilliant in prospect or too distressing in reality. It is chiefly in domestic life that abstraction is useful. The woman must steep her hands in beauty, fill her eyes with love, and then look at things courageously and truthfully. Everything, even vice itself, appears frigid, vulgar, and commonplace to materialists; women ought (yes, ought, not merely can) to render everything warm and gay-even virtue. Let us take haphazard some of the doings which most strikingly exhibit them-their eating, walking, country habits, Sunday occupations. From each of these they are able to strike the sacred spark. We shall see how everything is transfigured in their hands. First then, their eating. Nothing is more material in itself, and nothing better lends itself to spiritualisation. A house was characterised by the way in which a formal dinner was managed; this was the touchstone of true style. On the table was placed the massive and weighty silver plate, the family treasure which the mistress of the house kept under lock and key, and which was worth a fortune. The plate of some families was valued at a million francs. On days of high festivity the table blazed with ponderous gold, but they were content with silver for private dinners. The regulation of the menu was rightly regarded as a matter of such difficulty and importance that men of the highest merit made it their study to lay down fixed principles on the subject. Fulvio Orsini1 has acquainted us with all the best traditions of ancient Rome. Platina, the Raphael of the tribe, published under the auspices of Cardinal Roverella a treatise which may be cited as a perfect model. 2 In countries strange to the new ideas, men thought only of their palates, os sublime, in the ironical phrase of Brandt.3 In Germany guzzling, at rare intervals but in enormous quantities, was the only joy. So late as the end of the century Montaigne asked a former ambassador in Germany how often he had been obliged to get drunk in the service of his sovereign, and the ambassador reckoned up with all gravity, and declared that he had got off with three occasions, all told. The French traditional practice was the same. Fairs, markets, pilgrimages, weddings, baptisms, funerals, anniversaries, meetings of gilds or corporations all served as pretexts for village gourmandisings characterised by enthusiastic drunkenness, and often enlivened with brawls in [Librarian to Cardinal Farnese (1529-1600), a great authority on antiquities, especially coins; he spent the greater part of his modest income on pictures and bronzes.] 2[Historian and member of the academy of Pomponius Laetus (14211481). He was Vatican librarian under Sixtus IV., wrote a history of the popes, and a curious work on hygiene entitled Opusculum de obsoniis ac honesta voluptate-the work here referred to.] [Sebastian Brandt (1438-1521), jurisconsult and poet of Strasburg, author of the famous Ship of Fools, referred to in subsequent pages.] which both sexes took part. At the end of one of these feasts we find the wife of the gild president dealing most energetically with a toper who had called her an "old witch." The châteaux were no less fond of high feeding.1 Historians ought to consult the kitchen account-books! Without them they will never succeed in arriving at wellfounded judgments; we know no human document more convincing, none which enables us with more certainty to reconstruct a bygone mode of life. Unhappily the old kitchen books of France reveal a deplorable spectacle; it is one long procession of herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, innumerable poultry, rabbits and partridges by the dozen, small game in hundreds, and pigs in disgusting profusion. The whole of the delicacies consists, even in the most distinguished houses, of a few cloves or sticks of cinnamon to make hippocras of. As to the wine, it is wine of the current vintage drawn from the cask! Caesar Borgia must have been greatly surprised one Friday, in the winter of 1498, while staying with Madame de la Trémoille, to see filing in a course of two hundred and fifty fish. The next day, again a fast day, the avenues leading to the château were thronged with carts loaded with fish, in honour of the visit of King Louis XII.; in particular there arrived seven hundred and fifty eels. This was in Rabelais' country. Further, in regard to tutelary geniuses of the table, they were acquainted with none but appalling spectres-Dame Gout,2 Madam Gravel, or my 1On ordinary days, the household of Marie of Cleves easily disposed of half a calf, a quarter of an ox, five or six sheep, and dozens of fowls. 2"Gout," cries Cardan, "is queen, gout is noble! She is a synthesis of ills! She is discreet and courteous; she attacks only the showable parts of the body. There is nothing hideous about her as about leprosy. She purifies man and raises his moral worth, as all pain does, but more than any other pain. Why is she the enemy of grand dinners, and of midnight toil, and of all the charming occupations of mind and body?" (De malo medendi usu.) A German song was dedicated to her: O Gout my goddess, Gout my queen, And perfect health before thee.—(Podagrae Laus.) Lady Apoplexy, to whom they gaily made their saluta tions.1 Then comes philosophy to preside at their feasts with salutary effect. It teaches men that dining is a spiritual function. The table becomes idealised. Much thought is devoted to its decorations, to regaling the eyes with the sight of beautiful birds in their charming many-hued plumage-peacocks, storks, or small and pretty birds strung on skewers. The mistress of the house shows her art in having the daintiest courses served on gold and crystalthings which while tickling the palate content the mind; first dessert, composed of fruits and sweetmeats, then compounds of eggs or fish, light dishes, in which pistachios, pepper, ginger, rosemary, thyme, peppermint-everything that has sweetness or aroma insinuates itself and figures in manifold combinations. Just as in Plato's Symposium, people take their places at table not to eat but to talk, because conversation can have no warmer, more cheerful, more restful setting. Often in the platonist system some incomparable lady presided, and everything centred in her; from her eyes "rained love," that is, in the words of the guests, "meat and drink, ambrosia and nectar." She set the pitch; there was a cross-fire of witticisms flashing over the table like fireworks, or else wit fluttered lightly about amid a subdued hum of laughter. With one consent these were voted delightful hours. Men fuddled themselves with talk: ""Tis my greatest vice," confesses Erasmus. This art became so well acclimatised at the court of Francis I. that it soon became the joy of France. Margaret of France writes enthusiastically about those dinners at which they used to "fill themselves with words more than with meat." French wit, which always owes a little to good cheer, sparkled quite naturally. In Italy they were at fault in using aesthetic means too freely to support the dinner. They durst not trust simply to conversation, but employed music, a proceeding which appeared rank heresy in France. King Alfonso of Naples, indeed, long regarded as the pastmaster of good living, complicated his dinners with all sorts of refinements; after the first courses, the ears were enchanted with harmonies soft as the breeze of Capri blowing over the sparkling, 1 Gout was very common. Louise of Savoy suffered from it. rippling sea; or else there were mimes, the pulcinella,1 and roars of laughter. Then his guests returned to the table and remained till the moment when, their heads swimming with the strong and generous fumes of Falernian, they removed the plate and withdrew. In Germany the whole day was spent at the table, with a licence that was often gross, and with all that old mediaeval gaiety of which the Table-talk of Luther has preserved an excellent specimen. Yet the Rhine is not so broad nor the Alps so high but that such customs soon appeared disgusting and lamentable when compared with the politer modes which were spreading through the world. Many writers endeavoured to polish these table manners by publishing manuals of etiquette and collections of bons mots. If they did not establish the complete art of conversation they indicated its rudiments, and indeed their success was sufficient to necessitate in 1549 a recasting of the fourth edition of the classical collection of Gastius,2 and the suppression of a certain number of pleasantries which seemed out of place "in view of the distresses of the time." Thus the art of table-talk became so popular that even in Germany people endeavoured to cultivate it; but sprightliness, which is its very salt, remained till further orders a distinctively French quality. The ball and the dance, though much more aesthetic in themselves, were a great deal more difficult to idealise, because in them the sensuous element bulks more largely. Here, however, there was no need to exaggerate, and to proscribe dancing would have been absurd. What could be more ridiculous than the jealousy of certain husbands (husbands do not stand sufficiently in awe of ridicule!). And it was so useless, too. A woman who has her wits about her is never at a loss for a pretext for going to a rout; there is always a young girl at hand who needs chaperoning. Someone, indeed, mentions a young matron of Louise of Savoy's own court, who, to save an old husband an apoplectic fit, had the heroism to immure herself at home; but this is dead against the spirit of sociability. Why forge useless chains? Vivès himself, who is not open to suspicion, agrees 1[A sort of farcical comedy.] 2[Jean Gast, Swiss Protestant theologian (died 1553): author of Convivalium sermonum liber, meris jocis ac salibus refertus. |