intermediate style of drama,-religious comedies, a sort of Italianised 'morality,' easier to produce and not so longdrawn-out as the ancient Mysteries, yet neither very pious, nor very amusing, nor much calculated to take the public by storm. The result was that the drama long retained traces of its original character. So late as the 18th century Voltaire dedicated a tragedy to the pope, and fumed at not being able to get it performed at Geneva. The only cosmopolitan kind of piece was that of the farces, knockabouts,1 harlequinades, carnival drolleries, to which the most illustrious platonists of Florence attached their names.2 Harlequin and Punch were always a success in France: "They have something that sets you laughing without being amused"; but they introduced nothing new. The French farce had long been flourishing on the boards; the Italian was only a competitor. To sum up, the women of the Renaissance, as we see, did not try to be savants or blue-stockings. They skimmed the cream off books and works of art so as to get what suited their mission, that is, something to talk about and to go into raptures over. They did not rise to what was called "humanism," like the prelates; they stopped short at loving intellectual beauty more than plastic beauty; they cultivated a literature of sentiment and passion, and took a keen delight in beauty of form. They behaved as instructed women, and above all as women of feeling, as women who wished to please, nobly faithful to their singleeyed pursuit of elevated love. 1[Pochades] * Lorenzo de' Medici, Pico della Mirandola, Agnolo Dovizio da Bibbiena, Bernardo Ruccellai [see George Eliot's Romola], Machiavelli, and others: it was a singular, incoherent, burlesque procession of characters of all sorts and sizes-devils, deaths, nymphs, courtiers, old husbands, young wives, merry nuns, hunters and huntresses, pages, winds, furies. CHAPTER VI CONVERSATION WE come at last to conversation. This was the goal, the sanctuary of happiness, nay, bliss itself. All that we have hitherto spoken of led up to this all-engrossing object, for love was the supreme end, and speech is the vehicle of love. A circle of men about a lady, and she talking or making them talk,—this was the supreme and final formula of life. Conversation, then, was the great art of the platonists, infinitely greater than painting or sculpture, greater than music, poetry or oratory, because it alone established real communication between soul and soul, it alone was privileged to body forth a whole realm of unexpressed emotions which would freeze at the end of a pen or pencil, and which music itself would render but ill. Words that well up with the eloquence of spontaneity possess an indescribable vital force impossible to analyse; innumerable details contribute to it -the inflection of the voice, the gesture, the expression of the eyes, the movement of the lips, the play of all the features. A mineral water taken at its source has, as every one knows, singular virtues which are impoverished if it is carried to a distance, and which the most skilful chemist cannot restore. So also the fount of human intelligence must be drunk at its source. If need be, it is well worth a journey. Without women there would be no conversation. For a man who thinks he can converse without wearing the feminine yoke there is nothing but to go off by himself like Cardan, that intolerable chatterbox, who, though the author of two hundred and fifty-five volumes, had the audacity to publish a book In Praise of Silence. "Never," he exclaims, "am I more truly with those I love than when I am alone." Our opinion would rather coincide with that of the amiable emigré whom his friends urged to marry the object of his passion, and who answered, "But then, where should I spend my evenings?" To draw a man out and show him what he is capable of, it is necessary for a woman to throw out the bait; an ambition to please, an instinct of sympathy, a thousand fleeting intangible nothings, veritable microbes of sentiment, will do the rest. But we do not hesitate to add that, without men, women would hardly know how to talk. Men have often inveighed against the loquacity,1 the backbiting, the imprudence, the frivolity, the paltry and scandalmongering spirit of the rudimentary and inartistic conversations that women engage in when left to themselves; this kind of conversation can no more be called conversation than certain intrigues can be called love, or than daubing a house front can be called painting a picture. 2 Certain of women's little defects remain defects or become virtues according as the women know or do not know how to make use of them. Gossips, the women who can think and talk certainly are, and they plume themselves on the fact. That can only be called a defect in those who have nothing to say. Margaret of France confesses that when she opened her mouth, it was long before she shut it again.3 Sometimes, however, women are troubled with a certain intellectual timidity arising either from their education, as their friends say, or from their temperament, as their enemies maintain. They easily make up their minds, but can seldom give you their reasons; their intellect clings like ivy to some principle reputed substantial, in other words, one that is affirmed by their neighbours, or is traditional, or is ingrained from childhood; and the slightest breath of raillery only attaches them to it the more closely. This disposition would be fatal to a writer. To write one needs the power to think for oneself and to give virile expression to one's thoughts, at the risk of getting a name 1"With the tongue seven men are not a match for one woman” (Erasmus, Colloquies). 2"He who keeps his mouth shut knows no care" (P. Meyer). 3 Heptameron, Tale 10. for paradox or eccentricity; but for conversation nothing is less necessary; on the contrary, the trite is eminently serviceable. Conversation serves to test current ideas; it gives them so to speak a stamp, a hall-mark, a label, and women understand its utility all the better because they largely avail themselves of it and acquire their convictions through it. On the other hand they possess as the gift of Nature that which is the very life of conversation,-facility of assimilation without the necessity of going to the root of the matter; the ability to express quickly, clearly and copiously the impression of the moment; a feeling for fine shades; skill in fitly garbing their thoughts, and in maintaining them with the necessary unction, grace, and warmth. No more is needed. The age in which we live, priding itself on its practical spirit, has neglected this art of conversation. We have almost entirely lost the feeling for it because of its unpretentiousness, and we declare it unimportant on the ground that we are no longer platonists and can no longer find in mere phrases the supreme felicity of life. Yet it is an art of eminent utility in regard to the charm of existence,—a genuine and highly intellectual art, an art that in the 18th century was one of our national glories. By their witty conversation the ladies of the house of Mortemart did more to make their race illustrious than all the artists and all the soldiers. Saint-Simon has given us an excellent description of the talent of three of them, who boasted neither of mysticism nor perhaps of philosophy-Mesdames de Montespan, de Fontevrault, and de Thianges: "Their court was the centre of wit, and wit of so special and fine a savour, yet withal so natural and pleasant, that it came to be noted for its unique character. . . . All three possessed it in abundance, and appeared to impart it to others. This charming sympathy of theirs still delights us in the survivors of those whom they bred up and attached to themselves; you could tell them among a thousand in the most miscellaneous company." That was the goal aimed at by the 16th-century women, since it made men immortal, and gave them a full life on earth meanwhile-since, in a word, it was happiness. We could scarcely realise the empire certain women exercised if we neglected to take into account their wonderful conversational powers, and judged them merely by their writings, or by their letters even. Justly or unjustly, the writings of Margaret of France met with no success. Marot, in complimenting his dear princess on them, had recourse to an evasion of no little ingenuity: "When I see your poems only, I marvel that people do not admire them more; but when I hear you speak, I veer completely round, amazed that anyone is so foolish as to marvel thereat." Like many others, Margaret held sway through conversation. Some cross-grained people imagine that to women talking is the easiest thing in the world, that friends spring up around them spontaneously, that the art reduces itself to finishing their toilette by lunch time and then letting their tongues wag till evening. It is extremely simple, they say. Simple! They think it sufficient then to fling their doors open on certain days, and to deal out here and there among their guests a few formal and chilling inanities! "Men are so scarce that when you have them you should rate them very high," said Anne of France, very justly. Simple, not to rest satisfied with the mere glitter of small talk, but to take full possession of one's visitors, to form a warm nest of friends! It is a heavy task. If in these days women no longer exercise any serious influence, is it not to some extent their own fault? A superficial and cramped education has often rendered them incapable of effort. They are afraid of a conversation on broad, serious lines; they will not be bothered with it. But to form a set, a woman must belong to herself no longer, she must belong to her friends; conversation is her bread of life, to adopt an expressive phrase, and she does in fact become so habituated to her part that she cannot do without it; she must talk, if only with her husband. Mary of England used to talk to Louis XII.— Soubz le drap couvert d'orfebvrerie, 1 Beneath the broidered sheets we lay- |