ir maintenance. Most of the seigniors and ladies of the Court, the
worldly bishops, abbes, and parliamentarians of the drawing-room, knew
but little more than how to solicit with address, make a graceful parade
of themselves and spend lavishly. An ill-understood system of culture
had diverted them from their natural avocations, and converted them into
showy and agreeable specimens of vegetation, often hollow, blighted,
sapless and over-pruned, besides being very costly, over-manured and
too freely watered; and the skillful gardening which shaped, grouped
and arranged them in artificial forms and bouquets, rendered their
fruit abortive that flowers might be multiplied.--But the flowers were
exquisite, and even in a moralist's eyes, such flowering counts for
something. On the side of civility, good-breeding and deportment, the
manners and customs of high life had reached a degree of perfection,
which never, in France or elsewhere, had been attained before, and which
has never since been revived;[4149] and of all the arts through which
men have emancipated themselves from primitive coarseness, that which
teaches them mutual consideration is, perhaps, the most precious. The
observance of this, not alone in the drawing-room, but in the family, in
business, in the street, with regard to relatives, inferiors, servants
and strangers, gives dignity, as well as a charm, to human intercourse.
Delicate regard for what is proper becomes a habit, an instinct, a
second nature, which nature, superimposed on the original nature, is the
best, inasmuch as the internal code which governs each detail of action
and speech, prescribes the standard of behavior and respect for oneself,
as well as respect and refined behavior towards others.--To this merit,
add mental culture. Never was there an aristocracy so interested in
general ideas and refinement of expression; it was even too much so;
literary and philosophical preoccupation excluded all others of the
positive and practical order; they talked, instead of acting. But, in
this limited circle of speculative reason and of pure literary forms, it
excelled; writings and how to write furnished the ordinary entertainment
of polite society; every idea uttered by a thinker caused excitement
in the drawing-room: the talent and style of authors were shaped by its
taste;[4150] it was in the drawing-rooms that Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Rousseau, d'Alembert, the Encyclopedists, great and little,
Beaumarchais