DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0122
CALUMNIES
49
of calumny.” If calumny could not be more “fashionable” in Paris
than in London, it was assuredly more virulent, the licence allowed to the
malicious tongues and pens exceeding anything that Sheridan even suggests.
Slander had become so prevalent in the pleasure-seeking society of
that age that no one could be safe from its effects. Elsinore, when Hamlet
told Ophelia : “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
escape calumny,” was a place full of charity and veracity compared with
the Paris of the eighteenth century, especially of the latter half. The zest
for slander had its origin in frivolity. As Mercier wrote concerning the
“ proverbs ” played in certain drawing-rooms: “ Simple slander would
not hit the victim sufficiently hard ; what was wanted was that she should
expire from wounds made by the sharpest possible arrows, and all this
merely for amusement.” How openly slanders were published in those
days when, as a rule, the freedom of the press, outside politics, was
tempered only by fear of personal chastisement or private influence, we
shall see in the life-story of Vigee-Lebrun herself.
Several of the Parisian varieties of Snake and Crabtree are recalled
by Madame Lebrun, the most detestable in her sight being Chamfort, who
must have been odious indeed if she could abhor him, seeing that he was
a protege of her favourite the Comte de Vaudreuil. She allows that his
talk was very clever, but it was so acrid and so malicious that it had no
attraction for her, even if his coarseness and cynicism had not absolutely
disgusted her.
If she was, during the decade which preceded the outbreak of the
Revolution, a social favourite, much invited, she invited many in her turn,
and it was quite “ the right thing ” to pass an hour or two with the Queen’s
favourite painter. The rooms of her house in the Rue de Clery were
simply furnished, though of course the big gallery adjoining, in which her
husband did his business, was richly appointed, and hung with pictures
of price. Her enemies spread about that she lived in extravagant luxury,
and that her hangings, her couches, her candelabra, her plate and every-
thing else were after the style of Versailles. One man in particular, the
young and vicious Chevalier de Champcenetz, whose hostility she believed
to be due to his step-mother or his mother-in-law (we cannot say which, for
we only know it was his belle-mere) being jealous of her, declared that her
ceilings and walls were richly adorned with gilt mouldings, and that she
burnt only the expensive wood of aloes for her fires !
According to Madame Lebrun’s account, the origin of all these stories
4
49
of calumny.” If calumny could not be more “fashionable” in Paris
than in London, it was assuredly more virulent, the licence allowed to the
malicious tongues and pens exceeding anything that Sheridan even suggests.
Slander had become so prevalent in the pleasure-seeking society of
that age that no one could be safe from its effects. Elsinore, when Hamlet
told Ophelia : “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
escape calumny,” was a place full of charity and veracity compared with
the Paris of the eighteenth century, especially of the latter half. The zest
for slander had its origin in frivolity. As Mercier wrote concerning the
“ proverbs ” played in certain drawing-rooms: “ Simple slander would
not hit the victim sufficiently hard ; what was wanted was that she should
expire from wounds made by the sharpest possible arrows, and all this
merely for amusement.” How openly slanders were published in those
days when, as a rule, the freedom of the press, outside politics, was
tempered only by fear of personal chastisement or private influence, we
shall see in the life-story of Vigee-Lebrun herself.
Several of the Parisian varieties of Snake and Crabtree are recalled
by Madame Lebrun, the most detestable in her sight being Chamfort, who
must have been odious indeed if she could abhor him, seeing that he was
a protege of her favourite the Comte de Vaudreuil. She allows that his
talk was very clever, but it was so acrid and so malicious that it had no
attraction for her, even if his coarseness and cynicism had not absolutely
disgusted her.
If she was, during the decade which preceded the outbreak of the
Revolution, a social favourite, much invited, she invited many in her turn,
and it was quite “ the right thing ” to pass an hour or two with the Queen’s
favourite painter. The rooms of her house in the Rue de Clery were
simply furnished, though of course the big gallery adjoining, in which her
husband did his business, was richly appointed, and hung with pictures
of price. Her enemies spread about that she lived in extravagant luxury,
and that her hangings, her couches, her candelabra, her plate and every-
thing else were after the style of Versailles. One man in particular, the
young and vicious Chevalier de Champcenetz, whose hostility she believed
to be due to his step-mother or his mother-in-law (we cannot say which, for
we only know it was his belle-mere) being jealous of her, declared that her
ceilings and walls were richly adorned with gilt mouldings, and that she
burnt only the expensive wood of aloes for her fires !
According to Madame Lebrun’s account, the origin of all these stories
4