eJournals Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 43/85

Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature
0343-0758
2941-086X
Narr Verlag Tübingen
2016
4385

Mathurin Régnier’s Satire Macette: Early Modern Concepts of sociabilité and honneur

2016
Bruce Edmunds
PFSCL XLIII, 85 (2016) Mathurin Régnier’s Satire Macette: Early Modern Concepts of sociabilité and honneur B RUCE E DMUNDS (T HE U NIVERSITY OF A LABAMA ) Régnier’s decision to name his entremetteuse Macette, suppressing thereby the “O” in Thomasse 1 invites reflection on the nature and use of this lost circle. Speaking the letter the mouth forms a circle, suggesting by its absence in the name of the work and its principle character that discourse will be used in a way that threatens wholeness. Suppressing the “O” also announces that we will see something inimical to that other circle, the womb, and the life cycle it instantiates. Of course, I do not claim that Régnier consciously chose the diminutive form of Thomasse in order to open a space in which to play with circles. Such an intention could conceivably leave traces in the written record surrounding the text, or perhaps be divined from the satire itself, but that is not what I wish to determine here. I merely wish to show that Régnier’s textual and thematic play involving the figure of the circle goes far beyond the invocation of the twin themes of speech and sex. Indeed, one can read the satire as forming a figure of three concentric circles, each of which, in its own particular way, traps the individual and renders impossible the creation and maintenance of that true circle, the authentic community as embodied in the ethic of sociabilité. To show how this is so, however, I must first clarify the concept of sociabilité. Two of its features pertain to this study. First, sociabilité implies that which binds individuals together through gesture, conversation or symbol. Sganarelle’s panegyric of tobacco in Dom Juan is a good example (Act 1, Scene 1, p. 715). 2 If, as Serres argues, 3 taking tobacco and sharing it is the consummately social act, a genuine instance of the true exchange 1 Robert Aulotte, Mathurin Régnier : Les Satires (Paris: SEDES, 1983). 2 I am using the Jouanny edition of Molière’s Œuvres complètes in two volumes (Bordas: Paris, 1989 and 1993). References to Dom Garcie, and Dom Juan which are in the first volume will be identified by Act, Scene and page. 3 Hermès ou la Communication (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1968). Bruce Edmunds 242 Dom Juan perverts, to refuse it is to refuse the very principle of human sociability. Making Serres’ reading compelling is the fact that what immediately follows the panegyric of tobacco is Sganarelle’s description of his master as a grand seigneur méchant homme (716), as, in other words, a monster, a mixed being whose very existence threatens the social order, and marks a kind of crisis. The second feature of sociabilité important for this study is that it acknowledges the evolving nature of the various features defining an individual. 4 How then does the innermost circle threaten the ethic of sociability, and what forms the circle? Régnier generates the circle, first of all, by drawing the reader’s attention to the idea of surfaces. The first circle, accordingly, is the young woman herself, whose entire being is confined to the surface of a circle, or rather a sphere, that contains nothing, an empty womb, an empty head, a mouth containing no tongue that speaks. This is both the state of affairs at the outset and the state Macette’s efforts aim to perpetuate. One notes immediately that at no point can we be sure the young woman speaks. We can, at most, affirm that Macette shifts direction, or becomes emphatic in response to some manifestation of discomfort on the part of the young woman (e.g. vv. 112 and 181). No doubt this is in part due to the fact that the entire satire is a portrait, above all. But after all, the portrait does not preclude the representation of interaction, and French society is already heading into the reign of honnêteté, which has been defined as a philosophy of adaption (57) . 5 So the absence of speech is an important feature even in a satirical portrait of someone else. More specifically, placing all speech in Macette’s mouth has two consequences relevant to this study. First, it indicates the nullity and powerlessness of the young woman, attributes reinforced by that fact that Régnier never gives her a name. She evidently lacks that mysterious intelligence that allowed Agnes to escape the clutches of an equally manipulative and overwhelming figure, her “guardian” Arnauld. 6 Faithful to the pattern of comedy, Molière arranges an escape for Agnes and her lover, thwarting the machinations of the figure that threatens the community. One can expect no such outcome in Régnier’s satire. 4 Larry Riggs has traced this theme in numerous works, especially those of Molière. See his book, Molière and Plurality: Decomposition of the Classicist Self (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1989). 5 Jean-Philipe Grosperrin, “Variations sur le ‘style des nobles’ dans quelques comédies de Molière.” Littératures (Autumn 1999) 44-71. 6 Barbara Johnson, “Teaching Ignorance: L’école des femmes.” Yale French Studies 63 (1982): 165-182. Marthurin Régnier’s Satire Macette 243 In other words, the young woman lacks the interior dimension that would make genuine connection possible. She is the surface of a circle containing nothing at all. In terms of speech she is rendered literally idle. But, and here is the second of the two consequences announced above, Macette is equally guilty of idleness, though in a more profound and pernicious way. Macette exhibits a pattern we have noted in several writers beginning with Descartes 7 : a frantic activity that conceals a deeper form of intellectual idleness and sterility. We will take up this discussion later. For now, let us return to a consideration of this second consequence. We have argued that we can see in the theme of surfaces not just the young woman’s actual vacuity, but also Macette’s goal of maintaining it. So it is that the young woman’s soul is to become a troubling kind of mirror: Faites, s’il est possible, un miroir de votre âme,/ Qui reçoit tous objets et tout contant les perd (vv. 174-6). One might think this is a straightforward statement of the stoic ideal, but the editor’s note makes it clear this is far from the case. 8 Rather, it emphasizes again that interior emptiness. Objects pass into a mirror then out, leaving nothing behind, no trace. The mirror remains unchanged and totally devoid of any stable content. A later generation of moralists, like La Bruyère and the later Molière, will represent this inner emptiness as the essential, unavoidable nature of human being, 9 but Régnier is not there yet. For him, clearly, it is avoidable and therefore censurable. The castigat has not yet dropped off the castigat ridendo mores as it will by the time Molière writes Georges Dandin. In this connection one can understand that Macette’s critique of honneur also implies a total absence of any interior dimension. Let us not confuse this critique with Pascal’s rejection of honneur as a nefarious and illegitimate alternative to the ethical stance of humilité. To be sure, for the narrator Macette offers a warped version of honor, but showing this does not imply that he is commending an alternative ethical principle but rather a genuine principle of honor. 10 The warped version does greatly resemble 7 “Idleness and Mastery: Descartes’ Tree, Descartes’ Treatise.” Cahiers Du Dix- Septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4.2 (1990): 237-249. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 Mar. 2016. 8 Œuvres complètes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1954), note 2, p. 180. 9 See respectively Michael S. Koppisch, “The Dissolution Of Character: Changing Perspectives in La Bruyère’s Caractères.” French Forum, 1981; and Robert J. Nelson, “The Unreconstructed Heroes of Molière.” The Tulane Drama Review 4.3 (1960): 14-37. 10 It is not a question here, for example of the habile’s submission to a social order he recognizes as unjust as a form of penance as Pascal develops the distinction in several of his Pensées. Bruce Edmunds 244 that of Pascal’s Jesuits, a comparison to which we will return when we discuss the second of the three circles mentioned in the introduction. For now let us note that honneur, for Macette, is not defined in terms of fidelity to any kind of principle, but merely as a tool of manipulation. Like the mirror it has no stable content, but merely reflects in a shifting and circumstantial fashion. As such, it is reducible to mere renommée (v. 77), which is further described in terms of sterility: C’est une vanité confusément semée/ Dans l’esprit des humains, un mal d’opinion,/ Un faut germe avorté dans notre affection (vv. 78-80). As the editor points out (note 2, p. 176), these terms evoke difficult conception and birth. Paradoxically, honor, true honor, is what guarantees productivity, whereas the conduct Macette suggests would hinder it. She continues; Les vieux contes d’honneur dont on repaît les dames/ Ne sont que des appâts pour les débiles âmes/ Qui sans choix de raison ont le cerveau perclus (vv. 81-83). The use of ne…que anticipates La Rochefoucauld, where it appears to great effect in the very exergue of the Maximes: Nos vertus ne sont, le plus souvent, que des vices déguisés. 11 To stuff someone with something that is empty (ne…que) is to leave them empy in fact, but with the sentiment of being full, which is not a bad definition of suffisance, a variant of which she uses to describe the young gentlemen who could pose a danger to the young woman, the court’s beaux suffisans (v. 213). Clearly this is a false suffisance. True and workable suffisance, which equates to competence or quality, entails recognizing the need for a continuing, indeed perpetual, relationship with the solicitation of the collectivity. 12 Honor, then, for Macette, is a mere word with no intrinsic meaning but which can be used as a tool of manipulation (vv. 85-8). Entirely defined as discourse, which is itself entirely fashioned by circumstance, it is not a principle that can be stated, internalized, then put into practice as an ethical guide. Even if she were to embrace it, she would remain mere surface, empty and mutable like the mirror. In her effort to persuade, however, Macette goes beyond commending a principle that reduces to mere utility or self-preservation, and this takes us to the second circle. Her counsel presents itself first as the need to embrace a perverted form of maitrise de soi, mostly for instrumental reasons, then as the rightness of living a form of heroism that anticipates in certain ways 11 Editions Garnier Frères: Paris, 1967, p. 7. 12 Again, see Riggs. I use suffisance in the way Pascal means it when speaking of the Jesuits, that is to say, behavior indicative of vanity and of the attempt to be sufficient unto oneself. The accusation is made repeatedly throughout the Provinciales. As to the second meaning, it occurs, for example in the pensée on the imagination: Nous ne pouvons pas seulement voir un avocat en soutane et le bonnet en tête sans une opinion avantageuse de sa suffisance. (Lafuma, 44) Marthurin Régnier’s Satire Macette 245 Corneille, both of which, I will argue, imply a false kind of closed circle, a circle that makes the establishment of true connection and community impossible. In his description of Macette’s behavior, the narrator anticipates both themes. The reference to Thérèse (v. 21) undercuts the coming reference to Macette’s grasp of theological issues since La Vie de la Mère Thérèse was known as the Bible des Bigottes (note 5, p. 172). The lines that follow show Macette has a detailed knowledge of the relative values of various indulgences: Sçait du nom de Jesus toutes les indulgences,/ Que valent chapelet, grains benits, enfilez,/ Et l’ordre du cordon des Peres Recollez (vv. 26-8). The narrator already insists on the simonistic aspect of her knowledge through the use of the verb valoir (valent). 13 From the beginning Macette conflates the language of piety with that of material gain: Qu’eussiez-vous tout le bien dont le Ciel vous est chiche (v. 53). A few verses further on we read: Je scay bien votre cas: un homme grand, adroit,/ Riche et Dieu sçait s’il a tout ce qu’il vous faudrait ! (vv. 59-60). Cas evokes casuistry and echoes the way Macette addresses the young woman, ma fille, which suggests she is adopting the role of directrice de conscience. 14 Lest there be any doubt that tout ce qu’il vous faudrez is to be understood first of all in material terms, a list of goods follows: Vous devriez, étant belle, avoir de beaux habits,/ Esclater de satin, de perles, de rubis (vv. 67-8). The verb Esclater again emphasizes surfaces: all these goods relate to what is immediately visible. They trump more intrinsic qualities and measures of beauty and in fact, allow for a certain self-serving deception: Ma foye, les beaux habits servent bien à la mine; / On a beau s’agencer et faire les doux yeux,/ Quand on est bien paré on est toujours mieux. (vv. 74-6). S’agencer (as we learn in note 4, p. 174) means se rendre gente, which introduces the theme of belonging to a specific community, but it is one Macette defines in a peculier way. Recall v. 67: Vous devriez étant belle, avoir de beaux habits. For noblesse oblige Macette substitutes Beauté oblige, and the obligation is to acquire things for one’s own comfort and delight. So it is that Macette warps an ethic defined in terms of mutual obligation and aid into one that is totally solipsistic. What makes it convincing is that Macette gives it a patina of respectibility by assimilating an esthetic obligation to a social one (adaptation, conformity to a norm) effectively emptying 13 This makes one suspect that the brief moment of suspense followed by the unmasking is a gesture toward convention, that it is not Régnier’s true propos. Rather, it shows that the narrator himself is guilty of the intellectual failures that will be at issue throughout the early modern critique of idleness. 14 Régnier’s satire was composed years prior to Pascal’s excoriation of casuistry, but Pascal, if the best known opponent, was hardly the first, so Régnier’s condemnation of hypocrisy could certainly contain references to it. Bruce Edmunds 246 the latter of substance. She thereby urges the young woman to join a fantome community which will close her off from genuine connection and belonging. Macette defines the obligation to prositute oneself in such a way that to refuse would be impertinent in the special sense the word has in the early modern context. As Grosperrin shows (52-54), it is for the esprit classique the refusal of genuine relationship and community implied in the imperfect adherence to its code of conduct. We indicated that Macette proposes training in self-mastery, initially in support of the goal and activity we have just documented. We have read the verse Faites, s’il est possible, un miroir de votre âme (v. 174) as an admonition to suppress any interior dimension, but it is also a statement of self-mastery (Surtout, Soyez de vous la maitresse et la dame, v. 173) urged as a tool through which one maximizes material benefit, which entails, as we have seen, the ability to acquire and relinquish as the circumstances warrant (vv. 174-5). Macette continues: Fuyez ce qui vous nuit, aimez ce qui vous sert,/ Faites profit de tout et même de vos pertes; / A prendre sagement ayez les mains ouvertes,/ Ne faites, s’il se peut jamais présent ny don,/ Si ce n’est d’un chabot pour avoir un gardon (vv. 175- 180). Profit clarifies ce qui and shows that what Macette is proposing here is a business plan. The open hands which in religious iconography signify generosity, openness and giving, here represent grasping, itself made possible by prior manipulation, which in turn necessitates self-mastery. Generosity is also a key component in the feudal conception of honor, as one sees in, for example, the works of Chrétien de Troyes or of Rabelais, a reminder that Macette is hypocritical both in religious and social terms. In short, through a careful redeployment of gestures and terms, Macette would confine the young woman to an infernal circle effected through the progression you are, you should, you must, do it. As the goal (get rich, get me rich) is apparently not sufficiently persuasive, Macette proposes another, be a hero: Non, non, faites l’amour et vendez aux amans/ Vos accueils, vos baisers et vos embrassemens; / C’est gloire et non pas honte, en ceste douce peine,/ Des acquests de son lit accroistre son domaine/ Vendez ces doux regards, ces attraits, ces appas,/ vous mesme vendez-vous, mais ne vous livrez pas; / Conservez-vous l’esprit, gardez vostre franchise,/ Prenez tout s’il se peut, ne soyez jamais prise (vv. 159-166). Gloire and douce peine announce the cornelian hero. To master oneself is glorious to the degree that it is difficult and painful. Selling oneself is more difficult than giving oneself for love; therefore, it is more heroic. The same logic underpins Macette’s later admonition: Formez-vous des desseins dignes de vos merites,/ Toutes basses amours sont pour vous trop petites,/ Ayez dessein aux dieux; pour de moindres beautez/ Ils ont laissé jadis les cieux des-habitez Marthurin Régnier’s Satire Macette 247 (vv. 265-9). One hears Don Diegue’s joyous (and shockingly insensitive) imperative in Le Cid: Porte, porte plus haut les fruits de ta victoire, but here the victory is not in service of clan, king or even lover, but in service to oneself first in purely material terms, but also in terms of the hero’s project. The one reference to the possibility of benefitting someone else must be understood in this context. It is a matter of wives advancing their husbands’ interests through prostitution: Combien, pour avoir mis leur honneur en sequestre,/ Ont-elles aux atours eschange le limestre/ Et dans les pous hauts rangs esleve leurs maris? (vv. 97-9). Note though, that the benefit to the husband occurs as a sort of side-effect. The real benefit, and it is no accident that it is listed first, is that prostitution allows the woman finer clothes. Also, one presumes, once her husband has achieved a high rank she will have wider access to the wealthy and powerful. In other words, the principal effect of her promotion of her husband’s interest is that of providing the wife/ prostitute with a better hunting ground. That means higher stakes, a bigger haul, and more worthy opponents/ marks. The behavior Macette is urging, which instrumentalizes knowledge, she herself will follow, and that brings us the third circle. As directrice de conscience, Macette bears an uncanny resemblance to the Jesuits Pascal will vilify in the Provinciales. Like them, she severs a term from its received meaning where that meaning would inhibit behavior that is advantageous to a given group, inimical to anyone outside it. So charité from case to case allows for a progressive displacement of responsibility towards others ending in the following permission: Quand on voit un voleur résolu et prêt à voler une personne pauvre, on peut, pour l’en détourner, lui assigner quelque personne riche, en particulier, pour le voler au lieu de l’autre (Huitième Lettre, pp. 141- 2). 15 This is a Jesuit priest quoting a certain Vasquez who is quoting a certain Castro Palao. We then learn that the same doctrine can be found in Escobar, in a work entitled La Pratique de notre Société pour la charité envers le prochain. Thus terms unmoored from their conventional meanings receive new definitions which then circulate within a particular group. These new meanings benefit that group in specific ways. To be effective, however, they must remain concealed from those who possess the ability to discern sincere service to others from service to oneself at others’ expense. This helps illuminate the following lines: Ma fille, c’est ainsi qu’on vit à Paris,/ Et la veufve aussi bien comme la mariée,/ Celle est chaste, sans plus, qui n’en est point priée./ Toutes au fait d’amour se chaussent en un poinct,/ Et Jeanne que tu sçais, dont on ne parle point,/ Qui fait si doucement la simple et la discrète,/ Elle n’est pas 15 Les Provinciales, ed. Cognet (Paris: Editions Garnier Frères, 1965). Bruce Edmunds 248 plus chaste mais elle est plus secrète,/ Elle a plus de respet, non moins de passion/ Et cache ses amours sous sa discretion. (vv. 100-109) The reference to Jeanne que tu sçais suggests a very close but hidden world whose adherents have license to give in to their concupiscence, one of the three rivers that threaten to burn those who do not exercise discipline and vigilance (Pensée 545, Lafuma). Macette’s recommendation itself, and the fact that she makes it, arise from, foster and depend upon a kind of intellectual torpor that betrays the individual in several ways. First it does not acknowledge the context of a statement, which would reveal, for example, that it is insincere or self-serving. Second, it blinds the individual to certain dishonest persuasive moves. In Macette, a good example would be the slippage from the esthetic to the ethical: Vous devriez, etant belle, avoir de beaux habits (v. 67). Or, even more flagrant, the shift in meaning of the word bien: Il n’est que d’en avoir, le bien est toujours bien/ Et ne vous doit chaloir ni de qui, ni combine (vv. 391-2); that is to say, money (a good) is always good (right, appropriate). As Aulotte puts it, Il s’agit pour Macette, d’amener par son langage d’abord à double entente puis plus clair, cette jeune femme à admettre l’équivalence entre l’amour et l’argent (93). As for Macette’s own story, it seems to reveal the same pattern. She is lasse but not soule (v. 9). And she has served as quintaine; that is, as an object that strikes a horseman when he misses his mark. This could be a reference to her role as entremetteuse, but this has not yet been revealed to the narrator. More likely it refers to the fact that her lovers have missed the mark. She is tired but not satisfied and, one presumes, has never known love. Frantic activity that ensues from a lack of discernment indicates foolishness, itself the sign that she has not given sufficient thought or care to ethical or spiritual matters. She has become empty and closed in upon herself in such a way that no true connection is possible. She will become more lasse without ever becoming soule, and converting the young woman will bring funds but no consolation. The idleness of mind that has made the young woman a mark for Macette supports a sterile activity (prostitution) and wastes energy in a context that is both corrupt and an incitement to corruption.