François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)
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| + | | style="text-align: left;" | "[[Weak people cannot be sincere]]" | ||
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| + | "[[What makes us like new acquaintances]]" | ||
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| + | "Some people would never know love if they had not heard it talked about" | ||
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| + | "[[Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise]]" | ||
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| + | "The refusal of [[praise]] is only the wish to be praised twice." | ||
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| + | --[[François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)|François de La Rochefoucauld]] | ||
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| + | '''François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac''' (15 September 1613 – 17 March 1680) was a noted French author of [[maxim|maxims]] which were collected under the title ''[[Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales]]''. His is a clear-eyed, worldly view of human conduct that indulges in neither condemnation nor sentimentality. Born in Paris on the ''Rue des Petits Champs'', at a time when the royal court was oscillating between aiding the nobility and threatening it, he was considered an exemplar of the accomplished 17th-century [[nobleman]]. Until 1650, he bore the title of ''Prince de Marcillac''. | ||
| + | ==''Salon'' participation== | ||
| + | Somewhat earlier, La Rochefoucauld had taken his place in the [[salon (gathering)|salon]] of [[Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé]], a member of the [[Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet|Marquise de Rambouillet]] ''côterie'', and the founder of a kind of successor to it, whose special literary work was the writing of ''Sentences'' and ''Maximes''. In 1662, the Dutch firm, [[Elsevier]], surreptitiously published what purported to be his memoirs, which brought him both trouble and fame. Many of his old friends were offended. These memoires were not a faithful copy of what he had written, and while he hastened to deny their authenticity, this was not generally believed. | ||
| - | '''François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac''' ([[September 15]], [[1613]] – [[March 17]], [[1680]]), was a noted [[France|French]] author of [[maxim (saying)|maxims]] and [[memoirs]], as well as an example of the accomplished [[17th-century]] [[nobleman]]. He was born in [[Paris]] in the Rue des Petits Champs, at a time when the royal court oscillated between aiding the nobility and threatening it. Until [[1650]], he bore the title of Prince de Marcillac. | + | Three years later, in 1665, he anonymously published the ''Maximes'', (maxims) which established his position among the men of letters of the time. At about the same date, his friendship with Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, [[Madame de La Fayette|Comtesse de La Fayette]] began, which lasted for the rest of his life. The glimpses which we have of him henceforward are chiefly from the letters of [[Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné|Madame de Sévigné]], and though they show him suffering from gout, are on the whole pleasant ones. |
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| + | He had a circle of devoted friends and was recognized as a top-ranking moralist and man of letters. His son, the ''Prince de Marcillac'', to whom he gave his titles and honors in 1671, enjoyed a considerable position at court. But above all La Rochefoucauld was recognized by his contemporaries, including the king, as an exemplar of the older ''noblesse'', the nobility that existed under the great monarch before the brilliance of his reign faded. This reputation he has retained to the present day. | ||
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| + | La Rochefoucauld's ethical views have given rise to attacks upon his works by pious moralists of later eras. Like his contemporaries, he saw politics as a chessboard for powerful players, rather than as a struggle of ideologies or a means for achieving broad social goals. He appears to have been unusually scrupulous in his personal conduct, and his lack of success in the aristocratic struggles arose more from this than from anything else. | ||
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| + | He died of gout in Paris on 17 March 1680. | ||
| ==Literary works== | ==Literary works== | ||
| - | His importance as a social and historical figure is, however, far inferior to his importance in literature. His work in this respect consists of three parts--letters, ''[[Memoirs (Rochefoucauld)|Memoirs]]'' and the ''[[Maximes]]''. His letters exceed one hundred in number, and are biographically valuable, besides displaying not a few of his literary characteristics. The ''Memoirs'', when they are read in their proper form, yield in literary merit, in interest, and in value to no memoirs of the time, not even to those of [[Cardinal de Retz|Retz]], between whom and La Rochefoucauld there was a strange mixture of enmity and esteem which resulted in a couple of most characteristic "portraits." But their history is unique in its strangeness. It has been said that a pirated edition appeared in [[Holland]], and this, despite the author's protest, continued to be reprinted for some thirty years. It has been now proved to be a mere [[Cento (poetry)|cento]] of the work of half a dozen different men, scarcely a third of which is La Rochefoucauld's, and which could only have been possible at a time when it was the habit of persons who frequented literary society to copy pell-mell in commonplace books the manuscript compositions of their friends and others. Some years after La Rochefoucauld's death a new recension appeared, somewhat less incorrect than the former, but still largely adulterated, and this held its ground for more than a century. Only in [[1817]] did anything like a genuine edition (even then by no means perfect) appear. | + | :''[[Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales]]'' |
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| + | His importance as a social and historical figure is overshadowed by his towering stature in French literature. His literary work consists of three parts—his ''[[Memoirs (Rochefoucauld)|Memoirs]]'', the ''[[Maximes]]'' and his letters. | ||
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| + | The ''Memoirs'' are of high interest and literary merit. A book purporting to be La Rochefoucauld's memoirs was published in the [[Dutch Republic]] from whence, despite the author's protest, it continued to be reprinted for some thirty years. It has now been proved to have been pieced together from the work of half a dozen men, with scarcely a third of it being La Rochefoucauld's. Some years after La Rochefoucauld's death, a new [[recension]] appeared, still largely adulterated but with some errors corrected. This work went unchallenged for more than a century. Only in 1817 did anything like a genuine, if still imperfect, edition appear. | ||
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| + | However, the pithy, elegant ''Maximes'', (maxims) had no such fate. The author made frequent alterations and additions to them during his life and a few were added after his death. It is usual now to publish them in their totality of 504. The majority consist of just two or three lines, and hardly any exceed half a page. La Rochefoucauld reflects on the conduct and motives of mankind, from the point of view of a man of the world who intends not to sugar-coat his observations. In fact, in his introduction, he advises, "...the best approach for the reader to take would be to put in his mind right from the start that none of these maxims apply to himself in particular, and that he is the sole exception, even though they appear to be generalities. After that I guarantee that he will be the first to endorse them and he will believe that they do credit to the human spirit." | ||
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| + | Here are a few examples: | ||
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| + | II. [[Self-love]] is the greatest of all flatterers. | ||
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| + | VIII. Sincere enthusiasm is the only orator who always persuades. It is like an art the rules of which never fail; the simplest man with enthusiasm persuades better than the most eloquent with none. | ||
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| + | XIV. Men are not only subject to losing all recollection of kindnesses and injuries done them, they even hate those to whom they are obliged and cease to hate those who have harmed them. The effort of repaying the kindness and avenging the evil seem to them a servitude to which they are unwilling to submit. | ||
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| + | XXX. If we had no faults, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others. | ||
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| + | CCLXI. Flirtatiousness is fundamental to a woman's nature, but not all put it into practice because some are restrained by fear or by good sense. | ||
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| + | CDXI. There hardly exist faults which are not more pardonable than the means by which one tries to hide them. | ||
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| + | CDXXXIII. The truest mark of having been born with great qualities is to have been born without envy. | ||
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| + | His letters number more than one hundred, and they are of both biographical and literary value. | ||
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| + | La Rochefoucauld's thoughts on human nature concern, among a broad range of topics, pride and self-love, the passions and the emotions, love, sincerity, conversation, and politics. | ||
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| + | ==Influence== | ||
| + | Nearly all the great French critics of the 19th century wrote to some extent about La Rochefoucauld. | ||
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| + | For a recent assessment of La Rochefoucauld's thought and his place in modern culture see John Farrell, ''[[Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau]]'' (Cornell UP, 2006), chapter nine. | ||
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| + | Philosopher, [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], greatly admired La Rochefoucauld and was influenced not only by his ethics, but also his style. | ||
| - | The ''Maximes'', however, had no such fate. The author re-edited them frequently during his life, with alterations and additions; a few were added after his death, and it is usual now to print the whole of them, at whatever time they appeared, together. Thus taken, they amount to about seven hundred in number, in hardly any case exceeding half a page in length, and more frequently confined to two or three lines. The view of conduct which they illustrate is usually and not quite incorrectly summed up in the words "everything is reducible to the motive of self-interest." But though not absolutely incorrect, the phrase is misleading. The ''Maximes'' are in no respect mere deductions from or applications of any such general theory. They are on the contrary independent judgments on different relations of life, different affections of the human mind, and so forth, from which, taken together, the general view may be deduced or rather composed. Sentimental moralists have protested loudly against this view, yet it is easier to declaim against it in general than to find a flaw in the several parts of which it is made up. | + | The editions of La Rochefoucauld's ''Maximes'' (as the full title runs, ''[[Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales]]'') published in his lifetime bear the dates 1665 (''[[editio princeps]]''), 1666, 1671, 1675, 1678. |
| - | With a few exceptions La Rochefoucauld's maxims represent the matured result of the reflection of a man deeply versed in the business and pleasures of the world, and possessed of an extraordinarily fine and acute intellect, on the conduct and motives which have guided himself and his fellows. There is as little trace in them of personal spite as of ''forfanleric de lice''. But the astonishing excellence of the literary medium in which they are conveyed is even more remarkable than the general soundness of their ethical import. In uniting the four qualities of brevity, clarity, fulness of meaning and point, La Rochefoucauld has no rival. His ''Maximes'' are never mere epigrams; they are never platitudes; they are never dark sayings. He has packed them so full of meaning that it would be impossible to pack them closer, yet there is no undue compression; he has sharpened their point to the utmost, yet there is no loss of substance. The comparison which occurs most frequently, and which is perhaps on the whole the most just, is that of a bronze medallion, and it applies to the matter no less than to the form. Nothing is left unfinished, yet none of the workmanship is finical. The sentiment, far from being merely hard, as the sentimentalists pretend, has a vein of melancholy poetry running through it which calls to mind the traditions of La Rochefoucauld's devotion to the romances of chivalry. The maxims are never shallow; each is the text for a whole sermon of application and corollary which any one of thought and experience can write. Add to all this that the language in which they are written is French, still at almost its greatest strength, and chastened but as yet not emasculated by the reforming influence of the 18th century, and it is not necessary to say more. To the literary critic no less than to the man of the world La Rochefoucauld ranks among the scanty number of pocket-books to be read and re-read with ever new admiration, instruction and delight. La Rochefoucauld's theories about human nature are based on such topics as self-interest and self-love, passions and emotions, vanity, relationships, love, conversation, insincerity, and trickery. His writings are very concise, straightforward, and candid. | + | Previous editions were superseded by that of [[Jean Désiré Louis Gilbert]] and [[Jules Gourdault]] (1868–1883), in the series ''Grands Écrivains de la France'', 3 vols. |
| + | The most handsome separate edition of the ''Maximes'' is the so-called ''Édition des bibliophiles'' (1870). See the English version ''The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke De La Rochefoucauld'' by [[George H. Powell]] (1903). | ||
| + | ==See also== | ||
| + | *[[Jansenism]] | ||
| + | *[[Pessimism]] | ||
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Current revision
| "Weak people cannot be sincere"
"What makes us like new acquaintances" "Some people would never know love if they had not heard it talked about" "Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise" "The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice." --François de La Rochefoucauld |
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François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac (15 September 1613 – 17 March 1680) was a noted French author of maxims which were collected under the title Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales. His is a clear-eyed, worldly view of human conduct that indulges in neither condemnation nor sentimentality. Born in Paris on the Rue des Petits Champs, at a time when the royal court was oscillating between aiding the nobility and threatening it, he was considered an exemplar of the accomplished 17th-century nobleman. Until 1650, he bore the title of Prince de Marcillac.
Contents |
Salon participation
Somewhat earlier, La Rochefoucauld had taken his place in the salon of Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé, a member of the Marquise de Rambouillet côterie, and the founder of a kind of successor to it, whose special literary work was the writing of Sentences and Maximes. In 1662, the Dutch firm, Elsevier, surreptitiously published what purported to be his memoirs, which brought him both trouble and fame. Many of his old friends were offended. These memoires were not a faithful copy of what he had written, and while he hastened to deny their authenticity, this was not generally believed.
Three years later, in 1665, he anonymously published the Maximes, (maxims) which established his position among the men of letters of the time. At about the same date, his friendship with Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette began, which lasted for the rest of his life. The glimpses which we have of him henceforward are chiefly from the letters of Madame de Sévigné, and though they show him suffering from gout, are on the whole pleasant ones.
He had a circle of devoted friends and was recognized as a top-ranking moralist and man of letters. His son, the Prince de Marcillac, to whom he gave his titles and honors in 1671, enjoyed a considerable position at court. But above all La Rochefoucauld was recognized by his contemporaries, including the king, as an exemplar of the older noblesse, the nobility that existed under the great monarch before the brilliance of his reign faded. This reputation he has retained to the present day.
La Rochefoucauld's ethical views have given rise to attacks upon his works by pious moralists of later eras. Like his contemporaries, he saw politics as a chessboard for powerful players, rather than as a struggle of ideologies or a means for achieving broad social goals. He appears to have been unusually scrupulous in his personal conduct, and his lack of success in the aristocratic struggles arose more from this than from anything else.
He died of gout in Paris on 17 March 1680.
Literary works
His importance as a social and historical figure is overshadowed by his towering stature in French literature. His literary work consists of three parts—his Memoirs, the Maximes and his letters.
The Memoirs are of high interest and literary merit. A book purporting to be La Rochefoucauld's memoirs was published in the Dutch Republic from whence, despite the author's protest, it continued to be reprinted for some thirty years. It has now been proved to have been pieced together from the work of half a dozen men, with scarcely a third of it being La Rochefoucauld's. Some years after La Rochefoucauld's death, a new recension appeared, still largely adulterated but with some errors corrected. This work went unchallenged for more than a century. Only in 1817 did anything like a genuine, if still imperfect, edition appear.
However, the pithy, elegant Maximes, (maxims) had no such fate. The author made frequent alterations and additions to them during his life and a few were added after his death. It is usual now to publish them in their totality of 504. The majority consist of just two or three lines, and hardly any exceed half a page. La Rochefoucauld reflects on the conduct and motives of mankind, from the point of view of a man of the world who intends not to sugar-coat his observations. In fact, in his introduction, he advises, "...the best approach for the reader to take would be to put in his mind right from the start that none of these maxims apply to himself in particular, and that he is the sole exception, even though they appear to be generalities. After that I guarantee that he will be the first to endorse them and he will believe that they do credit to the human spirit."
Here are a few examples:
II. Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
VIII. Sincere enthusiasm is the only orator who always persuades. It is like an art the rules of which never fail; the simplest man with enthusiasm persuades better than the most eloquent with none.
XIV. Men are not only subject to losing all recollection of kindnesses and injuries done them, they even hate those to whom they are obliged and cease to hate those who have harmed them. The effort of repaying the kindness and avenging the evil seem to them a servitude to which they are unwilling to submit.
XXX. If we had no faults, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.
CCLXI. Flirtatiousness is fundamental to a woman's nature, but not all put it into practice because some are restrained by fear or by good sense.
CDXI. There hardly exist faults which are not more pardonable than the means by which one tries to hide them.
CDXXXIII. The truest mark of having been born with great qualities is to have been born without envy.
His letters number more than one hundred, and they are of both biographical and literary value.
La Rochefoucauld's thoughts on human nature concern, among a broad range of topics, pride and self-love, the passions and the emotions, love, sincerity, conversation, and politics.
Influence
Nearly all the great French critics of the 19th century wrote to some extent about La Rochefoucauld.
For a recent assessment of La Rochefoucauld's thought and his place in modern culture see John Farrell, Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau (Cornell UP, 2006), chapter nine.
Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, greatly admired La Rochefoucauld and was influenced not only by his ethics, but also his style.
The editions of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes (as the full title runs, Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales) published in his lifetime bear the dates 1665 (editio princeps), 1666, 1671, 1675, 1678.
Previous editions were superseded by that of Jean Désiré Louis Gilbert and Jules Gourdault (1868–1883), in the series Grands Écrivains de la France, 3 vols.
The most handsome separate edition of the Maximes is the so-called Édition des bibliophiles (1870). See the English version The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke De La Rochefoucauld by George H. Powell (1903).
See also
