Goddesses-Free and Easy.

THERE is an anecdote told of one of the most illustrious composers, that whenever he set about a new opera, he first attired himself in full courtdress and floating powdered wig. We cannot help fancying that whenever M. Capefigue commences a new compilation, he first dresses in the livery of a lacquey of the time of Louis XV. M. Capefigue is unique ; he is probably the only Bourbonist left in the world; and he ignores any thing that has occurred in France since the decease of Louis XVI. At the same time he throws the whole blame of the Revolution on that monarch, because he did not shoot down his beloved subjects when they made any tentatives for liberty; and though he bears no liking to the Emperor Napoleon I., whom he would probably call the "Corsican Ogre" if Le dared, still he cannot help admiring the sternness which assassinated the Duc d'Enghien and bookseller Palm.

M. Capefigue, although known by many compilations of various merits, has rendered himself conspicuous, we might say notorious, by his defence of royal mistresses, whom he christens reines de la main gauche, in allusion to the fashion in vogue among Continental potentates of marrying ladies inferior to them with the left hand. We need hardly say that in M. Capefigue's eyes every thing connected with these ladies assumes a couleur de rose; for by a curious ratiocination he considers that contact with monarchy condoned all moral offences. It is very possible, he will admit, for instance, that there was something rather fie-fie about Madame d'Etiolles; but as soon as the Marquise de Pompadour found favour in the royal sight, she was legitimated. In this way he has whitewashed some ten ladies who were no better than they should be, including, by a strange concatenation, Aspasia and the Duchess of Portsmouth, and has completed the series with the curious volume which we now propose to notice.*

According to our author, the golden age of society terminated with the "charming" reign of Louis XV., what time the sentimental school of Greuze succeeded the beribboned elegances of Watteau and Boucher. Morals might be no better, but simplicity and candour were affected; and though ladies were not a whit more inclined to give up their lovers, they preferred to make love in an imitation Swiss cottage, or while tending carefully-washed sheep in a very stage-pastoral costume. All this M. Capefigue ascribes to the tendency of the Nouvelle Heloise, "a work of wearisome depravity." This fashion extended to the court: Marie Antoinette herself concealed Ler fair hair beneath a broad-brimmed straw hat, and shook off that etiquette "which is a guarantee of respect and rank." The garden of Trianon still displays all the spirit of the age: there were

*Les Déesses de la Liberté, par M. Capefigue. Paris: Amyot.

the dairy, the mill, the temple of Love and Friendship, the small pond, the lake, the factitious rocks, &c. The costume of Marmontel's "Shepherdess of the Alps" took the place of Madame de Pompadour's brilliant toilette; the witty madrigals of Voltaire and Boufflers were laid aside on behalf of dissertations on political economy and philosophy; there were no more "divine" suppers, with a thousand wax tapers; and, horror to tell, tea and milk were substituted for the precious wines which sparkled in the cups of the gentry. We must be very obtuse, for we cannot see what crime M. Capefigue can detect in this last circumstance.

The next blot which our author hits is certainly of a graver nature. Up to the reign of Louis XVI. actresses had only exercised over society the influence of grace. They were liked for their talent, their beauty, and sometimes for their wit. In the whole range of tragedy, from Racine to Crébillon, actresses had displayed a certain moral restraint and delicacy in their amours. Take the case of Mdlle. Gaussin in proof. Bouret, the celebrated farmer-general, had, when a very young man, signed a blank promise, which he gave the lady. When he had made an enormous fortune, he began to grow anxious about it, and begged the lady to fill it up; the charming actress wrote the words, "I promise always to love the little Gaussin.-BOURET." If gentlemen now and then made fools of themselves about actresses, the latter were never publicly affichées as mistresses; they were sent to Fort l'Evêque, with no other formality than a whim of the pit, or an order of the lieutenant of police; and the haughty Mdlle. Clarion underwent the common law, in spite of her protestations "that she only yielded to force, and that her honour remained intact," which remark induced Louis XV. to say, "Where there is nothing left, the king loses his rights."

In the reign of the pious Louis XVI., however, a good deal of scandal sprang up in connexion with actresses; and princes and noblemen did not hesitate to keep them with costly pomp, and no fear of Mrs. Grundy before their eyes. The worst blow to morality was dealt when Marie Antoinette introduced the fashion of amateur theatricals; for the theatre soon became more powerful than the court: people took greater interest in the young Raucourt, Mdlle. Maillard, or Mdile. Desgarcins, than in the Queen of France. When the dawn of the Revolution arrived, many of the queens of the boards harangued the mob, and declaimed enthusiastic verses for the triumph of the insurrection. Very naturally, the contagion of this evil example soon spread to the bourgeoises. They got rid of religion as a vulgar prejudice, and girls aspired to play the part of Rousseau's Julie, or to the masculine devotion of the women of Sparta and Lacedæmon. A striking example was Lucille Duplessis, of a highly respectable family, who became the wife of Camille Desmoulins. At the most solemn moment, Lucille had rationalistic doubts about Deity; and yet she was an excellent wife, adoring her children, and courageous in the presence of death. A truer belief existed among the work-girls, who, though they liked to visit dance-rooms, were very regular in their attend

ance at church. To quote Capefigue: "In these gentle and ravishing distractions of the Sunday of the old régime, there prevailed an honesty and decency which defied the Richelieus and seductive marquises, who received more than one lesson at the wine-shops of the Barrier. Sometimes, through caprice or drunken fits, the great gentry visited the Porcherons; if they were too free there in their amorous insolence, they were set upon and turned out by the sincere and strong lovers of the pretty dancers."

The dames of the Halle, too, who eventually became such bitter foes of monarchy, were in reality most devoted, and indeed almost bigoted, churchwomen, whose rule of faith was to fear God and honour the king. The change was produced in them, according to M. Capefigue, by the attacks made in high quarters upon the queen, and which gradually filtered through the populace. Thus "Monsieur" designed the monster found at Santa Fé-de-Bogota, devouring men and flocks. This monster was simply the queen, whom "Monsieur" hated. The name of Madame Déficit was given to Marie Antoinette by the courtiers during the administration of M. Calonne, but soon made way for the hateful one of Madame Véto.

"Madame Véto avait promis

De faire égorger tout Paris."

This odious carmagnole was merely a translation into ignoble language of some court couplets composed by great gentlemen at the elegant banquets which followed on the convocation of the States-General. The Marquises de Lameth and de Lafayette, once the protégés of the queen, represented their mistress as an obstacle to the movement of 1789, as a foreigner, an Austrian who sacrificed France to her family. Emissaries propagated these reports in the faubourgs and the Halle so artfully as to make them accepted as true. In this way the poissardes, whose privilege it had been to offer a bouquet to the queen, were found in the end offering one to Madame Guillotine. The Revolution naturally attracted to Paris many foreign women, among whom Théroigne de Méricourt was destined to play a somewhat prominent part. She was the daughter of a rich farmer near Liége, short in stature and remarkably graceful. She had come to Paris some years prior to the Revolution, and had been beloved by several gentlemen, principally authors, who dragged her into the vortex of the Revolution. She was a regular visitor at the Constituent Assembly, where she appeared dressed as an Amazon. She eventually descended to the streets, where her attire aroused great admiration amid the Gardes Françaises and the soldiers of Flanders, who fraternised with the people. Thus attired, she gave the signal on the day of August 10, and displayed such a thirst for blood as to point out the Vicomte de Suleau to the massacrers, who tore him in pieces. This charming fury had become the idol of the Gironde, and the most intimate friend of Brissot. Attempts have been made to justify her conduct to Suleau, as the vengeance of deceived love; but Théroigne was long past that stage. She was angry

with M. de Suleau, who was a witty writer, for his rude epigrams about her, and for christening her the mistress of the Deputé Populus.

We will not follow M. Capefigue through his judgment on Mesdames de Staël and de Genlis, as he says nothing about them which our readers do not know already. A revolutionary heroine who attained some notoriety was Olympe de Gouge, a literary lady, known by a few plays and the publication of some fashionable romances. Olympe suddenly affected the title of a political writer, in order to exalt the Duc d'Orléans and Mirabeau. Foundress of the popular society of women,-a somewhat hotheaded and grotesque association,-she singularly aided the French Revolution. She improvised odes and cantatas, which created a popular furore; and being well known to the Assembly and ministers, she was sent on a mission to Dumouriez, in Belgium, whom she found at the head of his army, with two young ladies as his aides-de-camp, the Mdlles. Fernig, friends of the mysterious "Pamela," and puppets of Madame de Genlis. Dumouriez was fond of good living and gallantry, and people were already beginning to talk about the goddesses of liberty.

The constitutional ladies, who were well educated, we must do them the justice of saying, did not foresee the sanguinary consequences of the doctrines which they developed. They were too high-bred to imitate women like Théroigne de Méricourt, who induced soldiers to desert by singing the Carmagnole. When Olympe de Gouge founded the Ladies' Club, she did not think she was paving the way for scenes of debauchery and immorality. The Jacobins, too, acted from virtuous motives when they sought to impose on women ideas of abnegation and sacrifice. In every patriotic song of Chénier we find a mother or young wife exciting the warriors to combat. There may be something absurd in this plagiarism of Spartan antiquity, but nothing immoral or unchaste. The women regularly went to the Assemblies, knitting in hand, to display the image of labour in the accomplishment of a public duty, and, while suckling their babes, frantically applauded their favourite orators.

The Revolution multiplied public festivals and solemn demonstrations, and women were summoned to play an artistic part in them. A school of pure materialists had sprung up in the middle of Paris, who studied principally beauty and form; and in their eyes the world ought to have but two idols,-Reason and Liberty. In order to personify these two ideas, and render them sensible to all, the Commune of Paris sought at the theatres or in society the most perfect beauties, and gave them parts to perform in this new paganism: Reason must be a masculine, stern, and strong beauty; Liberty, younger and more lissom, must be represented by the features of grace and loveliness. These divinities were not allowed any other costume beyond nudity and drapery. Incense and perfumes burned in golden censers in front of the altar; and, as artists were all in all in the Revolution, they draped their models in the antique style, in order to consecrate them to the new worship.

The National Convention held festivals in honour of Nature and Rea

son: when the Constitution of 1794 was proclaimed at the Champ de Mars, altars were every where erected to the new divinities. On the Place de la Bastille, on the top of a high mound, stood an immense statue, with the form of the ancient Isis, from whose breasts flowed pure water and milk. The President Hérault de Séchelles, one of the handsomest men in the old Parliament, collected this water and milk in a cup, and drank it in celebration of the kindness of Nature. On each of the private altars, from the Boulevards to the Military School, young citoyennes, scantily clothed, represented bountiful and generous Nature. But the divinity Reason was at the head of all the rest, and her worship became public and national. The Commune of Paris chose, to honour Reason, the high altars of St. Roch and Notre Dame, whose holy statues were removed. There was on this occasion a solemn festival, and the whole of the Convention were present at the inauguration of the new temples. Very serious men regarded these theatrical ceremonies as earnest; for they believed they were doing a service to humanity by elevating Reason on the ruins of what they called prejudices. At Notre Dame, Nature was represented by a pretty actress, Mademoiselle Maillard, who was adored by the fanatic Republicans. The following couplets were written to celebrate the event:

"Sur les autels de Marie
Nous plaçons la Liberté :
De la France le Messie
C'est la sainte Egalité.

Nos forts sont nos cathédrales,
Nos cloches sont des canons;
Notre cau bénite des balles;
Nos oremus, nos chansons."

We know not whether Mdlle. Maillard felt happy amid this adoration, or whether the incense intoxicated her,—she was an actress, and playing her part; but it is certain that a great number of respectable women were com pelled to act in these pagan pomps the character of the Goddess of Reason. If some of these citoyennes did so spontaneously, through love of display, others were led into it through a fear of compromising their families by refusing to give a public proof of their civism. At this period the slightest actions were attentively scrutinised; life was in the streets; respectable women and girls, therefore, transformed themselves into Goddesses of Reason or Liberty, and took part in public processions, or danced round the trees of liberty. In this class of Republican women must be placed Madame Momoro, the daughter of a clever engraver of the name of Fournier: when quite a girl, she had married the printer Momoro, the coryphæus of the club of the Cordeliers, and friend of Hébert In the midst of the solemnities of the Revolution, Madame Momoro represented the Goddess of Reason, as Mdlle. Maillard did her of Beauty and Nature. She was an exquisitely-formed woman; her black hair fell to her girdle; she wore the Phrygian cap on her head; in her hand was a pike; and a blue star-spangled mantle covered her, so as to display her