Reflections; Or Sentences and Moral Maxims

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{Transcriber's notes: spelling variants are preserved (e.g. labour
instead of labor, criticise instead of criticize, etc.); words that
were italicized appear in all CAPITALS; the translators' comments are
in square brackets [...] as they are in the text; footnotes are indicated
by * and appear in angled brackets <...> immediately following the passage
containing the note (in the text they appear at the bottom of the page);
and, finally, I give corrections and addenda in curly brackets {...}.}

Rochefoucauld

“As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From Nature--I believe them true.
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.”--Swift.

“Les Maximes de la Rochefoucauld sont des proverbs des
gens d'esprit.”--Montesquieu.

“Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.”--Sir J.
Mackintosh.

“Translators should not work alone; for good ET PROPRIA VERBA
do not always occur to one mind.”--Luther's TABLE TALK, iii.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

By

Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld,
Prince de Marsillac.

Translated from the Editions of 1678 and 1827 with introduction,
notes, and some account of the author and his times.

By

J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B
and
J. Hain Friswell

Simpson Low, Son, and Marston,
188, Fleet Street.
1871.

{Translators'} Preface.

Some apology must be made for an attempt
“to translate the untranslatable.” Not-
withstanding there are no less than eight
English translations of La Rochefoucauld, hardly
any are readable, none are free from faults, and all
fail more or less to convey the author's meaning.
Though so often translated, there is not a complete
English edition of the Maxims and Reflections. All
the translations are confined exclusively to the
Maxims, none include the Reflections. This may be
accounted for, from the fact that most of the trans-
lations are taken from the old editions of the
Maxims, in which the Reflections do not appear.
Until M. Suard devoted his attention to the text
of Rochefoucauld, the various editions were but
reprints of the preceding ones, without any regard
to the alterations made by the author in the later
editions published during his life-time. So much
was this the case, that Maxims which had been
rejected by Rochefoucauld in his last edition, were
still retained in the body of the work. To give
but one example, the celebrated Maxim as to the
misfortunes of our friends, was omitted in the last
edition of the book, published in Rochefoucauld's
life-time, yet in every English edition this Maxim
appears in the body of the work.

M. Aimé Martin in 1827 published an edition
of the Maxims and Reflections which has ever since
been the standard text of Rochefoucauld in France.
The Maxims are printed from the edition of 1678,
the last published during the author's life, and the
last which received his corrections. To this edition
were added two Supplements; the first containing
the Maxims which had appeared in the editions of
1665, 1666, and 1675, and which were afterwards
omitted; the second, some additional Maxims
found among various of the author's manuscripts
in the Royal Library at Paris. And a Series of Re-
flections which had been previously published in a
work called “Receuil de pièces d'histoire et de litté-
rature.” Paris, 1731. They were first published
with the Maxims in an edition by Gabriel Brotier.

In an edition of Rochefoucauld entitled “Reflex-
ions, ou Sentences et Maximes Morales, augmentées
de plus deux cent nouvelles Maximes et Maximes
et Pensées diverses suivant les copies Imprimées à
Paris, chez Claude Barbin, et Matre Cramoisy
1692,”* some fifty Maxims were added, ascribed
by the editor to Rochefoucauld, and as his family
allowed them to be published under his name, it
seems probable they were genuine. These fifty
form the third supplement to this book.

*published in 1693. The only copy I have seen is in the
Cambridge University Library, 47, 16, 81, and is called
“Reflexions Morales.”>

The apology for the present edition of Rochefou-
cauld must therefore be twofold: firstly, that it is
an attempt to give the public a complete English
edition of Rochefoucauld's works as a moralist.
The body of the work comprises the Maxims
as the author finally left them, the first supple-
ment, those published in former editions, and
rejected by the author in the later; the second, the
unpublished Maxims taken from the author's cor-
respondence and manuscripts, and the third, the
Maxims first published in 1692. While the Re-
flections, in which the thoughts in the Maxims are
extended and elaborated, now appear in English
for the first time. And secondly, that it is an
attempt (to quote the preface of the edition of
1749) “to do the Duc de la Rochefoucauld the
justice to make him speak English.”

{Translators'} Introduction

The description of the “ancien regime” in
France, “a despotism tempered by epigrams,”
like most epigrammatic sentences, contains
some truth, with much fiction. The society of
the last half of the seventeenth, and the whole of the
eighteenth centuries, was doubtless greatly influenced
by the precise and terse mode in which the popular
writers of that date expressed their thoughts. To a
people naturally inclined to think that every possible
view, every conceivable argument, upon a question is
included in a short aphorism, a shrug, and the word
“voilà,” truths expressed in condensed sentences must
always have a peculiar charm. It is, perhaps, from this
love of epigram, that we find so many eminent
French writers of maxims. Pascal, De Retz, La
Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, and Vau-
venargues, each contributed to the rich stock of French
epigrams. No other country can show such a list
of brilliant writers--in England certainly we can-
not. Our most celebrated, Lord Bacon, has, by
his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their
fame is, to a great measure, obscured. The only
Englishman who could have rivalled La Rochefou-
cauld or La Bruyère was the Earl of Chesterfield, and
he only could have done so from his very inti-
mate connexion with France; but unfortunately his
brilliant genius was spent in the impossible task of
trying to refine a boorish young Briton, in “cutting
blocks with a razor.”

Of all the French epigrammatic writers La Rochefou-
cauld is at once the most widely known, and the most
distinguished. Voltaire, whose opinion on the cen-
tury of Louis XIV. is entitled to the greatest weight,
says, “One of the works that most largely contributed
to form the taste of the nation, and to diffuse a spirit
of justice and precision, is the collection of maxims,
by Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld.”

This Francois, the second Duc de la Rochefoucauld,
Prince de Marsillac, the author of the maxims, was
one of the most illustrious members of the most illus-
trious families among the French noblesse. Descended
from the ancient Dukes of Guienne, the founder of
the Family Fulk or Foucauld, a younger branch of
the House of Lusignan, was at the commencement of
the eleventh century the Seigneur of a small town,
La Roche, in the Angounois. Our chief knowledge of
this feudal lord is drawn from the monkish chronicles.
As the benefactor of the various abbeys and monas-
teries in his province, he is naturally spoken of by
them in terms of eulogy, and in the charter of one of
the abbeys of Angouleme he is called, “vir nobilissimus
Fulcaldus.” His territorial power enabled him to
adopt what was then, as is still in Scotland, a com-
mon custom, to prefix the name of his estate to his
surname, and thus to create and transmit to his
descendants the illustrious surname of La Rochefou-
cauld.

From that time until that great crisis in the history
of the French aristocracy, the Revolution of 1789, the
family of La Rochefoucauld have been, “if not first, in
the very first line” of that most illustrious body. One
Seigneur served under Philip Augustus against Richard
Coeur de Lion, and was made prisoner at the battle
of Gisors. The eighth Seigneur Guy performed a great
tilt at Bordeaux, attended (according to Froissart) to
the Lists by some two hundred of his kindred and
relations. The sixteenth Seigneur Francais was cham-
berlain to Charles VIII. and Louis XII., and stood
at the font as sponsor, giving his name to that last
light of French chivalry, Francis I. In 1515 he was
created a baron, and was afterwards advanced to a
count, on account of his great service to Francis and
his predecessors.

The second count pushed the family fortune still
further by obtaining a patent as the Prince de Mar-
sillac. His widow, Anne de Polignac, entertained
Charles V. at the family chateau at Verteuil, in so
princely a manner that on leaving Charles observed,
“He had never entered a house so redolent of high
virtue, uprightness, and lordliness as that mansion.”

The third count, after serving with distinction
under the Duke of Guise against the Spaniards, was
made prisoner at St. Quintin, and only regained his
liberty to fall a victim to the “bloody infamy” of St.
Bartholomew. His son, the fourth count, saved with
difficulty from that massacre, after serving with dis-
tinction in the religious wars, was taken prisoner
in a skirmish at St. Yriex la Perche, and murdered
by the Leaguers in cold blood.

The fifth count, one of the ministers of Louis
XIII., after fighting against the English and Buck-
ingham at the Ile de Ré, was created a duke. His
son Francis, the second duke, by his writings has
made the family name a household word.

The third duke fought in many of the earlier cam-
paigns of Louis XIV. at Torcy, Lille, Cambray, and
was dangerously wounded at the passage of the Rhine.
From his bravery he rose to high favour at Court, and
was appointed Master of the Horse (Grand Veneur)
and Lord Chamberlain. His son, the fourth duke,
commanded the regiment of Navarre, and took part
in storming the village of Neerwinden on the day
when William III. was defeated at Landen. He was
afterwards created Duc de la Rochequyon and Marquis
de Liancourt.

The fifth duke, banished from Court by Louis XV.,
became the friend of the philosopher Voltaire.

The sixth duke, the friend of Condorcet, was the
last of the long line of noble lords who bore that
distinguished name. In those terrible days of Sep-
tember, 1792, when the French people were proclaim-
ing universal humanity, the duke was seized as an
aristocrat by the mob at Gisors and put to death
behind his own carriage, in which sat his mother and
his wife, at the very place where, some six centuries
previously, his ancestor had been taken prisoner in
a fair fight. A modern writer has spoken of this
murder “as an admirable reprisal upon the grandson
for the writings and conduct of the grandfather.”
But M. Sainte Beuve observes as to this, he can see
nothing admirable in the death of the duke, and if it
proves anything, it is only that the grandfather was
not so wrong in his judgment of men as is usually
supposed.

Francis, the author, was born on the 15th December
1615. M. Sainte Beuve divides his life into four
periods, first, from his birth till he was thirty-five, when
he became mixed up in the war of the Fronde; the
second period, during the progress of that war; the
third, the twelve years that followed, while he re-
covered from his wounds, and wrote his maxims dur-
ing his retirement from society; and the last from
that time till his death.

In the same way that Herodotus calls each book of
his history by the name of one of the muses, so each
of these four periods of La Rochefoucauld's life may
be associated with the name of a woman who was for
the time his ruling passion. These four ladies are the
Duchesse de Chevreuse, the Duchesse de Longueville,
Madame de Sablé, and Madame de La Fayette.

La Rochefoucauld's early education was neglected;
his father, occupied in the affairs of state, either had
not, or did not devote any time to his education. His
natural talents and his habits of observation soon,
however, supplied all deficiencies. By birth and sta-
tion placed in the best society of the French Court,
he soon became a most finished courtier. Knowing
how precarious Court favour then was, his father,
when young Rochefoucauld was only nine years old,
sent him into the army. He was subsequently at-
tached to the regiment of Auvergne. Though but
sixteen he was present, and took part in the mili-
tary operations at the siege of Cassel. The Court of
Louis XIII. was then ruled imperiously by Richelieu.
The Duke de la Rochefoucauld was strongly opposed
to the Cardinal's party. By joining in the plots of
Gaston of Orleans, he gave Richelieu an opportunity
of ridding Paris of his opposition. When those plots
were discovered, the Duke was sent into a sort of
banishment to Blois. His son, who was then at
Court with him, was, upon the pretext of a liaison
with Mdlle. d'Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting
on the Queen (Anne of Austria), but in reality to pre-
vent the Duke learning what was passing at Paris, sent
with his father. The result of the exile was Roche-
foucauld's marriage. With the exception that his
wife's name was Mdlle. Vivonne, and that she was
the mother of five sons and three daughters, nothing
is known of her. While Rochefoucauld and his
father were at Blois, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, one
of the beauties of the Court, and the mistress of
Louis, was banished to Tours. She and Rochefou-
cauld met, and soon became intimate, and for a time
she was destined to be the one motive of his actions.
The Duchesse was engaged in a correspondence with
the Court of Spain and the Queen. Into this plot
Rochefoucauld threw himself with all his energy; his
connexion with the Queen brought him back to his
old love Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and led him to her
party, which he afterwards followed. The course he
took shut him off from all chance of Court favour.
The King regarded him with coldness, the Cardinal
with irritation. Although the Bastile and the scaffold,
the fate of Chalais and Montmorency, were before his
eyes, they failed to deter him from plotting. He was
about twenty-three; returning to Paris, he warmly
sided with the Queen. He says in his Memoirs
that the only persons she could then trust were him-
self and Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and it was proposed he
should take both of them from Paris to Brussels. Into
this plan he entered with all his youthful indiscretion,
it being for several reasons the very one he would wish
to adopt, as it would strengthen his influence with
Anne of Austria, place Richelieu and his master in an
uncomfortable position, and save Mdlle. d'Hautefort
from the attentions the King was showing her.

But Richelieu of course discovered this plot, and
Rochefoucauld was, of course, sent to the Bastile.
He was liberated after a week's imprisonment, but
banished to his chateau at Verteuil.

The reason for this clemency was that the Cardinal
desired to win Rochefoucauld from the Queen's party.
A command in the army was offered to him, but by
the Queen's orders refused.

For some three years Rochefoucauld remained at
Verteuil, waiting the time for his reckoning with
Richelieu; speculating on the King's death, and the
favours he would then receive from the Queen. During
this period he was more or less engaged in plotting
against his enemy the Cardinal, and hatching treason
with Cinq Mars and De Thou.

M. Sainte Beuve says, that unless we study this first
part of Rochefoucauld's life, we shall never under-
stand his maxims. The bitter disappointment of the
passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the deceit
and treachery then witnessed, furnished the real key to
their meaning. The cutting cynicism of the morality
was built on the ruins of that chivalrous ambition and
romantic affection. He saw his friend Cinq Mars
sent to the scaffold, himself betrayed by men whom
he had trusted, and the only reason he could assign
for these actions was intense selfishness.

Meanwhile, Richelieu died. Rochefoucauld re-
turned to Court, and found Anne of Austria regent,
and Mazarin minister. The Queen's former friends
flocked there in numbers, expecting that now their
time of prosperity had come. They were bitterly dis-
appointed. Mazarin relied on hope instead of grati-
tude, to keep the Queen's adherents on his side. The
most that any received were promises that were never
performed. In after years, doubtless, Rochefoucauld's
recollection of his disappointment led him to write the
maxim: “We promise according to our hopes, we per-
form according to our fears.” But he was not even to
receive promises; he asked for the Governorship of
Havre, which was then vacant. He was flatly refused.
Disappointment gave rise to anger, and uniting with
his old flame, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, who had
received the same treatment, and with the Duke of
Beaufort, they formed a conspiracy against the govern-
ment. The plot was, of course, discovered and crushed.
Beaufort was arrested, the Duchesse banished. Irri-
tated and disgusted, Rochefoucauld went with the
Duc d'Enghein, who was then joining the army, on a
campaign, and here he found the one love of his life,
the Duke's sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady,
young, beautiful, and accomplished, obtained a great
ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was the cause of
his taking the side of Condé in the subsequent civil
war. Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army.
He was badly wounded at the siege of Mardik, and
returned from thence to Paris. On recovering from
his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. This
war is said to have been most ridiculous, as being
carried on without a definite object, a plan, or a
leader. But this description is hardly correct; it was
the struggle of the French nobility against the rule
of the Court; an attempt, the final attempt, to re-
cover their lost influence over the state, and to save
themselves from sinking under the rule of cardinals
and priests.

With the general history of that war we have
nothing to do; it is far too complicated and too
confused to be stated here. The memoirs of Roche-
foucauld and De Retz will give the details to those
who desire to trace the contests of the factions--the
course of the intrigues. We may confine ourselves to
its progress so far as it relates to the Duc de la Roche-
foucauld.

On the Cardinal causing the Princes de Condé
and Conti, and the Duc de Longueville, to be
arrested, Rochefoucauld and the Duchess fled into
Normandy. Leaving her at Dieppe, he went into
Poitou, of which province he had some years pre-
viously bought the post of governor. He was there
joined by the Duc de Bouillon, and he and the Duke
marched to, and occupied Bordeaux. Cardinal Ma-
zarin and Marechal de la Meilleraie advanced in force
on Bordeaux, and attacked the town. A bloody
battle followed. Rochefoucauld defended the town
with the greatest bravery, and repulsed the Cardinal.
Notwithstanding the repulse, the burghers of Bor-
deaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city
from destruction. The Parliament of Bordeaux com-
pelled Rochefoucauld to surrender. He did so, and
returned nominally to Poitou, but in reality in secret
to Paris.

There he found the Queen engaged in trying to
maintain her position by playing off the rival parties
of the Prince Condé and the Cardinal De Retz against
each other. Rochefoucauld eagerly espoused his old
party--that of Condé. In August, 1651, the contend-
ing parties met in the Hall of the Parliament of Paris,
and it was with great difficulty they were prevented
from coming to blows even there. It is even said that
Rochefoucauld had ordered his followers to murder
De Retz.

Rochefoucauld was soon to undergo a bitter disap-
pointment. While occupied with party strife and
faction in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse left him,
and formed an alliance with the Duc de Nemours.
Rochefoucauld still loved her. It was, probably,
thinking of this that he afterwards wrote, “Jealousy is
born with love, but does not die with it.” He endea-
voured to get Madame de Chatillon, the old mistress
of the Duc de Nemours, reinstated in favour, but in
this he did not succeed. The Duc de Nemours was
soon after killed in a duel. The war went on, and
after several indecisive skirmishes, the decisive battle
was fought at Paris, in the Faubourg St. Antoine,
where the Parisians first learnt the use or the abuse
of their favourite defence, the barricade. In this
battle, Rochefoucauld behaved with great bravery.
He was wounded in the head, a wound which for a
time deprived him of his sight. Before he recovered,
the war was over, Louis XIV. had attained his ma-
jority, the gold of Mazarin, the arms of Turenne, had
been successful, the French nobility were vanquished,
the court supremacy established.

This completed Rochefoucauld's active life.

When he recovered his health, he devoted himself
to society. Madame de Sablé assumed a hold over
him. He lived a quiet life, and occupied himself in
composing an account of his early life, called his
“Memoirs,” and his immortal “Maxims.”

From the time he ceased to take part in public life,
Rochefoucauld's real glory began. Having acted the
various parts of soldier, politician, and lover with but
small success, he now commenced the part of moralist,
by which he is known to the world.

Living in the most brilliant society that France
possessed, famous from his writings, distinguished
from the part he had taken in public affairs, he
formed the centre of one of those remarkable French
literary societies, a society which numbered among its
members La Fontaine, Racine, Boileau. Among his
most attached friends was Madame de La Fayette (the
authoress of the “Princess of Cleeves”), and this friend-
ship continued until his death. He was not, however,
destined to pass away in that gay society without
some troubles. At the passage of the Rhine in 1672
two of his sons were engaged; the one was killed,
the other severely wounded. Rochefoucauld was
much affected by this, but perhaps still more by the
death of the young Duc de Longueville, who perished
on the same occasion.

Sainte Beuve says that the cynical book and that
young life were the only fruits of the war of the
Fronde. Madame de Sévigné, who was with him
when he heard the news of the death of so much that
was dear to him, says, “I saw his heart laid bare on that
cruel occasion, and his courage, his merit, his tender-
ness, and good sense surpassed all I ever met with. I
hold his wit and accomplishments as nothing in com-
parison.” The combined effect of his wounds and the
gout caused the last years of Rochefoucauld's life to
be spent in great pain. Madame de Sévigné, who
was {with} him continually during his last illness, speaks of
the fortitude with which he bore his sufferings as
something to be admired. Writing to her daughter,
she says, “Believe me, it is not for nothing he has
moralised all his life; he has thought so often on his
last moments that they are nothing new or unfamiliar
to him.”

In his last illness, the great moralist was attended
by the great divine, Bossuet. Whether that match-
less eloquence or his own philosophic calm had,
in spite of his writings, brought him into the state
Madame de Sévigné describes, we know not; but
one, or both, contributed to his passing away in a
manner that did not disgrace a French noble or a
French philosopher. On the 11th March, 1680, he
ended his stormy life in peace after so much strife, a
loyal subject after so much treason.

One of his friends, Madame Deshoulières, shortly
before he died sent him an ode on death, which
aptly describes his state--
“Oui, soyez alors plus ferme,
Que ces vulgaires humains
Qui, près de leur dernier terme,
De vaines terreurs sont pleins.
En sage que rien n'offense,
Livrez-vous sans resistance
A d'inévitables traits;
Et, d'une demarche égale,
Passez cette onde fatal
Qu'on ne repasse jamais.”

Rochefoucauld left behind him only two works, the
one, Memoirs of his own time, the other the Maxims.
The first described the scenes in which his youth had
been spent, and though written in a lively style,
and giving faithful pictures of the intrigues and the
scandals of the court during Louis XIV.'s minority,
yet, except to the historian, has ceased at the present
day to be of much interest. It forms, perhaps, the
true key to understand the special as opposed to
general application of the maxims.

Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that “there
are few people so bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer
the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld to the Commen-
taries of Caesar,” or the statement of Voltaire, “that
the Memoirs are universally read and the Maxims are
learnt by heart,” few persons at the present day ever
heard of the Memoirs, and the knowledge of most as
to the Maxims is confined to that most celebrated of
all, though omitted from his last edition, “There
is something in the misfortunes of our best friends
which does not wholly displease us.” Yet it is
difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is
perhaps oftener unwittingly quoted, none certainly
oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon none have so
many contradictory opinions been given.

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