Reflections | Page 6

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.
“Few books,” says Mr. Hallam, “have been more highly extolled, or
more severely blamed, than the maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucauld,
and that not only here, but also in France.” Rousseau speaks of it as, “a
sad and melancholy book,” though he goes on to say “it is usually so in
youth when we do not like seeing man as he is.” Voltaire says of it, in
the words above quoted, “One of the works which most contri- buted to
form the taste of the (French) nation, and to give it a spirit of justness

and precision, was the collection of the maxims of Francois Duc de la
Roche- foucauld, though there is scarcely more than one truth running
through the book--that ‘self-love is the motive of everything’--yet this
thought is presented under so many varied aspects that it is nearly
always striking. It is not so much a book as it is materials for
ornamenting a book. This little collection was read with avidity, it
taught people to think, and to comprise their thoughts in a lively,
precise, and delicate turn of expression. This was a merit which, before
him, no one in Europe had attained since the revival of letters.”
Dr. Johnson speaks of it as “the only book written by a man of fashion,
of which professed authors need be jealous.”
Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says, “Till you come to
know mankind by your experience, I know no thing nor no man that
can in the mean- time bring you so well acquainted with them as Le
Duc de la Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims, which I would
advise you to look into for some moments at least