SOURCE: Westgate, David. “The Concept of Amour-Propre in the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld.” Nottingham French Studies 7, no. 2 (October 1968): 67-79.

[In the following essay, Westgate explores the concept of self-love as it was understood in the seventeenth century to better grasp La Rochefoucauld's use of this idea in the Maximes.]

Critics generally agree that amour-propre is central to the description of man in the Maximes, but not all have seen into the full sense of the term. H. Chamard writes of it as being egoism;¹ W. G. Moore envisages it as self-interest;² for A. Krailsheimer, it is the “permanent and radical reorientation of man's spiritual eye on to himself.”³ All of these ideas hold some truth, as amour-propre certainly embraces each of these aspects. The seventeenth-century concept of amour-propre, however, also has the wider connotation of being the natural condition of Fallen Man. This particular point has not been emphasized enough in recent criticism on the Maximes,⁴ and so it is useful to dwell briefly on the specific sense the concept of amour-propre embraced throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century.

St Augustine's amor sui, from which the concept of amour-propre was initially derived, had the general sense of concupiscence.⁵ It is likely that the term amour-propre itself and this view of man it embodied entered the French language in the late sixteenth century on the crest of the wave of the Augustinian current of the Counter-Reformation. Pierre de Bérulle, one of the more significant theologians of this movement, evidently understood the term in this strict Augustinian sense. In his Bref Discours de l'abnégation intérieure, published in 1597, he writes:

Comme nous avons deux natures, l'une corporelle & sensible, l'autre spirituelle & raisonnable, toutes deux capables d'aimer Dieu par grace, & enclines à s'aimer elles-mesmes par nature, ou plustost par une certaine inclination corrompuë; aussi il y a deux sortes d'amour de Dieu, & d'amour de soy-mesme en nous; … Or, la perfection que l'on peut acquerir en cette vie mortelle, & vrayement militante, ne consiste qu'à perfectionner l'une & l'autre partie [de l'âme] en l'amour de Dieu, & à en dechasser l'amour propre qui y est profondement enraciné.⁶

Both the sensitive and rational natures, because of their state of corruption, are inclined to love themselves and are unable to pass into the higher order of the love of God. This passage, then, patently deals with the Augustinian doctrine of the two loves: amor sui, or amour-propre, which is man's Fallen condition, and amor Dei, or amour de Dieu, to which man rises through grace. It becomes evident that amour-propre is in fact a condition when Bérulle notes that it reigns perpetually in man “sans mesme qu'il y ayt aucun estat de perfection en cette vie mortelle, tant élevé soit-il, qui s'en puisse dire exempt, n'y ayant que la seule gloire des bienheureux qui le puisse bannir du tout.”⁷ Even with God's assistance, man cannot completely overcome his amour-propre; it ceases only with death.

In his more mature Œuvres de piété, Bérulle returns to this doctrine of the two loves; he stresses the point that Fallen Man has no natural escape from amour-propre: “Nostre Esprit, interessé par le peché originel, & rempli d'amour propre, n'a aucune puissance de soy en cét estat.”⁸ The possibility of escape is only present when man is in grace and thus established in the amour de Dieu.⁹ Grace does not, however, destroy man's free-will; he may accept it if he desires or refuse it if his amour-propre so commands; for, as J. Orcibal notes, “l'amour-propre ou concupiscence s'oppose constamment à la grâce. C'est là un effet de la chute dont, en fervent disciple de saint Augustin, Bérulle marque en termes saisissants la profondeur.”¹⁰ Such, then, was the initial meaning of amour-propre in the French language. It was, essentially, a theological concept which found its origin in the writings of St Augustine and which had the sense of concupiscence.

Following Bérulle's death, the concept lived on in the thought of subsequent Augustinian theologians. Saint-Cyran, for example, who had come very much under the influence of Bérulle,¹¹ writes as follows on “la charité”:

Elle produit autant de bonnes passions en l'âme que l'amour-propre en produit de mauvaises, elle est la vraie vie comme l'amour-propre la vraie mort, l'une fait vivre pour Dieu et non pour soi, faisant autant mourir l'amour de soi-même que l'amour des autres créatures, au lieu que l'autre fait le contraire.¹²

Here amour-propre is still understood in its all-pervading Augustinian sense and is set in total opposition to charity, the spirit of amour de Dieu in man. It leads to “la vraie mort” since it motivates man to depend on himself and deny God, which will eventually result in the damnation of the soul. Antoine Arnauld also insists on the reprehensible nature of amour-propre in his De la fréquente communion of 1643. He, too, notes amour-propre's natural opposition to grace: “Rien ne s'accorde mieux ensemble que la privation de la grace et la plénitude de l'amour-propre; …”¹³ Arnauld, however, intent on describing the state of mind necessary for taking part in the Eucharist, places the greater emphasis on the view that amour-propre leads man into sinfulness; hence, when he alludes to the Augustinian doctrine of the two loves, he writes that the two loves must be considered “comme deux sources générales de tous les biens et de tous les maux de notre âme: l'amour de Dieu de tout bien, l'amour de soi-même de tout mal.”¹⁴Amour-propre is thus an inevitable source of evil and Arnauld declares that the Christian must attempt to rid himself of it by the practice of penitence and humility, in which he will be assisted by grace,¹⁵ before approaching the altar. Such views as these play an important role in Jean-François Senault's De l'usage des passions of 1641. Like the Augustinians before him, he stresses the necessity of grace, which alone enables man to resist the natural proclivity to evil that his amour-propre, or concupiscence, instills in him. Senault writes that the universal remedy for this sinfulness into which man without God falls is found only in “le secours de la Grace, et nous n'avons soupiré avec liberté que depuis que Iesus Christ est venu au monde pour bannir l'amour propre de nos âmes.”¹⁶

On examining the Maximes, it soon becomes evident that La Rochefoucauld understands amour-propre in its specific Augustinian sense. He possibly came into contact with the term in its theological context through his meetings with Jacques Esprit, the author of De la fausseté des vertus humaines,¹⁷ and with Mme de Sablé, which became quite frequent in the 1650's.¹⁸ He then took it into his own vocabulary since it coincided so aptly with his own view of man. As H. Grubbs writes:

Pendant qu'il écrivait ses Mémoires, des réflexions suscitées par une étude approfondie des mobiles des chefs des partis de la Fronde ont dû renforcer une opinion qu'il tenait peut-être déjà: que l'amour-propre est le motif unique des actions humaines, et qu'il n'existe pas de vertu désintéressée.¹⁹

This is not to say, of course, that La Rochefoucauld came to believe entirely in the Port-Royal theology, even though the Jansenist penchants of Mme de Sévigné and Mme de Lafayette may have coloured his own Christian beliefs with pessimistic hues. It nevertheless remains true that the Maximes are heavily impregnated with Augustinian ideas, of which the concept of amour-propre stands out as the supreme example.²⁰

The main difficulty in interpreting amour-propre in the Maximes stems from the fact that La Rochefoucauld has almost totally suppressed or seen fit not to discuss extensively the theological connotations of the concept and the reasons for this will be discussed later in this study. It is, however, possible to reconstruct this theology and, indeed, necessary to do so if certain of the maxims and some of the basic ideas of La Rochefoucauld are to be fully understood. To a certain extent, La Rochefoucauld tends to invite such an approach by writing in the “Préface” of the 1666 edition of the Maximes:

La principale [chose], et comme le fondement de toutes ces Réflexions, est que celui qui les a faites n'a considéré les hommes que dans cet état déplorable de la nature corrompue par le péché; …²¹

Similarly, in a letter addressed to Thomas Esprit, the brother of Jacques and the author of Maximes politiques, La Rochefoucauld writes of the Maximes:

Il me semble, dis-je, que l'on n'a pu trop exagérer les misères et les contrariétés du cœur humain pour humilier l'orgueil ridicule dont il est rempli, et lui faire voir le besoin qu'il a en toutes choses d'être soutenu et redressé par le christianisme.

(p. 630)

In both of these quotations, La Rochefoucauld echoes the main theses of the Augustinian view of Fallen Man: human nature is fundamentally corrupt; man has a misplaced pride in himself which must be humbled; Christianity is his only means of spiritual redress. In the Maximes, La Rochefoucauld's Augustinianism is rarely as explicit as it is here. Even so, as we shall see, the first two of these theses predominate in the Maximes and amour-propre becomes of fundamental importance to each of them.

It has been noted that amour-propre, being synonymous with concupiscence, is the condition of Fallen Man. La Rochefoucauld also gives this connotation to the concept in the Maximes. He writes: “Nous ne pouvons rien aimer que par rapport à nous” (81), emphasizing that since man necessarily relates everything to himself, his self-love is a condition. This state of self-love is, in fact, amour-propre: “L'amour-propre est l'amour de soi-même et de toutes chose pour soi; …” (563)²²Amour-propre was not, however, man's original condition:

Une preuve convaincante que l'homme n'a pas été créé comme il est, c'est que, plus il devient raisonnable, et plus il rougit en lui-même de l'extravagance, de la bassesse et de la corruption de ses sentiments et de ses inclinations.

(523)

La Rochefoucauld here especially makes an oblique reference to the Augustinian idea of man's original state of felicity²³ and the corruption of his nature that was brought about by original sin. He also alludes to this same corruption of human nature and emphasizes that there is no natural escape from it when he states:

Les défauts de l'âme sont comme les blessures du corps: quelque soin qu'on prenne de les guérir, la cicatrice paraît toujours, et elles sont à tout moment en danger de se rouvrir.

(194)

The faults or flaws of the soul are ostensibly those which resulted from original sin and which can only be removed by Heaven-sent grace.

For the Augustinians, man lost knowledge of God and therefore of amour de Dieu after his Fall.²⁴ La Rochefoucauld seems to be echoing this particular point in the following maxim:

S'il y a un amour pur et exempt du mélange de nos autres passions, c'est celui qui est caché au fond du cœur, et que nous ignorons nousmêmes.

(69)

It would appear that man in his present state of corruption cannot reach up to this pure love, no doubt the amour de Dieu; he can only follow the impulses of his amour-propre.

In the maxims examined thus far, there has been no open mention of Christianity or of Augustianian theology, even though the ideas which La Rochefoucauld discusses have an evident Augustinian origin. One maxim, however, clearly establishes amour-propre within its theological context:

Dieu a permis, pour punir l'homme du péché originel, qu'il se fît un Dieu de son amour-propre, pour en être tourmenté dans toutes les actions de sa vie.

(509)

It is true that La Rochefoucauld never sanctioned the inclusion of this maxim in the editions of the Maximes which he supervised.²⁵ It does, however, reveal beyond all doubt the context in which he found amour-propre and in which he understood it. Amour-propre therefore characterizes the human condition: “Il est dans tous les états et dans toutes les conditions; …” (563) Since La Rochefoucauld never introduces the idea of divine grace in the Maximes, amour-propre becomes the inevitable condition of all men; it ends only with death.²⁶

La Rochefoucauld considers man to be an essentially weak creature: “La faiblesse est le seul défaut que l'on ne saurait corriger.” (130) This weakness stems from the superiority of the passions over man's rational faculty; they exist and endure independently of reason and will: “La durée de nos passions ne dépend pas plus de nous que la durée de notre vie.” (5) Reason may show man the path he ought to follow, but man is unable to do so owing to his rebellious passions: “Nous n'avons pas assez de force pour suivre toute notre raison.” (42) Amour-propre, however, gives rise to all the passions in man: “Les passions ne sont que les divers goûts de l'amour-propre” (531), and so it becomes clear that man's weakness is due to the fact that amour-propre prevails over reason.²⁷ Hence La Rochefoucauld can suggest:

L'homme croit souvent se conduire lorsqu'il est conduit, et pendant que par son esprit il tend à un but, son cœur l'entraîne insensiblement à un autre.

(43)

L'esprit est toujours la dupe du cœur.

(102)

“L'esprit,” or the rational faculty, is always the dupe of the heart since the latter is the seat of amour-propre.²⁸Amour-propre, then, has the ascendancy in man's make-up and its various impulses will characterize his psychology.

One of the major impulses of amour-propre in man's psychology strives to produce and maintain a flattering self-image. It is “le plus grand de tous les flatteurs” (2), making men idolize themselves (563) and become self-indulgent. (196) This impulse of amour-propre, often referred to as vanity,²⁹ forms in man an embellished image of himself, by virtue of which man is able to attain happiness: “On n'aurait guère de plaisir si on ne se flattait jamais.” (123) Without self-flattery, man would perceive the essential weakness of his nature and this would lead to unhappiness.³⁰

Amour-propre also gives rise in man to the sentiment of pride. All men are endowed with it (35), and it conspires with vanity to hide their faults from them. Pride is totally opposed to humility, in which is to be found the only defence against it:

L'humilité est la véritable preuve des vertus chrétiennes: sans elle, nous conservons tous nos défauts, et ils sont seulement couverts par l'orgueil, qui les cache aux autres, et souvent à nous-mêmes.

(358)

This last maxim is one of the few in the 1678 edition of the Maximes which make clear reference to Augustinian theology and which imply the source of La Rochefoucauld's view of man. Like St Augustine,³¹ La Rochefoucauld believes that “l'humilité est l'autel sur lequel Dieu veut qu'on lui offre des sacrifices.” (537) Pride, however, being an impulse of amour-propre, prevents this action from taking place, since the spirit of humility, as Arnauld has said, leads to the destruction of amour-propre. No one therefore desires to be humble: “Force gens veulent être dévôts, mais personne ne veut être humble.” (534)

The passion of love, like all other passions in man, owes its origin to amour-propre; in fact, as La Rochefoucauld writes:

Il n'y a point de passion où l'amour de soi-même règne si puissamment que dans l'amour, et on est toujours plus disposé à sacrifier le repos de ce qu'on aime qu'à perdre le sien.

(262)

Love, too, is thus characterized by man's constant relation of everything to himself. Because of his imperfect nature, he cannot do otherwise than place his own interests and pleasures before those of others and so love inevitably becomes an egocentric passion and therefore resembles hatred more than friendship. (72) It is not caused by the qualities of a person, but simply by a desire to experience the emotion; hence La Rochefoucauld writes: “Il y a des gens qui n'auraient jamais été amoureux s'ils n'avaient jamais entendu parler de l'amour.” (136)

In social relationships, amour-propre prevails in such a way that man desires to dominate his fellows, and would do so if he had the means at his disposal. (563) Fortunately, more often than not, he lacks these means and so is led to conceal this deep-seated desire. Consequently, social life becomes typified by hypocrisy, a hypocrisy that is necessary for the very existence of society: “Les hommes ne vivraient pas longtemps en société, s'ils n'étaient les dupes les uns des autres.” (87) Social intercourse therefore is based on civility of honnêteté, which instructs man to cover his true desires with a pleasant exterior and also to be tolerant of others. Hence the true honnête homme is “celui qui ne se pique de rien” (203); he must practise tolerance towards others so as to be treated with tolerance himself. As La Rochefoucauld writes in his Reflexions diverses: “Il faudrait faire son plaisir de celui des autres, ménager leur amour-propre, et ne le blesser jamais.”³² La Rochefoucauld implies that honnêteté is much more than this when he states:

Les faux honnêtes gens sont ceux qui déguisent leurs défauts aux autres et à eux-mêmes; les vrais honnêtes gens sont ceux qui les connaissent parfaitement, et les confessent.

(202)

He does, however, seem to destroy the basis of the true honnêteté by writing elsewhere that those who confess their faults only do so out of a desire to be praised (554), out of vanity (609), or with the ulterior motive of redeeming themselves in the eyes of others:

Nous avouons nos défauts pour réparer par notre sincérité le tort qu'ils nous font dans l'esprit des autres.

(184)

Justice is also founded on amour-propre; it is not loved for its own sake, but because it permits men to live together in comparative harmony and to safeguard their possessions. It protects them from the more despotic tendencies of the amour-propre of others:

La justice n'est qu'une vive appréhension qu'on ne nous ôte ce qui nous appartient; de là vient cette considération et ce respect pour tous les intérêts du prochain, et cette scrupuleuse application à ne lui faire aucun préjudice. Cette crainte retient l'homme dans les bornes des biens que la naissance ou la fortune lui ont donnés; et sans cette crainte, il ferait des courses continuelles sur les autres.

(578)

Man's basic desire to dominate others is thus controlled to a certain extent by external forces, which he respects because of his desire to preserve himself and his possessions.³³

The desire to dominate nevertheless persists in man's psychology and leads him to adopt one scale of values for himself and another scale for other men. Amour-propre, in other words, induces man to assume a non-critical approach with regard to his own faults and a hypercritical attitude with respect to those of his fellows. For example:

Nous n'avons pas le courage de dire, en général, que nous n'avons point de défauts, et que nos ennemis n'ont point de bonnes qualités; mais, en détail, nous ne sommes pas trop éloignés de le croire.

(397)

It is for these reasons that La Rochefoucauld considers that true friendship can never exist between men. Fallen Man's natural egocentrism precludes the possibility of any sincere relationship between himself and other men, and so friendship really amounts to nothing more than the manipulation of others in order to achieve one's desires:

Ce que les hommes ont nommé amitié n'est qu'une société, qu'un ménagement réciproque d'intérêts, et qu'un échange de bons offices; ce n'est enfin qu'un commerce où l'amour-propre se propose toujours quelque chose à gagner.

(83)

Friendship, like society, is therefore governed by amour-propre.

Man in relation to himself and to other men is thus always characterized by amour-propre. It motivates him to disguise his true self from himself and from others. He is, all in all, the image of hypocrisy:

Dans toutes les professions, chacun affecte une mine et un extérieur, pour paraître ce qu'il veut qu'on le croie: ainsi on peut dire que le monde n'est composé que de mines.

(256)

This idea of hypocrisy, an oft-repeated theme with the Augustinians,³⁴ leads to a discussion of the idea of virtue and vice in the Maximes.

La Rochefoucauld writes: “L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu” (218), implying that all virtues are really vices in disguise. This point of view results from La Rochefoucauld's Augustinian conception of man. La Rochefoucauld is not concerned with the end result of an action, but solely with the motive which gives rise to it. Since all man's actions find their origin in one or more of the various aspects of amour-propre and since La Rochefoucauld understands the term in its Augustinian sense of concupiscence, then all man's actions must necessarily and essentially be vices.³⁵ As he writes: “Nous aurions souvent honte de nos plus belles actions, si le monde voyait tous les motifs qui les produisent.” (409) These motives, as we shall see, are invariably aspects of amour-propre. In the maxim on clemency, La Rochefoucauld states:

Cette clémence, dont on fait une vertu, se pratique tantôt par vanité, quelquefois par paresse, souvent par crainte, et presque toujours par tous les trois ensemble.

(16)

All three motive forces he mentions are impulses of amour-propre, vanity being the high opinion one has of oneself, “la paresse” being the feeling of self-satisfaction³⁶ and fear for one's safety deriving from the idea of self-preservation. Fidelity, normally considered a virtue, is “une invention de l'amour-propre.” (247) It is, more often than not, a means by which man can gain the confidence of another and become entrusted with matters of great importance; it thus appeals greatly to man's vanity. Humility is often a mere pretence of submission which serves to dominate others. (254) Generosity is the pride of giving, which is valued more highly than what is actually given. (263) Sympathy and assistance are offered to those in adverse circumstances so as to secure their help should a similar misfortune befall oneself. (264)

One maxim sums up La Rouchefoucauld's basic thesis: “Les vertus se perdent dans l'intérêt, comme les fleuves se perdent dans la mer.” (171) Since “l'intérêt est l'âme de l'amour-propre” (510), man's actions can never be truly virtuous, but can only have the appearance of being so. As A. Adam comments: “Les vices entrent dans la composition de toutes les vertus. C'est à cette conclusion qu'aboutit le livre des Maximes, et La Rochefoucauld se trouve ainsi rejoindre l'une des thèses habituelles de l'augustinisme.”³⁷ When amour-propre begins to lose its Augustinian connotations in some circles, it will be considered as a respectable motivation to virtue;³⁸ but, with La Rochefoucauld, there is no doubt that the pejorative Augustinian sense of concupiscence remains firmly attached to the term.

In spite of this general picture of corruption which is painted in great detail in the Maximes, La Rochefoucauld appears to admit the existence of certain virtues or ideals. Although sincerity is, for the most part, motivated by a desire to display one's faults in the light in which one wishes them to be seen (383), true sincerity nevertheless exists in some people, albeit in very few. (62) La Rochefoucauld also believes that true love and true friendship, although extremely rare (473), do, in fact, exist: “L'envie est détruite par la véritable amitié, et la coquetterie par le véritable amour.” (376) When these maxims are placed within the context of the whole collection, however, the virtues and ideals they describe seem to become remote or even unrealizable. Even so, their very presence attests the possibility that there may exist quite a different world from the one generally evoked in the Maximes. This other world is, perhaps a pale recollection of the era before the Fronde when the voluntarist ethic held sway. It was then widely thought that man, like Corneille's Auguste, could choose the path of vice or virtue through an act of will. It may also be the world of Augustinian theology in which man acceded to virtue through the gift of grace; either explanation seems quite plausible.

Whatever the case may be, the world evoked in the Maximes is neither Cornelian, which is rarely implied in any case, nor wholly Augustinian. Although La Rochefoucauld's conception of man is totally Augustinian in its pessimism and in its terminology, the universe in which the man of the Maximes lives is most certainly not Augustinian. Almost all direct references to Christianity were suppressed by La Rochefoucauld and the idea of divine grace only finds mention in his “Préface.”³⁹ What takes the place of God or Providence is the pagan idea of chance or fate ruling the world: “L'auteur des Maximes … ne veut connaître, au-dessus des agitations humaines, que l'aveugle puissance de la Fortune.”⁴⁰ Adam's explanation as to why La Rochefoucauld chose to do this also seems reasonable: “Les Maximes, c'est d'abord la sagesse païenne démasquée, c'est le mensonge des vertus naturelles mis au grand jour …”⁴¹ La Rochefoucauld was more concerned with revealing the falsity of pagan wisdom than with stressing the redeeming role of Christ.⁴²

It is chance, “la fortune,” which gives man the opportunity of showing his qualities: “La nature fait le mérite, et la fortune le met en œuvre.” (153) Heroic actions are usually less the result of a grand design than a result of pure chance. (57) Man is not a creature of will who creates his destiny, but a creature who is generally at the mercy of fate:

Toutes nos qualités sont incertaines et douteuses, en bien comme en mal, et elles sont presque toutes à la merci des occasions.

(470)

There is, however, another force which La Rochefoucauld considers equally as powerful as chance, namely “l'humeur.” He frequently links the two terms together:

Le bonheur et le malheur des hommes ne dépend pas moins de leur humeur que de la fortune.

(61)

Le caprice de notre humeur est encore plus bizarre que celui de la fortune.

(45)

This leads to the problem of what is meant by “l'humeur.” La Rochefoucauld seems to understand it as being the antonym of “l'esprit”: “Il y a plus de défauts dans l'humeur que dans l'esprit.” (290) We have seen that “le cœur” is also the antonym of “l'esprit,” and so it is possible to construe “l'humeur” as an emotional disposition that originates in the heart. Since the heart is the seat of amour-propre and since amour-propre itself is the producer of all feelings, it becomes evident that “l'humeur” is a manifestation of amour-propre.

The world therefore is ruled by two forces: “La fortune et l'humeur gouvernent le monde.” (435) This maxim, in very few words, thus sums up the main these of the Maximes: man lives in a world of chance and all his actions are determined by his amour-propre or concupiscence. This unusual combination of Augustinian and pagan elements contributes substantially to the fundamental originality of the Maximes.

Notes

1. “Three French Moralists of the Seventeenth Century,” The Rice Institute Pamphlets, XVIII (1931), 8.

2. French Classical Literature, London, Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 125.

3. Studies in Self-Interest from Descartes to La Bruyère, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962, p. 89.

4. A. Levi seems to be the only critic who has stressed it to any reasonable extent. He writes: “La Rochefoucauld himself is clearly conscious of the theological overtones attached to the word amour-propre.” French Moralists: The Theory of Passions, 1585-1649, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 230. Levi also writes that amour-propre only assumed the pejorative sense of concupiscence within the context of Jansenius' Augustinus (Ibid., p. 226). The view put forward in this study, however, maintains that amour-propre was generally synonymous with concupiscence ever since it appeared in the French language in the late sixteenth century.

5. The passage in which the Bishop of Hippo defines amor sui occurs in his City of God. He writes: “Deux amours ont donc fait deux cités: l'amour de soi [amor sui] jusqu'au mépris de Dieu, la cité terrestre; l'amour de Dieu [amor Dei] jusqu'au mépris de soi, la Cité céleste. L'une se glorifie en elle-même, l'autre dans le Seigneur. L'une demande sa gloire aux hommes; pour l'autre, Dieu témoin de sa conscience est sa plus grande gloire. L'une dans sa gloire dresse la tête; l'autre dit à son Dieu: Tu es ma gloire et tu élèves ma tête. L'une dans ses chefs ou dans les nations qu'elle subjugue, est dominée par la passion de dominer; dans l'autre, on se rend mutuellement service par charité …” La Cité de Dieu, ed. G. Bardy, trans. G. Combès, in Œuvres de Saint Augustin, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1947-, XXXV (1959), 363. Amor sui thus characterizes the Earthly City, that is, the City of Fallen Man. It is the condition of those who, like Adam, have disavowed God and passed from the universal adoration of Him to the particular adoration of themselves. It is the nature of those who are typified by pride and the desire to dominate: fundamentally, amor sui is the nature of those who have made themselves their own God. As St Augustine writes elsewhere, concupiscence results from the original sin and is characterized by man's pride and his attempt to make himself his own God. La Trinité, ed. P. Agaësse & J. Moingt, in Œuvres, XVI (1955), 237-43. It is therefore possible to establish a general synonymy between the two terms amor sui and concupiscence. This latter point is also made by J. Orcibal; see note 10.

6. In Œuvres complètes, reproduction of the Edition Princips (1644) of F. Bourgoing, Monsoult: Maison d'Institution de l'Oratoire, 1960, II, 645.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., no. 179, pp. 1067-8.

9. Ibid., no. 168, p. 1052.

10. Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran, et son temps, 1581-1638, Paris: Vrin, 1947, p. 78.

11. L. Cognet, Le Jansénisme, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961, p. 22; J. Orcibal, Saint-Cyran et le jansénisme, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1961, pp. 11-2.

12. Quoted in J. Orcibal, La Spiritualité de Saint-Cyran avec ses écrits de piété inédits, Paris: Vrin, 1962, p. 256.

13. Lyon: Claude Plaignard, 1739, p. 753.

14. Ibid., p. 754.

15. Ibid., pp. 763-4.

16. Paris, 1665, p. 206.

17. In this treatise, Esprit writes: “Depuis que l'amour propre s'est rendu le maître et le tyran de l'homme, il ne souffre en lui aucune vertu ni aucune action vertueuse qui ne lui soit utile, et … il les emploie toutes à faire reüssir ses differentes pretensions.” Amsterdam, 1730, pp. xvi-xvii. It is quite clear here that Esprit uses amour-propre in its pejorative Augustinian sense.

18. Mme de Sablé's salon, which flourished in the 1650's and early 1660's, often received visits from Pascal, Arnauld, La Rochefoucauld and J. Esprit and witnessed the discussion of various points of Augustinian theology. N. Ivanoff, La Marquise de Sablé et son salon, Paris: Presses Modernes, 1927, pp. 89-90.

19. “La Genèse des Maximes de La Rochefoucauld,” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XL (1933), 20.

20. A. Adam, for example, stresses this importance of Augustinian ideas in the Maximes. Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle, Paris: Del Duca, 1958, IV, 93-4.

21. F. de La Rochefoucauld, Œuvres complètes, ed. L. Martin-Chauffier & J. Marchand, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris: Gallimard, 1964, p. 399. The same text is in the “Préface” of the editions of 1671, 1675 and 1678. The 1678 edition of the Maximes will be used here, the maxims numbering from 1 to 504. The “maximes posthumes” (505-562) and the “maximes supprimées” (563-641) will also be used, usually only if they relate to a theme of the 1678 edition. Subsequent references to works in the Œuvres complètes will be given parenthetically.

22. H. Grubbs writes of this maxim: “Maxim 563, the long essay on amour propre … was probably suppressed on the ground of crudeness. That is, it too obviously revealed the author's main thesis. Its suppression cannot be explained as an attempt to diminish the universality of this thesis …” “The Originality of La Rochefoucauld's Maxims,” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XXXVI (1929), 57. It would, then, appear justifiable to quote from this maxim, especially as it treats of concept in lucid terms. As far as the terms amour-propre and amour de soi-même are concerned, they are, as Adam writes, synonymous: “Les Maximes n'ont de sens que s'il existe en l'homme un seul amour naturel, l'amour de soi, l'amour-propre.” Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle, IV, 100-1.

23. In the pristine state of nature, man was characterized by the love of God and self-love and the two loves were in harmony with each other. Senault, for example, writes: “L'homme ne s'aimoit que pour Dieu et la nature estoit si bien temperée avec la Grace que toutes ses inclinations estoient sainctes.” (p. 205.)

24. In his Œuvres de piété, Bérulle writes that since original sin has reduced man to amour-propre, he cannot recognize the spiritual world and God: “Ce monde que nous voyons a pour son Principe un Dieu que nous ne voyons pas.” (no. 164, p. 1045.) God has become a hidden God and man therefore has no knowledge of the amour de Dieu.

25. This maxim appears in an undated letter to Mme de Sablé, in which La Rochefoucauld writes: “Je vous envoie ce que j'ai pris chez vous en partie.” (p. 620.) This may imply that she and the habitués of her salon collaborated with La Rochefoucauld in the composition of this particular maxim.

26. Maxim 504, p. 470.

27. This idea is also present in Senault. He states that man's reason, weakened by his original sin, is powerless to control his amour-propre: “La Raison ne s'en peut encore deffendre.” (pp. 205-6.)

28. La Rochefoucauld never states openly that the heart is the seat of amour-propre. It is nevertheless quite evident that he understands the term “le cœur” in substantially the same manner as Pascal in “pensée” 477 of the Chevalier edition. Here Pascal writes: “Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point; on le sait en mille choses. Je dis que le cœur aime l'être universel naturellement, et soi-même naturellement, selon qu'il s'y adonne; et il se durcit contre l'un ou l'autre, à son choix. Vous avez rejeté l'un et conservé l'autre: est-ce par raison que vous vous aimez?” Œuvres complètes, ed. J. Chevalier, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris: Gallimard, 1954. Referring directly to the Augustinian doctrine of the two loves, Pascal declares that the heart of man loves God or himself. But man has rejected God and no longer has knowledge of Him; the heart therefore becomes the seat of self-love, of amour-propre.

29. In maxim 158, La Rochefoucauld writes: “La flatterie est une fausse monnaie, qui n'a de cours que par notre vanité.”

30. Similarly, Pascal writes that man is able to achieve happiness, in spite of the wretchedness of his condition, by virtue of his amour-propre. This latter force deludes him into forming an “illusion volontaire” about himself and imparts to him a constant aversion for the truth of his state of corruption. (Fragment 130, pp. 1123-5 of the Chevalier edition.)

31. As E. Gilson writes: “Résumée sous une forme abstraite, on peut dire que l'expérience d'Augustin revient à la découverte de l'humilité. L'erreur de l'intelligence est liée à la corruption du cœur par l'orgueil, l'homme ne trouve la vérité béatifiante qu'en pliant son intelligence à la foi et sa volonté à la grâce, par l'humilité.” Introduction à l'étude de Saint Augustin, Paris: Vrin, 1949, p. 299.

32. “De la société,” p. 505.

33. Pierre Nicole sums up this idea rather succinctly: “L'amour propre … aime à s'assujettir tout le monde, mais il aime encore plus la vie & les commoditez.” “De la charité et de l'amour propre,” in Essais de morale, Paris: Guillaume Desprez, 1678, III, 150.

34. Pascal, especially treats of this theme: “L'homme n'est donc que déguisement, que mensonge et hypocrisie, et en soi-même et à l'égard des autres … et toutes ces dispositions, si éloignées de la justice et de la raison, ont une racine naturelle dans son cœur.” (Fragment 130, pp. 1125-6 of the Chevalier edition.) As is the case in the Meximes, the principle or root cause of this hypocrisy is amour-propre, or concupiscence, which is naturally rooted in the heart of man without God.

35. As we have noted, the Augustinian theologians stress that virtue can only proceed from man when he is assisted by grace. Lacking grace, he is inevitably led into vice by his amour-propre.

36. This point is made clear in maxim 630: “Le repos de la paresse est un charme secret de l'âme qui suspend soudainement les plus ardentes poursuites et les plus opiniâtres résolutions; pour donner enfin la véritable idée de cette passion, il faut dire que la paresse est comme une béatitude de l'âme, qui la console de toutes ses pertes, et qui lui tient lieu de tous les biens.”

37. Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle, IV, 94.

38. The abbé d'Ailly, a member of Mme de Sablé's salon, expresses this idea in his Pensées of 1678. He writes: “L'amour-propre fait tous les vices et toutes les vertus morales, selon qu'il est bien ou mal entendu … Quoy que par ce principe il soit vray de dire que les hommes n'agissent jamais sans interest, on ne doit pas croire pour cela que tout soit corrompu, qu'il n'y ait ni justice, ni probité dans le monde. Il y a des gens qui se conduisent par des interests honnestes et louables. C'est ce juste dicernement de l'Amour-propre bien réglé …” Quoted in Ivanoff, p. 194.

39. In the “Préface” to the editions of 1666, 1671, 1675 and 1678, he writes that he has only considered men in the state of original sin and that therefore the way in which he speaks of “ce nombre infini de défauts qui se rencontrent dans leurs vertus apparentes ne regarde point ceux que Dieu en préserve par une grâce particulière.” (p. 399.)

40. Adam, IV, 105.

41. Ibid., p. 94.

42. This basic aim provides the major point of contrast between the Maximes and J. Esprit's De la fausseté des vertus humaines. Esprit sees amour-propre as the fundamental condition of man and he systematically demonstrates that all so-called human virtues originate in amour-propre and are therefore, in effect, vices. But, unlike La Rochefoucauld, Esprit always stresses the importance of Christianity, which alone provides man with the possibility of proceeding to virtue.