[In the essay which follows, Baker discusses the differences in the initial reaction to the Maximes by La Rochefoucauld's male and female contemporaries.]

The reception of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes from their inception to the present is an important topic recently broached during colloquia in France honoring the tricentenary of the duke's death.¹ In the present study, I wish to further what is currently a collective critical endeavor by proposing a gender-oriented exploration of the initial reception of the maxims by the moralist's peers. To my mind, scholars have not yet fully exploited the documentary evidence afforded by the work's period of genesis which extends roughly from 1659 to 1665, date of the first authorized edition. Within this time span, I shall focus most particularly upon the consultation organized in 1663 by La Rochefoucauld's friend the marquise de Sablé and conducted among members of her coterie.

As I have shown elsewhere, La Rochefoucauld, his friend Jacques Esprit, and Mme de Sablé all participated in the inception of the duke's project to write maxims.² Just who invented the genre will probably never be known. Like the questions d'amour in vogue in the 1650's, the creation of maxims quickly grew popular among the members and epigones of aristocratic society.³ My analysis of the maxims which La Rochefoucauld consigned in letters to his two friends between 1659 and 1663 indicates that he had registered over two hundred seventy maxims in the Liancourt manuscript by December 1663.⁴ Despite shared literary activities, however, the trio of authors was early marked by dissent between its male and female members. Judging by the extant correspondence, Mme de Sablé soon took issue with many ideas of Esprit and La Rochefoucauld. The marquise, whom Antoine Adam has called “le premier exemple de la préciosité”, maintained an idealistic view of human relations despite her conversion to Jansenist doctrines in the 1640's⁵. A series of letters exchanged towards 1660-1661 with her dearest friend Mme de Maure hints that both women disapproved of La Rochefoucauld's undertaking. In a letter of 1660 which mentions certain revisions in her assessment of the duke's maxims, Mme de Maure writes to the marquise: “Vous ne me pouvez pas faire plus de plaisir aussi bien que d'honneur, que de me dire que ce que je vous ai mandé sur ces sentences est ce que vous avez toujours trouvé …”⁶. Mme de Maure reiterates that initial reaction in a later letter to Mme de Sablé: “Il me semble m'amour, que M. de La Rochefoucauld n'y est pas assez loué pour le lui envoyer, et du moins il y faudrait remettre quelque chose que j'ai oublié avant que de dire: ‘Mais je trouve qu'il a fait à l'homme une âme trop laide’”(p. 561).

As we shall see, Mme de Maure's reaction, which Mme de Sablé presumably shared, is characteristic of the ageing précieuses of La Rochefoucauld's generation. An undated but probably contemporary letter of the duke's former mistress Mme de Longueville bolsters this view. The duchess writes to the marquise: “Je vous dirai donc que M. Esprit qui est ici m'a parlé de ces sentences, mais il ne me les a pas assez expliquées pour comprendre votre discernement sur leur sujet. Je veux dire pourquoi cette même chose qui fait honneur à leur esprit fait honte à leur âme.”⁷ Apprised of Mme de Maure's disapproval (if not of Mme de Longueville's), La Rochefoucauld makes an interesting pronouncement in a letter to Mme de Sablé: “J'avais toujours bien crue que Mme la comtesse de Maure condamnerait l'intention des sentences et qu'elle se déclarerait pour la vérité des vertus” (p. 543). The writer himself here avers that his maxims seek to disprove the existence of virtue.⁸ The ultimate intent and purpose of that demonstration seemed ambiguous however to the duke's early readers, as later judgments will indicate.

Towards the same period 1660-61, Mme de Sablé took issue with La Rochefoucauld's disabused maxims on friendship, and created her own series which she sent to Arnauld d'Andilly. The brother of the great theologian, like Mme de Maure, professed shock at the insensitivity of the anonymous author whom the marquise sought to rebut. “Il faut sentir ces choses-là”, he writes her, “pour les pouvoir penser …”. He also deplored the cynicism of the marquise's adversary: “Elle cette personne me fait pitié de s'imaginer que la véritable amitié ait un fondement si faible que la conformité des intérêts et la ressemblance des occupations.”⁹ Like letters quoted earlier, this document shows that as early as 1661 the maxims provoked denial and disapproval in both sexes. Even Mme de Sablé seemingly distanced herself from La Rochefoucauld's work. Arnauld d'Andilly's accusation that the moralist lacked heart or feeling was destined to have amazing longevity.¹⁰

The growth of the volume of Maximes which proceeded so fruitfully between 1659 and 1661 was interrupted in 1662 by the unauthorized publication of the Mémoires which created various personal difficulties for its author. In 1663, however, La Rochefoucauld renewed his literary activity.¹¹ Copies of his manuscript were now submitted anonymously to such members of the marquise's circle as Mlle de Scudéry, Mme de Schonberg (the former Mlle de Hautefort for whom Louis XIII, like La Rochefoucauld, had conceived a great passion in the 1630's), Mme de La Fayette, Mme de Liancourt (the Duke's aunt by marriage), Mme de Guyméné, and a number of putative ecclesiastics of Jansenist persuasion.

Apart from Mlle de Scudéry, Mme de Sablé's female consultants were all fervent converts to Jansenism. More significantly yet, all—the celebrated Sapho among them—were exponents of that Platonic view of love and friendship which marked the current of préciosité most noticeable in French society in the 1650's.¹² The startled reaction of these female readers is almost without exception. Unfortunately La Rochefoucauld's only extant response to Mlle de Scudéry's judgment is less than informative: “Au reste, Mademoiselle, vous avez tellement embelli quelques-unes de mes dernières maximes qu'elles vous appartiennent bien plus qu'à moi” (p. 553). It would be piquant to identify these maxims and to learn more of Sapho's reception of the entire collection: the verb embellir is suggestive. Would Mlle de Scudéry have subscribed to Mme de La Fayette's outraged pronouncement: “Ha, Madame, quelle corruption il faut avoir dans l'esprit et dans le coeur pour être capable d'imaginer tout cela! J'en suis si épouvantée que je vous assure que, si les plaisanteries étaient des choses sérieuses, de telles maximes gâteraient plus ses affaires que tous les potages qu'il mangea l'autre jour chez vous” (p. 577)?¹³ Mme de La Fayette's attack on the heart and mind of the moralist radicalizes Arnauld d'Andilly's accusation and soon recurs in other judgments, as does her comic wonderment at what must become of the author's reputation if he publishes these outrageous maxims. Mme de La Fayette's second thought, however, is to request a copy of Mme de Sablé's maxims: “… c'est justement parce qu'elles sont honnêtes et raisonnables que j'en ai envie, et qu'elles me persuaderont que toutes les personnes de bon sens ne sont pas si persuadées de la corruption générale que l'est M. de La Rochefoucauld” (p. 577). The two noble ladies are obviously closing ranks on the hapless moralist.

Mme de La Fayette's condemnation is remarkably similar to that expressed earlier by Mme de Maure and later by Mme de Schonberg. The latter addresses the question of the author's heart and mind, only to conclude that they are radically divided: “… il y a en cet ouvrage beaucoup d'esprit, peu de bonté, et forces vérités que j'aurais ignorées toute ma vie si l'on ne m'en avait fait apercevoir.” Mme de Schonberg brands the maxims an assault on her sensibility and moral beliefs.¹⁴ She terms them pernicious, for they show freedom of choice to be illusory: “Cependant, après la lecture de cet écrit, l'on demeure persuadé qu'il n'y a ni vice ni vertu à rien et que l'on fait nécessairement toutes les actions de la vie.” Again like Mme de La Fayette, Mme de Schonberg seems stunned that the author would disclose his subversive beliefs to society: “… si j'étais du conseil de l'auteur, je ne mettrais point au jour ces mystères qui ôteront à tout jamais la confiance qu'on pourrait prendre en lui …”. She genuinely admires certain discoveries of the writer, but delivers an astounding comment on his style: “Je trouve encore que cela n'est pas bien écrit en français, c'est-à-dire que ce sont des phrases et des manières de parler qui sont plutôt d'un homme de la cour que d'un auteur” (pp. 564-67). This letter thus furnishes an excellent sample of the opinions enunciated by Mme de Sablé's female consultants, most of whom are clearly (albeit penitent) précieuses troubled by the Duke's attack on les belles passions and the existence of virtue. Mme de Guyméné will even propose the ultimate “reductive” thesis, that the duke's observations are purely idiosyncratic: “… ce que j'en ai vu me paraît plus fondé sur l'humeur de l'auteur que sur la vérité … ; il juge tout le monde par lui-même” (p. 570). But it is her sister-in-law Mme de Liancourt's judgment which unwittingly furnishes a comic summary of the reactions of the duke's female readers: “… je vois bien qu'il y a dans cet écrit de fort jolies choses, et même, je crois, de bonnes, pourvu que l'on ôte l'équivoque, qui fait confondre les vraies vertus avec les fausses” (p. 571).

Now in a letter to La Rochefoucauld of 1663 in which she extols both his intelligence and his depth of feeling, Mme de Sablé declares: “… il faut renoncer à toutes les morales et ne voir plus que la vôtre”, but then adds a telling phrase she later deleted: “Mais si j'avais le pouvoir de vous enfermer pour vous faire travailler à donner la vraie lumière aux hommes …” (p. 552). Three of the four male consultants whose judgments have been preserved conclude that the moralist's work indeed has no edifying intent. The learned references, ethical concerns, and style of these unknown male readers indicate that all were ecclesiastics, and all were troubled by the ambiguity of intention which they discerned in the collection. One presents a vituperative account of his first reading: the anonymous author is a partisan of evil who poisons the wellsprings of moral action. Thanks to his esprit de finesse, however, this reader later ascertained that the maxims really paint the fallen state of man. To prevent further such misreadings, he proposes like Mme de Liancourt one small but necessary codicil: “… quoiqu'il y ait partout des paradoxes, ces paradoxes sont pourtant très véritables, pourvu qu'on demeure toujours dans les termes de la vertu morale et de la raison naturelle, sans la grâce” (p. 569).¹⁵ The hermeneutical problem which this reader has discovered is the necessity of creating a discursive context for a work characterized by le discontinu, that hallmark of genres pleasing to the aristocracy of the period.¹⁶ The context which this learned priest fabricates—not without initial difficulty, as he himself admits—is Augustinian, and he accords consequently that La Rochefoucauld is more original than those ancients and moderns who have anatomized the passions.¹⁷

The moralist fares less well at the hands of the next male consultant, who discourages publication of this exposé of “les parties honteuses de la vie civile” (p. 572). This sexual analogy amusingly parallels Mme de La Fayette's more modest likening of the duke's scandalous text to his gluttonous appreciation of Mme de Sablé's soup. This male reviewer boldly orchestrates the problem of context, coherence, and order. He finds a total lack of originality in the maxims. Comparing the text to an architectural structure, he deems it ill-assembled with few good stones and an excess of plaster, all menacing ruin. Worst of all is the loss of original contexts, for with them go all clarity of intention: “… les auteurs des livres desquels on a colligé ces sentences, ces pointes et ces périodes les avaient mieux placées; car si l'on voyait ce qui était devant et après, assurément on en serait plus édifié ou moins scandalisé” (pp. 751-52). The result is a noxious work which encourages libertinage in the unwary. Not surprisingly, this reader reinvokes the theme of poison in connection with the loss of context: certain vegetable substances become deadly when removed from their host plant.¹⁸ Unlike the previous consultant, he staunchly insists that the text's invidious intent is to prove that virtue does not exist.

The re-insertion of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes into a theological, philosophical context by his male readers is most marked in a third review. This reader perceives that La Rochefoucauld is a member of both the nobility and polite society. He stresses nonetheless that however judicious and clever, the maxims constitute an unoriginal compendium of earlier moralists. He concedes that the author may have good reason to spurn transcendental perspectives, but he too would prefer to see Christian virtue explicitly affirmed (pp. 572-73). The fourth and final consultant echoes the faint praise of La Rochefoucauld's other male readers. He esteems the author “un orateur éloquent et un philosophe plus critique que savant” (p. 575), but he posits that imagination has played a larger role than reason in his composition. He charges that the moralist not merely apes but even outstrips the pagan Seneca by confusing virtue with vice. Though the work strikes him as an astute piece of satire, he is reluctant to vaunt it. Of what worth are Seneca's subtle psychological distinctions without a solid belief in virtue? Once again, the reader's hermeneutical problem is provoked by loss of context coupled with ambiguity of intention.

La Rochefoucauld's male readers of 1663 appear more stuffy than his female readers because they perforce adopt a theological perspective and position the maxims vis-à-vis one chosen philosophical context, namely stoicism. Female readers, who did not share the specialized intellectual formation of these ecclesiastics, tended rather to deplore La Rochefoucauld's attack upon les belles passions. In this, they reveal their worldly antecedents as précieuses. It would be incorrect, though, to exaggerate the differences between the moralist's male and female consultants, insofar as most were of Jansenist persuasion by 1663.¹⁹ As is known, Jansenists and précieuses have subtle ideological ties in this period.²⁰ One will recall Ninon de Lenclos's famous boutade of 1656: “Les précieuses sont les jansénistes de l'amour.” La Rochefoucauld's readers of 1663 create contexts for his maxims which are informed by worldly and religious values which are shifting and sometimes—as in the Maximes themselves—difficult to reconcile. All realize that the maxims of 1663 mount a radical attack upon the idea of virtue which may or may not be edifying, depending upon the author's somewhat murky intentions. But while former précieuses excoriate the Duke's derogatory analysis of human action, the more perfidious male readers signal that not all these maxims of 1663 are original. In a dual attempt to placate readers of both worldly and Jansenist strain, the accommodating author made important revisions in his manuscript before the edition of 1665, and solicited an edifying preface from the devout La Chapelle-Bessé.²¹

These revisions are noteworthy, if indirect, reflections of La Rochefoucauld's collaboration with members of his aristocratic circle and the priests who catered to their spiritual needs. More curious still is an article written by Mme de Sablé, revised by the duke, and published in 1665 as a sort of advance publicity for the first edition. Mme de Sablé's initial version summarizes the poll she had conducted in 1663. It underscores that the author's birth and wit are equally great, that his work demonstrates the impossibility of virtue without religious inspiration and unveils arcane truths which the reader might never discover on his own. One will note that this last opinion is borrowed almost verbatim from Mme de Schonberg. Mme de Sablé's second paragraph succinctly ex-poses nonetheless the two major criticisms voiced by both male and female readers: first, that the portrait of man painted by the maxims reproduces the author's own shortcomings; second, that the possibility of virtue is refuted and all notion of moral action is thereby overturned (pp. 581-82) Since this was the only paragraph which La Rochefoucauld excised before publication, these criticisms clearly hit the mark.²²

An analysis of the reception of La Rochefoucauld's text between 1659 and 1665 thus allows a curious glimpse into the active collaboration between the author and his society. It permits the critic to reconstitute the changing ideological atmosphere in which the genesis of the work occurred, and shows La Rochefoucauld's readers willing to accept from a religious perspective an analysis of the individual in society which they spurned in everyday reality. Perhaps it is no wonder that so many of these readers had already withdrawn from the world. The lucid glance which La Rochefoucauld cast on that world is not the meat of every reader: like the sun and death in maxim 26, it scarcely bears contemplation.²³ If virtue does not exist, what recourse is left to the individual in society? That is a question which the moralist entertained in certain maxims on honnêteté which passed unnoticed in 1663, but which have received increasing attention in our own day.

It is notable also that in this early period, neither male nor female readers took issue with the moralist's attitudes towards women. The first preserved indication of such a reaction dates from 1671-1674, and is found in a judgment written by Mme de Rohan, abbess of Malnoue. The abbess takes particular exception to La Rochefoucauld's belief that women are dominated far more by temperament than by reason.²⁴ Experience shows, she argues, that most women subordinate their impulses to the dictates of reason and virtue; shame and la bienséance (two forms of cultural conditioning still with us) force them to comply whether they like it or not. And Mme de Rohan charmingly turns the tables on the duke: “… quand nous consentirons que vous mettiez de l'égalité entre les deux sexes, nous ne vous ferons pas d'injustice pour nous faire grâce” (p. 587). It seems likely that earlier female readers did not criticize La Rochefoucauld's misogyny because they encountered few overt traces of it in their manuscript copies.²⁵ A quick perusal of misogynist maxims added to the collection after 1664 indicates the inclusion of eighteen.²⁶ Age rather than youthful experience probably played its part in this increase. It is thought-provoking to discover that the first criticism of the Duke's misogyny was penned by an abbess (admittedly one of high social rank). Her judgment shows that as in the Maximes themselves, the concerns of the world and those of the cloister were not so divorced in the mid-seventeenth century as we sometimes imagine them to be.

To return in conclusion to the question posed by the title of this study, it seems fair to state that La Rochefoucauld has preempted for his own purposes both female (précieuse) concerns (particularly love) and male (philosophical) concerns (the definition of virtue). He has cast both into what Claudine Hermann would view as a male form of discourse: trenchant, paradoxical discoveries set forth in discontinuous form.²⁷ If Hermann is correct, Mme de La Fayette's request to read the marquise de Sablé's maxims as an antidote to the corrosive action of the duke's text assumes great interest. According to her friend the abbé d'Ailly, the marquise's eminently moralistic maxims constitute “des leçons admirables pour se conduire dans le commerce du monde.”²⁸ Seventeenth-century women and their friends the abbés were the chief promoters of such lessons, and Mme de La Fayette's call for a feminine version to mitigate the duke's (sub)version is a conservative's appeal. Readers would learn more of her views on this matter in La Princesse de Clèves.

Notes

1. See Images de La Rochefoucauld, Actes du Tricentenaire, 1680-1980, edited by Jean Lafond and Jean Mesnard (Paris, 1984).

2. Collaboration et originalité chez La Rochefoucauld (Gainesville, 1980), pp. 5-15.

3. In an undated letter to La Rochefoucauld, Mme de Sablé speaks of “la maladie que vous m'avez donnée des sentences” (Maximes, critical edition of Jacques Truchet, Paris, 1967, p. 560). Further references to the correspondence published in this edition will be indicated by parentheses in the text. A letter written by the Duke to Mme de Sablé on December 5, 1659 or 1660 declares: “Je ne sais si vous avez remarqué que l'envie de faire des sentences se gagne comme le rhume: il y a ici des disciples de M. de Balzac qui en ont eu le vent, et qui ne veulent plus faire autre chose” (pp. 543-44).

4. Baker, [Susan Read,] op. cit., p. 2.

5. See his Histoire de la littérature française (Paris, 1962), t. II, p. 31, note 2. Mme de Sablé had figured as the précieuse Parthénie both in Mlle de Scudéry's Le Grand Cyrus and Mlle de Montpensier's La Princesse de Paphlagonie. V. Cousin claims that Mme de Sablé was only moderately of Jansenist persuasion as late as 1659 (Mme de Sablé, Paris, 1882, p. 92).

6. Edouard de Barthélemy, Mme la comtesse de Maure (Paris, 1863), pp. 163-64.

7. Quoted by N. Ivanoff, La Marquise de Sablé et son salon (Paris, 1927), who notes: “Mme de Longueville a écrit, pous rayé le mot ‘tort à leur âme’” (pp. 165-66).

8. The second maxim of letter 9 is categorical: “La vertu est un fantôme produit par nos passions, du nom duquel on se sert pour faire impunément tout ce qu'on veut” (p. 550). Cf. the equally emphatic maxim 187 of the Liancourt manuscript and the softened version of 1665: “Ce que le monde nomme vertu n'est d'ordinaire qu'un fantôme formé par nos passions, à qui on donne un nom honnête, pour faire impunément ce qu'on veut” (maxim 179).

9. Quoted by Cousin, op. cit., pp. 357-58.

10. In an undated letter to Arnauld d'Andilly, Mme de Sablé takes up this topos: “M. de la Rochefoucauld et moi parlâmes hier de vous fort longtemps; il m'a toujours reproché que j'avais donné autant de blâme à son coeur que de louange à son esprit. Mais comme ce n'est que sur l'amitié que je l'ai condamné, il me semble que je m'en dois dédire par celle qu'il fait paraître pour vous” (La Rochefoucauld, Oeuvres complètes, edition of L. Martin-Chauffier for Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, 1964, p. 688).

11. As proof, one may point to the creation of fifty-two maxims which will first appear in the 1665 edition and to the minute revision of the preceding text which was probably provoked by the consultation of 1663.

12. See Jean-Michel Pelous, Amour précieux, amour galant (1654-1675), (Paris,1980), pp. 160-163 and p. 310.

13. In Mme de La Fayette's correspondence the word “plaisanterie” seems to connote matters of serious import. It reappears in a famous letter of 1665 or 1666, in which the countess tries to enlist Mme de Sablé in efforts to persuade La Rochefoucauld's natural son that the liaison between her and the Duke is “une plaisanterie” (Oeuvres complètes, pp. 684-85).

14. Mme de Schonberg continues with false naivety: “Je ne suis pas encore parvenue à cette habileté d'esprit où l'on ne connaît dans le monde ni honneur ni bonté ni probité; je croyais qu'il y en pouvait avoir” (pp. 564-65).

15. Philippe Sellier makes use of this judgment ot demonstrate coincidence of vision between La Rochefoucauld and Saint Augustine. He takes Truchet to task for terming this perspective “Jansenist” rather than Augustinian (“La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Saint Augustin”, Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France, May-August, 1969, p. 554). This is surely to overlook the essential, which is that this particular consultant has interpreted the maxims according to his own beliefs, which are not necessarily either those of the author or of Saint Augustine.

16. See Pelous, op. cit., pp. 181-82 and Norbert Elias, La Société de cour (Paris, 1974), p. 100.

17. Truchet signals a cross at the head of this manuscript, indicating that its author was indeed a priest (p. 568, note to letter 31).

18. The theme of poison reappears in one of La Rochefoucauld's most interesting maxims: “Les vices entrent dans la composition des vertus comme les poisons entrent dans la composition des plus grands remèdes de la médecine; la prudence les assemble, elle les tempère et elle s'en sert utilement contre les maux de la vie” (L 227. This maxim becomes 191 in 1665 and 182 in the definitive edition). La Rochefoucauld takes up this theme in his important letter to Father Thomas Esprit (February 6, 1664): “Nous discuterons à la première vue s'il est vrai ou non que les vices entrent souvent dans la composition de quelques vertus, comme les poisons entrent dans la composition des plus grands remèdes de la médecine.” As Truchet points out, this was the first maxim of the copies of 1663 and the surreptitious Dutch edition of 1664 (p. 578). Were the Duke and his contemporaries so intrigued by pharmaceutical concerns?

19. Mlle de Scudéry, as already noted, is an exception. So is Mme de Maure, according to Cousin (op. cit., p. 89, p. 147, pp. 331-32).

20. Pelous develops at length the reputation for subversion and heresy which marked both groups (op. cit., pp. 324-25). Ivanoff is perfectly correct to assert: “Or c'est précisément comme janséniste et comme précieuse que la marquise [de Sablé] se sépare de La Rochefoucauld (op. cit., p. 179).

21. Sellier considers this attempt to mollify both mondains and Augustinians as a major source of La Rochefoucauld's originality: “L'originalité de La Rochefoucauld ne consiste donc pas seulement dans l'enrichissement du thème de l'amour-propre. … Elle réside aussi dans une étonnante, difficile, précaire alliance de la théorie augustinienne des vertus et de l'habitude du monde” (op. cit., p. 574).

22. The letter of February 18, 1665 which Mme de Sablé sent to La Rochefoucauld along with her draft of the article also contains an interesting revision. Referring to the critical second paragraph, Mme de Sablé first wrote: “J'y ai mis cet endroit seul par où l'on vous condamne, afin que cela vous fasse surmonter la mauvaise honte qui vous fait mettre la préface sans y rien retrancher, car je suis assuré que vous ne laisserez pas cet endroit-là, quand même le reste vous plairait. The modified version reads: “J'y ai mis cet endroit qui vous est si sensible …” (pp. 580-81). Mme de Sablé knew her friend very well indeed.

23. As Erica Harth reiterates in her recent Ideology and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France (Ithaca and London, 1984), this withdrawal connotes the decline of the aristocracy. It was difficult for the generation which had fought the Fronde to contemplate with equanimity its progressive loss of power and prestige after 1660 (pp. 19-23, p. 115).

24. She is attacking maxim 346 which La Rochefoucauld had sent her among others: “Il ne peut y avoir de règle dans l'esprit, ni dans le coeur des femmes, si le tempérament n'en est d'accord” (p. 584).

25. Maxims of misogynist tone in the Liancourt manuscript include numbers 45, 57, 182, 222, and possibly 75, 88, and 130. Maxim 182 (also found in letter 7, pp. 548-49) is the boldest of these: “La vanité et la honte, et surtout le tempérament, fait la valeur des hommes, et la chasteté des femmes, dont chacun mène tant de bruit.” In the original edition, women were no longer mentioned (234). The allusion reappeared however in the second edition, when “la chasteté” became and remained “la vertu des femmes.”

26. See maxims 301 (suppressed thereafter) and 304 of 1665; maxims 332, 333, 334 and 340 of the definitive edition (added in 1671); maxims 346, 362, 396, and 406 of 1678 (added in 1675); and maxims 418, 429, 440, 466, 471, 474, 497, and 499, all added in 1678.

27. See Les Voleuses de langue (Paris, 1976), p. 161.

28. Mme de Sablé, Maximes et Pensées diverses (Paris, 1678), “Préface” (unpaginated).