PARTISAN REVIEW
aesthetic expression of what the elite thinks about itself. La Rochefou–
cauld borrowed the form and the content of his maxims from the
divertissements of the salons. The casuistry of the Jesuits, the eti–
quette of the Precieuses, the game of portraits, the ethics of Nicole,
and the religious conception of the passions were at the origin of a
hundred other works. The comedies drew their inspiration from
ancient psychology and the plain common sense of the upper bourge–
oisie. Society was thoroughly delighted at seeing itself mirrored in
them because it recognized the thoughts it formed about itself; it
did not ask to be shown what was, but asked rather for a reflection
of what it thought of itself. Doubtless some satires were permitted;
but it was the elite which, through pamphlets and comedies, carried
on, in the name of its morality, the cleansings and the purges neces–
sary for its health. The ridiculous marquis, the litigants, or the Pre–
cieuses are never made fun of from a point of view
external
to the
ruling class; it is always a matter of eccentrics who are unassimilable
in a civilized society and who live on the margins of the collective
life. The Misanthrope is twitted because he lacks courtesy, Cathos
and Madelon, because they have too much courtesy; Philaminte goes
counter to the accepted ideas about women; the bourgeois gentleman
is odious both to the rich bourgeoisie who have a lofty modesty and
who know the greatness and the humbleness of their condition and,
at the same time, to gentlemen because he wants to push
his
way
into the nobility. This internal and, so to speak, physiological satire
has no connection with the great satire of Beaumarchais, P. L.
Courier, J. Valles, and Celine; it was less courageous and much more
severe because it exhibited the repressive action which the collectivity
practiced upon the weak, the sick, and the maladjusted.
It
was the
pitiless laughter of a gang of street-urchins at the awkwardness of
their butt.
The writer, bourgeois in origin and mores, more like Oronte
and Chrysale in his home life than like his brilliant and restless con–
freres of 1780 or 1830, yet accepted in the Society of the Great and
pensioned by them, slightly unclassed from above yet convinced
himself that talent was no substitute for birth, docile to the repri–
mands of the clergy, respectful of royal power, happy to occupy a
modest place in the immense structure of which the Church and the
Monarchy were the pillars, somewhat above the· merchants and the
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