True Pleasures (5 page)

A jealous man always finds more than he is looking for
, murmurs Mademoiselle de Scudéry.
When a plain-looking
woman is loved it can only be very passionately; for either her influence over her lover is irresistible, or she has secret charms more powerful than those of beauty
, whispers La Bruyère.
If love is judged by its physical effects it looks more like hatred than friendship
, sneers La Rochefoucauld, who took a dark view of human nature. It gives me a shiver of ghostly pleasure to hear these wise, worldly, tart voices relay their thoughts direct to me from the seventeenth-century salons. It's an injection of moral sophistication, a relieving antidote to modern simplifications.

I like to imagine I could hold my own in a conversation with these sharp talkers, but I suspect I would come out badly. Modern life makes you sloppy and self-indulgent. We tend to think that self-revelation constitutes good conversation. But even though I might find the demands of this group alarming, I would welcome the tonic. I'd try to be swift and subtle. I'd try to be lucid and unflinching. I wouldn't succeed, but it would take me up a few notches.

Up the road from here, in rue de Beauce, which was then – and still remains – one of the less fashionable parts of the Marais district, lived Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She created a strange, marvelous work of art. It is a map, with a broad river running horizontally across the top, a stream splitting the map vertically, and, dotted here and there, lakes and villages. But this is no battlefield plan – or perhaps it is, for it represents a survey, an inquiry into the very nature of love. The supreme destination at the bottom of the map is the Kingdom of Tenderness, and the direct path to this goal tracks the downward flowing stream, traversing peaceful villages like
Grand Coeur
,
Sincérité
,
Billet-doux
and
Tendresse
. But there are by-ways and pitfalls too, traps for the foolish or faithless traveller, like
Perfidie
,
Complaisance
, and the
Lac d' Indifférence
.

When I first saw a picture of
La Carte de Tendre
I thought: how astonishing, with its bivalved structure, it looks rather like a map of the heart. Later I looked again, and this time, to my surprise, it appeared to resemble the left and right sides of the brain. And finally, to my amazement, I realized that, more than anything, the map seemed to me like a woman's reproductive organs – the broad horizontal river representing fallopian tubes, the stream as birth canal and vagina, and the lake and sea suggestive of ovaries. The Kingdom of Tenderness was located at the site of sexual union and eventual birth. So what was born? Courtly love perhaps, sophisticated love, love independent of marriage, love which brought together mind and heart, reason and passion, conceived and brought to life in and through a woman's body.

Now it's time to wander around the corner to 36 rue des Tournelles to see the exterior of Ninon de Lanclos's house, the home she lived in for forty-eight years, from 1657 to her death in 1705. It's small and modest, a sign of Ninon's commitment to financial freedom and independence.

Just a few doors down from Ninon's house I come to a bridal shop. This is no snooty rue Saint-Honoré boutique. Nor is it a daring young designer's
atelier
, increasingly common in the Marais district. I peer in the dusty window. A puffy white wedding gown fills the grey space. As I look at it, I can't help but conjure the young woman who will buy this flouncing frock. I imagine her to be a conventional type, for whom the wedding day is an expression of social status as much as a ceremony of love. Nothing courtly or sophisticated, I smugly conclude, about
this
bourgeois love affair.

But if I were to be honest – if I were to apply to myself the ruthless standard of truth that the salonnières liked to apply to each other – this is not the only thought that
runs through my mind. I must admit that the wedding dress indicates a certain sense of purpose that I most definitely lack. Matrimonial closure isn't my strong point. I seem to have spent most of my adult life passionately in love with someone or other, consumed by the idea of exalted romance, but paradoxically too distracted or disorganized to make any relationship succeed, let alone proceed to marriage. I could list many grand gestures I've made in the name of romance: costly visits to lovers in Iran or Mexico; exaggerated enthusiasms for hobbies (New York underground! Zen Buddhism! Surfing!) that secretly bored me; embarrassing scenes of self-abasement when relationships turned rocky; bleary red-eyed despair when they finally ended. But now I can hardly remember most of those men who once seemed so singular and essential to my happiness; in my mind they've become interchangeable, versions of each other. I discover, with a twinge of shame, that they were mostly bit players in my own personal drama. And there was nothing courtly or sophisticated about my romances, either.

I suspect if Ninon de Lanclos were around she might have a few thoughts on this. Curious to consider that, so long ago, certain women were far more sophisticated about human relations than we pride ourselves on being today. Ninon would surely mock the social competitiveness of the modern middle-class bride – after all, she herself eschewed ostentation and excess. But she might equally laugh at the over-inflated sagas of the modern romantic – at someone like me. Ninon would never be so shallow as to judge the success of a romance by the length of its duration. Nor would she condemn a woman for her many abbreviated – others might say, failed – relationships. On the contrary, three hundred years and a universe of
worldly wisdom away, she would remind me with sly and elegant lasciviousness:
The woman who has loved but one man will never know love …

One day the Abbé de Châteauneuf discovered [La Maréchale de Grancey] all red with indignation. ‘What is the trouble, madam?' said he. ‘I opened by hazard,' she replied, ‘a book which was lying about in my cabinet; it is, I believe, a certain collection of letters. Therein I saw these words:
Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands
. I threw the book away.'

Voltaire

C
ROSSING THE PONT DES ARTS
, I am wondering whether I could possibly feel any worse. The weather is too warm. The sky is too bright. My clothes are too heavy for this balmy day and my feet are already swelling. I'm uncomfortable, and, it surprises me to detect, I'm nervous.

I look across to my destination, the Institut de France, which rises in classical austerity above the Seine on the Left Bank. Louis XIV's first prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, commissioned the building as a finishing school for provincial French aristocrats. It was designed by the great architect Le Vau and completed in 1688. In 1805,
Napoleon decided it would become the Institut de France, the home of the various French Académies of science and culture. The gilded white cupola of Cardinal Mazarin's chapel now looms over the ceremonial meetings of France's most prestigious academy, l'Académie Française. The Académie's task is to protect the French language, and, by extension, French culture. This is a sacred site in France. No wonder I feel nervous.

I'm also ill-prepared. To do anything in Paris one generally requires several letters of introduction, preferably with credentials, stamps and other visual symbols of importance, all supplied well in advance, because spontaneity does not sit well with the French. But I'm an Australian, I'm here for a short time, and I'm hopeful. I just wish I looked more elegant.

I walk slowly through the courtyard and up the stairs to be stopped by a soft-eyed, soft-bellied official. I inquire, cautiously, if there are to be any guided tours of the Institut. He nods, bored, eyes turned down.

‘Yes, on the first Saturday of each month, Madame. We had a tour last Saturday, if Madame would like to register for the next one?'

I try to remain dignified, and fail. ‘Oh, but I have to be back home by then. And it will be a while before I can get back here.' Just as I feared, here it comes: the look, the shrug, the indifferent silence.

‘Perhaps I could write a letter? To gain entry on another occasion.' An upward curve of the lips is my answer: sure, it suggests, go right ahead.

‘The thing is,' I say, ‘I am looking for someone.'

‘Oui, Madame?'

‘Well, um, you see, it's possible that she is entombed under your cupola.'

Monsieur may be a mere guard at the Institut de France, but he is also a custodian of French culture. I watch the interest rise like a fast tide in his brown eyes. I can practically hear him upgrade me mentally from tourist (of no interest) to scholar (of potential value to the continuing glory of France).

Not that we rush into things. Monsieur slowly takes a generous breath and blows his nose. Then he leans into me, resting his belly comfortably against the counter. It's the cue for me to begin. And I tell him in my halting French the strange tale of Hortense Mancini, the most beautiful and wild of the five nieces of Cardinal Mazarin.

Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, was just twenty-three years old in 1668 when she set off to pursue her fortune. She left her husband and four children, her palace and status, her security and honor. She never lived in France again. For the next seven years she roamed around Europe. For several years she settled as the mistress of the Duke of Savoy but when he died his widow, not unreasonably, threw Hortense out. Finally, Hortense rode into London in 1675, where she became one of the mistresses of merry King Charles II. She stayed in England for the rest of her life and died in London in 1699.

I stop to draw breath, but Monsieur decides to take charge of the conversation.

‘Madame, if she died in London, why would you imagine that she is buried here in Paris?'

‘Well, her husband remained obsessed with her for twenty years. He even mounted a lawsuit in England to force her to return to him. After she died, he came to England, put the body of Hortense in a coffin and carted it about Europe from one estate to another for many
years. Hortense was carried from Vincennes to Brittany, from Bourbon to Alsace.'

‘And then?' Monsieur's left eyebrow arches.

‘What finally happened isn't clear. But according to the books I have read, it seems that Hortense was eventually buried in the sarcophagus with her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin.'

Monsieur nods slowly. But he doubles back to the question that no doubt has been troubling this Parisian from the start. ‘Why on earth would she want to leave Paris in the first place?'

I have a very satisfactory answer to that one.

‘Because her husband was mad,' I reply.

Monsieur nods with world-weary resignation: ah, yes, madness. He pauses for a beat. Then suddenly he draws back and looks over my shoulder at the clock on the wall behind me. He twists around to a wooden shelf hung with sets of keys. He plucks a handful from the shelf. ‘Come on,' he says. ‘But we must hurry.' But we don't hurry. We walk slowly across the courtyard. Monsieur uses his shoulders to coax his stomach to a forward momentum.

We walk up wide wooden stairs and now Monsieur unlocks a heavy door, ushering me into a high, greenish room. It's Cardinal Mazarin's chapel, the home of the Académie Française. The milky light from the cupola pours in. Forty green seats are arranged in a forest-colored semi-circle, like a mini parliament. There's a statue of Napoleon in one corner. It's cool here, and quiet, and very empty. Monsieur's chest swells with pride at this place, and its significance. Of course it does. Here some of the greatest have taken their place: Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset, Chateaubriand and Jean Cocteau. I feel suitably, sincerely, awed.

And there, in an alcove, is a tomb. We walk over together, a little self-conscious now, and we stare at it. It consists of a large black sarcophagus on a pedestal. Standing upon it is Cardinal Mazarin himself in huge marble effigy, complete with pointy nose, flowing gowns and attendant cherub. Below the sarcophagus, guarding it perhaps, or advertising its importance, are three large carved ebony figures representing Peace, Prudence and Fidelity. This is a famous sculpture by Coysevox, but neither of us is thinking about this monument as a work of art. We are looking for the body.

We continue gazing intently at the tomb as if expecting Hortense to leap out from behind it. But even though the sarcophagus is clearly big enough for two, there is no sign whatsoever to indicate that Hortense Mancini has been buried with her uncle. No plaque, no statue, no nothing.

It occurs to me that, strictly speaking, Hortense was never welcome in this place. The Académie Française is famously a bastion of conservatism, and particularly sexism. Out of a total of seven hundred
Académiciens
since Cardinal Richelieu created the Académie in 1635, only four have been women. The first woman Académicien was Marguerite Yourcenar and she was elected in 1980, when she was seventy-seven years old. Even
she
was unsure of the legitimacy of her being there.

This uncertain, floating me, whose existence I myself dispute
, Yourcenar said in her inaugural address to the assembly,
here it is, surrounded, accompanied by an invisible troupe of women who perhaps should have received this honour long before, so that I am tempted to stand aside to let their shadows pass …
Among the invisible troupe she mentioned were Germaine de Staël, George Sand and
Colette, not one of whom was ever invited to take their place in this room.

Yourcenar went on:
One cannot say that in French society, so impregnated with feminine influences, the Academy has been a notable misogynist; it simply conformed to the custom that willingly placed a woman on a pedestal but did not permit itself to officially offer her a chair
.

That, I think, was Hortense's situation. She was offered no formal ‘chair'; indeed, she never produced a single work of art. But she did find herself upon a pedestal. Within a year of her arrival in London, Hortense was hosting an important salon, bringing the spirit of France into London society. As a contemporary noted,
All manner of subjects were discoursed upon there, as philosophy, history, pieces of wit and gallantry, plays, authors ancient and modern, the niceties of the French tongue and so on
. One of her courtiers was Ninon de Lanclos's pen friend, St Evremond, who faithfully attended her until she died. Hortense soon became one of Louis XIV's great exports, part of the marketing of French culture that occurred through the seventeenth century. Her political importance was such that the French Ambassador used to report to Louis XIV on Hortense's activities.