" It is a
complete mistake to look upon La Rochefoucauld as a monster, or even
as a Timon. Without insisting, at all events for the moment, on the
plain effect of his career on his intellect, but yet accepting the
evidence that much of his bitterness was the result of bad health,
sense of failure, shyness, foiled ambition, we have to ask ourselves
what he gave to French thought in exchange for the illusions which he
so rudely tore away. In dealing with any savage moralist, we are
obliged to turn from the abstract question: Why did he say these
things? to the realistic one. What did he hope to effect by what he
said? Perhaps we can start no better on this inquiry than to quote the
Duchess of Schomberg's exclamation when she turned over the pages of
the first edition--namely that "this book contains a vast number of
truths which I should have remained ignorant of all my life if it had
not taught me to perceive them." This may be applied to French energy,
and we may begin to see what has been the active value of La
Rochefoucauld's apparently negative and repugnant aphorisms.
The La Rochefoucauld whom we know belongs to a polite and modern age.
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