He had come
back to Paris, after his long and irksome exile, with a terrible
clear-sightedness, and he saw that society had gone to pieces and that
truth was essential to its rebuilding. He was convinced--and this must
be asserted in the face of his own apparent cynicism--he was convinced
of the existence of pure virtue, but he thought that _amour-propre_ in
the individual, and conventionality (what was then meant by _la
coutume_) in the social order, had made it almost as rare as the dodo.
He wished, by his stringent exposure of the arts of lying, to save
virtue before it was absolutely extinct. He had the instinct of
race-preservation.[6]
[Footnote 6: It is possible that the conversation of Mme de
Sable concentrated his thoughts on self-love. A contemporary
MS. says of that lady, "Elle flatte fort l'amour propre
quand elle parle aux gens." But egotism was a new discovery
which fascinated everybody in the third quarter of the
century.]
Let us turn to the few, but profoundly beautiful reflections which
form the constructive element in La Rochefoucauld's teaching.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72