We must read La Rochefoucauld closely to perceive why a book so
searching, and even so cruel as his, has exercised on the genius of
France a salutary and a lasting influence. His savage pessimism is not
useless, it is not a mere scorn of humanity and a sneer at its
weaknesses. It tends, by stripping off all the shams of conduct and
digging to the root of action, to make people upright, candid and
magnanimous on a new basis of truth. So we come at last to see the
significance of Voltaire's dark saying of the "Maximes": "This book is
one of those which have contributed most to form the taste of the
French nation, and to give it the spirit of accuracy and precision."
LA BRUYERE
La Bruyere was thirty-five years of age when La Rochefoucauld died,
and twenty when the "Maximes" were published. We have no evidence that
he ever met the former, but he certainly read the latter, and in spite
of his eager denial that Pascal or La Rochefoucauld suggested his
method to him--"I have followed neither of these paths," he says--it
is impossible to doubt that the example of the "Maximes" had a great
deal to do with the form of the "Caracteres.
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