The Dupuy Cabinet

Like the Rambouillet salon, the Dupuy cabinet was a refuge, a place of retreat, for a certain elite. As this chapter shows, however, its frequenters were quite different from those who attended the salon. The friends and associates of the Dupuy brothers, Pierre and Jacques, were all men, and virtually all savants committed to traditional notions of scholarship and writing, those largely encompassed by a humanist perspective. They were also very publicly aligned with Gallicanism, a religious ideology that, while Catholic, resisted the claims of the papacy (and the Jesuits) while defending the “liberties” of the French Church and the sovereignty of French kings. In this sense, while discreet and mostly conformist in their politics, the Dupuys and their associates pushed the limits of Gallicanism, challenging and sometimes surpassing Richelieu’s position. The Dupuy cabinet is another illustration of how a posture of “retreat” could serve as an effective vehicle for engagement.

The Rambouillet Salon

This chapter focuses on the famous Rambouillet salon, the most important gathering spot for aristocrats—both men and women—and writers in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Presided over by the Marquise de Rambouillet and, especially, her daughter Julie, this institution was deliberately conceived as a refuge from the royal court, which was considered by many as lacking in refinement and politesse. It fostered intense interactions between a privileged and cultivated Parisian elite and up-and-coming writers. Indeed, for the latter, the salon was their primary “public.” The chapter looks particularly at several aspects of these interactions, from theatrical productions and literary pastimes to several textual representations. As a premier locus of “retreat,” the salon affords a particularly revealing example of how this ethos informed the cultural dynamics of the day.

Writing Otium

This chapter uses four full-scale works to demonstrate how a posture of “retreat” could, paradoxically, prove effective as a means of engagement with public, even political, affairs. The first two are works on reason of state; the second two are works of fiction, two of the “best-sellers” of the day. The discussion shows how both discursively and in terms of the content, these works create a distance between the authors and their texts and the “world,” but they nevertheless embody very effective ways of entering it. This chapter recapitulates and illustrates many of the themes running through Dignified Retreat.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the main themes of the book and speculates on some of the implications for our broader understanding of historical development. It reviews the previous seven chapters and offers some thoughts about the motivations and meanings of the emergence of new intellectual and literary communities in seventeenth-century Paris.

A Culture of Discretion

This chapter examines the range of ways, mostly in terms of language and public expression, the cultural regime of this period was governed by pronounced notions of discretion, guardedness, self-censorship, dissimulation, and even duplicity. Much evidence is offered to demonstrate this claim, with specific examples drawn from various texts and through notable events. The chapter also attempts to explain why this “culture of discretion” emerged in this period, referring in particular to the lessons learned from the Wars of Religion, which were retrospectively blamed (in part) on the excessive volubility and license that prevailed, especially with regard to religious matters.

Aristocrats and Writers

This chapter, building on the last, argues that the motivation for writers to reform French and create a new literary culture largely had to do with their relationship to the Parisian elite—the aristocratic ladies and gentlemen who, in the generation following the Wars of Religion, resettled in the capital, thus transforming urban culture according to their new tastes, values, and interests. The chapter briefly looks at the physical and demographic transformation of the city in this period and then proceeds to examine the myriad relationships between writers and aristocrats, both individually and collectively. It emphasizes in particular patronage, and also the importance of appealing to women as fundamental to this culture. It ends with a consideration of the “invention” of honnêteté as a code of behavior and values that writers fashioned out of various sources in service to their aristocratic betters.

Richelieu and Writers

The first part of this chapter deals with the founding of the Académie française. It argues against the traditional image of this institution as Richelieu’s creation and as the embodiment of “cultural absolutism,” instead strenuously asserting that it was more a matter of a movement already afoot among a generation of writers, which Richelieu then co-opted. The second part of the chapter presents a “gallery” of writers and their relationship with Richelieu: some were intimates, some served him with their erudition, some offered him panegyric texts, some served his interests while challenging orthodox thinking, some resisted his vehement efforts to secure their services. In almost every case, these writers and intellectuals brought their own perspectives and interests to the position, suggesting that in some respects, they were using the cardinal as much as he was using them.

Reforming French

This chapter demonstrates the force and novelty of the movement among a generation of writers to raise the French vernacular to expressive heights that would surpass the prestige of Latin and Greek and rival contemporary Italian. The chapter also identifies leading writers who opposed this movement—whose opposition, indeed, only reinforces the conclusion that it was a veritable movement. It shows that it was not simply a matter of their writings but also their participation in a whole range of informal associations that underpinned this movement. The chapter finally turns to one of the most notable efforts of these writers: their commitment to the project of translating mostly ancient texts into a French that would appeal to an enlarged French readership.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the major themes of the book as well as the cast of characters: the over one hundred writers and intellectuals whose work and activities are the focus of what follows in the seven chapters. It dwells considerably on the ethos of retreat—otium—as a governing principle of men and women of letters in this period following the Wars of Religion. It also deals with the historiographical background of this study, acknowledging several generations of historians and literary scholars. The chapter also presages other themes that will follow: honnêteté, Gallicanism, as well as the literary and intellectual sociability of Paris in the generations following the Wars of Religion.