THE COSMOPOLITE
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS, OR THE TOILETTE OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR
(From the French of Voltaire.)Mad. de Pomp.Who may this lady be with acquiline nose and large black eyes; with such height and noble bearing; with mien so proud, yet so coquettish, who enters my chamber without being announced, and makes her obeisance in a religious fashion?
Tullia.I am Tullia, born at Rome, about eighteen hundred years ago; I make the Roman obeisance, not the French, and have come, I scarce know from whence, to see your country, yourself, and your toilette.
Mad. de. P.Ah, madam, do me the honour of seating yourself. An arm-chair for the Lady Tullia.
Tullia.For whom? me, madam? and am I to sit on that little incommodious sort of throne, so that my legs must hang down and become quite red?
Mad. de P.Upon what then would you sit?
Tullia.Madam, upon a couch.
Mad. de P.Ay, I understandyou would say upon a sofa; there stands one, upon which you may recline at your ease.
Tullia.I am charmed to see that the French have furniture as convenient as ours.
Mad. de P.Hah, hah, madam, you've no stockings! your legs are naked, but ornamented, however, with a very pretty ribbon, after the fashion of a sandal.
Tullia.We knew nothing about stockings, which, as a useful and agreeable invention, I certainly prefer to our sandals.
Mad. da P.Good heavens, madam, I believe you've no chemise!
Tullia.No, madam, in my time nobody wore one.
Mad. de P.And in what time did you live?
Tullia.In the time of Sylla, Pompey, Caesar, Cato, Cataline; and Cicero, to whom I have the honour of being daughter: of that Cicero, of whom one of your protegés has made mention in barbarous verse.3 I went yesterday to the theatre, where Cataline was represented with all the celebrated people of my time, but I did not recognise one of them; and when my father exhorted me to make advances to Cataline, I was astonished! But, madam, you seem to have some beautiful mirrors; your chamber is full of them; our mirrors were not a sixteenth part so large as yours; are they of steel?
Mad. de P.No, madam, they are made with sand, and nothing is more common amongst us.
Tullia.What an admirable art! I confess we had none such! And oh! what a beautiful painting too you have there!
Mad. de P.It is not a painting, but a print, done merely with lamp-black; a hundred copies of the same design may be struck off in a day, and this secret immortalizes pictures, which time would otherwise destroy.
Tullia.It is indeed an astonishing secret! we Romans had nothing like it!
Un Savant.(A literary man there present, taking up the discourse, and producing a book from his pocket, says to Tullia:) You will be astonished, madam, to learn, that this book is not written by hand, but that it is printed almost in a manner similar to engravings; and that this invention also immortalizes works of the mind.
(The Savant presents his book, a collection of verses dedicated to the Marchioness, to Tullia, who reads a page, admires the type, and says to the author:)
Tullia.Truly, sir, printing is a fine thing; and if it can immortalize such verses as these, it appears to me to be the noblest effort of art. But do you not at least employ this invention in printing the works of my father?
The Savant.Yes, madam, but nobody reads them; I am truly concerned for your father, but in these days, little is known of him save his name.
(Here are brought in chocolate, tea, coffee, and ices. Tullia is astonished to see, in summer, cream and strawberries4 iced. She is informed that such congealed beverages are obtained in five minutes, by means of the salt-petre with which they are surrounded, and that by continual motion, is produced their firmness and icy coldness. She is speechless with astonishment. The dark colour of the chocolate and coffee, somewhat disgust her, and she asks whether these liquids are extracted from the plants of the country?A duke who is present, replies:)
Duke.The fruits of which these beverages are composed, come from another world, and from the Gulf of Arabia.
Tullia.Arabia I remember; but never heard mention made of what you call coffee; and as for another world, I know only of that from whence I came, and do assure you, we have no chocolate there.
Duke.The world of which we tell you, madam, is a continent, called America, almost as large as Europe, Asia, and Africa, put together; and of which we have a knowledge less vague, than of the world from whence you came.
Tullia.What! Did we then, who styled ourselves masters of the world, possess only half of it? The reflection is truly humiliating!
The Savant.(piqued that Tullia had pronounced his verses bad, replies dryly:) Yes, your countrymen who boasted of having made themselves masters of the world, had scarce conquered the twentieth part of it. We have at this moment, at the further end of Europe, an empire larger in itself than the Roman:5 it is governed, too, by a woman, who excels you in intellect and beauty, and who wears chemises; had she read my verses, I am certain she would have thought them good.
(The Marchioness commands silence on the part of the author, who has treated a Roman lady, the daughter of Cicero, with disrespect. The duke explains the discovery of America, and taking out his watch, to which is appended, by way of trinket, a small mariner's compass, shows her how, by means of a needle, another hemisphere is reached. The amazement of the fair Roman redoubles at every word which she hears, and every thing she beholds; and she at length exclaims:)
Tullia.I begin to fear that the moderns really do surpass the ancients; on this point I came to satisfy myself, and doubt not I shall have to carry back a melancholy report to my father.
Duke.Console yourself, madam, no man amongst us equals your illustrious sire; neither does any come near Caesar, with whom you were contemporary, nor the Scipios who preceded him. Nature, it is true creates, even at this day, powerful intellects, but they resemble rare seeds, which cannot arrive at maturity in an uncongenial soil. The simile does not hold good respecting arts and sciences; time, and fortunate chances, have perfected them. It would, for example, be easier for us to produce a Sophocles, or an Euripides, than such individuals as your father, because, theatres we have, but no tribunals for public harangues.6 You have hissed the tragedy of Cataline; when you shall see Phaedrus played, you will probably agree that the part of Phaedrus, in Racine, is infinitely superior to the model you have known in Euripides. I hope, also, that you will agree our Molière surpasses your Terence. By your permission, I shall have the honour of escorting you to the opera, where you will be astonished to hear song in parts; that again is an art unknown to you.7 Here, madam, is a small telescope, have the goodness to apply your eye to this glass, and look at that house which is a league off.