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| The 1700 edition |
“Ridicule can not be defined,” wrote our author Pierre-Jacques Brillon; “it
is useless even to call it a bad quality linked to the sayings or the
doings of some. No matter what these people do, they are disliked,
hated, despised; with no reason but the ridicule about them. The harder
these people try to be kind and nice, the more ridicule they appear –
and there is no escaping it.”
To Read it on this website, click below:
THE MODERN THEOPHRASTE,
The Rehabilitation of Pierre-Jacques
Brillon.
The grand siècle was the paramount of French wit.
Under the yoke of the Sun King, the Nobility was reduced to a bunch of
courtisans. To be noticed by the King or some important people around him was
the surest way to get a promotion, and to show some wit, the surest way to be
noticed. But everyone was not witty, and ridicule became the most feared plague
of the time.
“Ridicule can not be defined, wrote ou author
Pierre-Jacques Brillon; it is useless even to call it a bad quality linked
to the sayings or the doings of some. No matter what these people do, they are
disliked, hated, despised; with no reason but the ridicule about them. The
harder these people try to be kind and nice, the more ridicule they appear –
and there is no escaping it.” But even the most witty courtesans had the
cruel consciousness of their own vacuity, and ridicule sometimes bordered on
drama, as described in the following poem of S. Martin :
To serve the Sovereign, or to give oneself
a master,
To totally depend on the will of another,
To remain in some places we would like to
ignore,
For a few pleasures, to suffer a lot of
horror (...),
To kiss every one and to find a friend in
no man,
Such is the abridged life of a courtisan.
To ridicule ridiculousness
The bitter-sweet literature of the time is a faithful
mirror of this préciosité. Some writers portrayed their
contemporaries, ridiculing ridiculousness. La Bruyère was the most successful
one. His Caractères’ became a best seller and inspired many authors such
as Pierre-Jacques Brillon, a young writer who personally knew his model.
Brillon was encouraged by La Bruyère to put out his own collection of portraits
in 1696, Portraits Sérieux, galants et critiques (or Serious, Gallant
or Critical Portraits). “To deal with the same topics than his model is
not enough to deserve the same praises, wrote a contemporary critic. This
particular writer is to his model what a painter of shop signs would be to
Rubens.” Nevertheless, Brillon’s book was well received at the time, and he
soon put out a new one, entitled Le Théophraste moderne (or Modern
Theophraste, 1699). At the end of the day, our author remained in the
shadow of La Bruyère and the copies of his books are not that sought-after nowadays.
While reading him lately, I realized how injust it was, then decided to
rehabilitate the work of this author—so help me God.
Lives and romances
Many great authors of the time such as Montreuil or D’Aceilly
were considered as inconsistent by the critics of the Enlightenment, because
they mostly wrote about casual topics such as their lives at Court, or their
romances. In the case of Brillon, things were even worst, he was an imitator.
FX de Feller wrote in his Dictionnary (Liège, 1790): “These bad
imitations of a good book enjoyed a short-lived popularity because readers had
then developped a taste for books written in the vein of La Bruyère’s.” Should I boldly add that this success was partly due to his talent as well?
Born in Paris in 1671, Brillon was a man of law from the
start – a general prosecutor, and a member of the Grand Conseil of Paris, he
had a brilliant career. As a young man, he was attracted to literature. His
reading La Bruyère was probably a revelation, so was his meeting him. “I
follow Labruyère’s footsteps," reads his preface, "who loved me enough to
encourage me in this way; he was not idolizing his work enough to consider that
nothing could be added to it. (...) I was occasionally happy enough to
be approved by a man of such good taste—I was flattered, I even thaught that
it entitled me to write a book.” He was only 25 when he published Portraits
Sérieux, galants et critiques (Paris, Michel Brunet—1696). It features a
brilliant author’s note. “This is the first book I offer the readers, and
the last if so they wish. I am not the type of stubborn writers who keep on
working without the readers’ consent. Else I shall chose to do very early what
many have only done too late, and retire from writing.” He eventually did.
But not before putting out a second book. Aged 25, he was already writing twice as good
as most of fifty-years-old writers.
War to vices, not to the vicious
His first opus is very well written, but the next one
happens to be more exciting. Indeed, though classified in categories such as Women,
Ridicule, Of the Court, Of Gambling, etc., the portraits are here less
confined to their subjects. The auhtor’s note is another piece of wit. Brillon
stepped away from his then deceased model by assuring that his book was not a book
à clef, like La Bruyère’s. “I’ve declared war to vices, he wrote,
not the vicious.” He claimed not to know the Court well enough to tell
about real people’s stories – he nevertheless was quite acquainted with it, as
proven by his chapter Of the Court: “To get cured from the lifestyle
that once obsessed me like many others, I did not read La Bruyère’s portraits:
the disgust of the courtisans convinced me more than any moral sentence. Lend a
ear to those who live at the Court, they owe misery their talent of persuasion.”
His portraits are quite dark —very grand siècle, indeed. Against
ridicule, he wrote a few desperate lines: “Shall we hope for a change?
he asks. Honestly, I don’t think so. Just in case, let’s write (À tout
hasard, écrivons).”
Law & Provincial
Ridicule at Court was unforgivable. Nastiness was not.
Brillon confessed in his own book that he was not free from ridicule himself—neither was he from nastiness. The portraits of the provinciaux, or
countrymen, are so rude, it is almost unbelievable. In France, we call provincial anyone
living outside of Paris. Sometimes, some provinciaux feel like they
are treated with contempt from Parisians—even today. They sure were by
Brillon, who wrote: “A leopard never changes its spots, mostly if it was
born in the middle of a field, or in a city surrounded by woods: such men are
savages, a little bit less fierce than the real ones. I probably outrage the
Provinciaux, who judge this portrait too mean, and swear not to read the next
one. This is how I definitely identify barbarians. Let’s cut it short—and
let’s not disrespect the inhabitants of Province; I almost wrote the
inhabitants of the bush.” Mr Brillon did not care about being boycotted in
the bookshops of the country where only bad books were sold anyway. What is
funny about these portraits is that, despite the magnificent style of their
author, they are nowadays a paramount of ridicule.
Conclusion
Pierre-Jacques Brillon did not go any further with
literature and focused on his Dictionnaire des Arrêts, ou la Jurisprudence
universelle des Parlements de France, a judiciary book published in six
in-folio volumes in 1727—he was then over 50, and died 9 years later. “This
compilation is the fruit of a learnt and hard-working man,” concluded FX de
Feller in his Dictionnaire historique. It is a pity, as many of his
portraits happen to be more entertaining than some of La Bruyère’s. An old and
wise man, Mr Brillon had then forgotten his ridicule literary pretentions but
was probably considering his books with tenderness and resignation. As Arthur
Rimbaud later said (or almost): You're not serious when you're... 25.
© Thibault Ehrengardt
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