distressing to sentimentalists. But this was
characteristic of the age, which looked upon compassion as a frailty,
as a break-down of noble personal reserve. He shall speak on this
matter for himself--

"I am little sensible of pity, and if I had my way, I would avoid it
altogether. At the same time, there is nothing I would not do to
relieve an afflicted person: and I believe as a matter of fact that
one ought to go so far as to express compassion for the misfortunes of
such a man, since the unhappy are so stupid that compassion does them
more good than anything else in the world. But I also hold that one
should confine one's self to professions of pity and be very careful
not to feel any. Pity is a passion which is wholly useless to a
well-constituted mind; it can but weaken the heart, and it ought to be
left to people who, carrying nothing out in a logical manner, require
passion to constrain them to do things."

He seems to paint himself in tones of Prussian blue, but we must
really think of him as of a man timid, and at the same time
preternaturally wide-awake, who was determined at all risks not to be
taken at a disadvantage. When he was an old man, when much communing
with Mme de La Fayette had allayed his suspicion of mankind, La
Rochefoucauld said to Mlle de Scudery, "I hope that clemency will come
into fashion, and that we shall see no more men unhappy." [4] He
professed to found politeness on extreme _amour-propre_, but perhaps
in a still closer analysis he would have discovered its basis in
kindness of heart. He resists the temptation to weaken his own
pessimism, just as in his biting sarcasms about love we may trace a
tender soul still bleeding from the wounds which Mme de Longueville's
levity had inflicted on it.[5]

[Footnote 4: Mme de Sevigne told her daughter that she was
sure that if one could peep at the Duke and Mme de La
Fayette "when they were alone with the cat," one would find
all the restraints of society flung aside, and see them
without the mask, their cynicism forgotten, mingling cries
and tears over the sorrows of the world. But neither she nor
any third person would ever see their social discretion thus
betrayed, and she concludes, in her droll way, "C'est une
vision!" In another letter to Mme de Grignan (June 6, 1672)
she says of the Duke, "Il connait quasi aussi bien que moi
la tendresse maternelle."]

[Footnote 5: There wa