The Devil Wins: A History of Lying from the Garden of Eden to the Enlightenment (50 page)

94
.   Patricia Parker, “Virile Style,” in
Premodern Sexualities
, ed. Louise Fradenburg and Carla Freccero (New York: Routledge, 1996), 201–22, here 203, for the quotation from Quintillian.

95
.   Quoted in Catherine R. Eskin, “The Re(i)gning of Women’s Tongues in English Books of Instruction and Rhetorics,” in
Women’s Education in Early Modern Europe: A History, 1500–1800
, ed. Barbara Whitehead (New York: Routledge, 1999), 101–30, here, 104.

96
.   Karl E. Scheibe, “In Defense of Lying: On the Moral Neutrality of Misrepresentation,”
Berkshire Review
15 (1980): 15–24, makes a similar point, 19: “Let it not be protested that cosmetics and attractive clothing are distorting lies, making fictions of our real selves. For we, in our real selves, are inescapably fictions…. Human reality is always clothes, and should the clothes be removed, underclothes will be discovered.”

97
.   On Fonte’s use of the genre of dialogue, see Janet Levarie Smarr, “The Uses of Conversation: Moderata Fonte and Edmund Tilney,”
Comparative Literature Studies
32:1 (1995): 1–25.

98
.   For example, Fonte,
The Worth of Women
, 223–24.

99
.   Fonte,
The Worth of Women
, 201.

100
. Fonte,
The Worth of Women
, 61. Immediately after Leonora makes this observation, Virginia asks if men do these things through ignorance. Cornelia responds, “Now you really sound like the naïve little creature you are. Ignorance does not excuse sin and, besides, their ignorance is willful vice and they are all too aware of the evil they are doing.”

101
. Kolsky, “An Early Seventeenth-Century Feminist Controversy,” 980, stresses that here it is Adriana, “the mother who is instrumentalized by male coercive practice.”

102
. Fonte,
The Worth of Women
, 82. Marguerite de Navarre,
The Heptameron
, trans. P. A. Chilton (London: Penguin Books, 1984), story 21, 236–54, tells just such a tale, about Rolandine’s love for the unnamed “bastard son of a good and noble family,” who conceals his duplicity for years. Joanne M. Ferraro, “The Power to Decide: Battered Wives in Early Modern Venice,”
Renaissance Quarterly
48:3 (Autumn 1995): 492–512, at 509–10, argues that Venetian women in abusive marriages had some means of redress: “Marriage was not a private matter in Venetian neighborhoods. Thus kinsmen and community had a decisive relationship with the married couple as well: the Venetian case demonstrates that they were, in effect, institutions of public life that protected women and disciplined men. Women in bad marriages had some powers of decision, and they were not alone.”

103
. Madeleine de Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations sur divers sujets
, 2 tom. (Paris: Thomas Amaulry, 1680), tom. 1, 2–3. On Scudéry and her place in seventeenth-century French society, Elisa Biancardi, “Madeleine de Scudéry et son cercle: spécificité socioculterelle et créativité littéraire,”
Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature
22:43 (1995): 415–29.

104
. Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 1. For an overview of seventeenth-century accounts of what constitutes good conversation, see Alain Montandon, “Les bienséances de la conversation,” in
Art de la lettre, Art de la conversation
, ed. Bernard Bray and Christophe Strosetzki (Paris : Klincksieck, 1995), 61–79.

105
. Christine de Pizan,
The Treasure
, 45–46, already recognizes this when she notes that one of the noble woman’s chief goals is the maintenance of harmony and peace at the court. On this topic, see Antoine Lilti, “The Kingdom of
Politesse
: Salons and the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Paris,”
Republic of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics and the
Arts
1:1 (2009): 1–11. On the continuity of the salon from the early sixteenth century forward, Steven D. Kale, “Women, the Public Sphere, and the Persistence of Salons,”
French Historical Studies
25:1 (Winter 2002): 115–148, here 147, writes: “Modern noble attitudes towards women reflected the courtly traditions of the Renaissance and the codes of gallantry elaborated before and during the decline of feudal institutions, in which ‘polite, civilized attention to the ladies’ required magnanimity between both sexes by ascribing to women the role of teaching men how to act toward ‘the fairer sex.’ Pleasing women, therefore, became not only the font of
mondain
civility but an ethical cornerstone that complemented the importance of patrimony and lineage in noble society. The counterpart of
la galanterie
was the notion of women as civilizers.”

106
. Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 3–6.

107
. Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 10–12.

108
. Scudéry, “De parler trop, ou trop peu,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 94.

109
. Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 30.

110
. Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 31.

111
. Madeleine Scudéry,
Les Femmes Illustrés ou Les Harangues Heroïques
(Paris: Antoine de Sommaville & Augustin Courbe, 1642), unpaginated prefatory material. The nature of seventeenth-century female rhetorical education was designed to facilitate this concealed rhetorical prowess, Stina Hansson, “Rhetoric for Seventeenth-Century Salons: Beata Rosenhane’s Exercise Books and Classical Rhetoric,”
Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric
12:1 (Winter 1994): 43–65. Describing the ideal of naturalness in seventeenth-century French conversation, Marc Fumaroli, “De l’Age de l’éloquence à l’Age de la conversation: la conversion de la rhétorique humaniste dans la France du XVIIe siècle,” in
Art de la lettre
, 25–45, here 42–43, writes, “Le loisir et le naturel de la conversation française sont les degrés supérieurs d’un ordre harmonique qui, loin de dissocier ou opposer nature et culture aspirent à les restituer l’une à l’autre, à les revéler l’une a l’autre.”

112
. Scudéry, “De la Conversation,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 1–2.

113
. Jane Donawerth, “As Becomes a Rational Woman to Speak,” in
Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historical Women
, ed. Molly Meijer Wertheimer (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 305–19, makes this point while discussing these same texts by Scudéry, here 309. Antoine Lilti,
Le Monde des salons: Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle
(Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2005), 155–58, stresses that aristocratic claims to social equality in the salon need be taken with more than a grain of salt. For a contrasting interpretation, see Elizabeth C. Goldsmith,
Exclusive Conversations: The Art of Interaction in Seventeenth-Century France
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 47–48.

114
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 275.

115
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 279.

116
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 267. Later in the same conversation, 278–79, Plotina suggests that Amilcar does not hide his
own complaisance so well: “I am persuaded that when he seems most complaisant towards others, that is when he is most interested in himself.”

117
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 262–63.

118
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 71.

119
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 72.

120
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 104.

121
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 105.

122
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 76.

123
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 133–34.

124
. Scudéry, “De la connoissance d’autruy et de soy-mesme,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 84.

125
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 264.

126
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 272–73.

127
. Scudéry, “De la complaisance,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 267–68. Stanton,
The Aristocrat as Art
, 134: “[
H
]
onnête complaisance
demands deft, unceasing negotiation between ever changing alternatives that manages life as it were the stuff of art.”

128
. Scudéry, “De la difference du flateur et du complaisant,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 296.

129
. Scudéry, “De la difference du flateur et du complaisant,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 294.

130
. Scudéry, “De la dissimulation et de la sincerité,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 303–4.

131
. Scudéry, “De la dissimulation et de la sincerité,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 305–6.

132
. Scudéry, “De la dissimulation et de la sincerité,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 321.

133
. Scudéry, “De la dissimulation et de la sincerité,” in
Conversations
, tom. 1, 311.

C
ONCLUSION:
T
HE
L
IE
B
ECOMES
M
ODERN

1
.     Jean–Jacques Rousseau,
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality
, in
The Collected Writings of Rousseau
, vol. 3, ed. Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly, trans. Judith R. Bush, Roger D. Masters, Christopher Kelly, and Terrence Marshall (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992), pt. 2, 50. On the
Discourse on Inequality
as a secularization of Genesis, see Jean Starobinski,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction
, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 290.

2
.     Rousseau,
Discourse on Inequality
, pt. 2, 51.

3
.     Rousseau,
Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (Second Discourse)
, in
Collected Writings
, vol. 2, pt. 1, 6.

4
.     Rousseau,
Letter to Beaumont
, in
Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings
, in
Collected Writings
, vol. 9, 30.

5
.     Rousseau,
Letter to Beaumont
, 31: “The cause of evil, according to you, is corrupted nature, and this corruption itself is an evil whose cause has to be sought. Man was created good. We both agree on that, I believe. But you say he is wicked because he was wicked. And I show how he was wicked. Which of us, in your opinion, better ascends to the principle?” See Jeremiah L. Alberg’s perceptive essay, “Rousseau and the Original Sin,” in
Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
57:4 (October–December 2001): 773–90, and, on transformations in the understanding of original sin in the centuries leading up to Rousseau,
Die verlorene Einheit: Die Suche nach einer philosophischen Alternative zu der Erbsündenlehre von Rousseau bis Schelling
(Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996), 31–43.

6
.     Rousseau,
Discourse on Inequality
, pt. 2, 47.

7
.     Rousseau,
Discourse on the Sciences and Arts
, pt. 1, p. 6.

8
.     Quoted in Grant,
Hypocrisy and Integrity
, 87, and, more generally, 75–88.

9
.     Rousseau,
The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, Botanical Writings, and Letter to Franquières
, in
Collected Writings
, vol. 8, “Fourth Walk,” 29. On the motto’s background, see 283–84, ft. 2.

10
.   Jean Starobinski, “The Motto
Vitam impendere vero
and the Question of Lying,” in
The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau
, ed. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 365–96, at 381–85, traces this definition to Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf.

11
.   Rousseau,
Reveries
, “Fourth Walk,” 29. Lester Gilbert Crocker, “The Problem of Truth and Falsehood in the Age of the Enlightenment,”
Journal of the History of Ideas
14:4 (October 1953): 573–603, surveys the attitudes of Enlightenment writers about lying.

12
.   Rousseau,
Reveries
, “Fourth Walk,” 30.

13
.   Rousseau,
Reveries
, “Fourth Walk,” 39.

14
.   Augustine,
City of God
, bk. XIV, ch. 3, 586.

15
.   Rousseau,
Reveries
, “Fourth Walk,” 39. Charles Taylor,
Sources of the Self
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 361, makes this point: “For [with Rousseau] the distinction of vice and virtue, of good and depraved will, has been aligned with the distinction between dependence on self and dependence on others. Goodness is identified with freedom, with finding the motives for one’s actions within oneself. Although drawing on ancient sources, Rousseau is actually pushing this subjectivism of modern moral understanding a stage further.” Although his literary sources may well have been ancient, the culture of the salon clearly animates his critique.

16
.   Rousseau,
Reveries
, “Fourth Walk,” 39.

17
.   Rousseau,
Reveries
, “Fourth Walk,” 34.

18
.   Following Victor Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Lying: A Provisional Reading of the Fourth
Rêverie
,
Berkshire Review
15 (1980): 93–107, here, 100–103. Compare with Starobinski, “
Vitam impendere vero
,” 386–90.