Maximes et pensées diverses

by Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de Sablé | Nicolas, abbé d'Ailly

Paris: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1678

[22], 90, [14] p. | 12mo | ã^12(-ã1 blank) A-D^12 E^4 | 149 x 83 mm

First edition of the French salon host's only published work, issued posthumously the year of her death thanks to the efforts of Nicolas, abbé d'Ailly, a friend and salon visitor whose similar pieces here occupy the second half of the book. This is one of two variant titles, the other including the authors' names; the setting of the contents is otherwise identical. Her maxims frequently attempt to reconcile seemingly contradictory moral positions, a testament to her celebrated tolerance and broad-mindedness, and no doubt reflecting her extraordinary skill at mediating intractable positions. Her writing criticizes those who hide vice behind virtue, while likewise condemning those unable to consider the presence of virtue in ostensibly dishonorable action. ¶ The marquise's salon, part of a long tradition of woman-owned intellectual spaces, specialized in producing these moral proverbs. "Directed by women, these salons enhanced feminine intellectual life despite its exclusion from university and academy. They fostered the examination of ethical questions, particularly about love, the mind, and war. Prominent among them was the Jansenist salon of Madeleine de Souvré," where topics ranged from religion to philosophy to physics—they discussed “Why Water Rises in a Small Tube,” for example, a paper by Marquis de Sourdis. Blaise Pascal, whose Pensées the marquise helped prepare, was perhaps the most famous of her salon attendees. In many ways, these salons offered women the kind of worldly education which formal schools denied them. ¶ “Like other salons of the period, Madame de Sablé’s salon encouraged the creation of new literary works. Her salon soon became associated with one miniature literary genre: the maxime. A brief sentence or two, the maxime was usually an exercise in moral psychology, unveiling the contradictions of the human heart and the strategies of self-aggrandizement” (Conley). François de La Rochefoucauld may have been the genre’s accepted master, but Sablé was instrumental to his composition. “He repeatedly submitted his draft sentences to her for her critique and proposed changes. In the most extreme cases, this exchange could exact thirty successive alterations before the maxime was finished in the form in which La Rochefoucauld would finally release it to the public” (Conley). As it happens, Sablé’s maxims became a fixture in later editions of La Rochefoucauld, through which they were translated into multiple languages. ¶ Arguably more remarkable than her literary achievement was her ability to referee partisans staunchly at odds, “to reconcile groups and theories that appeared irredeemably opposed to many of her contemporaries” (Conley). This role has earned her comparison to none other than Christine de Pizan. During a particularly contentious theological debate in the 1660s, she was critical in reconciling church authorities with the nuns of Port-Royal, one of the city’s most influential religious houses. Her skills were those of a veteran diplomat. “She flatters the moral character of both by pointing out their similar intellectual, moral, and theological virtues. She morally deflates both by arguing that each side had committed a minor transgression...She tries to restart the dialogue by pointing out that on a key doctrinal issue…the two parties hold very similar positions” (Conley). ¶ Despite these many accomplishments, and her clear influence on the leading male intellectuals in her circle, even in death Sablé has struggled for credit. "She was recognized only as a helper of famous men,” for a long time, “not for her own achievement in moral theory." In fact, two early 20th-century editors accused her of plagiarizing her critique of the theater from Pascal (her longest maxime, and here the last, p. 39-41). “Only in the 1960s did literary critics decisively reject the thesis of Pascalian authorship and reattribute the critique of theater to its rightful author, Sablé” (Conley 2006). The real story? “It was Pascal who had actually copied the passage from Sablé, a correspondent he had praised for her philosophical as well as literary acumen.” ¶ An uncommon early woman writer in commerce. Aside from the present copy, the last auction appearance we find of the first edition was 1966 (Sotheby’s London).

PROVENANCE: Title inked on the first blank leaf in an early hand. A few bookseller’s notes penciled on the front endsheet, a few old numbers inked on the final blank page, and the number 17 prominently penciled at the foot of p. 17 (a binder’s note?).

CONDITION: Twentieth-century full brown leather, the spine simply tooled in gold. First two leaves and last leaf are blank. ¶ First and last couple of leaves a little soiled, and the text edges generally a bit dusty; the last two gatherings with some strictly marginal light dampstaining. Binding extremities gently rubbed. Really a nice copy.

REFERENCES: Brunet, Manuel du libraire, v. 5, col. 8; Tchemerzine, Bibliographie d’éditions originales et rares d’auteurs français (1933), v. 10, p. 69 (title pages of this and similar editions reproduced) ¶ John J. Conley, “Madame de Sablé’s Salon of Reconciliation,” Early Modern Women 9.1 (Fall 2014), p. 115 (“During the Fronde…Sablé managed to retain the friendship of both embittered sides”), 116 (“Even in her salon on the very grounds of the Port-Royal convent, Sablé fostered religious dialogue and pluralism”), 117 (“The capacity for Sablé to exercise diplomatic reconciliation among warring factions came to the fore as the Jansenist crisis reached its climax in the 1660s”), 120-122 (cited above), 123-124 (discussion of her own maximes), 126 (cited above); The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Cambridge Univ, 1998), p. 1460-1461 ("Assisted in the preparation of the first edition of Pascal's Pensées and apparently was consulted by La Rochefoucauld when he was compsing his Maximes"); John J. Conley, “Suppressing Women Philosophers: The Case of the Early Modern Canon,” Early Modern Women 1 (Fall 2006), p. 102 (cited above), 101 (“These misattributions often bear clear traces of misogyny”); Agnès Cousson, “Madame de Sablé moraliste: une mondaine ‘entourée de tous côtés par Port-Royal,’” The French Review 88.3 (March 2015), p. 134 (“the last [maxime], a critique of the theater long attributed to Pascal”); Dana Jalobeanu, et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (Springer, 2022), p. 1855 ("The central literary exercise of the salon was the composition of maximes, proverb-like sentences exploring the dispositions of the human psyche"); Cecile T. Tougas, "Introduction to Part IV," Presenting Women Philosophers (Temple Univ, 2000), p. 182 ("She moderated political oppositions and was a genuine mediator in Christine de Pizan's sense"); Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge Univ, 2019), p. 185-186 (“The women recognized the deficiencies in their own education and explicitly viewed the salon as a place to improve their understanding of the world, to become, as it was called at the time, a ‘woman of letters.’…They did not have any official public or academic role, but the approval of certain salon hostesses was often an unofficial requirement for a man to gain election to the Academie Francaise.”); Margaret Alic, Hypatia’s Heritage: A History of Women in Science (Beacon Press, 1986), p. 92 (“It was the salon women of the Age of Enlightenment who encouraged the new philosophies of Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and others, setting the stage for political as well as scientific revolution”)

Item #670