THE DEVOTEE.
Reading edition
Under the old regime in France, the first symptom of a woman’s intending to “give herself to God” (se donner à Dieu, as the phrase ran) was her giving up rouge; so that paint and piety became inseparably connected in the minds of the demi-saints, and demireps, of the profligate reign of Louis XIV. “La Princesse d’Harcourt,” says Madame de Coulanges, in one of her letters, “has appeared at court, without rouge. This is a circumstance which, for the present, absorbs every other: one may add, that it is a great sacrifice.”
This outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, this toilette baptism of regeneration, is not peculiar to Catholics. The sacrifice of rouge is but the grey gown and little bonnet of an English Methodist; and the rigorous proscription of gay colours of the Protestant sectarian is but the counterpart of what appears so ridiculous in the French penitent, “qui se jette dans la dévotion,”—who gives herself up to Heaven when nobody else will have her. On this subject, Madame du Deffand, the blind and aged enamorata of Horace Walpole, is singularly pleasant. When she was young and pretty, and the enamorata of the President d’Hainhault, she took a sudden fit of devotion; and her director stipulated for the usual sacrifices. Fasts, prayers, &c. &c. were promised at the first word; but when it came to love, and the toilette, she cut him short at once, with “pour ce qui est du rouge, et du président, je ne leur ferai pas l’honneur de les quitter.”[27]