Thus, they were judged neither by talents nor achievement, nor even their wealth, but by how well they earned the favor of the monarch and how well they conformed to increasingly refined standards of taste and manners.
Elias, to be sure, has his detractors. C. Stephen Jaeger, for example, argues that courtliness originated much earlier in the clergy and later shifted to the secular nobility.74 Jonathan Dewald contends that the knightly aristocracy was far more resilient and flexible than Elias assumes, and in large measure adapted to the new bourgeois standards of excellence. Many attended university and learned the art of administration so prized by ascendant monarchs. Others figured out how to succeed in the new commercial economy and retained or even grew their wealth. As a class, they managed to remain powerful in some nations into the twentieth century. In addition, a good number were neck deep in the new intellectual trends and helped shape the new bourgeois culture. The salons, which represented the physical space in which the Enlightenment developed in France, were funded by aristocrats. And, whatever role they played in advancing the social status of intellectuals, they still were governed by the rules of courtly aristocracy.75 As Antoine Lilti notes, aristocratic hosts insisted that guests show “respect for the rules of civility and politeness, rules that governed both access to the salons and the attitudes of those who attended them.”76 Rousseau, who was allowed some petty rebellions against the rules of civilité, is the exception that proves the rule. For their part, many bourgeoisie took advantage of every available opportunity to enter the nobility by purchasing titles from kings eager for cash. Dewald undoubtedly is correct in contending that the line separating the bourgeois classes and the nobility is much blurrier than Elias lets on. Nonetheless, the essential core of his narrative holds up. The knightly aristocracy gave way to competing bourgeois and courtly aristocracies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Being aristos did not have coherent meaning.
Personal Evidence: Rousseau Contra the Philosophes
The problem of a bifurcated aristocracy would resolve itself in the eighteenth century, as the bourgeois classes would win something of a cultural victory. When they were finally confident enough to challenge the courtly aristocracy for social supremacy, the new bourgeois upstarts had little difficulty identifying their vulnerabilities. The courtly aristocracy, they argued, were not legitimate aristocrats and had no plausible claim to being best. Their supposed superiority—civilité—was not a true superiority. In place of civilité, the rising bourgeois classes strenuously asserted that only those who possessed talent, or more specifically, some form of intellectual ability, ought to be considered elite members of society. Thomas Paine may very well have summed up their line of attack with one acerbic quip: “Nobility equals no ability.”77
As has been well established, Rousseau had a front-row seat to this cultural skirmish through his experiences with the philosophes. Although he also is critical of the economic elite and employs amour-propre against the wealthy, he begins with the intellectuals.78 Like the administrators and bankers, the philosophes vigorously argued that they, the men of letters, were the most socially valuable members of society and hence ought to occupy the highest rungs of the social ladder. They had the most legitimate claim to being best. Many followed Voltaire in his “desire … to lift the status of the men of letters to the highest rank of society.”79 Rousseau was plainly aware of this project, complaining in “Preface to Narcissus” that his intellectual friends “cared more about the interests of the men of letters than about the honor of literature.”80
Rousseau, in fact, was a full-fledged participant in eighteenth-century aristocratic politics and was for a time probably supportive of his friends’ claims.81 In “Preface to Narcissus,” he concedes that he was “seduced by the prejudices of my century.”82 Like so many young provincials, his adolescent ambition, as detailed in The Confessions, was to become a celebrated man of letters.83 Rousseau also grew up with little love for the courtly aristocrats and was contemptuous of the humiliating relationship between the peasants and their so-called superiors. His father, after all, was chased out of Geneva after a tiff with a local aristocrat involving hunting privileges. Both attitudes encouraged a restlessness and an eagerness to climb the social ladder, which eventually drew him to Paris.84 Although he received little formal education and did not exhibit any intellectual ability during his childhood, he arrived in Paris aged almost thirty and ready to distinguish himself as both a musician and a playwright. In The Confessions, he describes his attitude as one perfectly consistent with those of his philosophe friends—talent was to be his ticket to a better life. He recounts thinking during his journey to the capital of the Enlightenment: “A young man who arrives in Paris with a passable appearance and who is heralded for his talents is always sure of being welcomed.”85 Moreover, Rousseau admits that he was driven by the desire to be aristos and would do anything and everything to earn fame. In reference to his attempt to become a chess master, he writes, “I said to myself, ‘Whoever excels in something is always sure of being sought after. Be first, then in anything at all; I will be sought after; opportunities will present themselves, and my merit will do the rest.’”86 It is easy to connect both of these recollections to the competition for esteem (or perhaps the “competition for excellence”) passage in the Second Discourse. The imagery of leisurely singing and dancing, of course, is clearly not a reference to Paris. Scholars think it refers to the village Maypole feast87 or the naturalistic works of Joseph-François Lafitau or John Brown, which took American Indians as the model.88 The competition aspect, however, arguably refers to Paris. Recall from the passage on competition for esteem that the two criteria by which people wish to distinguish themselves are talents and physical appearances: “The one who sang or danced best; the handsomest, the strongest, the most skillful, or the most eloquent.” Aside from “the strongest,” all of these refer to intellectual or musical abilities and good looks—the same two criteria Rousseau claims would help him find acceptance in Paris in The Confessions. The second passage, with its reference to “being first,” is even more remarkable, as it directly links his own attitudes to the “being best” language in the competition for esteem that is generally ignored by scholars.89
In any case, Rousseau eventually soured on Paris as it became clear that life as a man of letters was much harsher than he had supposed. His talents were not immediately welcomed, and he was never fully comfortable making them the core of his identity. His first try at fame, which came in the form of a submission of a musical notation system to the Academy of Sciences, revealed a spiteful side to him that seems almost unimaginable in his younger self. Although the committee ultimately rejected the system, he was congratulated for a fine effort and encouraged to pursue further study in the field. He managed, in short, to attract favorable consideration. Rousseau, however, saw no silver lining in the committee’s decision, and his reaction was bitter. Aside from one objection from the famous composer Rameau, Rousseau dismissed the criticisms of the committee members as nonsense and remained angry at them at least until he wrote The Confessions some twenty-five years later.90 If his goal was to be aristos, then any sort of failure must have been completely unacceptable. His experiences did not improve much in this regard, and the next seven years proved frustrating.
To be sure, Rousseau did have some positive experiences in Paris. He was accepted in the salons, where his rustic mannerisms and creativity were appreciated as colorful. He also managed to make several friends among the salonistes and contributed several articles on music and one on political economy to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedia. Yet he was never comfortable in Paris and eventually succumbed to intense feelings of alienation and self-loathing. It was only a matter of time before he rejected the ideological claims of the philosophes to become the new aristocracy. By late 1740s, he had already emotionally divorced himself from Paris and expressed an irritation at its intellectual culture that began to show up in his writings. In a 1749 letter, he blasts Paris as an arrogant, snobby, inauthentic city that, tellingly, “crushes humble talents.”91
The First Discourse
