The French do things differently. It was Louis XIV who was advised by his minister Colbert to form the Compagnie de Indes Orientales in 1670, 70 years after the British East India Company. The French effort was initiated as a matter of royal directive. It was based on the research and recommendation of experts like Francois Bernier, and an appeal was issued as to why people should invest in the venture. Louis XIV was fashioning his court to inspire awe, projecting himself as the absolute ruler, and was laying the short-lived foundation of the Divine Right of Kings, which exploded in the face of Louis XVI a little more than a century later in 1789. Louis XIV had carved out for himself other distinctions. He built the Versailles, the grand palace where he would hold court, away from Paris and the rude nobles who treated the king as not much of a king. So, when he came around to assert himself—he became king when he was a toddler and his mother was the Regent and Mazarin, his able Minister—he realized the need to build a Court that would inspire awe. It turns out that the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles can be traced back to the ‘Shish Mahal’ in India of the time, but this was not acknowledged because of the self-proclaimed superiority of Christian Europe that crept into Western mentality.
Faith Beasley looks at the social and intellectual norms that were evolving in seventeenth century France, the societies of intellectuals who met and talked about ideas. Talking to each other is what it was also about. The word that conveys the intellectual intent and content of these chats is ‘conversation’, and this took place in a salon. She says, ‘Salon culture is a distinguishing characteristic and even the hallmark of seventeenth century France’s intellectual and cultural landscape, and the ruelles or salons were female dominated, although not feminocentric, equivalents and sometimes rivals to the exclusively male academies.’
The other aspect of French society in the seventeenth century that Beasley thinks is a defining characteristic of the intellectual milieu of the time was the importance of the fine art of conversation. The etiquette of conversation was based on good taste, and this was the elusive French version of taste. It referred to the subjects that were the stuff of conversation, but also the manner—which had to be elegant—in which it was carried out. She says that French writer Emmanuel Godo ‘characterises conversation during the seventeenth century as a “feminine art”, one that is practiced by women and men alike, but one in which women are considered the masters and men are encouraged to emulate them.’ She uses this aspect of salons and conversation only to get to her main subject, that of Bernier and the idea of India in seventeenth century French imagination.
Marguerite de la Sabliere is one of the prominent patrons of the Parisian salon culture which shapes the social, intellectual history that Beasley has set out to write about. Bernier, the hero, would not be the Bernier that Beasley shows him to be. He is a member of the salon of la Sabliere. In retrospect, la Sabliere appears as a twentieth century socialite, who is a patron of writers and intellectuals, academics and statesmen. But the salon presided over by aristocratic women became the shining example of French intellectual life in the seventeenth century. Neither historians in general, nor historians of social trends and ideas, seem to focus on this aspect. la Sabliere was not the exception though she belonged to the successful and rich middle class that was emerging. Her father and her father-in-law were both financiers. She attracted men of ideas and creativity to her salon because she was herself intellectually inclined, and she leaned towards philosophy. She is important for the Bernier story, and his view and description of India because Bernier was a habitue of la Sabliere’s salon. The other was Jean la Fontaine, who took the Indian Panchatantra as the inspiration for the second volume of his Fables, and moved away from Aesop, who inspired his first volume.
For Beasley, Bernier’s India writings stand out because his ‘knowledge and experience of India was quite extensive’. And more importantly, ‘Unlike most of the seventeenth-century European travellers to India, Bernier travelled solely out of curiosity. He was an intellectual, not a merchant, and he was not sent on any diplomatic mission, as Thomas Roe had been for the English Crown at the beginning of the century.’
Beasley goes on to argue that Bernier’s text was not written as a mere travelogue like that of many others, but that he fashioned his narration in reaction to the response and critique of the salon members. The salon members were an intelligent and curious audience who would not passively accept whatever was presented to them. So, Bernier’s account is something that has gone through the process of refraction of his first readers/listeners. This was the crucial, interpretive intervention of the salon.
Bernier was always alert to the salon circle, and that is why he presents a considered view keeping in mind the implied comparison between what is taken as a norm in Europe and what is out there in India and other places in the East. That is why, with regard to cities and buildings, Bernier mentions pointedly that it would be wrong to make negative judgments, and that local conditions, especially climate, need to be kept in mind. Beasley cites Bernier’s view on Indian cities: ‘As far as the idea of [urban] beauty is concerned, I can tell you that I’m often shocked to hear we Europeans disparage Indian cities, (stating) that they don’t approach ours in terms of the buildings. Yet [Indian cities] shouldn’t resemble [ours], and if Paris, London, or Amsterdam were situated where Delhi is, it would be necessary to demolish most of them in order to rebuild in a different way…Certainly our cities have beautiful things [sights], but these are beautiful things that must be particular to them and adapted to a cold climate. Delhi can also have its own [beautiful things] that are equally particular to it and that are adapted to it and that are adapted to a very hot climate.’
Beasley explores the impact of Bernier’s India narrative on Madame de Lafayette’s 1678 novel, The Princess of Cleves, and on English playwright of the time, John Dryden, who wrote the play Aurangzeb, based on Bernier’s account which had been translated into English. Beasley moves farther from her fascinating initial thesis of salons and conversations in seventeenth century France to an exclusive focus on the nuanced judgments of Bernier on India, which is so untypical of a European of that time.
The book would have been more rewarding if Beasley had talked much more about salons, conversations and the women who had created these intellectual spaces, which is quite different from the boudoirs that dominated France in the eighteenth century. The life of la Sabilere is fascinating, she is now recognized as a philosopher in her own right. But India is a temptation. Talk about India is a good marketing ruse.
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr is a Hyderabad-born New Delhi-based freelance journalist. His books include The Upanishads An Introduction and Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi: Broken Polity, Flickering Reforms.