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6/ LEARNING
TABLE OF CONTENTS
To access the resource listed, click on the hot linked title or press CTRL + click
To return to the Table of Contents, click on click on ▲ Return to Table of Contents

MODULE 6.1: Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association

 Lecture Guide: Classical Conditioning (p. 354)
 Resources Available (p. 362)

MODULE 6.2: Operant Conditioning: Learning Through Consequences

 Lecture Guide: Operant Conditioning (p. 363)
 Resources Available (p. 367)

MODULE 6.3: Cognitive and Observational Learning

 Lecture Guide: Cognitive and Observational Learning (p. 368)
 Resources Available (p. 372)

WORK THE SCIENTIFIC LITERACY MODEL

 MyPsychLab Video Series (p. 373)
 Work the Model Discussion topic and Writing Assignment with rubric
(p. 373)

FULL CHAPTER RESOURCES

 Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics (p. 378)
 Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises (p. 362)
 Handout Masters (p. 409)
 APS: Readings from the Association of Psychological Science (p. 421)
 Forty Studies that Changed Psychology (p. 422)
 Web Resources (p. 423)
 Video Resources (p. 425)
 Multimedia Resources (p. 428)

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 Chapter 6: Learning
LECTURE GUIDE

I. MODULE 6.1: CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: LEARNING BY ASSOCIATION

(Text p. 228)
▲ Return to Table of Contents

Learning Objectives
 Know the key terminology involved in classical conditioning.
o See the bold, italicized terms below.
 Understand how responses learned through classical conditioning can be acquired and lost.
o Acquisition of a conditioned response occurs with repeated pairings of the CS and the
US. Once a response is acquired, it can be extinguished if the CS and US no longer occur
together. However, the CR may be spontaneously recovered when the organism
encounters the CS again.
 Understand the role of biological and evolutionary factors in classical conditioning.
o Not all stimuli have the same potential to become a strong CS. Responses to biologically
relevant stimuli (e.g., snakes) are more easily conditioned than flowers or guns.
Similarly, organisms quickly develop (in one pairing) aversions to harmful foods even
after long intervals of time, as a means of survival.
 Apply the concepts and terms of classical conditioning to new examples.
o Students should be able to read classical conditioning scenarios and identify the
conditioned stimulus (CS), unconditioned stimulus (US), conditioned response (CR), and
unconditioned response (UR).
 Analyze claims that artificially sweetened beverages are a healthier choice.
o Because of classical conditioning, the digestive system responds to the flavor of the
artificially sweetened (CS) beverage as though a high-calorie food source (US) is on the
way. This leads to the gut preparing itself for something high in calories (CR). However,
the diet beverage does not deliver these calories, and so hunger messages continue to be
sent to the brain.

1.) Learning allows us to do many things that we were not born to do.
i) This includes tying your shoe to playing a musical instrument.

Learning (p. 229) is a process by which behaviour or knowledge changes as a result of

experience.

2.) There are different types of learning.

i) Cognitive learning: this includes reading, listening, and taking tests to acquire new knowledge.
ii) Associative learning: this includes how we come to pair certain stimuli
a) For example, we pair certain holidays with certain smells, sights, and sounds.

Pavlov’s Dogs: Classical Conditioning of Salivation

1) Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was a Russian physiologist that studied digestion using dogs.
i) As part of his researcher procedure, he collected saliva and other gastric sections from the dogs
when they were given meat powder.
ii) Pavlov and his assistants noticed that the dogs began salivating as they prepared the meat
powder.
iii) To test this assumption, Pavlov first presents a sound from a metronome and then gave the
dogs the meat powder.
a) After many pairings, the dogs came to salivate just to the sound of the metronome
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(Figure 6.1 & Figure 6.2).

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 IRM for Krause/Corts/Smith/Dolderman, An Introduction to Psychological Science

Classical Conditioning (p. 229) (also called Pavlovian conditioning) is learning that occurs
when a neutral stimulus elicits a response that was originally caused by another stimulus.

b) Classical conditioning influences many responses and occurs in a variety of settings.

2) A stimulus is an external event or cue that elicits a response.

i) Stimuli (e.g., food, pain, water, etc.) elicit different types of responses.
ii) These responses can be reflexive (unconditioned or unlearned) or learned (conditioned).

Unconditioned Stimulus (US) (p. 230) is a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response without
learning.

Unconditioned Response (UR) (p. 230) is a reflexive, unlearned reaction to an unconditioned

stimulus.

iii) In Pavlov’s experiment, meat powder (external stimulus) elicited unconditioned salivation in
his dogs (top panel of Figure 6.2).
a) Other pairings of US and UR include flinching (UR) in response to a loud noise (US).
iv) The tone was originally a neutral stimulus because it didn’t elicit a response (top panel of Figure
6.2).

Conditioned Stimulus (CS) (p. 231) is a once neutral stimulus that elicits a conditioned response
because it has a history of being paired with an unconditioned stimulus. (middle panel of Figure
6.2).

Conditioned Response (CR) (p. 231) is the learned response that occurs to the conditioned
stimulus.

v) After repeated pairings with the US, the once neutral tone became a conditioned stimulus (CS)
because it elicited the conditioned response (CR) of salivation.
vi) To establish conditioning has taken place, the tone (CS) must elicit salivation on its own
(bottom panel of Figure 6.2).

3) A common area of confusion is the difference between a conditioned response and an unconditioned
response.
i) In Pavlov’s experiment, they are both salivation.
ii) Salivation was a UR when it was paired with food.
a) In other words, dogs naturally drool when given food.
iii) Salivation became a CR when it occurred in response to the tone (CS).
b) Dogs do not naturally drool when they hear a tone; this was a learned response.

Evolutionary Function of the CR

1) The UR and the CR do not have to be identical responses. Often the CR plays a functional role in the
behaviour.
i) One example is the deer freezing in the headlights on a highway.
ii) Many animals instinctually freeze to avoid predators. This CR was recreated in laboratory
settings as well.
iii) The CR and the UR are often quite different responses with conditioning serving an
evolutionary function.

Classical Conditioning and the Brain

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 1) Classical conditioning can occur in simple organisms, like Aplysia, suggesting that classical
conditioning is a basic biological process.
Chapter 6: Learning

i) Connections between specific groups of neurons (axon terminals and receptors) become
strengthened during each instance of classical conditioning.
a) Example given is the eye blink (Figure 6.3) a puff of air to the eye given
simultaneous to a distinct sound. Eventually the sound will evoke the eye blink.

Processes of Classical Conditioning

Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery

1) Learning involves a change in behaviour due to experience.
2) In classical conditioning, acquisition is the phase in which a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with the
US.
i.) In Pavlov’s experiment, the conditioned salivary response was acquired through numerous tone
food pairings (Figure 6.2).

Acquisition (p. 233) is the initial phase of learning in which a response is established

3) A critical part of acquisition is the predictability with which the CS and US occur together.
ii.) In Pavlov’s experiment, conditioning wouldn’t occur, or was weak, when the tone and food
were paired inconsistently.

4) In the laboratory, as well as the real world, the CS and US do not always occur together, which can
lead to extinction.

Extinction (p. 233) is the loss or weakening of a conditioned response when a conditioned
stimulus and unconditioned stimulus no longer occur together.

i) For example, presenting the dogs with only the tone and no food should lead to less and less of
a salivary response (Figure 6.2).
a.) However, even after extinction occurs, it is possible for the CR to return.

5) Spontaneous recovery suggests that extinction does not result in forgetting, but in learning something
new.
i) For example, the dogs learned that the tone no longer meant food was coming.

Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination

1) The dogs in Pavlov’s experiment salivated in response to tone similar to the one originally used
i) However, Pavlov’s dogs didn’t salivate to every noise they heard.

Spontaneous Recovery (p. 233) is the reoccurrence of a previously extinguished conditioned

response, typically after some time has passed since extinction.

Generalization (p. 234) is a process in which a response that originally occurs to a specific
stimulus also occurs to different, thought similar stimuli.

Discrimination (p. 234) occurs when an organism learns to respond to one original stimulus but
not to new stimuli that may be similar to the original stimulus.

2) Discrimination would mean that the dogs would only salivate in response to the original tone used in
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the experiment.
i) For example, if the original tone was a 1200 Hz tone, they would not salivate to a 1100 or 1300
Hz tone (Figure 6.4).

IRM for Krause/Corts/Smith/Dolderman, An Introduction to Psychological Science

Applications of Classical Conditioning

Conditioned Emotional Responses

1) Early psychologists in the 1920s, such as John Watson, recognized that our emotional responses could
be influenced by classical conditioning.

Conditioned emotional responses (p. 235) consist of emotional and physiological responses that
develop to a specific type of object or situation.

2) Watson and Raynor conducted their first studies with an 11-month-old child known as Little Albert.
i) They presented Albert with a white rat, to which he showed no fear.
ii) When he was in the vicinity of the rat, they hit a bar with a hammer, startling Little Albert.
iii) After repeated pairings, Little Albert came to fear the white rat.

3) Conditioned emotional responses happen outside of the laboratory as well.

i) For example, a little boy who doesn’t have any pets may be very curious about the neighbour’s
cat.
ii) When he goes to pat the cat, it gets defensive and scratches his hand.
iii) The cat may become a CS, which elicits a fear response.
iv) If generalization occurs, he might come to fear all cats.
v) If the reaction develops into an intense fear, he may come to develop a phobia of cats.

4) Classical conditioning has also been used to help understand psychological disorders.
i) Those with psychopathy (similar to antisocial personality disorder) are known for disregarding
the feelings of others.
ii) Those with psychopathy were shown human faces (CS) followed by a painful stimulus (US).
iii) These pairings should have resulted in a negative emotional reaction (CR) to the faces, but
this sample did not respond that way (figure 6.6).
a) They showed very little physiological arousal.
b) Their emotional brain regions remained inactive.
c) They did not seem to mind looking at faces that had been paired with pain.
i) The control group responded exactly opposite.

Evolutionary Role of Fear Conditioning

1) It appears that we are predisposed to acquire fear of objects that are threatening versus those that are
not (Figure 6.7).
i) One studied the pairing of pictures of snakes with an electrical shock.
ii) Palm sweat was measured—known as the skin conductance response.
a) This response occurs when our bodies are aroused by threatening or uncomfortable
stimuli.
iii) Over time, the pictures of the snakes (CS) elicited a strong skin conductance response (CR).
iv) Participants were then shown pictures of flowers, which were also paired with a shock.
a) A much lower conditioned response developed.
b) The same experiment was done with pictures of guns.
c) However, the conditioned response was still less than that in the snake experiment and
comparable to that in the flower experiment.
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d) The CR in the snake experiment was longer lasting and slower to extinguish.

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 Chapter 6: Learning

Preparedness (p. 237) refers to the biological predisposition to rapidly learn a response to a
particular class of stimuli.

2) Preparedness explains the findings that we learn to fear snakes more readily than flowers or guns.
i) From an evolutionary perspective, those who learned to fear animals that were fatal were more
likely to survive.

Conditioned Taste Aversions

1) Another example of how biological factors influence classical conditioning comes from food aversions.
i) For example, there are probably foods (or certain drinks) that you can’t even look at because
they once made you extremely ill.

Conditioned Taste Aversion (p. 238) is the acquired dislike or disgust of a food or drink
because it was paired with illness.

ii) In this case, a taste (CS) is paired with food (US). Getting Sick is the UR. The CR is the
nausea in response to the CS (Figure 6.8).

2) We are biologically prepared to associate food, versus the surrounding stimuli, with illness.
i) For example, if you ate some bad fish and vomited while music played in the background, you
would develop an aversion to the fish, not the music.

3) Conditioned taste aversions are unique in certain ways compared to the previous conditioning
examples.
i) Usually, the CS and US have to be paired very close together.
a.) Food poisoning takes hours.
ii) Conditioning requires multiple pairings.
a.) Food aversion usually takes only one pairing.

4) Conditioned taste aversions usually only develop with new foods.

i) If we eat fish all the time and don’t get sick, we’re much less likely to develop an aversion
after getting ill one time.
ii) This is the same with other forms of conditioning.
a) If you have played with your family cat for years injury free, you’ve much less likely
to develop a fear of cats if it scratches you during an encounter.

Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Conditioning and Negative Political Advertising
1) What do we know about classical conditioning in negative political advertising?
i) advertisers regularly pair negative statements with unflattering images of opponents

2) How can Science help explain the role of classical conditioning in negative political advertising?
i) Studies show that positive and negative evaluations of stimuli can be conditioned in laboratory
conditions that mimic what people experience in everyday exposure to advertisements.
ii) One study had participants view a slide show of a Brand L toothpaste (CS) paired with
attractive visual scenery (US).
a) The control group did not get the pairing.
iii) Those in the paired group had more positive evaluations of the toothpaste.

3) Can we critically evaluate this information?

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 i. One question is whether creating a negative association for one candidate means you are
making the other candidate seem more appealing
IRM for Krause/Corts/Smith/Dolderman, An Introduction to Psychological Science

ii) there are cultural differences in responses to negative ads as well as educational and
socioeconomic differences in responses
a) politicians know this and create multiple ads targeted at different groups
iii) do not want to create sympathy for the group they are campaigning against as happened when
one group mocked Jean Chretien`s facial paralysis.

4) Why is this relevant?

i) many people don`t think negative advertising affects them (called the `third person effect`)
ii) could mean they are influenced by it, voting based on it, and not voting based on the outcome
they want
iii) people may be being manipulated without knowing it

Drug Tolerance and Conditioning

1) Classical conditioning accounts for drug-related phenomena, such as cravings and tolerances (see
Module 5.3).
i) Cues that accompany drug use can become conditioned stimuli that elicit cravings.
a.) For example, the sight of a lighter or others smoking can elicit cravings in people who
smoke.

ii) Conditioned drug tolerance, involves physiological responses in preparation for drug
administration.
 For example, if a heroin users always administers the drug in the same room and
with the same paraphernalia, the body eventually pairs these cues with the drug
and begins to react as though the drug is already administered (e.g., processes
that metabolize the drug).
 Users are subject to overdosing if they use in a different situation or use a
different ritual, because their body hasn’t prepared itself for the injection.

iii) Similar results have been found in experiments with rats.

a) When rats received heroin in an environment different from where they were used to
receiving the drug, mortality doubled.

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RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR MODULE 6.1

Lecture Launchers
 Learning Chapter Classroom Discussion Topics
 Twitmyer, Serendipity, and Self-Promotion
 Consumer Psychology
 Whatever Happened to Little Albert?

Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises

 Classically Conditioned Responses in Class
 Applying Classical Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning in Humans
 Identifying Components of Classical Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning and TV Advertisements
 Classical Conditioning and the Pupil Dilation Response

Web Resources
 Association for Applied Behaviour Analysis: http://www.abainternational.org/
 Operant and Classical Conditioning:
http://www.brembs.net/
 Using Classical vs. Operant Conditioning:
http://www.utexas.edu/
 Classical (Respondent) Conditioning—Valdosta State University:
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/
 Conditioned Emotional Reactions: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/

Video Clips on MyPsychLab

Principles of Classical Conditioning (1:41)

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IRM for Krause/Corts/Smith/Dolderman, An Introduction to Psychological Science

II. MODULE 6.2: OPERANT CONDITIONING: LEARNING THROUGH CONSEQUENCES

(Text p. 244)
▲ Return to Table of Contents

Learning Objectives
 Know key terminology associated with operant conditioning.
o See the bold, italicized terms below.
 Understand the role that consequences play in increasing or decreasing behaviour.
o Positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood of a behaviour, whereas
positive and negative punishment decrease the likelihood of a behaviour. In both cases,
the term positive indicates the addition of a stimulus to the situation, and the term
negative indicates a removal of a stimulus.
 Understand how schedules of reinforcement affect behaviour.
o Schedules of reinforcement can be fixed or variable, and based on intervals (time) or
ratios (the number of responses). Partial reinforcement tends to elicit greater responding.
Superstitions often arise when it is unclear which behaviour brought about the reward.
 Apply your knowledge of operant conditioning to examples.
o Students should be able to read operant conditioning scenarios and determine whether
positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, or negative
punishment was used.
 Analyze the effectiveness of punishment on changing behaviour.
o Many psychologists recommend that people rely on reinforcement to teach new and/or
appropriate behaviours. This is because punishment alone is not very effective and can
have a number of negative side effects. For example, punishment may teach individuals
to engage in avoidance or aggression, instead of developing an appropriate alternative
behaviour.

1) We tend to repeat behaviours that bring rewards and avoid those that lead to punishment.

Operant conditioning (p. 245) is a type of learning in which behaviour is determined by

consequences.

2) The term operant is used because the individual operates on the environment before consequences can occur.

3) Unlike classical conditioning, operant conditioning involves voluntary actions (e.g., speaking, starting an
activity, etc.) (Table 6.1).
i) Classical conditioning involves reflexive responses.
ii) Classical conditioning also doesn’t require a response for a reward.
a) The dogs got the meat powder regardless of whether they salivated.

Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning

1) Contingency refers to a consequence which is dependent upon an action.

i) For example, earning good grades is contingent upon studying.

2) The consequences of a behaviour can be either reinforcing or punishing (Figure 6.10).

Reinforcement and Punishment

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Reinforcement (p. 245) is a process in which an event or reward that follows a response
increases the likelihood of that response occurring again

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 Chapter 6: Learning
1) The effects of reinforcement were first studied by Edward Thorndike.
i) He measured how long it took cats to learn how to escape from puzzle boxes (Figure 6.11).
ii) After repeated trials, the cats were able to escape more rapidly because they learned which
responses worked (e.g., pressing a lever).
iii) Law of effect: idea proposed by Thorndike that responses followed by satisfaction will occur
again, and those not followed by satisfaction will become less likely.

Law of effect (p. 246) the idea that responses followed by satisfaction will occur again in the same
situation whereas those that are not followed by satisfaction become less likely.

2) Within a few decades, the famous behaviourist, B.F. Skinner, began conducting his own studies on
reinforcement.
i) Similar to Thorndike, he also used animals in a laboratory.
ii) Pigeons or rats were placed into operant chambers (also called Skinner boxes) (Figure 6.12).
a) These were boxes that included a lever or key that the subject could manipulate.
b) Pushing the lever could result in the delivery of a reinforcer (e.g., food).

Reinforcer (p. 246) is a stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that increases the
probability of that response occurring again.

3) Learning is measure using the operant chambers

i) Researchers vary when reinforcers become available record the animal’s rate of responding
over time.
ii) Similar processes can be seen in Vegas with slot machines.

4) Decreased responding is also a possible outcome of an encounter with a stimulus.

i) Similar to reinforcers, punishers are defined based on their effects on behaviour.

Punishment (p. 247) is a process that decreases the future probability of a response.

Punisher (p. 247) is a stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that results in a decrease
in behaviour.

Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Punishment

1) Behaviour can be increased through reward or through the removal of aversive stimuli (Table 6.2).

Positive reinforcement (p. 247) is the strengthening of behaviour after potential reinforcers such
as praise, money, or nourishment follow that behaviour.

2) With positive reinforcement, a stimulus is added to a situation.

i) The term “positive” indicates the addition of a reward.

Negative reinforcement (p. 247) involves the strengthening of a behaviour because it removes or
diminishes a stimulus.

3) With negative reinforcement, “negative” indicates the removal of something.

i) For example, taking aspirin is negatively reinforced because doing so removes a headache and
we are more likely to repeat the behaviour as a result.
ii) This concept is often difficult for students to understand.
a) Reinforcement indicates an increase in behaviour.
b) Positive means something was given to increase the behaviour.
c) Negative means something was removed to increase behaviour.

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IRM for Krause/Corts/Smith/Dolderman, An Introduction to Psychological Science

4) Negative reinforcement can be further classified into two subcategories.

Avoidance learning (p. 247) is a specific type of negative reinforcement that removes the
possibility of a stimulus occurring.

i) For example, taking a detour to avoid traffic congestion or paying bills to avoid late fees.

Escape learning (p. 247) occurs if a response removes a stimulus that is already present.

ii) For example, covering your ears upon hearing extremely loud music.
a) You cannot avoid the music, so you escape the aversive stimulus.
iii) The responses of avoiding traffic and covering your ears increase in frequency because they
have effectively removed the aversive stimuli.
iv) Many operant chambers are lined with a grid metal floor that can be used to deliver mild
electric shocks.
a) Responses that remove (escape learning) or prevent (avoidance learning) the shock or
negatively reinforced.

5) Similar to reinforcement, various types of punishment are possible (Table 6.2).

Positive punishment (p. 248) is a process in which a behaviour decreases because it adds or
increases a particular stimulus.

6) Some cat owners use positive punishment in an attempt to train their pet.
i) They might spray their cat with a water bottle when it scratches the furniture.
a) The term positive indicates something was added (water) in this case to decrease a
behaviour.

7) Behaviour may also decrease as a result of the removal of a stimulus.

Negative punishment (p. 248) occurs when a behaviour decreases because it removes or
diminishes a particular stimulus.

i) For example, a parent may withhold driving privileges as a result of an undesirable behaviour
(e.g., rule breaking).

Shaping
1) Rats placed in operant chambers do not automatically go straight for the lever and start pressing it;
they have to learn that behaviour.
i) Teaching a rat to do so is accomplished by reinforcing behaviours that approximate lever
pressing.
a) This includes the rat standing up, facing the lever, placing paws on the lever, etc.

Shaping (p. 248) is a procedure in which a specific operant response is created by reinforcing
successive approximations of that response.

Chaining (p. 248) is a similar process involving linking together two or more shaped behaviours
into a more complex action or sequence of actions.

ii) Shaping is done in a step-by-step fashion until the desired response is learned.
iii) Animals acting in movies are almost certainly learned through shaping and chaining.’

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 Chapter 6: Learning

Applying Operant Conditioning

1) Operant conditioning is the bases for an educational method called applied behaviour analysis (ABA).

Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) (p. 248) involves using close observation, prompting, and
reinforcement to teach behaviours, often to people who experience difficulties and challenges
owing to a developmental condition such as autism.

2) People with autism are usually nonresponsive to normal social cues from an early age, which can lead to
a deficit in developing many skills.
i) For example, explaining how to clear dishes from the dinner table to a child with autism could
be very difficult.

3) Psychologist who specialize in ABA often shape desired behaviours using prompts (e.g., asking the child
to stand up, gather silverware, etc.) and verbal rewards as each step is completed.

Processes of Operant Conditioning

1) Investigating why some stimuli affect our behaviour while others have no influence whatsoever.
• Biological reasons?

Primary and Secondary Reinforcers

1) Reinforcers can come in basic forms (e.g., food, water, shelter, etc.) or in forms that we learn have
value (e.g., money, good grades, etc.).
i) For example, an infant would not care too much about a $1,000 cheque, except maybe to eat it.

Primary reinforcers (p. 249) consist of reinforcing stimuli that satisfy basic motivational needs.
Secondary reinforcers (p. 249) consist of reinforcing stimuli that acquire their value through
learning.

2) Our motivation to satisfy basic needs is related to a brain structure called the nucleus accumbens
(Figure 6.13).
i) This area becomes active when processing rewards, such as eating and having sex, as well as
“artificial” rewards, such as smoking cigarettes.
ii) Variations in people’s nucleus accumbens might explain why some people are prone to high-
risk behaviours (e.g., gambling).
a) They need a greater rush in comparison to people who are stimulated by natural rewards.

3) Token economies demonstrate the power of secondary reinforcers.

i) These are often used in residential treatment settings.
ii) Residents earn tokens through good behaviour, which can be exchanged for something else
they want (e.g., candy).
iii) Misbehaviour results in lost tokens, so these tokens can also play a role in punishment.

Discrimination and Generalization

1) Classical conditioning and operant conditioning share similar phenomena (Table 6.3).
2) When a discriminative stimulus reliably elicits a specific response the behaviour is said to be under
stimulus control.
i) For example, we check the light on the coffee machine before we pour a cup of coffee.
ii) This is a discriminative stimulus that tells us the beverage will be hot.

Discriminative stimulus (p. 250) is a cue or event that indicates that a response, if made, will be
reinforced.

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which our safety depended. While these new dispositions were being
made, the firing almost ceased along the whole line. We guessed
pretty well what was coming, and prepared as best we might for the
approaching storm.
Presently thousands of bayonets glittered in the bright sun-light
among the trees in our front; the heads of three heavy columns
issued from the wood and pushed across the valley against our
positions. The main force assailed the platform, but could make no
head against the fire of the artillery, and the masses of troops
defending it; another body of some strength rushed up to our
cottage stronghold, swarmed round it, and poured a deafening roar
of musketry upon the doors and windows; we were instantly driven
from the orchard to the shelter of the dwelling, but there we held
our own, and the stout Londoners dealt death among the foe.
Several men had been killed, and some badly wounded, while
retreating from the orchard into the cottage, so my hands were full.
I did my utmost, but could not keep pace with the work of
destruction. The fire waxed heavier; the Carlists, though suffering
severely, pressed closer and closer round us, animated with the
hope that we might fall into their hands; but the conical hill is not
yet assailed, and till it is lost our retreat is safe. The third attacking
column has disappeared in a ravine to our left. Where will that storm
burst? See, there they are! now they rise up from the deep hollow—
the glittering bayonets and the terrible "white caps;" and now with a
fierce shout, louder than the roar of the battle, they dash against the
conical hill. We see no more; the thick woods conceal alike our
friends and foes.
My late patient, the commander of our little garrison, had been
already wounded in the head, but refused my aid with horrid oaths.
A torn handkerchief was wrapped round his temples, his face and
long grizzled beard were stained with blood, begrimed with smoke
and dust; he had seized the musquet and ammunition of a fallen
soldier, and fearless of the deadly hail of bullets, stood upright
before a window firing with quick precision, then rapidly reloading.
Nevertheless, every now and then, he cast an anxious look beyond,
to see how fared the strife upon the all-important hill.
And now the roar of musketry is heard among the trees, and a thick
cloud of smoke hangs over the scene of the struggle, concealing the
fortunes of the fight. But see! From the back of the hill furthest from
the enemy, a tall man, in the uniform of an officer, hastens stealthily
away; he crosses towards the river close to the cottage; though
hidden by a bank from the Carlists, we see him plainly from the
upper windows; his object is probably to escape unobserved down
by the stream into the lines. He has thrown away his sword, his eyes
are bloodshot, his face pale with deadly fear, and wild with terror.
We look again: eternal infamy! it is the captain of carbineers.
Immediately after this, the defenders of the hill, deserted by their
leader and pressed by the superior force of the Carlists, gave
ground, broke, and fled the valley. "That accursed coward has
betrayed us," shouted our commander, fiercely. "But he shall not
escape us, by ——." As he spoke he aimed at the fugitive and pulled
the trigger, but before he finished the sentence, I heard a dull,
heavy splash, as of a weight falling upon water; the musket dropped
from his grasp, he threw his long sinewy arms up over his head, and
fell back without a groan. A bullet had gone through his brain;
meanwhile the object of his wrath ran rapidly past and gained the
sheltering underwood by the stream in safety.
Our soldiers, instead of being daunted by the loss of their
commander, were inspired with the energy of despair. They knew
they might not hope for mercy from their fierce assailants, and
determined to struggle to the last. All retreat was cut off, but as long
as their ammunition lasted they could keep at bay. This, however,
began soon to fail. They rifled the pouches of their dead comrades,
and still, though almost against hope, bravely held on the fight.
The Carlists upon the conical hill were now exposed to the fire from
the guns of the platform, and though in a great degree sheltered by
the trees, they suffered severely. The Christino forces were,
however, being gradually withdrawn from the field of battle, and the
chances of our perilous situation being observed by our friends,
became momentarily less; a vigorous rush upon the conical hill to
gain possession of it, even for a few minutes, might enable us to
extricate ourselves, but in the roar and confusion of the battle our
little band was forgotten by the Spanish force, left to cover the
withdrawal of the army—forgotten by all but one,—the gallant young
cadet, my generous friend. He knew that I was in the beleaguered
cottage, disgracefully left to its fate by a portion of his own
regiment; he saw that we still held out,—that there was hope that
we might yet be saved. He hastened to the commanding officer of
his corps, told of our perilous situation, and pointed out the means
of extricating us. The orders were, that this regiment,—the second
light infantry, should check the Carlist advance, till the main body of
the Christinos had fallen back upon the positions taken in the
morning. The generous boy who had gained a hearing by his gallant
conduct through the day, urged his cause so earnestly, that at last it
won attention; he pointed out how the recovery of the conical hill
would effectually secure the retirement of the troops from
annoyance, and that they would have the glory of saving the
detachment of the Legion from destruction. The colonel, a gallant
old soldier, himself an Englishman by birth, leant no unwilling ear,
and the regiment received the order to advance.
Meanwhile, we saw with bitter sorrow battalion after battalion
withdrawing from the platform, and the Carlist reserves advancing
down the valley in our front to press on the retiring army. But when
we had almost ceased to hope, a dark green column emerged from
the woods in our rear by the water side, and in serried ranks, with
steady step, marched straight upon the fatal hill. It dashes aside the
opposing crowds of white-capped skirmishers like foam from a ship's
prow; it gains the slope and nears the wooded brow, still, with
unfaltering courage, pressing on, though men are struck down at
every step. They are now close at hand; we feel their aid; our
assailants slacken their fire, and give way; the path is nearly clear:
when the hill is won we are saved. We can now plainly distinguish
our deliverers—the Second Light Infantry, and in front of the leading
rank the gallant cadet toils up the bloody hill. A crashing volley
staggers the advancing files; but the youth cheers them on—one
effort more. Hurrah, brave boy! hurrah for the honour of Castile!
They follow him again; the brow is gained, they plunge into the
wood; another rattle of musketry, and the Carlists are driven from
the hill.
We seized the golden opportunity, and bearing with us those of the
wounded who survived, made good our retreat. The few still capable
of any exertion joined our brave deliverers, and retired slowly with
them, but the Carlists pressed upon us no more that night.
The evening was falling fast, and the long shadows of the mountains
covered the field of blood, when I sat down at the advanced post of
our lines to await the returning column and meet the gallant boy,
our deliverer from the merciless enemy. They marched slowly up
along the road; for many wounded men, borne on stretchers, or
supported by their companions, encumbered their movements.
Then, as company after company filed past, I looked with anxious
straining eyes for my dear young friend. But he came not. Even in
the pride of their brave deed the soldiers seemed dull and sorrowful
without his airy step and gallant bearing to cheer them on. Last in
the ranks came a tall bearded grenadier, carrying something in his
arms—something very light, but borne with tender care. It was the
young cadet. His eyes were closed; his face wore a smile of ineffable
sweetness, but was white as marble, and, like the smile on the
features of a marble statue, there may be never again a change; for
the fair child was dead.
The Captain of the ship had joined our group some time before, and
listened attentively to the latter part of the story. When it came to
this point, he cried out somewhat impatiently, "Hillo, Doctor! if you
have nothing pleasanter to tell us, the sooner we turn in the better."
 FLECHIER'S CHRONICLE OF
CLERMONT ASSIZES.[23]
Many of our readers, unacquainted with his writings, will remember
the name of the gentle prelate and renowned rhetorician who
delivered the funeral oration of the great Turenne, accomplishing the
mournful but glorious task with such eloquence and grace that the
composition constitutes his chief claim to the admiration of posterity.
We should say, perhaps, that it did constitute his principal hold upon
the world's memory, previously to the year 1844, date of exhumation
of a work likely to command readers longer than his Oraisons
Funébres, or, than any other portion of the ten serious volumes
published under the incorrect title of œuvres Completes. We can
imagine the astonishment of an erudite book-worm, suddenly
encountering, when winding his way through dusty folios and
antique black letter, a sprightly and gallant narrative, sparkling with
graceful sallies and with anecdotes and allusions à la Grammont;
and finding himself compelled, by evidence internal and collateral, to
accept the mundane manuscript as the work of a grave and pious
father of the church. A courtly chronicle, in tone fringing on the
frivolous, and often more remarkable for piquancy of subject than
for strict propriety of tone, suddenly dragged from the cobwebbed
obscurity of an ancient escritoire and put abroad as the production
of a South, a Tillotson, or a Blair, would astound the public, and find
many to doubt its authenticity. In bringing forward the earliest work
of the amiable bishop of Nismes, the librarian of the town of
Clermont had no such scepticism to contend against. Moreover, he
had arguments and proofs at hand sufficient to confound and
convince the most incredulous. True, there was vast difference in
tone and subject between the literary pastime of the Abbé, and the
results of the grave studies and oratorical talents of the reverend
churchman and renowned preacher; but affinities of style were
detectible by the skilful, and, in addition to this, there had crept out,
at sundry periods of the present century, certain letters of
Fléchier[24]—letters not to be found in the so-called "complete
editions" of his works—whose strain of graceful levity and
exaggerated gallantry indicated a talent distinct from that to which
he owes a fame now daily diminishing; and prepared the few whose
notice they attracted for a transition from grave didactics and
inflated declamation to lively badinage and debonair narrative. The
masses knew little about the matter, and cared less. Latin verses,
complimentary discourses, and funeral orations, dating from a
century and a half back, and relating to persons and events great
and brilliant, it is true, but now seen dim and distant through the
long vista of years, are not the class of literature to compel much
attention in this practical and progressive age. As a constructor of
French prose, Fléchier is unquestionably entitled to honourable
mention. If his claims to originality of genius were small, he at least
was an elegant rhetorician and a delicate and polished writer, to
whom the French language is under obligations. As a man of letters,
he formed an important link between the school of Louis XIII. and
that of the Grand Monarque; he was one of the first to appreciate
grace of diction, and to attempt the elevation and correction of a
spurious style. His florid eloquence, however, not unfrequently
wearies by its stilted pomposity, and, save by a few scholars and
literati, his works are rather respected than liked, more often praised
than read. He wrote for the century, not for all time. And his books,
if still occasionally referred to, each day drew nearer to oblivion,
when the publication of the Mémoires sur les Grands-Jours tenus à
Clermont came opportunely to refresh his fading bays. The lease of
celebrity secured by ten studied and ponderous tomes, exhaling
strong odour of midnight oil, had nearly expired, when it was
renewed by a single volume, written with flowing pen and careless
grace, but overlooked and underrated for nearly two centuries.
Although scarcely essential to a just appreciation of the book before
us, we shall cursorily sketch the career of Esprit Fléchier, esteemed
one of the ablest of French pulpit orators,—one of the most kind-
hearted and virtuous of French prelates. Born in 1632, in the county
of Avignon, he early assumed the sacerdotal garb, and obtained
occupation as teacher of rhetoric. At the age of eight-and-twenty,
business resulting from the death of a relation having taken him to
Paris, he conceived an affection for that capital and remained there.
Having no fortune of his own, he was fain to earn a modest
subsistence by teaching the catechism to parish children. Already,
when professing rhetoric at Narbonne, he had given indication of the
oratorical talents that were subsequently to procure him the highest
dignities of the church, the favour of a great king, and the
enthusiastic admiration of a Sévigné. At Paris he busied himself with
the composition of Latin verses, for which he had a remarkable
talent, and celebrated in graceful hexameters the successes and
virtues of ministers, princes, and kings. The peace concluded with
Spain by Mazarine, the future prospects of the dauphin of France,
the splendid tournament held by the youthful Louis, in turn afforded
subjects for the display of his elegant Latinity. Fléchier had the true
instinct of the courtier, exempt from fawning sycophancy, and
tempered by the dignity of his sacred profession. And when he
condescended to flatter, it was with delicacy and adroitness.
Ambitious of the patronage of the Duke of Montausier, he knew how
to obtain it by a judicious independence of tone and deportment,
more pleasing to that nobleman than the most insinuating flattery. A
constant guest in the Salon Rambouillet, he made good his place
amongst the wits frequenting it, and when its presiding genius
expired, it fell to him to speak its funeral oration. This was the
commencement of his fame. From the hour of that brilliant
harangue, his progress was rapid to the pinnacle of royal favour and
priestly dignity. Unanimously elected member of the academy, he
became almoner to the dauphiness, and was long the favourite court
preacher, petted by the king and by Madame de Maintenon. His
nomination as bishop was delayed longer than the high favour he
enjoyed seemed to justify. At last, in 1685, he received his
appointment to the see of Lavaur. The words with which Louis XIV.
accompanied it, were characteristic of the selfish and smooth-spoken
sovereign. "Be not surprised at my tardiness in rewarding your great
merits: I could not sooner resolve to resign the pleasure of hearing
you." His promotion to the bishopric of Nismes followed two years
later, and there he founded the academy, and abode in the constant
practice of all Christian virtues, until his death, which occurred in
1710, five years sooner than that of his royal patron and admirer.
This provincial residence could hardly have been a matter of
inclination to one who had so long basked in the warm sunshine of
court favour. But the self-imposed duty was well and cheerfully
performed. And we find the mild and unambitious churchman
deprecating the benefits showered on him by the king. "It is a great
proof your goodness," he wrote to Louis, when appointed to the rich
and important see of Nismes, "that you leave me nothing to ask but
a diminution of your favours." Strict in his own religious tenets, he
was tolerant of those of others, and more than once, during the
cruel persecutions of the Huguenots, his sacerdotal mantle was
extended to shield the unhappy fanatics from the raging sabres of
their pitiless foes. "He died," says St Simon, "distinguished for his
learning, his works, his morals, and for a truly episcopal life.
Although very old, he was much regretted and mourned throughout
all Languedoc."
It is pleasing to trace so virtuous a career, its just reward and
peaceful termination; otherwise we might have been contented to
refer to the period when Fléchier was tutor to the son of M. Lefevre
de Caumartin, one of the king's council, master of requests, and
bearer of the royal seals at the tribunal of the Grands-Jours. The
future bishop had been at Paris about two years, when he accepted
this tutorship. Four years more elapsed; he was in priest's orders,
and already had some reputation as a preacher, when he
accompanied M. de Caumartin to Clermont. It was in 1665, and
Louis XIV. had convoked the exceptional court occasionally held in
the distant provinces of France, and known as the Grands-Jours.
"This word," says M. Gonod, in his introduction to Fléchier's volume,
"which excited, scarcely two centuries ago, such great expectations,
so many hopes and fears, is almost unknown at the present day;
and one meets with many persons, otherwise well informed, who
inquire 'what the Grands-Jours were?' They were extraordinary
assizes, held by judges chosen and deputed by the king. These
judges, selected from the parliament, were sent with very extensive
powers, to decide all criminal and civil cases that might be brought
before them, and their decisions were without appeal. They inherited
the duties of those commissioners, called missi dominici, whom our
kings of the first and second dynasties sent into the provinces to
take information of the conduct of dukes and counts, and to reform
the abuses that crept into the administration of justice and of the
finances. The rare occurrence of these assizes, and the pomp of the
judges, contributed to render them imposing and solemn, and
obtained for them from the people the name of Grands-Jours. They
were held but seven times in Auvergne," (the dates follow,
commencing 1454;) "and of those seven sittings, the most
remarkable for duration, for the number and importance of the trials,
for the quality of the persons figuring in them, and for their result,
are, without the slightest question, those of 1665-6. They lasted
more than four months, from the 26th September to the 30th
January. More than twelve thousand complaints were brought before
them, and a multitude of cases, both civil and criminal, were
decided. And, amongst the latter, whom do we see upon the bench
of the accused? The most considerable persons, by birth, rank, and
fortune, of Auvergne and the circumjacent provinces, judges, and
even priests!" Here we find the true reason why Fléchier's interesting
memoirs of this important session have so long remained unprinted,
almost unknown. It were idle to assert that want of merit caused
them to be omitted, or at best passed over with a cursory notice, by
collectors and commentators of Fléchier's writings. We have already
intimated, and shall presently prove, that, both as a literary
composition, and as a chronicle of the manners of the times, this
long-neglected volume is of great merit and interest. And had these
been less, this was still hardly a reason for grudging the honours
and advantages of type to a single volume of no very great length,
at the cost of the integrity of its author's works. If not included in
any of the partial editions of the bishop's writings, or printed with his
posthumous works at Paris in 1712, a nook might surely have been
reserved for it in the Abbé Ducreux's complete edition, or in the less
estimable one of Fabre de Narbonne. But no—such favour was not
afforded. M. Fabre dismisses it with a curt and flippant notice, and
Ducreux confines himself to a careless abstract, inserted in the tenth
volume of his edition, as a sort of sop to certain persons who,
having obtained access to the manuscript, were sufficiently judicious
to hold it in high estimation. The Abbé alleged as his reason, that he
thought little of the style, which he considered strange and
negligent. We will not do him the unkindness to accept this as his
real opinion. His true motive, we cannot doubt, was more akin to
that loosely hinted at by M. Fabre, who, as recently as the year
1828, intimates that there might be some "imprudence" in raking up
these old stories. In 1782 M. Ducreux may have been justified in
apprehending detriment to his interests, and perhaps even danger to
his personal liberty, as the possible consequence of his giving too
great publicity to the chronicles of the Grands-Jours. The Bastille and
Lettres-de-Cachet were not then the mere empty sounds they were
rendered, seven years later, by the acts of a furious mob and a
National Convention. There was still "snug lying" in the fortress of
the Porte St Antoine, for impertinent scribes as for suspected
conspirators. We cannot doubt that, by the affected disparagement
of Fléchier's book, the Abbé Ducreux sought to veil his own timid or
reasonable apprehensions, feigning, like the fox in the fable, to
despise what he was unable (or dared not) to make use of. "This
narrative," says M. Gonod, speaking of the Mémoires, "in which the
manners and morals of the nobility and clergy of the period are
sometimes painted in such black colours, could not, as will be seen
on perusal, be brought to light in the time of its author. More than a
century later, the Abbé Ducreux did not deem it advisable to print it
in a complete form. 'What interest,' he says, 'could the reader find in
the recital of those old stories, some of revolting atrocity, others
studiously malicious, and of depravity calculated only to shock
susceptible imaginations and generous hearts? The history of crime
is already too vast and too well known; it is that of virtue, and of
actions honourable to humanity, that we should endeavour to
preserve and disseminate.' Admitting this principle, M. Gonod very
justly remarks, "the first thing to do would be to pass a spunge over
history; and the virtuous Abbé forgot that nothing is more adapted
to inspire horror of crime than the contemplation of its hideous face,
and of the penalties that follow in its train. On the other hand"—and
here we have the true reason—"the Abbé Ducreux feared to retrace
these facts at a time when the descendants of the men most
compromised in those terrible trials held the first places in the
church, the magistracy, and the army: it would have been wounding
them, he says, without utility to the public." Nearly sixty years later,
M. Fabre de Narbonne allows himself to be fettered by similar
unwillingness to offend the posterity of the noble and reverend
criminals of 1666; for thus only can be explained his intimation of
the possible imprudence of reviving those judicial records. In 1844,
the librarian of Clermont writes thus: "This reason"—he refers to
that alleged by Ducreux—"which I respect and approve, is extinct for
us. Of all those families, two only, I think, are still in existence; and I
believe that the present representatives of those once odious names
are personally known in too honourable a manner to have to dread
from Fléchier's narrative any lesion to their honour. I must add,
moreover, that with respect to one, every thing has been long since
published by Legrand d'Aussy, Taillandier;[25] and that the other has
received communication from me of all relating to his family, and
sees no objection to its publication." From this paragraph it is
manifest, that M. Gonod was not quite at his ease as to the effect of
his publication. He thinks one thing, believes another, assumes
altogether a doubting and deprecatory tone, defending himself
before attack. The worthy bibliophilist and editor was evidently in
some slight trepidation as to the reception of his literary foster-child
by the descendants of the dissolute and tyrannical nobility arraigned
before the tribunal of the Grands-Jours. His apprehensions were not
unfounded. It is certainly difficult to understand what could be risked
and who offended by the resuscitation—after one hundred and
eighty years, and when French institutions and society had been so
completely turned upside down by successive revolutions—of these
antiquated details of feudal oppression, priestly immorality, and
magisterial corruption. It argues singular tenuity of epidermis on the
part of French gentilâtres of the nineteenth century, that they cannot
bear to hear how their great grandfather, seven or eight times
removed, oppressed his vassals by enforcing odious privileges, hung
up his lady's page by the heels till death ensued, poisoned his wife,
or confined a serf[26] in a damp closet where he could neither sit nor
stand, and where his face lost its form and his garments acquired a
coat of mildew. Why the disclosure of these crimes—atrocious
though they are, and characteristic of a barbarous state of society—
should disturb the repose or cloud the countenances of the far-
removed posterity of the feudal tyrants who committed them, is no
easy question to answer. Are these susceptible descendants
apprehensive lest the crimes of the French aristocracy, two hundred
years ago, should acquire a peculiarly swart hue, in the eyes of
existing generations, by contrast with the immaculate purity of
corresponding classes in the nineteenth century? The misdeeds of a
Senegas and a Montvallat, extenuated by the circumstances of the
times, by a ruder state of society and greater laxity of morals, might
well be forgotten in the infamy of a Praslin and a Teste. Whatever
the reason, however, the fact is that the publication of the Grands-
Jours was viewed with displeasure by various Auvergnat families.
The edition consisted, we believe, of seven or eight hundred copies,
of which the public bought a portion, and the remainder were
purchased and destroyed by those whom the contents of the volume
offended. The book is now unobtainable; and there appears little
probability of a reprint in France. Under these circumstances, it is
surprising that the Brussels publishers—whom no trashy French
novel can escape—have not laid their piratical claws upon a book of
such attractive interest.
Written during the four months that Fléchier passed at Clermont as
one of the household of M. de Caumartin, the Mémoires are
intended less as an historical record of the assizes than as a general
diary of all the amiable Abbé saw, heard, and collected during his
stay in Auvergne. Their nature scarcely admitting publication during
the author's lifetime, we must consider their composition to have
been a pastime, a manner of dispelling the tedium of long mornings
in a provincial town. "Assuredly," a clever French critic has said, "no
author ever wrote for himself alone; in literature, as on the stage,
monologues are purely conventional; in reality, one speaks to the
public, without seeming so to do." If ever there was an exception to
this rule, it was in the case of Fléchier. During the Grands-Jours,
Clermont, crowded with functionaries and their families, with
plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses, from every part of the
extensive district[27] over which the court had jurisdiction, was a
grand focus of gossip and scandal; and by this, Fléchier, as one of
the household of so important a person as M. de Caumartin, was in
the best possible position to benefit. It is by no means improbable,
that a desire to retain the many pungent anecdotes that reached his
ear, and also the more important and striking of the proceedings
before the court, stimulated him to indite the four hundred and
fourteen folio pages of manuscript now printed, with introduction,
notes, and appendix, in an octavo volume of four hundred and sixty.
He may have anticipated lively gratification in refreshing his memory,
at some later and more tranquil period of his life, by a reference to
the annals of those gay and bustling days. He may have had in view
the delectation of the witty Parisian coteries by whom he was
already held in high and well-merited esteem. And the modest
preceptor, foreseeing not, at that early period of his career, the
eminence he was destined to attain, may have indulged in pleasing
visions of posthumous fame, founded on this graceful volume of
memoirs. What we cannot suppose him to have contemplated, was
its immediate publication; and to this we must attribute the
capricious disorder, the frequent transitions, the sprightly naiveté
and piquant negligence of a book written (as so few are written) for
the author's private gratification, or at most for that of a limited
circle of friends. With regard to the intrinsic merit of the work, we
can hardly do better than quote M. Gonod. "Independently," says
that gentleman, "of the curious facts it reveals, of the manners (still
too little known) which it retraces, it will be for the intelligent reader
one of the most precious literary monuments of the age of Louis XIV.
It was composed ten years after Pascal's 'Provinciales,' when
Corneille had already produced his masterpieces, at the moment
that Molière brought out his 'Misanthrope,' when Racine prepared his
'Plaideurs,' and his 'Britannicus,' and Boileau published his first
satires. These memoirs add a new gem to Fléchier's literary crown,
by displaying qualities not to be traced in his previously-published
works. Here one does not find that scientific formality of style which
procured him the name of a skilful artisan of words; but the author,
still young, and writing, as we may say, in play, or to exercise his
easy pen, lets the latter run on at random, whence often arises a
certain laisser-aller, an apparent negligence, of which Legrand
d'Aussy, who criticises it, felt neither the charm nor the value. Had
he found declamation against reigning abuses, against the nobility,
or against what he called superstition, he would have admired it. But
the scholarly harmony of the style, the vein of subtle and delicate
wit pervading the work, have completely escaped him. Let others
having more right to be severe than the author of the 'Voyage en
Auvergne,' point out occasional prolixity, romantic adventures,
digressions, a superabundance of antitheses; let them even blame
the coolness with which Fléchier—in times when such circumspection
was necessary—relates horrible facts. I leave them to play this easy
part, and prefer receding with the author to a period whose private
and intimate customs are little known to me, observing with him the
follies, and listening to the gossip of the day, laughing with him,
enjoying his gaiety, and, at the same time, acquiring knowledge."
Then come a few words of compliment and gratitude to the
enlightened minister (M. Villemain) who encouraged the publication
of the Mémoires. In the main we agree with M. Gonod, and are
much more disposed to give ourselves up to the charm—scarcely
admitting exact definition—which we find in Fléchier's work, and to
cull the flowers of instruction and amusement so liberally scattered
through his pages, than to sit down with the dogged brow of a
hypercritic to pick out errors and carp at deficiencies. The kind-
hearted Abbé, by his decorous gaiety, inoffensive satire, and
occasional tinge of tender melancholy, surely deserves this much
forbearance. Nor can we, considering the unassuming nature of his
work and the circumstances under which it was written, allow
ourselves to be angry with him for the abrupt flights and transitions
by which he so frequently passes from the annals of crime to the
recital of follies, from the lady's bower to the ensanguined scaffold,
from the dark details of feudal oppression to the trivial tattle of the
town; careless in some instances to terminate history or anecdote,
to dispel the doubts and gratify the curiosity of the reader. Whilst
recognising the historical importance and interest of a grave and
minute account of the sessions of the Grands-Jours, we do not
quarrel with our Abbé for not having transmitted it to us, but accept
his heterogeneous tragi-comic volume as a graphic and amusing
sketch of the vices, follies, and tone of French society in the twenty-
third year of the reign of Louis, surnamed the Great.
At the last stage before Clermont, the town of Riom, Fléchier
abruptly commences his narrative. It was the place of rendezvous
for the members of the tribunal, who halted there to shake their
feathers and prepare their pompous entry into Clermont. "At Riom,"
says the Abbé, "we began to take repose and congratulate ourselves
on our journey. We were so well received by the lieutenant-general,
and were lodged in his house with so great cleanliness and even
magnificence, that we forgot we were out of Paris." The hospitable
seneschal, moreover, took pleasure in showing his honourable guests
all that was remarkable in the town and its environs, especially a
young lady of great attractions, whose numerous charms of person
and mind made her to be considered in that country as one of the
wonders of the world. She was about twenty-two years of age,
daughter of a certain President Gabriel de Combes, and without
being a perfect beauty, she was deemed irresistible when desirous to
please. The great praises Fléchier heard of her, raised his
expectations to a high pitch, and when he saw her, he was
disappointed. He admitted many merits, but also discovered defects.
A person of quality belonging to that country, and whose name is
not given, combated this depreciatory opinion, which the gentle
Abbé willingly waived, merely expressing surprise that a lady of such
merit should have passed her twentieth year without making some
great marriage. The worthy country gentleman, his interlocutor, was
astonished at his astonishment, being unable to conceive that the
adventures of this pearl of Auvergne had not been trumpeted in the
remotest corners of the kingdom. When at last convinced of
Fléchier's ignorance, he volunteered to dispel it; and the Abbé,
evidently delighted to be initiated into the chronique scandaleuse of
Riom, gave him all encouragement. But because they were not at
their ease for such discourse, but importuned by many compliments,
in the drawing-room where this occurred, they got into the honest
gentleman's carriage, and were driven to a certain garden, which
passed for the Luxembourg of the district, and was much frequented
in the fine season by the Riom fashionables. "There are fountains,"
says Fléchier, "and grottos, and alleys separated by palisades of a
very agreeable verdure, which divert the eyes, and thick enough to
keep the secrets exchanged by lovers, when they walk and talk
confidentially. Although it was one of the finest of autumnal days,
the arrival of Messieurs des Grands-Jours kept every body in the
town, and we found more tranquillity and solitude than we had
hoped for." Amidst the discreet shades of this suburban Eden,
Fléchier learned the gallant adventures of Mademoiselle de Combes,
which he professes to set down verbatim, although it is easy to
judge, how greatly the narrative is indebted to his consummate art
as a narrator, far superior to what could reasonably be attributed to
the Auvergnat squire or noble from whom he derived the facts; to
say nothing of the impossibility of retaining word for word, and upon
once hearing it, a narrative extending over thirty pages. But,
throughout the volume, the same thing occurs. Give Fléchier a story
to tell, and he imparts to it a character entirely his own, arranging it
with infinite grace, attributing motives to the personages, and
placing imaginary conversations in their mouths. This story of
Mademoiselle de Combes, for instance, in itself a very simple case of
jilting, acquires, in his hands, an interest peculiarly its own, and we
follow it to the end with unabated amusement. A young gentleman
of Clermont, of the name of Fayet, rich and amiable, of agreeable
person and noble and generous disposition, and well allied, returned
to his native town, after completing his studies at Paris, to marry
Mademoiselle Ribeyre, daughter of the first president of the Court of
Aids at Clermont. The marriage had been arranged between the
respective parents, but some difference supervening, the lady's
father broke off the match, and to prevent any possible renewal of
negotiations, gave his daughter to M. Charles de Combes, so that
Fayet arrived to find his mistress snatched from him, and to witness
a rival's wedding instead of celebrating his own. Many persons would
have been sensibly affected by such a misadventure, but he
consoled himself with a good grace for the loss of a bride whom he
had known little and loved less, paid the usual civilities to the new-
married couple, and soon found himself on a friendly footing in their
house. There he met the sister-in-law of his former intended,
Mademoiselle de Combes, then a young girl of fifteen, endowed with
every grace of mind and person that can be expected at that age,
and her favour he seriously applied himself to gain. "He found a
virgin heart," says Fléchier, "upon which he made a tolerably
favourable impression; he made more expense than ever, gave
magnificent entertainments, acquired the good will of most of the
persons who habitually saw his mistress, and did all in his power to
place himself favourably in her opinion, knowing well that esteem
leads to tenderness by a very rapid road. On occasion he would
address a few words to her in a low voice; and in his conversation
would opportunely introduce generous and tender sentiments.
These, the young lady, who had infinite wit and sense, well knew
how to apply; but although she was already a little touched, she had
the art to dissimulate so naturally that it was impossible to penetrate
her thoughts, and even those she most trusted knew nothing of her
new-born inclinations." Such power of dissimulation, at so early an
age, might have alarmed the lover, and given the aspirant to her
hand matter for reflexion. Instead of that, it served to stimulate his
passion, and he pressed the siege of her heart with renewed vigour.
In a long conversation, detailed by Fléchier in the graceful but insipid
language of the period, where the voice of passion seems cramped
and chilled by the necessity of polished periods and elegant diction,
Fayet paved the way to a declaration, which he had already
commenced, when interrupted by the entrance of the sister-in-law.
But his discourse, and the constancy of his attentions, had touched
the heart, or at least wrought upon the imagination of the obdurate
fair one; and the gallant, perceiving his advantage, impatiently
awaited an opportunity to renew the attack. It soon occurred, whilst
walking with some ladies and cavaliers in the same garden where
Fléchier heard the tale. Accident divided the party, and the lovers
found themselves alone. With trembling and hesitation, for his
sincere and ardent passion made him dread the possibility of a
refusal which his reason forbade him to think probable, Fayet
avowed his love. The lady affected dismay, and uttered a cry, says
the Abbé, that nearly pierced the paling; but she ended by
permitting him to love her, and after two or three more interviews,
confessed a reciprocal flame. Their amorous joy, however, was
converted into bitterness and despair by the positive refusal of the
President de Combes to sanction their union. The magistrate's
motives for this refusal were in the highest degree absurd. One was,
that M. Ribeyre having declined the alliance of Fayet, it was to be
inferred the latter had less fortune than he received credit for; the
second, still more ridiculous, was an idea that it would be disgraceful
to his daughter to marry a man whom his daughter-in-law had
refused. Fayet, we are told, was near dying of grief on receiving this
rude and unforeseen blow. Retiring to his apartment, he wrote a
despairing billet to his mistress, who, although also very desponding,
returned an encouraging and consolatory reply, and there ensued an
animated correspondence and long series of secret interviews,
known of course to everybody but to the parents who forbade them.
At last, the vigilance of the latter became excessive: Mademoiselle
Combes, never suffered out of sight of her mother, who even slept in
her room, was compelled to scribble her love-letters in haste, by
favour of a half-drawn curtain and a ray of lamplight, whilst the good
lady was absorbed in her evening devotions; until at last, by reason
of this painful constraint, or from some other cause, she fell into a
state of languor, and was taken to the baths of Vichy. "She there
recovered her health," says Fléchier, who manifestly sympathises
with the sufferings of these constant lovers; "but the miracle was
less owing to the waters than to secret interviews with her lover. He
followed her in disguise, and remained hidden in a house adjacent to
the baths, whither, under some pretext, a good lady conducted her,
and thence, after a space of conversation, led her back to her
mother. Never were the waters of Vichy more eagerly desired, or
taken with more pleasure." After this, Mademoiselle de Combes,
hoping to alarm her parents into acquiescence, took refuge in a
convent, where she was received on condition that she should break
off all intercourse with the world. But the superior, a lady of quality
and friend of both parties, favoured the reception of letters, and
even visits from Fayet to his mistress. The lover was smuggled by
female friends as far as the convent grating. At last, Madame de
Combes persuaded her daughter to return home, and treated her
more kindly than before, but continued stanch in her opposition to
the marriage. To be brief, this state of affairs lasted eight or nine
years. "The thing went so far," says the Abbé, "that they swore
fidelity before the altar, making profane vows in holy places, and
even writing promises signed with their blood, and committing other
follies peculiar to persons whom a violent passion blinds. By this
time the lady was in her twenty-fourth year, and seeing herself near
the age when the law exempts children from the control of their
parents, she exhorted Fayet to perseverance, writing him to that
effect."
Just at this time, M. Bernard de Fortia, a friend and college-comrade
of Fayet, was appointed to the high office of Intendant of Auvergne.
He was a widower, and, on arriving at Clermont, il se pourvut
d'abord d'une galanterie. The object of his attentions was a young
girl of eighteen, whose embonpoint added several years to her
apparent age, and who was generally known as la Beauverger. "For
we are accustomed thus to abridge the manner of naming, and find
the word Mademoiselle useless, the name of the family sufficiently
indicating the quality." With the unaffected ease and lively
conversation of this lady, the Intendant was much pleased and
amused, and saw a good deal of her, being also greatly diverted by
her letters. "Sometimes she began them by some extravagance, as
when she wrote to him: 'The devil take you, sir!' at others by tender
pleasantries and by naivetés of her invention. Writing easily, she
wrote much; and as she was one day told that if she continued she
would produce more volumes than Saint Augustin, 'Ay, truly,' she
replied, 'though, like him, I were to write only my confessions.'"
To the admirer of this brisk and buxom damsel, Fayet addressed
himself as to an old friend, and in all confidence, to intercede for him
with the parents of Mademoiselle de Combes. Fortia promised his
best services, went several times to the house, and assured his
friend that he took all care of his interests, but that it would be
unwise to precipitate matters. These assurances he renewed in his
letters to Fayet, who, being compelled about this time to make a
journey to Paris, was received on his return with every mark of joy
by the mistress of his affections. Still, although she had reached her
twenty-fifth year, she seemed in no hurry to take the steps
necessary to their marriage; she was less eager to hear from her
lover, and less assiduous in writing to him. Some time afterwards,
Fayet discovered that she was in correspondence with M. Fortia, and
chancing to see one of her letters, he nearly fainted with surprise
and grief at its contents. "Do not press me, Sir, I entreat you," wrote
the perfidious beauty, "to reply very exactly to the last passage in
your letter. You well know that word is difficult to utter, and still
more so to write; be satisfied with the assurance that as a good
Christian I strictly obey the commandment that bids me love my
neighbour. Another time you shall know more." Poor Fayet sought
his mistress, who denied having written to Fortia, and protested that
her sentiments were unchanged. Persuaded of her dissimulation,
and overwhelmed with sorrow, he addressed her in a strain of
feeling wholly thrown away upon the calculating and deceitful
damsel. "If my suspicions are just, Madam," he said amongst other
things, "and you are more moved by the fortune of an Intendant
than by the sincere passion of a lover lacking such brilliant
recommendations, I feel that you will render me the most miserable
of men; but I consent to be miserable so that you be the happier."
The lady consoled him, taxed him with injustice in thus suspecting
her after ten years' fidelity, dismissed him only half persuaded, and
wrote to him that same evening to beg him to return her letters.
Fayet saw that he was sacrificed. He sent back the letters, retaining
only a few of the best, especially the one written in blood. To add to
his annoyance, his false friend the Intendant had the hypocritical
assurance to protest that he had done all in his power for him, but
that, finding all in vain, he at last, subjugated by the lady's charms,
had pleaded his own cause. He then told him in confidence that he
was to be married in a few days, and, with more anxiety than
delicacy, entreated him to say how far his familiarity with
Mademoiselle de Combes had been carried during the ten years'
courtship. Gentle creature as the jilted suitor evidently was, he could
not resist the temptation thus indiscreetly held out, and, without
compromising to the last point the lady's reputation, he contrived, by
his ambiguous replies, greatly to perplex and torment his rival. The
latter, in his uneasiness, consulted other persons; the report of his
indiscretion got wind, and was made the subject of songs and
pasquinades, rather witty than decent. The marriage, which was to
have taken place in a few days, had been several months pending
when Fléchier heard the story, and the general opinion was, that the
Intendant was only amusing himself, and that it would never occur.
Meanwhile poor feeble Fayet could not get cured of his love; he
thought continually of his lost mistress, took pleasure in praising and
talking of her, sought excuses for her conduct, and only spoke of her
as his "adorable deceiver." "The incidents of your narrative," says
Fléchier, when thanking the obliging gentleman for the pleasure he
had procured him, "are very pleasant, and you have told them so
agreeably, that I find them marvellously so. If you ask my opinion, I
take part with Fayet against his false mistress, and I wish that, for
her punishment, the Intendant may amuse her for a while and then
leave her; that she may then seek to return to Fayet, and that Fayet
may have nothing to say to her. Heaven often punishes one infidelity
by another." The adorable trompeuse, as we are informed by a note,
ultimately married neither Fortia nor Fayet, but became the wife of a
M. de la Barge.
If we have thus lingered over the love story with which Fléchier
commences his Mémoires, it is because these milder episodes are, to
our thinking, more agreeable to dwell upon, and, in their style of
telling, more characteristic of the writer, than the details of
barbarous crimes and sanguinary scenes with which, at a later
period of the volume, we are abundantly indulged. We will get on to
the staple of the book, the proceedings of the Grands-Jours. This
tribunal, although, as already mentioned, it took cognisance of all
manner of causes, civil as well as criminal, and judged offenders of
every degree, from the meanest peasant to the highest noble, was
intended chiefly for the benefit of the turbulent and tyrannical
nobility, who in those latter days of expiring feudality, still oppressed
their weaker neighbours, murdered their dependents, and kept up
bloody feuds amongst themselves. Such excesses and injustice were
common in Bretagne, Dauphiné, and other provinces of France; but
we cannot trace them as having taken place any where quite so late
as in Auvergne, whose remote position and mountainous
configuration, as well as the rude and obstinate character of its
inhabitants, gave greater liberty and pretext for a state of things
recalling in some degree the lawless periods of the middle ages.
"The license that a long war has introduced into our provinces," says
the King's letter to the Echevins, or chief magistrates of Clermont,
"and the oppression that the poor suffer from it, having made us
resolve to establish in our town of Clermont in Auvergne, a court
vulgarly called the Grands-Jours, composed of persons of high
probity and consummate experience, who, to the extent of the
authority we have intrusted to them, shall take cognisance of all
crimes, and pass judgment on the same, punishing the guilty, and
powerfully enforcing justice; we will, and command you, &c." "This
letter," (of which the remainder refers to the quarters to be provided
for the judges, and to the consideration to be shown to their persons
and quality,) "read, with sound of trumpet, upon the principal
squares and cross-streets of the town, produced an effect difficult to
describe. One can form an idea of it, only when the picture of the
Grands-Jours, unrolled before our eyes by Fléchier, shall have
permitted us to imagine the system of oppression under which the
people groaned. The letter was like a signal of general deliverance."
(Introduction, p. xix.) Of deliverance, that is to say, for the lower
orders, the vast majority, who foresaw, in the severity and
omnipotence of the dreaded tribunal, revenge for their long
sufferings at the hands of arrogant and lawless masters. The
aristocracy of the province, on the other hand, few of whom could
boast clear consciences, beheld the arrival of the royal
commissioners with feelings far less pleasing; and although a body
of them, including many notorious delinquents, went out to meet
and welcome the Messieurs des Grands-Jours, the ceremony was
scarcely at an end when most of them took to flight, to await in
distant hiding-places the subsidence of the storm of retribution.
These were the gentlemen referred to in the popular song of the
day, composed for the occasion, and which resounded in the streets
of Clermont on the morrow of the receipt of the King's letter. It is
given, at its full length of twenty-two couplets, in the appendix to
the Mémoires, and breathes a bitter hatred of the unfeeling nobles
and insolent retainers who ill-treated the people—a savage joy at
their impending castigation. One of the verses may be quoted, as
comprising the principal hardships and extortions suffered by the
peasantry.
 A parler Français,
Chaque gentilhomme
Du matin au soir
Fait croitre ses cens,
Et d'un liard en a six.
Il vit sans foi,
Prend le pré, le foin,
Le champ et les choux du bonhomme;
Puis fait l'économe
De ses pois, de son salé,
Bat celui qui lui déplaît;
Et, comme un roi dans son royaume,
Dit que cela lui plaît.[28]

"Tel est notre plaisir," such is our pleasure, the customary

termination of all royal edicts and ordinances, was the closing phrase
of the letter already cited, conveying the King's will to the authorities
of Clermont. And the insolent assumption of the Auvergnat nobles
had to yield to the strong will and energetic measures of the
fourteenth Louis. Without dreaming of disputing the royal mandate,
the guilty fled in confusion and dismay.
"On my arrival at Clermont," says Fléchier, "I remarked universal
terror, there, and throughout the country. All the nobility had taken
to flight, and not a gentleman remained who did not examine his
conscience, recall the evil passages of his life, and endeavour to
repair the wrongs done his vassals, in hopes of stifling complaint.
Numerous were the conversions wrought, less by the grace of God
than by the justice of man, but which were not the less
advantageous for being compulsory. Those who had been the
tyrants of the poor became their suppliants, and more restitutions
were made than had been operated at the great jubilee of the holy
year. The arrest of M. de la Mothe Canillac was the chief subject of
consternation." Evil was the fate of the unlucky delinquents who fell
into the clutches of the dread tribunal, before the severity of its zeal
had been appeased by the infliction of punishment, and daunted by
the popular effervescence its first sanguinary measures occasioned.
The Viscount de la Mothe was the most estimable of the numerous
and powerful family of Canillac; he was much esteemed in the
province, and by no means the man who should have been selected
for condign chastisement, as an example to titled evil-doers.
Nevertheless, the judges had scarcely arrived at Clermont, when
their president, Monsieur de Novion, (himself distantly connected by
marriage with the Canillac family,) and Talon, the advocate-general,
agreed to arrest M. de la Mothe. The provost of Auvergne and his
archers found him in bed, and so surprised was he at the intimation
of arrest, that he lost his presence of mind, and gave up some
letters he had just received from a mistress. At dinner, that day, his
friends had bantered him about the Grands-Jours, but he thought
himself so innocent, that he could not believe his danger. Nor would
he, perhaps, have been interfered with, but for reasons which ought
never to have swayed ministers of justice. The name of Canillac was
in ill repute, as that of a turbulent and tyrannical family: M. de
Novion desired to strike terror and prove his impartiality by arresting
a man of first-rate importance, who was also a connexion of his
own; and, moreover, the Viscount had borne arms against the king
in the civil wars. The crime alleged against him could hardly be
deemed very flagrant, and did not justify, at least in those days, the
rigour of his judges. During the wars, M. de la Mothe had received a
sum of money from the Prince de Condé, to be employed in levying
cavalry. The Viscount sought assistance from his friends, and
especially from a certain M. d'Orsonette, to whom he remitted five
thousand francs to equip a troop of horse. The levies not coming in
fast enough to please the prince, he flew into a passion with the
Viscount, who, proud as Lucifer, would not put up with blame,
abandoned Condé, and demanded an account from d'Orsonette of
the cash intrusted to him. This person, however, neither produced
his recruits nor restored the enlistment money, and, whilst
acknowledging the debt, showed little haste to discharge it. Ill blood
was the consequence; the two gentlemen met, each with retainers
at his back, a fight ensued, D'Orsonette was wounded and his
falconer killed. All this was an old story in 1665, and a malicious
animus appeared in the eagerness of the court to revive it. La Mothe
even obtained letters of pardon for the offence, but by a legal
quibble these were nullified and made to serve against him. The
evidence was very contradictory as to who had been the assailant,
although it seemed well established that the Viscount had greatly
the advantage of numbers. At the worst, and to judge from
Fléchier's account, the offence did not exceed manslaughter and
would have been sufficiently punished by a less penalty than death,
to which M. de la Mothe was condemned, and which he suffered
four hours afterwards. Fléchier displays some indignation, cloaked by
his habitually-guarded phrase, in his comments on the hard measure
of justice shown to the poor Viscount. "I know," he says, "that many
persons, who judge things very wisely, thought the president and M.
Talon might well have consulted the principal of those Messieurs"
(the members of the tribunal) "on this affair, and especially M. de
Caumartin, who held so high a rank among them; and that they
would have done better not to have thus spread the alarm amongst
a great number of gentlemen, who took their departure immediately
after this arrest. To prevent the escape of a man who was only half
guilty, they lost the opportunity of capturing a hundred criminals;
and every one agrees that this first arrest is a good hit for the judge,
but not for justice." There was one very singular circumstance in the
case, and which could have been met with, as the Abbé observes,
only in a country so full of crime as Auvergne then was. The accuser,
the person who laid the information, and the witnesses, were all
more criminal than the accused himself. The first was charged by his
own father with having killed his brother, with having attempted
parricide, and with a hundred other crimes; the second was a
convicted forger; and the others, for sundry crimes, were either at
the galleys or in perpetual banishment, or actually fugitives. So that,
to all appearance, the Viscount must have been acquitted for want
of testimony, had not the president, by a pettifogging manœuvre,
not very clearly explained but manifestly unfair, managed to turn
against him his own admissions in the letters of pardon granted by
M. de Caumartin, and in which it was customary to set down the
criminal's full confession of his offences. Fléchier's account is,
however, too disconnected and imperfect to afford us a clear view of
the singular system of jurisprudence argued by this remarkable trial
and sentence. The versatile Abbé does not plume himself on his
legal knowledge, and indeed is rather too apt, as many will think, to
turn from the rigorous and somewhat partial proceedings of the
tribunal, to flowery topics of gallant gossip. The town of Clermont
finds little favour in his eyes, and he doubts that there is one more
disagreeable in all France, the streets being so narrow that one
carriage only can pass along them; so that the meeting of two
vehicles caused a terrible blaspheming of coachmen, who swear
there, Fléchier thinks, better than anywhere else, and who assuredly
would have set fire to the town had they been more numerous, and
but for the many beautiful fountains at hand to extinguish the
flames. "On the other hand, the town is well peopled, the women
are ugly but prolific, and if they do not inspire love, they at least
bear many children. It is an established fact, that a lady who died a
short time ago, aged eighty years, made the addition of her
descendants, and counted up four hundred and sixty-nine living, and
more than a thousand dead, whom she had seen during her life.
After that, can one doubt the prodigious propagation of Israel during
the time of the captivity, and may not one ask here what the Dutch
asked when they entered China and saw the immense population,
whether the women of that country bore ten children at a time?" If
Fléchier, when inditing the lively record of his residence in Auvergne,
contemplated the probability of his manuscript some day finding its
way into print, it is evident that he cared little for the suffrages of
the ladies of Clermont. Had he valued their good opinion, or
expected the Mémoires to be submitted to them, he would hardly
have ventured to note thus plainly—not to say brutally—his
depreciation of their personal attractions. Ugly, child-bearing
housewives! Such crude uncivil phrase would have been more
appropriate in the day of the eccentric monarch who used firetongs
to remove a love-letter from a lady's bosom,[29] than in that of the
graceful lover of La Vallière, who cloaked the extremity of egotism
under the most exquisite external courtesy. Not often do we catch
Fléchier thus transgressing the limits of polite comment. His keen
perception of the ridiculous more frequently finds vent in sly and
guarded satire. But the rusticity and want of court-usage of the
Auvergne dames meet in him a cruel censor. "All the ladies of the
town come to pay their respects to our ladies, not successively, but
in troops. Each visit fills the room; there is no finding chairs enough;
it takes a long time to place all these little people; (ce petit monde;)
you would think it a conference or an assembly, the circle is so large.
I have heard say that it is a great fatigue to salute so many persons
at one time, and that one is much embarrassed before and after so
many kisses. As the greater number (of the visitors) are not
accustomed to court ceremony, and know nothing but their
provincial customs, they come in a crowd, to avoid special notice,
and to gain courage from each other. It is a pleasant sight to see
them enter, one with her arms crossed, another with her hands
hanging down like those of a doll; all their conversation is trivial
(bagatelle;) and it is a happiness for them when they can turn the
discourse to their dress, and talk of the points d'Aurillac."[30] Even
the homage paid to his own talents and growing reputation is
insufficient to mollify the Abbé and blunt the point of his sarcastic
pen. A capuchin monk of worldly tastes, who passed his time at
watering places, coquetting with sick belles and belles lettres, had
read some of Fléchier's poetry, and spread his fame amongst the
Clermont blue-stockings. Forthwith the Abbé received the visits of
two or three of these précieuses languissantes, who thought, he
informs us with less than his usual modesty,—"that to be seen with
me would make them pass for learned persons, and that wit is to be
acquired by contagion. One was of a height approaching that of the
giants of antiquity, with a face of Amazonian ugliness; the other, on
the contrary, was very short, and her countenance was so covered
with patches, that I could form no opinion of it, except that she had
a nose and eyes. It did not escape me that she was a little lame,
and I remarked that both thought themselves beautiful. The pair
alarmed me, and I took them for evil spirits trying to disguise
themselves as angels of light." Then comes a dialogue, à la Molière
—clumsy compliments on the one hand, modestly declined on the
other, and at last the ladies take their departure, after turning over
the Abbé's books, and borrowing a translation of the "Art of Love." "I
wish," concludes the Abbé, "I could also have given them the art of
becoming loveable." These incidents and digressions, petty in the
abstract, will have a collective worth in the eyes of those who seek
in the Mémoires what we maintain ought to be there sought:—a
valuable addition to our knowledge of the manners, follies, and
foibles of a very interesting period.
The comprehensive nature of the court of the Grands-Jours,
competent to judge every description of case, is one cause of the
motley appearance of Fléchier's pages. There was little sorting of
causes, civil or criminal, but all were taken as they came uppermost,
and strong contrasts are the result. We pass from farce to tragedy,
and thence again to comedy, with curious rapidity of transition. Now
we are horrified by the account of an atrocious assassination or
wholesale massacre; turn the leaf, and we trace the derelictions of a
rakish husband, or the scandalous details of conventual
irregularities. Here we have a puissant count or baron brought up for
judgment, or, more often, condemned by default; thereafter
followeth the trial and sentence of a scoundrel-peasant, or unlucky
fille-de-joie. The Grands-Jours would certainly have been improved
by the establishment of a court of appeal; many of the sentences
needed revision, and the errors committed were seldom on the side
of mercy. The reproach usually made to partial judges, of favouring
the rich, and dealing hardly with the poor, would here have been
unjustly applied, for it was the wealthy and powerful whom this
tribunal chiefly delighted to condemn. These, it is true, in some
degree neutralised the effects of such disfavour by getting out of the
way; but their houses were razed, their lands confiscated, or struck
with a heavy fine, and they themselves were frequently decapitated
in effigy, a ceremony to which they attached but slight importance.
After the execution of poor Canillac, the court flagged a little in their
proceedings, and resumed their energy only towards the close of the
session, and under terror of its further prolongation—one having
already taken place. "Then," says Fléchier, "they applied themselves
without pause or relaxation to the consideration of important
offences, and despatched them so rapidly that they did not give us
time to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with the
circumstances." Assassinations, abductions, and oppression, were
the usual subjects of their deliberations; and so numerous were the
condemnations, that in one day thirty persons were executed in
effigy. These pasteboard punishments must seriously have
diminished the prestige of the Grands-Jours, by imparting an air of
ridiculous impotency to their proceedings. And amongst others, the
Marquis of Canillac, a cousin of La Mothe, and the biggest and oldest
sinner in the province, was greatly diverted by the bloodless
beheading of his counterfeit. Fléchier believes it was matter of deep
regret to this hardened offender that he could not look on at his own
execution, as he had done once before when similarly condemned
by the parliament of Toulouse. "He had seen his execution himself
from an adjacent window, and had found it very pleasant to be at
his ease in a house whilst he was beheaded in the street; and to see
himself die out of doors, when perfectly comfortable at his fire-side."
Judging from the smallness of the sum (thirty livres) set down in the
account of expenses of the Grands-Jours as paid the painter, the
decapitated portraits were by no means masterpieces of art, nor
probably was it deemed necessary to obtain a very exact
resemblance of the contumacious originals.
Although none ever ventured to cast a doubt on Fléchier's strict
orthodoxy, he made himself remarkable by a spirit of tolerance
unusual in that age, by discountenancing superstition, and by his
enlightened disapproval of the abuses of the conventual system. A
great doubter of modern miracles, he scrupled not, when a bishop,
to protest in a letter to his flock, relating to some miraculous cross,
against "those who put their confidence in wood and in lying
prodigies." His natural good sense and kindness of heart made him
oppose the compulsory profession of young women. In the
Mémoires, he relates an anecdote of a young girl, at whose
reception as a nun M. Chéron, the grand vicar of Bourges, was
requested to assist. The vicar, having donned his sacerdotal robes,
asked the novice, in the usual formula, what she demanded. "I
demand the keys of the monastery, Sir, in order to leave it," was her
firm reply, which astonished all present. The vicar could not believe
his ears, till she repeated her words, adding, that she had chosen
that opportunity to protest against her destiny, because there were
abundant witnesses. "If the girls who are daily sacrificed had as
much resolution," says Fléchier, "the convents would be less
populous, but the sacrifices offered up in them would be more holy
and voluntary." When invested with the episcopal purple, the worthy
man acted up to these sound opinions. "I may be allowed," says M.
Gonod in his appendix, "to cite, to his glory and to that of religion,
his conduct with regard to a nun at Nismes, who had not, like her
sister at Bourges, had the courage to demand the keys of the
convent, and who subsequently yielded to another description of
weakness. Fléchier, then bishop of Nismes, extended to her his
paternal hand, and in this instance, as in many others, approved
himself of the same merciful family as a Vincent de Paul and a
Fénelon." This story is told by D'Alembert in his "Eulogiums read at
the public sittings of the French Academy," p. 421. An unfortunate
girl, whom unfeeling parents had forced into a convent, was unable
to conceal the consequences of a deplorable error, and her superior
confined her in a dungeon, where she lay upon straw, scarcely
nourished by an insufficient ration of bread, and praying for death as
a rescue from suffering. Fléchier heard of it, hastened to the
convent, and after encountering much resistance, obtained
admission into the wretched cell where the unfortunate creature
languished and despaired. On beholding her pastor, she extended
her arms as to a liberator sent by divine mercy. The prelate cast a
look of horror and indignation at the abbess. "I ought," he said, "if I
obeyed the voice of human justice, to put you in the place of this
unhappy victim of your barbarity; but the God of clemency, whose
minister I am, bids me show, even to you, an indulgence you have
not had for her. Go, and for sole penance, read daily in the
Evangelists the chapter of the woman taken in adultery." He
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