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Early Modern French Studies

ISSN: 2056-3035 (Print) 2056-3043 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yemf20

The 'Century of frivolity': on the invention of a commonplace in the 18th century

Jean-Alexandre Perras

To cite this article: Jean-Alexandre Perras (2015) Le 'Siècle de la frivolité': on the invention of
a commonplace in the 18th century , Early Modern French Studies, 37:1, 64-74, DOI:
10.1179/0265106815Z. 00000000054

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1179/0265106815Z.00000000054

Published online: 12 Jun 2015.

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early modern french studies, vol. 37 No. 1, July 2015, 64–74

The 'Century of Frivolity': On Invention

of a commonplace in the 18th century

Jean-Alexandre Perras
University of Oxford

In the middle of the 18th century, the notion of frivolity was the
subject of a paradoxical valuation, as evidenced by the popularity of
the term in the literature of the time as well as the debates in which
it was used. Frivolity no longer appears as a simple lack of depth, it
is also glorified as the accomplishment of civilized societies, or
denounced as the sign of their decline. This study focuses on these
debates, highlighting the nature of the tensions that animate them: if
the apology as the condemnation of frivolity seem locked in the
aporias specific to this problematic notion, it nevertheless crystallizes
the concerns of a society in full mutation.

keywords French literature, Cultural history, History of ideas, 18th century

century, sociability, frivolity

Vain ornaments of an unworthy softness,

Do not offer me your frivolous attractions any longer;

Remain ashamed of my weakness,

Come on! Come on! Leave me forever!
Quinault, Armide, 1686.

By dint of making one's mind frivolous, one constantly increases the branches of one's commerce.
Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, 1755.

Between the regrets that Quinault ascribes to the character of Renaud at the sight of
the shameful garlands of flowers that adorn him, and the analysis that Montesquieu
offers in the Spirit of Laws, it seems that a displacement took place, which bears
witness to a reassessment of the notion of frivolity in the 18th century. Renaud thinks
only of war, glory and duty: momentarily seduced by the artifices of Armide, he let
himself go

1
I would like to thank Alain Viala for his suggestions and advice, which accompanied the development of
this study.

© The Society for Seventeenth-Century French Studies 2015 DOI 10.1179/0265106815Z.00000000054

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THE 'CENTURY OF FRIVOLITY'

65

the frivolity of love;2 Montesquieu theorizes the multiple workings of commerce,

exchanges and bonds of sociability: the frivolity of the mind no longer appears to
him as a vice, but conducive to the development of the 'sociable mood'. it generates,
while highlighting its paradoxes. Frivolity then becomes an object of debate, which
seeks to determine the virtues and vices of an attitude, the generalization of which is
praised or condemned.

Lexical history of the frivolous

This shift in the representations of frivolity is first noticeable in the history of the
term and the lexical proliferation it has given rise to. However, before the rise it
experienced in the 18th century, frivolity was not the subject of significant theorization,
on the contrary. The adjective frivolous comes from the Latin frivolus, which
designates a futile and worthless thing. An etymological hypothesis associates it
with frivola , which in ancient Roman culture designated cracked earthen vessels.4
Frivole would have the same root as friable: it is something that is easily pulverized in
the hand, an agglomerate of matter that splits at the slightest pressure, which is not
destined to last over time . Things are frivolous because of their lack of utility:
concretely, cracked earthen vessels do not fulfill their function, they cannot retain
the liquids that are poured into them.
In classical French, the adjective frivolous concerns above all the lack of solidity
of the spirit or the arguments of the speech, the uninteresting of things and actions.
According to the Dictionary of Furetière (1690), is frivolous what is 'useless, vain;
which is of no value, which has nothing solid, which does not deserve to be
considered': for example, 'this Author has written only on frivolous matters'. The
Dictionary of the Academy (1694) underlines that this lack of solidity can concern as
well what concerns the speech (it is said of an argument, a reason, of a matter that
they and they are frivolous) as what regards men and things ( such person, such
amusement). The adjective is used in a privileged way in the discourse of morality,
where what is qualified as 'frivolous' relates mainly to worldliness and the ephemerality of earthly

2 Phillipe Quinault, 'Armide', in Opera Booklets, ed. by Buford Norman, 2 vols (Paris: Champion, 1999), II,
p. 284.
3
Montesquieu, Complete Works, ed. by Roger Caillois, 2 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), II, p. 560. The passage is found in
Book XIX of the Spirit of Laws, devoted to the relationship between the laws 'with the principles which form the
general spirit, the mores and the manners of a nation'. Chapter VIII examines more precisely the 'effects of the
sociable mood', in particular with regard to the 'society of women': 'The society of women spoils morals, & forms taste: the
desire to please more than others establishes adornments; & the desire to please more than oneself establishes
fashions. Fashions are an important object: by dint of making one's mind frivolous, one constantly increases the
branches of one's trade. Montesquieu refers in a note to the Fable of the Bees
de Mandeville, in the logic of a reassessment of 'private vices' in the light of 'public benefits'.
4 This is the etymology proposed by Littré, relying on Festus, De verborum significatione, ed. by André Dacier, 2 vols
(Paris: Roulland, 1681), VI, p. 157: 'Frivola sunt proprie vasa fictilia quassa. Unde dicta verba frivola, quae minus
sunt fide subnixa.'
5 See for example François de Sales, 'Of friendship, and first of the bad and frivolous', in Introduction
to the devout life, ed. by André Ravier and Roger Devos (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), pp. 179–80.
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66 JEAN-ALEXANDRE PERRAS

Derived from the adjective, the very term 'frivolity', used as a substantive, only
appeared in the French language around the 1730s. the use of the term, when
speaking of a recently published book by Moncrif: 'It is the frivolity of the material
that is detrimental to the book of Cats, which is moreover full of amiable erudition,
and written with finesse ' . Moncrif , etc If we are to believe Desfontaines, who
appropriates it, the term frivolity first belongs to the jargon specific to the cliques
of Parisian cafés, to these authors of 'Modern' sensibility.

The same Desfontaines asks again, in his Observations on modern writings in

1736, if this neologism will be adopted by usage: 'I was made to notice in the
books of the Essays [those of Trublet] two new terms. Frivolity & brilliant work. I
cannot say whether these two words will make a fortune'.7 Trublet, in his
'Reflections on taste', speaks of these 'works which are made only to please, or
at least which one reads only for pleasure', which 'by this character of frivolity
seems to be made for everyone'. We could not fail to adopt a word which expresses
the character of half our nation'.9

The frivolous itself became an abstract noun at this time, as evidenced by

Féraud's Dictionnaire critique de la langue française: 'We can say the frivolous, as
we say the beautiful, the true, the false'.10 Through this, 'the Frivolous' bursts into
the world of ideas and representations. It is no longer just a way of qualifying the
pointlessness and futility of things, men and speeches: the Frivolous now
becomes an object of thought and critical reflection, which allows both to build
and represent a certain relationship to the world, to name new attitudes , to rename
old practices; we no longer just condemn

6
Guyot Desfontaines, neological dictionary for the use of fine minds of the century. With the historic Eulogy of Phoebus
Pants. By a provincial lawyer, third edition (Amsterdam, 1728), p. 80. The author of the 'Book of Cats' is Paradis de
Moncrif, author of a History of Cats: a dissertation on the pre-eminence of cats in society, on the other animals of
Egypt, on the distinctions and privileges which they personally enjoyed (Paris: Quillau, 1727).

7
Guyot Desfontaines, 'Letter sixth', in Observations on Modern Writings, 34 vols (Paris: Chaubert, 1735), I, pp. 132–33.

8
Trublet, 'Reflection on taste, where one examines the maxim, That it is necessary to write for everyone', in Essays on
various subjects of literature and morals, 4 vols (Paris: Briasson, 1754), II, p. 38. 9 What
'half' of the nation is this Jesuit referring to, if not women? For a long misogynistic tradition condemns the ever more
numerous vices of women: levity, inconstancy, babbling, thoughtlessness, etc., than this gendered aspect of the
should be added that critique of frivolity, which is part of the ancient condemnation, crowns frivolity. of the mollitia, it the
feminization of men is perceived as one of the consequences of the frivolization of society, as can be read for
example in the Critique of Ladies and Gentlemen at Their Toilet by Caraccioli (Paris, 1770). The socialites gain in
politeness and gallantry thanks to the frequentation of women; frivolity can be analyzed as the decadence of this
refinement of good taste.
10
Jean-François Féraud, Critical Dictionary of the French Language (Marseille: Jean Mossy, 1787), art. 'frivolous'.
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what is frivolous, we now also debate the wrongs and the merits, the vices and the
virtues of frivolity.

Extension of the domain of the frivolous

Following this new inscription in the use of the language, new forms are appearing,
which testify to a new interest in the frivolous thing: this is the case of the noun
'frivolist' and the verb 'frivoliser'. The author of the comedy Les Raffles
in 1751 presented his play to the public of the Frivolists, taking care to dedicate it
to Immortality.11 Or again: 'Instead of serious our morals', wrote Louis-Sébastien
Mercier in his Néologie in 1801, 'we frivolize them more and more '.12 discover the
deep reason: 'It was part of the projects of the court of Versailles to frivolize the
Parisian more and more by fashions, by balls and children's shows'. He thus takes
up an old criticism of despotic power attracting the indulgence of the people by
washing them with 'bread and games'.13

In parallel with this proliferation of neologisms which make it possible to better

name all its variations and to subscribe to the new fashion to which it is the object,
frivolity acquires a conceptual depth which it did not possess until then.
Definitions are becoming more complex, loaded with new considerations, where it is
no longer a question of proscribing a reprehensible attitude, but of analyzing the
causes and consequences of a frivolous vision of the world. This deepening can be
seen, for example, in the article 'Frivolité' of the Encyclopédie in 1757, which first
takes up the classic, moral-sounding definitions of the adjective frivolous:

Objects are frivolous when they do not necessarily relate to the happiness and perfection of our
being. Men are frivolous, when they deal seriously with frivolous objects, or when they treat
serious objects lightly.14

Frivolity arises precisely from a bad relationship between men and things. It is an
error of evaluation which consists in dealing with objects which do not necessarily
contribute to happiness, in confusing what is serious and what is not.

11 [Paul Baret], Les Raffles, Work dedicated to Immortality (sl, 1751).

12 Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Neology, or Vocabulary of New Words, to be Renewed or Taken in Meanings
novellas (Paris: Moussard, Mardan, 1801).
13 The formula is from Juvénal: 'Panem et circenses' (Satires, ed. by Pierre de Labriolle and François Villeneuve, trans.
by Olivier Sers (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2002), X, pp. 196–97). See also La Bruyère about the sovereign: 'It is a safe
and ancient policy in republics to let the people fall asleep in parties, in shows, in luxury, in pomp, in pleasures, in
vanity and indolence; let him be filled with emptiness and savor the trifle: what grand steps are not taken to the despot
by this indulgence!' (Les Caractères, ed. by Antoine Adam (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), p. 205). Where La Bruyère
accused, perhaps out of prudence, republican power and the inaction of its people, Mercier denounces the abuses of
the monarchical regime and the infantilization of its subjects: any political regime can be accused of frivolizing its
people, any people of being frivolous .

14 The article is unsigned, but by considering the list of 'Names of Authors who provided articles' for the seventh volume,
one can deduce that it was written by Saint-Lambert, also author of the article 'Génie' in the same volume, and 'Luxe', in
volume IX, in 1765. See Saint-Lambert, 'Frivolité', in the Encyclopédie, or Dictionnaire raisonné of sciences, arts and
crafts, ed . by Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert, 28 vols (Geneva; Paris; Neufchastel: Briasson, 1754–72), VII, p. 311.
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68 JEAN-ALEXANDRE PERRAS

Consequently, can only be frivolous what maintains a relationship to the human

condition, to a certain conception of happiness and the perfectibility of man. To
this first moral definition, Saint-Lambert adds an explanation of the causes of
frivolity, which involves an analysis of the passions — or more precisely of their
absence — and their political consequences:

We are frivolous, because we do not have enough breadth and accuracy in the mind to
measure the value of things, of time, and of one's existence. One is frivolous when one is
without passions and without virtues: then to free oneself from the boredom of each day, one
gives oneself up each day to some amusement, which soon ceases to be one; we search for
fantasies, we are eager for new objects, around which the mind flies without meditating,
without becoming enlightened; the heart remains empty in the midst of spectacles, philosophy,
mistresses, affairs, fine arts, hoards, suppers, amusements, false homework, dissertations,
jokes, and sometimes fine deeds. If frivolity could exist for a long time with real talents and
the love of virtues, it would destroy both; the honest and sensible man would find himself
precipitated into ineptitude and depravity. There will always be a remedy for all men for
frivolity; the study of their duties as men and as citizens.15

What Saint-Lambert shows in this incriminating definition is not only that frivolity
is reprehensible, but also that in its causes as in its effects, it has become the
object of a meticulous analysis: we are now interested in the motives of the
actions considered as frivolous, in their deep reason. 'Frivolity', understood as a
reason for social criticism, therefore has political consequences: coexisting with
'true talents' and 'the love of virtues', it perverts them and leads to their decadence.
The 'remedy' mentioned at the end of the article clearly shows this double moral
and political dimension of frivolity. Compared to the simple definitions proposed
by previous dictionaries, Saint-Lambert's article clearly adopts a critical posture,
specific to the Encyclopédie, but which is also due to the fact that the discourse
on frivolity changed in nature from the second half of the century. Frivolity is now
a place of debate.

Vices and virtues of frivolity

Indeed, during the second half of the century, parallel to the lexical proliferation
of which it is the object, we are witnessing a double movement apologetic and
critical of what comes under frivolity. Literature and theater in particular have
taken up the term as a privileged way of representing the spirit of the times, infatuated

15 Saint-Lambert, 'Frivolité', in the Encyclopédie. On the relationship between the emptiness of the passions and frivolity,
see also Vauvenargues, who in his Discourse on Pleasures, affirms that 'there are perhaps no vices that one should
not prefer to frivolity; because even it is better to be vicious than not to be' (Complete Works, 2 flights (Paris: Dentu,
1806), II, p. 162. Although it revolves around a new object, this criticism of frivolity finds an anchor point in La
Rochefoucauld, Sentences et maximes (1664), 498: 'There are people so light and so frivolous that they are as far
from having any real faults than solid qualities'. Within the framework of an analysis of the passions, driving force of
human actions, frivolity serves to put into perspective a kind of degree zero of the passions, the "character without
character". See La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou sentences et Maximes morales et Réflexions divers, ed. by Laurence
Plazenet (Paris: Champion, 2005) , p.194 .
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trifles and trinkets, passing fashions and light conversations, toilets, varnishes
and lacquers.
Frivolity invests, in a privileged way, small works of satire and entertainment.
They are tales, allegorical novels, one-act comedies, gallant poems, almanacs.
Frivolity presents itself as a new territory, of which these authors of brochures
work to establish the cartography. Such, for example, as La Découverte de l'Isle
Frivole, published in The Hague in 1751 by the Abbé Coyer, later known to the
merchant nobility (1756). This literature, born under the sign of novelty, floods the
trade, with small unbound books, pamphlets which , often display fancy addresses.
Thus, the Bibliothèque des petits-maîtres, or Memoirs to serve the history of good
tone and the extremely good company, was published 'at the Palais-Royal, at the
little Lolo, merchant of gallantries, at the Frivolity', in 1762. to address even those
socialites whom she derides.

These pamphlets, which blossom and wither like the flowers placed on the
mantelpiece, lend themselves particularly well to spreading the spirit of frivolity.

This frivolity of the century is not bad for everyone; it supports a few small authors, and
produces, proportionately, more paper consumption than good books. A pamphlet passes
from a woman's toilette to her antechamber, etc. This circulation is renewed, and enhances
the commerce of our factories.17

These little frivolous pieces, praising and disseminating the taste of the century for
frivolity, are also evaluated according to the benefits of 'commerce': that which is very
real for the factories, failing to stimulate that of the mind. Frivolity, application to futile
objects, can only be the prerogative of a few small authors, publishing their 'pretty
nothings' in ephemeral books that are not bothered to be bound.
It is particularly in this incessant ballet of pamphlets that frivolity becomes the
key word by which the authors qualify their century, whether to condemn its
mores or to praise it, with more or less marked degrees of irony or complacency.
The expressions 'the century of frivolity', 'the reign of frivolity', or the 'frivolity of
the nation' are relayed in the newspapers by many 'spectators' and other
'observers' of the mores of their time: these are all platitudes about which the
authors debate around the merits and wrongs of this 'frivolity' of which 'the century'
is accused, or of which one makes the main quality. In a review of the comedy
entitled La Frivolité par Louis de Boissy, presented to the Italians in 1753, the
Mercure de France bears witness to the new, hitherto unknown fashion for
frivolity: 'The spirit of frivolity, whose very name was unknown twenty years ago,
has gradually made so much progress in France that it has become, so to speak,

16
See Caraccioli, French Europe (Paris: Duchesne, 1776), p. vi: 'A Brochure among fashionable men, is exactly a
Bouquet; they sniff it, they put it on a chimney, and a few days later, you can't find it again. It is faded or it must be.'

17 [Diderot], 'Brochure', in Encyclopédie, II (1752); the article, unsigned, is therefore probably by Diderot.
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70 JEAN-ALEXANDRE PERRAS

the character, or at least the fancy of the Nation.'18 Character or fancy: who knows if
this spirit will last, or if it is only one of the caprices, only one of the fads of an inconstant
and frivolous people? Frivolity is general, in the sense that it corresponds to the 'spirit
of the times', where it designates all the behaviors of social groups taken as a whole:
the petty masters, the French, women, the court, the century, etc. It is also in this sense
that it constitutes a commonplace, a topos: designating behaviors according to more or
less definable criteria, it also creates collective representations, it circumscribes sets, it
constitutes an operational site of tension and disputes: here as elsewhere, this
commonplace is above all a place of debate. Indeed, frivolity, which has become
fashionable, is not only the subject of criticism, far from it, but also lends itself to a
series of apologies extolling its virtues and its benefits for society, which radically
reverses the way in which it had been considered until then.
We can date quite precisely the revaluation of frivolity in the 18th century.
century. 1750 is the year of the publication of an anonymous pamphlet entitled Apologie
de la frivolité, Lettre à un Anglois, whose author turns out to be Boudier de Villemert.19
From the outset, the author of this letter asks his interlocutor if it is fair to accuse France
of frivolity, not because it would be wrong to affirm that this nation is frivolous, but
because that constitutes praise rather than an accusation:

You therefore claim, Sir, to put our Nation on trial for its spirit of frivolity; I quite agree with
you that the genius of François is more inclined towards the pleasant genre than towards
great and sublime speculations; but, do you believe that this confession gives you the
advantage of your case, and that your superiority over us is thereby well decided?20

It is significant that this apology for frivolity is based on an apology for the French nation,
and is part of a discourse detailing the 'character of nations'.
The apology for frivolity goes hand in hand with an apology for France, it is an essentially
French quality. This apology is also a defence: against the alleged trial by which France
is accused of frivolity, the defense takes the side of demonstrating that what was
presented as a vice is in fact a virtue. The continuation of the argument shows in fact
that France prevails over all the nations of Europe precisely by her frivolous genius.
Frivolity, a social and pleasant virtue par excellence, contributes to the happiness and
pleasure of the nation.
This apology for frivolity is mainly based on moral as well as epistemological
argument. The search for superficial pleasures is surer and more profitable than all the
speculations of metaphysics and morals, where one gets lost without finding the truth:
'It is, it seems to me', writes the author, 'wiser to be content to know the surfaces of
objects which alone are perceptible, than to try uselessly to fathom their depth' .

18
Le Mercure de France, (Paris: Vve Pissot, March 1753), p. 179.
19 [Pierre Joseph Boudier de Villemert], Apologie de la frivolité, letter to an Englishman (Paris: Prault father, 1750).
The author is a journalist and polygrapher, as authors often are who speak of frivolity in the He 18th century.
collaborated on several periodical sheets, including L'Avant-coureur (1759) and the Necessary Leaf (1760–73), and
he launched the Courrier de fashion or the journal of taste (1768–70). He published, also in the 1750s, a satirical novel,
the World played, and opposed the Philosophers, and in particular Diderot, but he is best known for his book L'Ami
des dames, quickly translated into several languages, and often revised.
20 Boudier de Villemert, p. 1.
21 Boudier de Villemert, p. 5.
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without the cold prejudices of melancholy, is that of the natural bounds of knowledge.
And to drive the point home of this morality of superficialities, Boudier de Villemert
returns the accusation of frivolity against his accusers: isn't it more frivolous to exhaust
oneself in vain and fanciful speculations, than to enjoy the goods that nature provides us?

For finally, if one attaches a disadvantageous idea to this term: which must pass for the most frivolous, of the
one who, master of a beautiful ground at the foot of an impassable Rock, takes care of making it fertile &
pleasant, or of the one who, pushed by a vain curiosity, wastes the time to climb the Rock?22

The apology of frivolity, if it seemed at first paradoxical, is in fact affirmed against

philosophical speculations of all kinds, which cloud the 'melan colic' minds of the
inhabitants of the banks of the Thames.
To glorify frivolity in 1750 is obviously to oppose all the moralist discourses that had
hitherto condemned it. So much so that one wonders if it is an ironic speech, criticizing the
frivolity of the century, by mocking it. Boudier de Villemert's brochure highlights one of
the difficulties of interpreting this literature, which overturns the negative value traditionally
attributed to frivolity.

Contemporary also encountered the same difficulty. In the review given by the Journal
de Trévoux in July 1752, the author of the article recognizes and emphasizes with relish the
anti-philosophical charge of the brochure. He also highlights the ambiguity of this
paradoxical apology for frivolity:

To tell the truth, we don't really say whether this little work is an irony or if it defends the case at the
bottom. If this is an irony, it does not seem to us to be marked enough or strong enough to correct the
supporters of the frivolous. If it is a serious defense, one will not be convinced, when reading it, of the
prerogatives of frivolity.23

The apology of frivolity, in whatever sense it is understood, can neither make frivolous people
serious, nor make serious people frivolous, to use Mercier's neologisms.
The pleasure of reading remains. The apologists of frivolity seem confined to the genre of
paradoxical praise, so true is it that this generates only contempt; and besides, who would
seriously praise an attitude which refutes all seriousness, and which turns away laughingly
from any more or less consistent argumentation?
This is what Louis Lambert remarked in his Éloge des François, ou apologie de la
frivolity, in 1755:

We do not really feel all the advantages that this taste for the Frivolous which reigns among us today has
given us, and such is the characteristic of true goods to make men happy without, so to speak, their noticing
it.24

Indeed, insofar as one calls 'frivolous' a man seriously concerned with trivial things, how
can one qualify an apologist for frivolity, who

22 Boudier de Villemert, p. 7.
23
[Anon.,] 'Article LXXIX. News. Literary. Italy', in Memoirs for the History of Sciences and Fine Arts. The Diary of
Trevoux (1752), pp. 1503–35 (p. 1511).
24 Louis Lambert, Éloge des François, or apology for frivolity (sl: 1755), p. 8.
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72 JEAN-ALEXANDRE PERRAS

would work to demonstrate its benefits to the community? This is what Louis
Lambert asks:

What idea would one have of a man who would dare to assert that this amiable frivolity has
perfected our minds, purified our morals? Would we not regard his proposal as a paradox? However,
from how many faults and even vices has she not purged Society?25

The frivolity of the French nation has however made it possible, among other
things, to overcome pride, avarice and jealousy, passions which harm the good
practice of sociability. Moreover, the unbridled luxury in which the great feast
equally brings happiness to the whole nation, as the leftovers of a banquet feed
the servants of an opulent household:

In Rome, the Senators enriched the poor citizen by their generosity. The mad spending of the
Nobility has the same effect here. How many people are reduced to misery if our youth dares to
be wise! These Cabriolets, the image of Frivolity, these pretty Equipages that a varnish by Martin
makes precious, nourish and maintain those they splash.26

Thanks to the frivolity which reigns there, France tends to an equality of conditions,
beneficial for the happiness of the nation. Louis Lambert's apology ends with a
prediction, which seems to take Rousseau's discourse on the origin of inequality
upside down: 'One day we will be indebted to Frivolity for seeing this equality, the
mother of happiness, the source of all agreeable feelings, remembered on earth,
which seems so in conformity with the feelings of Nature'.27 It is therefore frivolity,
the culmination of worldly refinement, which allows a return to natural equality. between men.
These two apologies, that of Boudier de Villemert and that of Louis Lambert,
seem to fit very well into the genre of paradoxical eulogy, as their reception
shows. through these apologies, they are

25 Lambert, p. 9.
26
Lambert, p. 10. We recognize here the arguments by which its defenders have, in the recent quarrel over luxury,
shown how much it is necessary for States because of the circulation of wealth that it promotes. Frivolity, softness,
excessive refinement, lack of depth, inconstancy, are among those 'private vices' which contribute to the 'common
good', to use the subtitle of Mandeville's Fable of the Bees (1714). This passage, like many others, situates the
apology of frivolity within the framework of an economic and political discourse, which it is not possible to develop
within the limits prescribed for this study.
27 Louis Lambert, p. 11–12. This Apologie de la frivolité by Louis Lambert was published the same year as the Discourse
on the origin and foundations of inequality among men (1755), just as that of Boudier de Villemert appeared the same
year as the Discours sur les sciences et arts (1750 ): the apology for frivolity is, in many respects, anti-Rousseauist.

28
The copy of the Apology in the Morgan Library in New York is bound (with the arms of Charles X, Comte d'Artois) with
Le Fébricant philosopher, ou eulogium of the fever-quarte by Guillaume Ménape (The Hague and Frankfurt: at the
expense of the company, 1743). This common binding shows that Boudier de Villemert's praise of frivolity was
interpreted, at least by part of the readership, as a paradoxical praise, in the same way as a praise of quartan fever,
which fits more clearly into the genre.
29 Such are, among others, Théodore Henri de Tschudi, or Chevalier de Lussy, The French Philosopher in Parnassus,
or the playful moralist, letters from Chev. de L*** and M. de M** (Amsterdam: I. Buyn, 1754), whose Letter VII is a
'Letter on Frivolity'; and Emer de Vattel, 'Eloge de la frivolité', in Amusemens de literature de morale et de politique
(The Hague: Pierre Gosse junior, 1765).
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THE 'CENTURY OF FRIVOLITY' 73

values generally recognized as French, such as sociability, politeness or gallantry,

in a context where Europe theorizes in terms of differences what forms the
'character of nations'.30
Among these debates on this fashionable frivolity, the most singular is probably
not that it has been the subject of praise and apologies, but rather that it has been
deemed necessary to condemn it: as if it suddenly turned out to be essential to
vilify quartan fever to prove its harmful effects on health. This was however the
case, and apart from Saint-Lambert, others devoted themselves to demonstrating
the wrongs and the dangers of frivolity. Provincial academies, inspired by the verse
of the Book of Wisdom, Fascinatio nugacitatis obscurat bona (IV, 12), eloquently
set about showing that frivolity is equally harmful to morals and letters.31 The price
of a gold medal worth 250 pounds is proposed. It is to make a lot of case for 'what
does not deserve to be considered'. It is now important to convince of the harmful
consequences of this widespread 'taste of frivolity' in the nation. These proposed
topics allow competitors to deploy their eloquence on the subject of the decadence
of morals and letters or the corruption of taste, which have been widely used, at
least since the end of the 17th century, by the partisans of the Ancients in the
quarrel which opposes them to the Moderns.

These criticisms of frivolity, among other things to increase its pedagogical

effectiveness, are published in the most varied forms, and as for its apology, the
scene is also used. In 1753, at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, for example, the ballet
serving as an interlude to the tragedy of Catiline was called Ballet de la Frivolité,
the argument of which gives the following precision:

the decadence of the Arts and Morals in the Empires is closely related, and is almost due to their greatness
and their glory: there is in each thing a point of perfection beyond which one despairs of going, where one
does not seek to reach; we limit ourselves to adorning, it would perhaps be an advantage if the ornament were
not changed into finery. The taste for the Frivolous substituted for that of the Beautiful makes it disappear, and
it is rare that we come back to it.33

30 In the article that Diderot devotes to him in the Encyclopédie, one can read for example that 'the character of the
French is lightness, gaiety, sociability, love of their kings & of the monarchy itself', but above all that this character is
influenced by the climate and the form of government; thus, 'in a despotic state, for example, the people must soon
become lazy, vain, and fond of frivolity; the taste for truth and beauty must be lost in it; one should neither do nor
think great things.' The frivolity of nations carries in itself
an overt and readable critique of the government that produced it.
31 See, for example, Pierre Nicoleau, Academic discourse on this subject: Frivolity also harms morals and letters
(Angers: Barrière, 1770); already in 1766, the Academy of Belles Lettres of Montauban had proposed the same
subject for its price of eloquence; the information is published in periodicals such as L'Avantcoureur
Monday, November 3, 1766, see L'Avantcoureur, ed. by Michel Lambert, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, and Jacques
Lacombe, 14 vols (Paris: Lambert, 1760–73), VII, p. 401.
32 In addition to Boileau in his Critical Reflections on Longin (1694–1710), see, among others, Anne Dacier, Les
causes de la corruption du gust (Paris: Rigaud, 1714) as well as Raymond de Saint Mard, Three letters on the
decadence of taste, Reflections on Poetry in general (The Hague: C. de Rossignart and Sisters, 1734).
33 Ballet de la Frivolité (Paris: Thiboust, 1753), p. 2.
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74 JEAN-ALEXANDRE PERRAS

Succeeding the good taste of the Grand Siècle, frivolity is a necessary evil, enshrined in
the laws that govern the progress and decline of Empires. The Frivolous, supplement to
the Beautiful, irremediably causes its downfall.

***

In short, the debates which glorify or criticize frivolity also seem locked in the aporia of
their position: either the glorification of frivolity is immediately perceived as a paradoxical
eulogy, or its condemnation seems to push open doors, and only use frivolity as the
pretext for a general critique of the century. This situation is no doubt partly due to the
novelty of this commonplace, so clearly a break with the previous century, not only in
the sudden development of its meanings and uses, but also in the importance given to it.
The demand, like the critique of frivolity, is doubly identical: on the one hand, it
immediately imposes itself as a French specificity; on the other hand, it marks the
difference between the 18th century and the century of Louis XIV. You can read the
Dialogue of the Century of Louis XIV and the Century of Louis XV

de Caraccioli to be convinced of this, where the 'XVIIe Siècle' criticizes his successor for
'this taste for Fashions, for Trinkets which today confuses the two Sexes, which
makes [it] the Reign of frivolity.'34 But this break is not as straightforward as one would
like to make it appear. The frivolity of the 18th century is rooted in the pomp and
refinements of the previous century, and the '18th Century' responds to this long charge:
'And where do I come from, please, this taste for fashions & this effeminate air? Were
you not the origin?' The author of the Livre à la mode has a great deal of recalling the
precious ridiculousness, the affectations, the excessive politeness of the great century, so
much, in whatever sense one takes the frivolity, it is a complex matter. As Voltaire wrote
of Louis XIV and Madame du Châtelet's fashion merchant, 'He was a great king with his
faults and his century a very great one. But don't we have the Duchappe today?'35

Biographical Notes
Jean-Alexandre Perras is a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University. His research
concerns the representations and practices of sociability under the old regime.
His thesis The exemplary exception: inventions and uses of genius, XVIth -XVIIIth
centuries, will be published by Éditions Classiques Garnier in 2015. He is particularly
interested in the cultural and literary history of frivolity, and its relationship to the
question of luxury, to papillotage, to mockery and to representations of levity in the XVIIIth century.
Email: jeanalexandre.perras@gmail.com

34 [Caraccioli], Dialogue between the Century of Louis XIV and the Century of Louis XV (The Hague, 1751), p. 120–21.
35 Letter to the Marquise Du Deffand, September 23, 1752 (D5020), in Voltaire, Correspondence and related documents, ed.
by Theodore Besterman, 51 vols (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire; Banbury: Voltaire Foundation, 1968–77), XIII, p.192.
The Duchapt, on which Voltaire returns in his Discours aux Welches
(1764), was a famous fashion merchant, also mentioned by Rousseau in his Confessions.