Privautés à l'ancienne

This post first appeared on the blog for the Centre for Privacy Studies: https://privacy.hypotheses.org/1215

 

This blog post is adapted from part of a paper I would have presented at the European Social Science History Conference 2020, which was postponed to 2021 due to the measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. I thought it would be a nice idea to share it with you here, rather than let it stay inside my proverbial drawer.

This research is a small part of my larger effort to locate and contextualize concrete instances of religious advice about sexual privacy given to women throughout the seventeenth century in France. Here, I am looking into the use of the word “privauté” in two different versions of a very popular book, Introduction à la vie devote, by St. François de Sales. These two versions were published 76 years apart. I am comparing these two versions of the book to examine a shift in the usage for the word privauté. I am curious about how this shift affected language used in the context of religious instructions.

If you speak French, you already know this, but for those of you who are wondering, the French word privauté does not translate directly to the English word privacy. It shares some of the sense of the English privacy, but the connotations of privauté are more specific: they relate to intimacy, familiarity, closeness, trust. And not always in a positive sense.

I am using two of the approaches sketched by Mette in her paper “The PRIVACY work method.” First, I examine the relationship between the term privauté and some of the concepts encompassed by it. Second, I make a semantic map of this word in context, to see whether it is being used in a positive or negative sense, and to search for oppositions that the word might acquire in use.

Let me tell you a little bit about the history of privauté throughout the seventeenth century.

In the Thresor de la Langue Francoyse, edited by Jean Nicot 1606, the word is spelled privauté or privoité under the main rubric privé. The definition refers to the latin word consuetudo, which evokes the meaning of custom, habit, use, usage, convention, way, tradition, experience, social intercourse, companionship, familiarity, conversation. Another latin word is also used in the definition, namely familiaritas, which refers to intimacy, close friendship, familiarity.

In Dictionnaire universel contenant generalement tous les mots francois, by edited by Antoine Furetière in 1690, the word is spelled privauté, and has a very concise definition: great familiarity. A couple of examples evoking a negative connotation are given as illustration:

• Husbands do not like that others have privautés with their wives.
• Important people often find unpleasant the privautés that their jesters take with them.

These two dictionaries lead me to infer that the core of meaning of privauté remained stable, that is closeness and intimacy, but the implications of using this word might have changed by the end of the seventeenth century. Let me now show how this plays out in the two versions of the religious book Introduction à la vie devote.

First, let me give you some information about the 2 books.

Introduction à la vie devote was written by François de Sales in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The second book is actually an adaptation (or a sort of cultural translation) of the original. This adaptation was written by the Jesuit Jean Brignon in 1695 and is called La conduite des personnes du monde à la perfection chrétienne, ou introduction à la vie devote [in English it would be something like Conducting People of the World to Christian Perfection, or Introduction to the Devout Life]

Introduction à la vie devote was an extremely popular book among Catholics in France and Europe, and had as its target audience people who lived “in the world,” as opposed to professional religious people who took vows and lived in seclusion. As the name suggests, Introduction à la vie devote was a practical book for the uninitiated on how to live a devout life. The book’s intended audience was both men and women, but as Nancy Jayne Bowden and others have shown, the advice in the book was particularly palatable to women:

• the content of the book was suitable to women’s practical needs;
• the tone of the writing provided them with opportunities to exercise religious agency in their everyday life, and finally;
• the writing style was welcoming to a female reader, since it is structured as a conversation between a spiritual director and his devotee, a woman called Philotée.

In 1695, the Jesuit Jean Brignon adapted the content of Introduction à la vie devote into a version of French that, in his opinion, would be more pleasant to the reader of the end of the 17^th century. His reason for this was that the French language had changed over the course of that century. In Brignon’s opinion, despite containing precious advice, François de Sales book sounded archaic and no longer attracted as many readers as it deserved.

Whether Brignon’s assessment was fair or not... well... it is a longer discussion, outside of the scope of my post today. But in any case, Brignon’s cultural translation gives me an opportunity to comparatively study the language of sexual privacy in religious advice from the beginning and from the end of the seventeenth century.

The 1619 edition of the Introduction a la vie devote is considered the definitive version of the text because it was the last one personally revised by Francois de Sales. I consulted the text contained in the Complete Works by Francois de Sales, edited in Annency.

(For more information on the convoluted editorial history of this book, there is a paper titled "Quatre siècles d’éditions de l’Introduction à la vie dévote" by Viviane Mellinghof-Bougerie.)

The word privauté is used 10 times in the Francois de Sales’ definitive edition. I found only one instance of privauté in Jean Brignon’s version: all the other instances were adapted to a different vocabulary. Let’s take a closer look:

1.
FS: Philothee, nostre esprit s'addonnant à la hantise, privauté et familiarité de son Dieu, se parfumera tout de ses perfections. [Philothee, if our spirit give itself to the search, privautés and familiarity of its God, it will be perfumed by all of God’s perfections.]

JB: Et si nous faisons nôtre ame à traiter ainsi familierement avec Dieu, elle prendra toutes les impressions de ses divines perfections. [And if we make our soul deal so familiarly with God, it will take all the impressions of God’s divine perfections.]

2.
FS: ... certaines privautés et passions indiscrètes, folastres et sensuelles... [...certain indiscreet, passionate and sensual privautés and passions...]

JB: certaines libertez indiscretes, badines, et sensuelles [certain indiscreet, playful and sensual liberties...]

3.
FS: … la fause amitié provoque un tournoyement d'esprit qui fait chanceler la personne en la chasteté et devotion, la portant a... a des petites, mais recherchees, mais attrayantes contenances, galanterie, poursuitte des baysers, et autres privautés et faveurs inciviles... [... the false friendship provokes a whirlwind of spirit which makes a person falter in her chastity and devotion, carrying her to ... small, but refined, attractive behaviors, gallantry, pursuit of kisses, and other privautés and uncivil favors...]

JB: Et l'amitié mondaine a un certain flux de paroles douces, molles , passionnées & pleines de flateries sur la beauté , sur la bonne grace , & sur de vains avantages naturels. [And worldly friendship has a certain flow of sweet, soft, passionate & flattering words about beauty, about good grace, and about vain natural advantages.]

4.
FS: ... et les privautés dangereuses, ne les appellés pas simplicités ou naifvetés... [... and dangerous privautés, do not call them simplicity or naiveté...]

JB: N'appellez pas les privautez dangereuses, des simplicitez & des naïvetez d’une ame innocente... [Do not call dangerous privautés by the name of simplicity and naiveté of an innocent soul...]

5.
FS: On recite devant des filles les privautés indiscretes de telz et de tells... [Reciting in front of girls the indiscreet privautés of such and so...]

JB: L'on raconte devant les jeunes personnes les familiaritez indiscretes et dangereuses de tels & de tells... [Saying in front if young people indiscreet and dangerous familiarities of such and so...]

6.
FS: ... par exemple, si je blasme la privauté de ce jeune homme et de cette fille, parce qu'elle est trop indiscrete et perilleuse... [for example, if I blame the privauté of this young man and this girl, because it is too indiscreet and perilous...]

JB: Par exemple, s’il s’agit de quelque familiarité entre deux jeunes personnes... [For example, if it is about a certain familiarity between two young people...]

7.
FS: L'amour et la fidelité jointes ensemble engendrent tous-jours la privauté et confiance... [Love and loyalty together always make for privauté and trust...]

JB: L'amour & la fidélité produisent ensemble une douce & familière confiance... [Love and loyalty together produce a sweet and familiar trust...]

8.
FS: ... et quant aux enfans du monde, leurs choleres sont generosités, leurs avarices, mesnages, leurs privautés, entretiens honnorables... [... and as for the children of the world, their anger is generosity, their miserliness, care for the household, their privautés, honorable intercourses...]

JB: Mais à l'égard des enfans du siécle, leur colere est une générosité, leur avarice une sage œconomie, et leurs manières trop libres sont une honnête conversation. [But with regard to the children of the century, their anger is generosity, their greed wise economy, and their excessively free manners are an honest conversation.]

When I compared the changes between Francois de Sales and Jean Brignon, I noticed that:

• Privauté in the singular is very close to familiarity. Privautés in the plural was more variedly adapted: liberties, advantages, excessively free manners. These terms all point to euphemism: these words are used when the author wants to avoid using an expression with a more explicit meaning—for example, sexual intimacy or lasciviousness, which in fact seems to be the underlying connotation in many of the instances above.
• Notably, the only occurrence of privautés in Jean Brignon’s adaptation is privautés dangereuses, an expression that he keeps from Francois de Sales original.
• Privauté in the singular can be somewhat neutral: its valence will be quite dependent on the immediate context. Privautés in the plural is used mostly for intimacy that has a negative sense, basically, intimacy that should not be happening.

Regarding the semantic mapping of privauté, I noticed that the connotation the word acquires in these contexts listed above is most often related to “being together with others” and “public”, but I would not go as far as to say that it necessarily indicates opposition to them. That is because the meaning is very related to intimacy. Intimacy contains both the sense of being apart from others but also together with others. Intimacy refers to a selection, an ability to regulate, who these others are.

Thus, for the spiritual director giving advice in the books, privauté(s) as intimacy must be reserved for spiritual beings, that is, God.

When intimacy occurs in the physical realm, it was only permitted within the limits of marriage. We can see this from the fact that privauté et confiance (changed into douce et familiere confiance by Jean Brignon) appears in the section of the text dedicated to Advice for Married People.

Privauté(s) appears seven times with a negative sense in François de Sales’ text, and usually it indicates illicit intimacy, most likely of a sexual nature:

• certaines privautés et passions indiscrètes
• privautés et passions
• privautés et faveurs inciviles
• privautés dangereuses
• privautés indiscretes
• je blasme la privauté de ce jeune homme et de cette fille
• leurs avarices, mesnages, leurs privautés, entretiens honnorables

Nowaways, privauté is not a particularly common word, but its diachronic changes in meaning over the seventeenth century are interesting: they give me possible leads for written expressions about sexual privacy (or lack thereof) in Versailles 1682-1715.

That is all for this half of 2020, folks. Our blog team will have a break during the month of July, so we will see you back in August for more  on privacy studies. Have a nice summer (or winter, if you are in the South of the planet)!