Kate Berridge Read Online Free

Christianity were being undermined by a variety of literary genres with a common emphasis on the power of the individual for self-advancement on earth.
    This was an important theme in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his ideas reverberated beyond his readership. Later on, the unfortunate Louis XVI would blame all France’s problems on this controversial figure, whose The Social Contract of 1762, with its message of equality and accountability of governments to the people, had been like a grenade lobbed at the old order.
    Such subversive elements were radical in a society where literacy and learning had hitherto been mediated by the Church, andeducation was largely in Latin and had a one-subject syllabus of theology, with the ultimate objective of getting into the kingdom of heaven. Indicative of the atheistic currents, a man dressed as Harlequin drew large crowds by quoting extracts from a banned book about the life of Christ that claimed Jesus was ‘no more than an enthusiastic, melancholy artisan, a charlatan from a carpenter’s workshop who deluded men of the lowest class’, and that the Gospels should be treated like an Eastern romance and were ‘a little less worthy of credence than the 1001 nights’.
    If religion was under attack, there were also aspects of the clergy that made them easy targets for anticlericalism. They represented some of the most iniquitous aspects of the system of privileges, including being exempt from many of the taxes on basic foodstuffs that pressed so heavily on the poor–for example the salt tax. They were also not always as diligent as they might have been about preparing their sermons, which gave rise to an unorthodox trade in religious tracts. Mercier provides an amusing insight into the transactions at a sermon shop in Mont Saint-Hilaire.
    â€˜And what can we do today for your reverence? A Conception? A Nativity? An Assumption? Fifteen Last Judgements going very cheap, a nice lot of “Forgive us our trespasses”, thirty-two Passions–take your choice.’
    â€˜No,’ says the deacon, ‘It’s an Immaculate Conception I want, and a Mary Magdalene as saint not sinner.’
    â€˜I can do it for Your Reverence, but I’ve only three copies left. Mary Magdalene without sins nearly as rare as Immaculate Conception: 8 francs a piece, lowest I can do them. But anything on charity I can let you have very reasonably 2 francs 50 a piece.’
    In a reversal of the concept of self-denial to acquire spiritual worth, acquisition of things to increase social status became a common aim. Rampant consumerism was a powerful aspect of secularism, as Paris fell in love with shopping. Even the well-to-do, who traditionally did not frequent shops–suppliers going to them instead–deigned to grace the new wave of designer boutiques. A sighting of a duchess at a certain snuff shop resulted in a perpetual queue there for some weeks. But it was the affluent middle classes who most loved to shop, and theRue Saint-Honoré, where the Curtius/Grosholtz ménage first lived, was fast emerging as a premier shopping destination.
    Glittering showrooms, with Venetian-glass cabinets and engravings of their celebrity clientele, attracted well-heeled tourists and locals. Here, to impress his Venetian amours, Casanova stockpiled stockings from Madame Barat, and here the famous fashion house Trait Galant became as renowned for the superstardom of two of its former shop girls as for its current collections. The two young assistants, who at different times and by different routes would rise from shop-floor humility to great fame and fortune, were Rose Bertin and Madame Du Barry, and each achieved the pinnacle of ambition that came from being a power behind the throne.
    Bertin is often credited as the creator of haute couture, and at the peak of her power she turned Marie Antoinette into the costliest and most widely copied clothes horse in the world.