ABSTRACT

The quest for the subject was long and hesitant, limited by all kinds of cultural prohibitions. Initiated by the men of the Renaissance, it had to forge its own path between the suspect moral imperative “Know thyself ” and the equalizing rules of life in society. “Pascal,” wrote one member of the Jansenist circle known as “The Gentlemen of Port-Royal,” “believed that man ought to avoid speaking his own name and even using the words ‘I’ and ‘me.’ And he often said that Christian piety destroyed the human self and that civility hid and suppressed it.” 1 The mirror was caught up in this double bind. Moralists mistrusted it because vanity “tarnishes the purest mirrors” and deformed the image meant to resemble God. 2 Society men and women idolized it because it was a privileged instrument that helped foster social bonds.