Ah, it's cool to be beautiful! We're happy to look at ourselves in the mirror in the morning, we're more likely to get salary increases, or be given the best seats in restaurants more often.
Well, there are also some drawbacks, as the story of Belle Paule shows us…
You don't know her? Then let me tell you about her…
Il y avait à Toulouse, au XVIème siècle, une jeune femme tellement belle que François 1er, lors de son passage dans la ville, tomba sous son charme ; c’est lui d’ailleurs qui lui donna ce nom de légende, « la Belle Paule ». Elle était tellement belle que le Collège des Capitouls, les consuls et gouverneurs de la ville, lui demandait de paraître à son balcon deux fois par semaine pour que les habitants puissent profiter de sa beauté.
Flattering, but a little restrictive—that's the first drawback. And that's not all: we've completely forgotten that she was also intelligent, a poet, and a patron of the arts, gathering the city's artists at her home and supporting them. That's the second drawback: when you're beautiful, it can make people forget your other qualities.
Et ce n’est pas fini, ces inconvénients de la beauté. On connait la formule célèbre de Paul Valéry : « Le Beau, c’est ce qui désespère. » Pourquoi le beau nous désespérerait-il ? Peut-être parce que la beauté des autres nous fait parfois nous sentir laids. Peut-être parce que qu’elle nous semble inaccessible, parce que, comme l’écrit un peu plus loin dans son texte le même Paul Valéry, elle agit sur nous « comme charme et comme glaive », elle nous envoute et elle nous blesse. Peut-être parce qu’on se sent alors devant la beauté comme Quasimodo devant Esmeralda…
When beauty makes us suffer, it's because we're handling it the wrong way. It's because we feel ugly next to it. And we feel ugly because we don't know we're beautiful.
Yes, people are beautiful and they don't know it.
I sometimes have this feeling, on days when I'm feeling good, when I'm at peace, when I love life, the world, my fellow human beings, on days when I love myself too. Then, I take the time to look at the people I pass on the metro, in the street, in the corridors of France Inter. And I'm moved, and on those days, I see only beautiful people who don't know it. People who could be even more beautiful if they would lift their heads, open their faces, if they would let their gaze be filled with wonder and joy at experiencing the miracle of life.
I'm not impressed by people who know they're beautiful, who revel in it, and who flaunt it, cultivate it, and check if others have noticed their presence and beauty. It's pointless. This kind of self-absorbed beauty does no one any good.
I am only impressed and moved by grace, by beauty that forgets itself, that doesn't care about being beautiful. That kind of beauty embellishes and softens the world.
Think about it, friends: you are beautiful and handsome, much more so than you believe.
Whenever you are happy, kind, calm, generous, you are in a state of grace, which gives you beauty.
Illustration: La Belle Paule (by Henri Rachou, Salle des Illustres, Capitole de Toulouse).
PS : cet article reprend ma chronique (à écouter ICI) du 28 janvier 2025 dans l’émission de France Inter, Grand Bien Vous Fasse.