There are in arts, as well as in letters and philosophy, two contrary
schools. One tends to the ideal in all things,--it seeks, it tries to
make appear the spirit concealed under the form, at once manifested and
veiled by nature; it does not so much wish to please the senses and
flatter the imagination as to enlarge the intellect and move the soul.
The other, enamored of nature, stops there and devotes itself to
imitation,--its principal object is to reproduce reality, movement,
life, which are for it the supreme beauty. The France of the seventeenth
century, the France of Descartes, Corneille, and Bossuet, highly
spiritual in philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, was also highly
spiritual in the arts. The artists of that great epoch participate in
its general character, and represent it in their way. It is not true
that they lacked imagination, more than Pascal and Bossuet lacked it.
But inasmuch as they do not suffer imagination to usurp the dominion
that does not belong to it, inasmuch as they subject its order, even its
impetuosity, to the reign of reason and the inspirations of the heart,
it seems that it is not so strong when it is only disciplined and
regulated. As we have said, they excel in composition, especially in
expression. They always have a thought, and a moral and elevated
thought. For this reason they are dear to us, their cause interests us,
is in some sort our own cause, and so this homage rendered to their
misunderstood glory naturally crowns these lectures devoted to true
beauty, that is to say, moral beauty.
May these lectures be able to make it known, and, above all, loved! May
they be able also to inspire some one of you with the idea of devoting
himself to studies so beautiful, of devoting to them his life, and
attaching to them his name! The sweetest recompense of a professor who
is not too unworthy of that title, is to see rapidly following in his
footsteps young and noble spirits who easily pass him and leave him far
behind them.[186]
FOOTNOTES:
[128] One is reminded of the expression of the great Conde: "Where then
has Corneille learned politics and war?"
[129] It would be a curious and useful study, to compare with the
original all the passages of Britannicus imitated from Tacitus; in them
Racine would almost always be found below his model. I will give a
single example. In the account of the death of Britannicus, Racine thus
expresses the different effects of the crime on the spectators:
Juez combien ce coup frappe tous les esprits;
La moitie s'epouvante et sort avec des cris;
Mais ceux qui de la cour ont un plus long usage
Sur les yeux de Cesar composent leur visage.
Certainly the style is excellent; but it pales and seems nothing more
than a very feeble sketch in comparison with the rapid and sombre
pencil-strokes of the great Roman painter: "Trepidatur a
circumsedentibus, diffugiunt imprudentes; at, quibus altior intellectus,
resistunt defixi et Neronem intuentes."
[130] See the letter to Perrault.
[131]
En vain contre le Cid ministre se ligue,
Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrique, etc.
* * * * *
Apres qu'un peu de terre, obtenu par priere,
Pour jamais dans la tombe eut enferme Moliere, etc.
* * * * *
[132]
Aux pieds de cet autel de structure grossiere,
Git sans pompe, enferme dans une vile biere,
Le plus savant mortel qui jamais ait ecrit;
Arnaud, qui sur la grace instruit par Jesus-Christ,
Combattant pour l'Eglise, a, dans l'Eglise meme,
Souffert plus d'un outrage et plus d'un anatheme, etc.
* * * * *
Errant, pauvre, banni, proscrit, persecute;
Et meme par sa mort leur fureur mal eteinte
N'aurait jamais laisse ses cendres en repos,
Si Dieu lui-meme ici de son ouaille sainte
A ces loups devorants n'avait cache les os.
[133] These verses did not appear till after the death of Boileau, and
they are not well known. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, in a letter to
Brossette, rightly said that these are "the most beautiful verses that
M. Despreaux ever made."
[134] 4th Series of our works, LITERATURE, book i., _Preface_, p. 3: "It
is in prose, perhaps, that our literary glory is most certain.... What
modern nation reckons prose writers that approach those of our nation?
The country of Shakspeare and Milton does not possess, since Bacon, a
single prose writer of the first order [?]; that of Dante, Petrarch,
Ariosto, and Tasso, is in vain proud of Machiavel, whose sound and manly
diction, like the thought that it expresses, is destitute of grandeur.
Spain, it is true, has produced Cervantes, an admirable writer, but he
is alone.... France can easily show a list of more than twenty prose
writers of genius: Froissard, Rabelais, Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, La
Rochefoucauld, Moliere, Retz, La Bruyere, Malebranche, Bossuet, Fenelon,
Flechier, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Mme. de Sevigne, Saint-Simon,
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, J. J. Rousseau; without speaking of so
many more that would be in the first rank everywhere else,--Amiot,
Calvin, Pasquier, D'Aubigne, Charron, Balzac, Vaugelas, Pelisson,
Nicole, Fleury, Bussi, Saint-Evremont, Mme. de Lafayette, Mme. de
Maintenon, Fontenelle, Vauvenargues, Hamilton, Le Sage, Prevost,
Beaumarchais, etc. It may be said with the exactest truth, that French
prose is without a rival in modern Europe; and, even in antiquity,
superior to the Latin prose, at least in the quantity and variety of
models, it has no equal but the Greek prose, in its palmiest days, in
the days of Herodotus and Demosthenes. I do not prefer Demosthenes to
Pascal, and it would be difficult for me to put Plato himself above
Bossuet. Plato and Bossuet, in my opinion, are the two greatest masters
of human language, with manifest differences, as well as more than one
trait of resemblance; both ordinarily speak like the people, with the
last degree of simplicity, and at moments ascending without effort to a
poetry as magnificent as that of Homer, ingenious and polished to the
most charming delicacy, and by instinct majestic and sublime. Plato,
without doubt, has incomparable graces, the supreme serenity, and, as it
were, the demi-smile of the divine sage. Bossuet, on his side, has the
pathetic, in which he has no rival but the great Corneille. When such
writers are possessed, is it not a religion to render them the honor
that is their due, that of a regular and profound study?"
[135] See the APPENDIX, at the end of the volume.
[136] See the APPENDIX.
[137] This picture had been made for a chapel of the church of St.
Gervais. It formed the altar-piece, and in the foreground there was the
admirable Bearing of the Cross, which is still seen in the Museum.
[138] Such a law was the first act of the first assembly of affranchised
Greece, and all the friends of art have applauded it from end to end of
civilized Europe.
[139] See the APPENDIX.
[140] The _Seven Sacraments_ of Poussin are now in the Bridgewater
Gallery. See the APPENDIX.
[141] See the APPENDIX.
[142] In the midst of this scene of brutal violence, everybody has
remarked this delicate trait--a Roman quite young, almost juvenile,
while possessing himself by force of a young girl taking refuge in the
arms of her mother, asks her from her mother with an air at once
passionate and restrained. In order to appreciate this picture, compare
it with that of David in the _ensemble_ and in the details.
[143] In fact, the St. Joseph is here the important personage. He
governs the whole scene; he prays, he is as it were in ecstasy.
[144] The pictures of Claude Lorrain, of which we have just spoken, are
in the Museum of Paris. In all there are thirteen, whilst the Museum of
Madrid alone possesses almost as many, while there are in England more
than fifty, and those the most admirable. See the APPENDIX.
[145] The last _Notice of the Pictures exhibited in the Gallery of the
National Museum of the Louvre_, 1852, although its author, M. Villot, is
surely a man of incontestable knowledge and taste, persists in placing
Champagne in the Flemish school. _En revanche_, a learned foreigner, M.
Waagen, claims him for the French school. _Kunstwerke and Kuenstler in
Paris_, Berlin, 1839, p. 651.
[146] Well appreciated by Richelieu, he preferred his esteem to his
benefits. One day when an envoy of Richelieu said to him that he had
only to ask freely what he wished for the advancement of his fortune,
Champagne responded that if M. the Cardinal could make him a more
skilful painter than he was, it was the only thing that he asked of his
Eminence; but that being impossible, he only desired the honor of his
good graces. Felibien, _Entretiens_, 1st edition, 4to., part v., p. 171;
and de Piles, _Abrege de la Vie des Peintres_, 2d edition, p. 500.--"As
he had much love for justice and truth, provided he satisfied what they
both demanded, he easily passed over all the rest."--_Necrologe de
Port-Royal_, p. 336.
[147] See the APPENDIX.
[148] The original is in the Museum of Grenoble; but see the engraving
of Morin; see also that of Daret, after the beautiful design of
Demonstier.
[149] In the Museum of the Louvre; see also the engraving of Morin.
[150] The original is now in the Chateau of Sable, belonging to the
Marquis of Rouge; see the engraving of Simonneau in Perrault. The
beautiful engraving of Edelinck was made after a different original,
attributed to a nephew of Champagne.
[151] The original is also in the possession of the Marquis of Rouge;
the admirable engraving of Van Schupen may take its place.
[152] In the Museum.
[153] In the Museum, and engraved by Gerard Edelinck.
[154] _La Gloire du Val-de-Grace_, in 4to, 1669, with a frontispiece and
vignettes. Moliere there enters into infinite details on all the parts
of the art of painting and the genius of Mignard. He pushes eulogy
perhaps to the extent of hyperbole; afterwards, hyperbole gave place to
the most shameful indifference. The fresco of the dome of Val-de-grace
is composed of four rows of figures, which rise in a circle from the
base to the vertex of the arch. In the upper part is the Trinity, above
which is raised a resplendent sky. Below the Trinity are the celestial
powers. Descending a degree, we see the Virgin and the holy personages
of the Old and New Testament. Finally, at the lower extremity is Anne of
Austria, introduced into paradise by St. Anne and St. Louis, and these
three figures are accompanied by a multitude of personages pertaining to
the history of France, among whom are distinguished Joan of Arc,
Charlemagne, etc.
[155] Engraved by Gerard Audran under the name of the _Plague of David_
(_la Peste de David_). What has become of the original?
[156] See his _Landscape at Sunset_, and the _Bathers_ (_les
Baigneuses_), an agreeable scene somewhat blemished by careless drawing.
[157] It would be necessary to cite all his compositions. In his _Holy
Family_ the figure of the Virgin, without being celestial, admirably
expresses meditation and reflection. We lost some time ago the most
important work of S. Bourdon, the _Sept Oeuvres de Misericorde_. See
the APPENDIX.
[158] See especially his _Extreme Unction_.
[159] The picture that is called _le Silence_, which represents the
sleep of the infant Jesus, is not unworthy of Poussin. The head of the
infant is of superhuman power. The _Battles of Alexander_, with their
defects, are pages of history of the highest order; and in the
_Alexander visiting with Ephestion the Mother and the Wife of Darius_,
one knows not which to admire most, the noble ordering of the whole or
the just expression of the figures.
[160] It seems that Lesueur sometimes furnished Daret with designs. It
is indeed to Lesueur that Daret owes the idea and the design of his
_chef-d'oeuvre_, the portrait of Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti,
represented in his earliest youth, and in an abbe, sustained and
surrounded by angels of different size, forming a charming composition.
The drawing is completely pure, except some imperfect fore-shortenings.
The little angels that sport with the emblems of the future cardinal are
full of spirit, and, at the same time, sweetness.
[161] Edelinck saw only the reign of Louis XIV. Nanteuil was able to
engrave very few of the great men of the time of Louis XIII., and the
regency, and in the latter part of their life; Mazarin, in his last five
or six years; Conde, growing old; Turenne, old; Fouquet and Matthieu
Mole, some years before the fall of the one and the death of the other;
and he was too often obliged to waste his talent upon a crowd of
parliamentarians, ecclesiastics, and obscure financiers.
[162] If I wished to make any one acquainted with the greatest and most
neglected portion of the seventeenth century, that which Voltaire almost
wholly omitted, I would set him to collecting the works of Morin.
[163] Mellan not only made portraits after the celebrated painters of
his time, he is himself the author of great and charming compositions,
many of which serve as frontispieces to books. I willingly call
attention to that one which is at the head of a folio edition of the
_Introduction a la Vie Devote_, and to the beautiful frontispieces of
the writings of Richelieu, from the press of the Louvre.
[164] This was the opinion of Winkelmann at the end of the eighteenth
century; it is our opinion now, even after all the discoveries that have
been made during fifty years, that may be seen in great part retraced
and described in the _Musio real Barbonico_.
[165] There was doubtless sculpture in the middle age: the innumerable
figures at the portals of our cathedrals, and the statues that are
discovered every day sufficiently testify it. The _imagers_ of that time
certainly had much spirit and imagination; but, at least in everything
that we have seen, beauty is absent, and taste wanting.
[166] Go and see at the Museum of Versailles the statue of Francis I.,
and say whether any Italian, except the author of the _Laurent de
Medicis_, has made any thing like it. See also in the Museum of the
Louvre, the statue of Admiral Chabot.
[167] Sarazin died in 1660, Lesueur in 1655, Poussin in 1665, Descartes
in 1650, Pascal in 1662, and the genius of Corneille did not extend
beyond that epoch.
[168] Lenoir, _Musee des Monuments Francais_, vol. v., p. 87-91, and the
_Musee Royale des Monuments Francais_ of 1815, p. 98, 99, 108, 122, and
140. This wonderful monument, erected to Henri de Bourbon, at the
expense of his old intendant Perrault, president of the _Chambre des
Comptes_, was placed in the Church of the Jesuits, and was wholly in
bronze. It must not be confounded with the other monument that the
Condes erected to the same prince in their family burial-ground at
Vallery, near Montereau, in Yonne. This monument is in marble, and by
the hand of Michel Anguier; see the description in Lenoir, vol. v., p.
23-25, and especially in the _Annuaire de l'Yonne pour_ 1842, p. 173,
etc.
[169] Rue d'Enfer, No. 67.
[170] The Museum of the Louvre possesses only a very small number of
Sarazin's works, and those of very little importance:--a bust of Pierre
Seguier, strikingly true, two statuettes full of grace, and the small
funeral monument of Hennequin, Abbe of Bernay, member of Parliament, who
died in 1651, which is a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of elegance.
[171] These three statues were united in the Museum des
_Petits-Augustins_, Lenoir, _Musee-royal_, etc., p. 94; we know not why
they have been separated; Jacques-Auguste de Thou has been placed in the
Louvre, and his two wives at Versailles.
[172] Francois Anguier had made a marble tomb of Cardinal de Berulle,
which was in the oratory of _Rue St. Honore_. It would have been
interesting to compare this statue with that of Sarazin, which is still
at the Carmelites. Francois is also the author of the monument of the
Longuevilles, which, before the Revolution, was at the Celestins, and
was seen in 1815 at the museum des _Petits-Augustins_, Lenoir, _ibid._,
p. 103; it is now in the Louvre. It is an obelisk, the four sides of
which are covered with allegorical bas-reliefs. The pedestal, also
ornamented with bas-reliefs, has four female figures in marble,
representing the cardinal virtues.
[173] Now at Versailles. Lenoir, p. 97 and 100. See his portrait,
painted by Champagne, and engraved by Morin.
[174] Group in white marble which was at the Celestins, a church near
the _hotel_ of Rohan-Chabot in the _Place Royale_; re-collected in the
Museum _des Petits-Augustins_, Lenoir, _ibid._, p. 97; it is now at
Versailles. We must not pass over that beautiful production, the
mausoleum of Jacques de Souvre, Grand Prior of France, the brother of
the beautiful Marchioness de Sable; a mausoleum that came from
Saint-Jean de Latran, passed through the Museum _des Petits-Augustins_,
and is now found in the Louvre. The sculptures of the porte Saint-Denis
are also owed to Michel Anguier, as well as the admirable bust of
Colbert, which is in the museum.
[175] At first at Notre-Dame, the natural place for the tombs of the
Gondis, then at the Augustins, now at Versailles.
[176] In the Church St. Germain des Pres.
[177] At the Capuchins, then at the Augustins, then at Versailles.
[178] See, on these monuments, Lenoir, p. 98, 101, 102. That of Mazarin
is now at the Louvre; that of Colbert has been restored to the Church of
St. Eustache, and that of Lebrun to the Church St. Nicholas du
Chardonnet, as well as the mausoleum, so expressive but a little
overstrained, of the mother of Lebrun, by Tuby, and the mausoleum of
Jerome Bignon, the celebrated Councillor of State, who died in 1656.
[179] Quatremere de Quincy, _Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de plus
Celebres Architectes_, vol. ii., p. 145:--"There could scarcely be found
in any country an _ensemble_ so grand, which offers with so much unity
and regularity an aspect at once more varied and picturesque, especially
in the facade of the entrance." Unfortunately this unity has
disappeared, thanks to the constructions that have since been added to
the primitive work.
[180] In order to appreciate the beauty of the Sorbonne, one must stand
in the lower part of the great court, and from that point consider the
effect of the successive elevation, at first of the other part of the
court, then of the different stories of the portico, then of the portico
itself, of the church, and, finally, of the dome.
[181] Quatremere de Quincy, _Ibid._, p. 257:--"The cupola of this
edifice is one of the finest in Europe."
[182] We do not speak of the colonnade of the Louvre by Perrault,
because in spite of its grand qualities, it begins the decline and marks
the passage from the serious to the academic style, from originality to
imitation, from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth.
[183] See the engraving of Perelle. Sauval, vol. ii., p. 66 and p. 131,
says that the _hotel_ of Conde was _magnificently built_, that it was
_the most magnificent of the time_.
[184] Notice of Guillet de St. Georges, recently published (see the
APPENDIX):--"Nearly at the same time the Princess-dowager de Conde,
Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorency, mother of the late prince, had an
oratory painted by Lesueur in the _hotel_ of Conde. The altar-piece
represents a _Nativity_, that of the ceiling a _Celestial Glory_. The
wainscot is enriched with several figures and with a quantity of
ornaments worked with great care."
[185] The Pantheon is an imitation of the St. Paul's of London, which is
itself a very sad imitation of St. Peter's of Rome. The only merit of
the Pantheon is its situation on the summit of the hill of St.
Genevieve, from which it overlooks that part of the town, and is seen on
different sides to a considerable distance. Put in its place the
Val-de-Grace of Lemercier with the dome of Lemuet, and judge what would
be the effect of such an edifice!
[186] In the first rank of the intelligent auditors of this course was
M. Jouffroy, who already under our auspices, had presented to the
_faculte des lettres_, in order to obtain the degree of doctor, a thesis
on the beautiful. M. Jouffroy had cultivated, with care and particular
taste, the seeds that our teaching might have planted in his mind. But
of all those who at that epoch or later frequented our lectures, no one
was better fitted to embrace the entire domain of beauty or art than the
author of the beautiful articles on Eustache Lesueur, the Cathedral of
Noyon, and the Louvre. M. Vitet possesses all the knowledge, and, what
is more, all the qualities requisite for a judge of every kind of
beauty, for a worthy historian of art. I yield to the necessity of
addressing to him the public petition that he may not be wanting to a
vocation so marked and so elevated.
PART THIRD
THE GOOD.
LECTURE XI.
PRIMARY NOTIONS OF COMMON SENSE.
Extent of the question of the good.--Position of the question
according to the psychological method: What is, in regard to the
good, the natural belief of mankind?--The natural beliefs of
humanity must not be sought in a pretended state of
nature.--Study of the sentiments and ideas of men in languages,
in life, in consciousness.--Disinterestedness and
devotedness.--Liberty.--Esteem and
contempt.--Respect.--Admiration and
indignation.--Dignity.--Empire of opinion.--Ridicule.--Regret
and repentance.--Natural and necessary foundations of all
justice.--Distinction between fact and right.--Common sense,
true and false philosophy.
The idea of the true in its developments, comprises psychology, logic,
and metaphysics. The idea of the beautiful begets what is called
aesthetics. The idea of the good is the whole of ethics.
It would be forming a false and narrow idea of ethics to confine them
within the inclosure of individual consciousness. There are public
ethics, as well as private ethics, and public ethics embrace, with the
relations of men among themselves, so far as men, their relations as
citizens and as members of a state. Ethics extend wherever is found in
any decree the idea of the good. Now, where does this idea manifest
itself more, and where do justice and injustice, virtue and crime,
heroism and weakness appear more openly, than on the theatre of civil
life? Moreover, is there any thing that has a more decisive influence
over manners, even of individuals, than the institutions of peoples and
the constitutions of states? If the idea of the good goes thus far, it
must be followed thither, as recently the idea of the beautiful has
introduced us into the domain of art.
Philosophy usurps no foreign power; but it is not disposed to relinquish
its right of examination over all the great manifestations of human
nature. All philosophy that does not terminate in ethics, is hardly
worthy of the name, and all ethics that do not terminate at least in
general views on society and government, are powerless ethics, that have
neither counsels nor rules to give humanity in its most difficult
trials.
It seems that at the point where we have arrived, the metaphysics and
aesthetics that we have taught evidently involve such a doctrine of
morality and not such another, that, accordingly, the question of the
good, that question so fertile and so vast, is for us wholly solved, and
that we can deduce, by way of reasoning, the moral theory that is
derived from our theory of the beautiful and our theory of the true. We
might do this, perhaps, but we will not. This would be abandoning the
method that we have hitherto followed, that method that proceeds by
observation, and not by deduction, and makes consulting experience a law
to itself. We do not grow weary of experience. Let us attach ourselves
faithfully to the psychological method; it has its delays; it condemns
us to more than one repetition, but it places us in the beginning, and a
long time retains us at the source of all reality, and all light.
The first maxim of the psychological method is this: True philosophy
invents nothing, it establishes and describes what is. Now here, what
is, is the natural and permanent belief of the being that we are
studying, to wit, man. What is, then, in relation to the good, the
natural and permanent belief of the human race? Such is, in our eyes,
the first question.
With us, in fact, the human race does not take one side, and philosophy
the other. Philosophy is the interpreter of the human race. What the
human race thinks and believes, often unconsciously, philosophy
re-collects, explains, establishes. It is the faithful and complete
expression of human nature, and human nature is entire in each of us
philosophers, and in every other man. Among us, it is attained by
consciousness; among other men, it manifests itself in their words and
actions. Let us, then, interrogate the latter and the former; let us
especially interrogate our own consciousness; let us clearly recognize
what the human race thinks; we shall then see what should be the office
of philosophy.
Is there a human language known to us that has not different expressions
for good and evil, for just and unjust? Is there any language, in which,
by the side of the words pleasure, interest, utility, happiness, are not
also found the words sacrifice, disinterestedness, devotedness, virtue?
Do not all languages, as well as all nations, speak of liberty, duty,
and right?