Béranger, like Hugo, has commemorated the date of his birth, but their
verses are very different. Hugo's poem is lofty in style, beginning--
"Ce siècle avait deux ans! Rome remplaçait Sparte,
Déjà Napoléon perçait sous Bonaparte,
Et du premier consul déjà, par maint endroit,
Le front de l'empereur brisait le masque étroit."
(This century was two years old; Rome displaced Sparta,
Napoleon already was visible in Bonaparte,
And the narrow mask of the First Consul, in many places,
Was already pierced by the forehead of the Emperor.)
Béranger's verses have less force, but are charming in their
simplicity:--
"Dans ce Paris plein d'or et de misère,
En l'an du Christ mil sept cent quatre-vingt,
Chez un tailleur, mon pauvre et vieux grand-père,
Moi, nouveau-né, sachais ce qui m'advint."
(In this Paris full of gold and misery,
In the year of Christ one thousand seven hundred and eighty,
At the house of a tailor, my grandfather poor and old,
I, a new-born child, knew what happened to me.)
Authors of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries are more
subjective in their writings than those of the seventeenth, whose
characters can rarely be known from their works. A glance at the life
and surroundings of Béranger will show their influence on his genius.
Béranger's mother was abandoned by her husband shortly after her
marriage, and her child was born at the house of her father, the old
tailor referred to in the song 'The Tailor and the Fairy.' She troubled
herself little about the boy, and he was forsaken in his childhood.
Béranger tells us that he does not know how he learned to read. In the
beginning of the year 1789 he was sent to a school in the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine, and there, mounted on the roof of a house, he saw the
capture of the Bastille on the 14th of July. This event made a great
impression on him, and may have laid the foundations of his republican
principles. When he was nine and a half his father sent him to one of
his sisters, an innkeeper at Péronne, that town in the north of France
famous for the interview in 1468 between Louis XI. and Charles the Bold,
when the fox put himself in the power of the lion, as related so vividly
in 'Quentin Durward.'
Béranger's aunt was very kind to him. At Péronne he went to a free
primary school founded by Ballue de Bellenglise, where the students
governed themselves, electing their mayor, their judges, and their
justices of the peace. Béranger was president of a republican club of
boys, and was called upon several times to address members of the
Convention who passed through Péronne. His aunt was an ardent
republican, and he was deeply moved by the invasion of France in 1792.
He heard with delight of the capture of Toulon in 1793 and of
Bonaparte's exploits, conceiving a great admiration for the
extraordinary man who was just beginning his military career. At the age
of fifteen Béranger returned to Paris, where his father had established
a kind of banking house. The boy had previously followed different
trades, and had been for two years with a publishing house as a
printer's apprentice. There he learned spelling and the rules of French
prosody. He began to write verse when he was twelve or thirteen, but he
had a strange idea of prosody. In order to get lines of the same length
he wrote his words between two parallel lines traced from the top to the
bottom of the page. His system of versification seemed to be correct
when applied to the Alexandrine verse of Racine; but when he saw the
fables of La Fontaine, in which the lines are very irregular, he began
to distrust his prosody.
[Illustration: P.J. DE BÉRANGER]
Béranger became a skillful financier, and was very useful to his father
in his business. When the banker failed the young man was thrown into
great distress. He now had ample opportunity to become familiar with the
garret, of which he has sung so well. In 1804 he applied for help to
Lucien Bonaparte, and received from Napoleon's brother his own fee as
member of the Institute. He obtained shortly afterwards a position in a
bureau of the University. Having a weak constitution and defective
sight, he avoided the conscription. He was however all his life a true
patriot, with republican instincts; and he says that he never liked
Voltaire, because that celebrated writer unjustly preferred foreigners
and vilified Joan of Arc, "the true patriotic divinity, who from my
childhood was the object of my worship." He had approved of the
eighteenth of Brumaire: for "my soul," says he, "has always vibrated
with that of the people as when I was nineteen years old;" and the great
majority of the French people in 1799 wished to see Bonaparte assume
power and govern with a firm hand. In 1813 Béranger wrote 'The King of
Yvetot,' a pleasing and amusing satire on Napoleon's reign. What a
contrast between the despotic emperor and ruthless warrior, and the
simple king whose crown is a nightcap and whose chief delight is his
bottle of wine! The song circulated widely in manuscript form, and the
author soon became popular. He made the acquaintance of Désaugiers and
became a member of the Caveau. Concerning this joyous literary society
M. Anatole France says, in his 'Vie Littéraire,' that the first Caveau
was founded in 1729 by Gallet, Piron, Crébillon _fils_, Collé, and
Panard. They used to meet at Laudelle the tavern-keeper's. The second
Caveau was inaugurated in 1759 by Marmontel, Suard, Lanoue, and Brissy,
and lasted until the Revolution. In 1806 Armand Gouffé and Capelle
established the modern Caveau, of which Désaugiers was president. The
members met at Balaine's restaurant. In 1834 the society was reorganized
at Champlanc's restaurant. The members wrote and published songs and
sang them after dinner. "The Caveau," says M. France, "is the French
Academy of song," and as such has some dignity. The same is true of the
Lice, while the Chat Noir is most _fin de siècle_.
To understand Béranger's songs and to excuse them somewhat, we must
remember that the French always delighted in witty songs and tales, and
pardoned the immorality of the works on account of the wit and humor.
This is what is called _l'esprit gaulois_, and is seen principally in
old French poetry, in the fabliaux, the farces, and 'Le Roman de
Renart.' Molière had much of this, as also had La Fontaine and Voltaire,
and Béranger's wildest songs appear mild and innocent when compared with
those of the Chat Noir. In his joyous songs he continues the traditions
of the farces and fabliaux of the Middle Ages, and in his political
songs he uses wit and satire just as in the _sottises_ of the time of
Louis XII.
Béranger's first volume of songs appeared at the beginning of the second
Restoration; and although it was hostile to the Bourbons, the author was
not prosecuted. In 1821, when his second volume was published, he
resigned his position as clerk at the University, and was brought to
trial for having written immoral and seditious songs. He was condemned,
after exciting scenes in court, to three months' imprisonment and a fine
of five hundred francs, and in 1828 to nine months' imprisonment and a
fine of ten thousand francs, which was paid by public subscription.
No doubt he contributed to the Revolution of July, 1830; but although he
was a republican, he favored the monarchy of Louis Philippe, saying that
"it was a plank to cross over the gutter, a preparation for the
republic." The king wished to see him and thank him, but Béranger
replied that "he was too old to make new acquaintances." He was invited
to apply for a seat in the French Academy, and refused that honor as he
had refused political honors and positions. He said that he "wished to
be nothing"; and when in 1848 he was elected to the Constitutional
Assembly, he resigned his seat almost immediately. He has been accused
of affectation, and of exaggeration in his disinterestedness; but he was
naturally timid in public, and preferred to exert an influence over his
countrymen by his songs rather than by his voice in public assemblies.
Béranger was kind and generous, and ever ready to help all who applied
to him. He had a pension given to Rouget de l'Isle, the famous author of
the 'Marseillaise,' who was reduced to poverty, and in 1835 he took into
his house his good aunt from Péronne, and gave hospitality also to his
friend Mlle. Judith Frère. In 1834 he sold all his works to his
publisher, Perrotin, for an annuity of eight hundred francs, which was
increased to four thousand by the publisher. On this small income
Béranger lived content till his death on July 16th, 1857. The government
of Napoleon III. took charge of his funeral, which was solemnized with
great pomp. Although Béranger was essentially the poet of the middle
classes, and was extremely popular, care was taken to exclude the people
from the funeral procession. While he never denied that he was the
grandson of a tailor, he signed _de_ Béranger, to be distinguished from
other writers of the same name. The _de_, however, had always been
claimed by his father, who had left him nothing but that pretense
of nobility.
For forty years, from 1815 to his death, Béranger was perhaps the most
popular French writer of his time, and he was ranked amongst the
greatest French poets. There has been a reaction against that
enthusiasm, and he is now severely judged by the critics. They say that
he lacked inspiration, and was vulgar, bombastic, and grandiloquent.
Little attention is paid to him, therefore, in general histories of
French literature. But if he is not entitled to stand on the high
pedestal given to him by his contemporaries, we yet cannot deny genius
to the man who for more than a generation swayed the hearts of the
people at his will, and exerted on his countrymen and on his epoch an
immense influence.
Many of his songs are coarse and even immoral; but his muse was often
inspired by patriotic subjects, and in his poems on Napoleon he sings of
the exploits of the great general defending French soil from foreign
invasion, or he delights in the victories of the Emperor as reflecting
glory upon France. Victor Hugo shared this feeling when he wrote his
inspiring verses in praise of the conqueror. Both poets, Béranger and
Hugo, contributed to create the Napoleonic legend which facilitated the
election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency in 1848, and brought about
the Second Empire. What is more touching than 'The Reminiscences of the
People'? Are we not inclined to cry out, like the little children
listening to the old grandmother who speaks of Napoleon: "He spoke to
you, grandmother! He sat down there, grandmother! You have yet his
glass, grandmother!" The whole song is poetic, natural, and simple.
François Coppée, the great poet, said of it: "Ah! if I had only written
'The Reminiscences of the People,' I should not feel concerned about the
judgment of posterity."
Other works of Béranger's are on serious subjects, as 'Mary Stuart's
Farewell to France,' 'The Holy Alliance,' 'The Swallows,' and 'The Old
Banner,' All his songs have a charm. His wit is not of the highest
order, and he lacks the _finesse_ of La Fontaine, but he is often quaint
and always amusing in his songs devoted to love and Lisette, to youth
and to wine. He is not one of the greatest French lyric poets, and
cannot be compared with Lamartine, Hugo, Musset, and Vigny; nevertheless
he has much originality, and is without doubt the greatest song-writer
that France has produced. He elevated the song and made it both a poem
and a drama, full of action and interest.
Béranger wrote slowly and with great care, and many of his songs cost
him much labor. He was filled with compassion for the weak, for the poor
and unfortunate; he loved humanity, and above all he dearly loved
France. Posterity will do him justice and will preserve at least a great
part of his work. M. Ernest Legouvé in his interesting work, 'La Lecture
en Action,' relates that one day, while walking with Béranger in the
Bois de Boulogne, the latter stopped in the middle of an alley, and
taking hold of M. Legouvé's hand, said with emotion, "My dear friend, my
ambition would be that one hundred of my lines should remain." M.
Legouvé adds, "There will remain more than that," and his words have
been confirmed. If we read aloud, if we sing them, we too shall share
the enthusiasm of our fathers, who were carried away by the pathos, the
grandeur, the wit, the inexpressible charm of the unrivaled
_chansonnier_.
[Illustration: Signature: ALCÉE FORTIER]