The biographies of some great men of letters are little different from
their bibliographies. For many years this would seem to have been true
in the case of Anatole France, for the man of public import--apart from
his literary productions--came not into being until fifty-three years
after his physical birth.
Every book-lover who goes to Paris must visit the banks of the Seine
and revel among the riches of that vast exhibition of old books, art
objects, rare prints, and fascinating what-not, which for generations
have been the despair and the admiration of collectors. Over an
old-book mart on the Quai Malaquis, Jacques Anatole Thibault--now
everywhere known as Anatole France--was born April 16, 1844. From that
day to this he has never left as a residence that Paris whose every
paving-block he knows, as he himself says, and whose every stone he
loves. Year by year he has increasingly stood as a type of Parisian
literary life and thought.
His father was one of the prosperous booksellers of the Seine
banks--meditative, thoughtful, and even a maker of verses. He brought
with him from Anjou in western France all of the Vendéean’s passion
for monarchism and clericalism. Just how this harmonizes with the
assertion of one of our author’s biographers that the elder Thibault
was of Jewish blood, I do not pretend to say, but the statement may
pass on its face value. Certain it is that the father was concerned
that Anatole should be educated under the auspices of clerical
teachers, the priests of the old Collège Stanislas, and his son’s
early mastery of the classics and attainments in literary style amply
justified the choice. Indeed, the clerical schools of the period did
more to establish French letters than has since proven to be the case
under the public schools of present-day France.
Growing up in this bookish atmosphere, rich tokens of the past all
about him, inheriting his father’s scholarly tastes, trained under
the rigid system of classicists, and in the school that developed
Paul Bourget and François Coppée, Anatole France needed only one more
element to bring out in him the varied temperament his life and works
exhibit--the inspiration of the refined and tender mother whose love
for romantic fairy-tales charmed into being the first fancy-creations
of her gifted boy.
In 1868 M. France produced his first book--a study of Alfred de Vigny.
This made no great sensation, but his first volume of poems--many
French literary men, like Daudet, Maupassant, and Bourget, have opened
their literary careers with essays at verse--was published in 1873,
_Les Poèmes dorés_.
About this time M. France became reader for the publisher Lemerre,
and under his auspices brought out various of the thirty-some volumes
which stand to his credit. In 1876 he became an attaché of the Senate
library. Later, he was known as a regular contributor to _Le Temps_
and other Parisian journals, much of this review material being now
accessible in book-form.
That part of M. France’s work which covers the first twenty years of
his writing, ending with 1896, has largely fixed his place in the
average opinion, for two reasons: those years witnessed his largest
and most popular production, including nearly all of his novels and
stories; and, in consequence, the preponderance of published critical
estimates cover only those two decades.
The “first” Anatole France, then, must be considered almost as a
separate being, so far as we regard his spirit; his literary style,
however, changed scarcely at all with time. Classical training was
reflected in a passion for the Greek magic of words, Latin harmony
of phrasing, and the hedonistic philosophy; there was not even the
suggestion of his later direct appeal to reason and “the rights of
man.” His personal tone--for much of his writing is personal and even
autobiographical--was pessimistic, though untinged with bitterness;
and here again there was little to forecast his vigorous appeal for
a social better day. No thought of social uplift, no ray of hope,
appeared in his treatment of _Thaïs_, a study of the Egypt of the
Ptolemies; _The Red Lily_, a picture of present-day Florence; _The
Opinions of M. Jérome Coignard_, the modernization of sentiments
exploited in Rabelais, “Wilhelm Meister,” “Gil Blas,” and Montaigne;
_The Garden of Epicurus_, wherein the shades of great thinkers, from
Plato to Schopenhauer, hold converse, “while an Esquimaux refutes
Bossuet, a Polynesian develops his theory of the soul, and Cicero and
Cousin agree in their estimate of a future life.” In a word, the M.
France of those days viewed life as a spectacle, with dispassionate
yet pitying irony. Convinced, with the Preacher, that all is vanity,
this dilettante proposed no remedies for its ills, and was even frankly
skeptical that any such saving medicine existed. This is Anatole France
as most readers know him--the Anatole France who “died” fifteen years
ago, leaving only the stylist and the keen observer to identify him
with the decidedly living man of to-day.
Two important events in the life of our author took place respectively
in 1896 and 1897. In the former year he was elected on the first
ballot to a seat in the French Academy--the seat occupied by Ferdinand
de Lesseps, and on the occasion of his _séance de réception_ M.
France delivered a tactful and altogether admirable eulogy upon the
unfortunate genius whom he succeeded.
This distinction coming after more than fifty years of life would have
been enough to mark an epoch in his career, but one year later he
issued _L’Orme du Mail_, a series of notable comments upon contemporary
literary and social life. This may be regarded as the outgrowth of the
social, political, and literary notes which he had been contributing
to the newspapers, and which have been gathered in several volumes,
forming probably the most brilliant commentary upon things French which
is available to-day.
Doubtless this daily observation of the current trend gave birth to a
new man, for now Anatole France is no longer the satirical and lightly
ironical dilettante making excursions into the field of speculation,
but a robust devotee of the rights of the people. His powerful
arraignments of the social and political condition of the French
common-people are not the only proofs of a new birth in M. France.
Trenchant, witty, and apostolic as are his social sermons--for now and
then a sermon may ring true to its word-origin and be _a thrust_--they
were not so amazing and, happily, not so significant, as his brave
championship of the cause of Captain Dreyfus when there were few who
dared to lift voice against rampant militarism and a prejudiced,
Jew-baiting military tribunal.
From this courageous stand it was only a single step to a propagandum
to abolish the many abuses which he feels weigh heavily upon the
masses--war, plutocracy, clericalism, militarism. I have said that
it was only a single step, yet it represents a long journey for the
son of a monarchist, a boy educated by priests, the smiling literary
experimenter, the speculative pupil of Rénan, to have mounted the
Socialistic rostrum and produced anti-military and anti-clerical
papers of no doubtful sound. Such is M. France to-day; and though he
still fails not in his literary appeal to the intellectuals, the cry
that deeply stirs his being is that of the proletariat in need of
intelligent, vigorous leadership. Whether or not one agrees with his
propagandum, one cannot ignore its significance.
Anatole France has attained distinction in several literary forms. His
early poems are not of sufficient merit to make him famous, but they
consist of a piquant combination--humor, history, and philosophy.
His critical introductions to delightful editions of famous books
are charmingly done and sufficiently discriminating. His tractates
on questions of the times are earnest, direct, and vigorous. But
it is to his novels and stories that we must look to find his most
characteristic writings.
To the English reader, his best-known novel is _The Crime of Sylvestre
Bonnard_ (1881), which was crowned by the Academy. Like all of M.
France’s novels, it is practically plotless--a fictional framework
for the skeptical observations and good-natured ironies of the old
philosopher, whose name gives the book its title. A second novel of
distinction, if novel it may be called, is _The Book of Friendship_
(_le Livre de Mon Ami_). It is made up of two parts--_The Book of
Peter_ and _The Book of Suzanne_. The former owes its interest not
alone to charm of style, childlikeness of recital, and subtle beauty,
but also to its autobiographical character--which M. France has frankly
admitted. Three other works immediately rise up for comparison when
one reads this keen, sympathetic, and understanding story--Dickens’s
_David Copperfield_, Daudet’s _Little What’s-His-Name_ (_le Petit
Chose_), and Loti’s _The Story of a Child_; and the very fact of such
inevitable comparisons may sufficiently suggest its ingenuous charm,
its pseudo-naïvete, and its mingled humor and pathos. No Frenchman,
except Victor Hugo, quite entered into child-life as did M. France in
this notable compound of fiction and fact, and I am not forgetting
either Alphonse Daudet or Gustav Droz in making this assertion.
The inheritance of his mother’s love for fantasy is beautifully
illustrated in M. France’s _Abeille_, a fairy story of perhaps
twenty-thousand words. The author’s name will vouch for its style;
the simple outline will show the pretty framework for the fictional
conception.
La Duchesse des Clarides brings up her daughter Abeille, together with
Georges, the only son of la Comtesse Blanchelande, who at her death had
confided him to the care of her friend.
The two children one day set out secretly to find the distant lake
which they have seen from the high tower of the castle of Clarides. The
lake is the home of the Ondines, and the woods surrounding it the realm
of the Gnomes. Georges, seeking water and food for Abeille, is seized
by the Ondines. Abeille, waiting for Georges’ return, falls asleep, to
be wakened by the Gnomes, who carry her to their King Loc. They keep
Abeille in order to teach her the wisdom and secrets of their race and
they make her their Princess. Loc loves Abeille and offers her all
the treasures of his kingdom if she will become his wife. She refuses,
asking only to be sent back to her mother, whom she is allowed to see
each night in a dream, as her mother also sees her. Loc finally learns
that Abeille loves Georges, but that he has disappeared. The Gnome king
discovers that the youth is with the Ondines, held prisoner because he
wishes to leave the Ondine queen--who also loves him--in order to seek
Abeille. Loc magnanimously rescues Georges and sends him to Clarides,
but still cannot bring himself to free Abeille. The youth learns of the
fate of Abeille from his mother and his serving man, and goes to the
Gnome kingdom to rescue her.
Loc cannot keep Abeille longer because of a law allowing mortals,
prisoners of the Gnomes, to return to the world after seven years, so
he betroths Georges and Abeille and gives them rich gifts, among which
is a magic ring having power to bring Abeille and Georges at any time
to visit the Gnome realm, where they will be always welcome.
In the volumes, _Mother-of-Pearl_ (_L’Etui de Nacre_) and _St. Clara’s
Well_ (_Le Puits de Sainte-Claire_), we find our author’s best
short-story work.
As has been noted in previous introductory papers of this series,
there is a marked tendency among French writers of little fictions
to affect the sketch form, and in this field they have wrought with
great delicacy and spirit. It is hardly to be expected of a writer
whose novels give so much play to epigram, philosophy, dialogue, and
witty comment, that he should seek to tell his shorter stories with the
compression of a Maupassant and the plot-structure of a Mérimée. But
other qualities of the first-rate story-teller he does display--his
narration is lively and witty, and his climaxes are satisfying.
Only two of his short-stories can be given attention in this limited
space, both found in the first-named volume, and one of them reproduced
here in translation.
“The Procurator of Judea” tells in the author’s leisurely, pellucid
style how L. Ælius Lamia, after eighteen years of exile by Tiberius
Cæsar, returns to Rome. During his years of sojourn in Asia, here and
there, he has met Pontius Pilate. Now they meet again, and the physical
bulk of the story is taken up by their reminiscences. Just when that
seems to be all, they fall to discussing the charms of Judæan women,
when Lamia recalls with especial warmth a dancing girl.
“‘Some months after,’” he goes on, “‘I lost sight of her. I learned by
chance that she had attached herself to a small company of men and
women who were followers of a young Galilean thaumaturgist. His name
was Jesus; he came from Nazareth, and he was crucified for some crime,
I don’t know what. Pontius, do you remember anything about the man?’
“Pontius Pilate contracted his brows, and his hand rose to his forehead
in the attitude of one who probes the deeps of memory. Then after a
silence of some seconds--
“‘Jesus?’ he murmured. ‘Jesus of Nazareth? I cannot call him to mind.’”
This dramatic episode, which exists only for its climax, is no more
poignant than the pathos of that simple-hearted juggler-monk who
imitated the Widow, in that he gave all that he had.
JUGGLER TO OUR-LADY
(_LE JONGLEUR DE NOTRE-DAME_)