the same bamboos; and near the same spot the remains of their tender
mothers and their faithful servants were laid. No marble was raised
over their humble turf, no inscription engraved to celebrate their
virtues; but their memory remains indelible in the hearts of those
whom they have assisted.
If we have treated somewhat lightly this romance of sentimentalism and
of naturalism it is because of the taint of ungenuineness--that is, of
unreality more or less conscious on the author's part--that we seem to
ourselves to discover in its pages. But the masterpiece of Bernardin de
St. Pierre is after all a serious literary fact. For instance, if "Paul
and Virginia" had never been written it is doubtful if we should ever
have had that series of romantico-realistic little pieces of fiction
from the pen of George Sand, out of one of which we shall presently
exemplify this woman of genius to our readers. A production in
literature is to be judged not only by its own inherent quality, but
also, perhaps not less by its entail of influence.
"Paul and Virginia," in becoming a school-book for the learning of
French, may be said to have bought increase of celebrity at the price of
some diminution in fame. In our own opinion, however, which, after all
that we have said, hardly needs to be thus expressly stated, the book
still remains quite as famous as its intrinsic merits entitle it to be.
Its chief security of renown in the future lies, and will continue more
and more to lie, in the striking fact of its renown in the past.
We formally part with Rousseau and with his first literary foster-child.
But we shall trace their features still, again and again, persisting in
authors to follow who could not escape a tell-tale impress, open to all
to see, stamped from that singularly fecund, and singularly potent,
literary paternity.
XVIII.
THE ENCYCLOPAEDISTS.
A cenotaph is a monument erected to the memory of one dead, but not
marking the spot in which his remains rest. The present chapter is a
cenotaph to the French Encyclopaedists. It is in the nature of a memorial
of their literary work, but it will be found to contain no specimen
extracts from their writings.
Everybody has heard of the Encyclopaedists of France. Who are they? They
are a group of men who, during the eighteenth century, associated
themselves together for the production of a great work to be the
repository of all human knowledge,--in one word, of an encyclopaedia. The
project was a laudable one; and the motive to it was laudable--in part.
For there was mixture of motive in the case. In part, the motive was
simple desire to advance the cause of human enlightenment; in part,
however, the motive was desire to undermine Christianity. This latter
end the encyclopaedist collaborators may have thought to be an
indispensable means subsidiary to the former end. They probably did
think so--with such imperfect sincerity as is possible to those who set
themselves, consciously or unconsciously, against God. The fact is, that
the Encyclopaedists came at length to be nearly as much occupied in
extinguishing Christianity as in promoting public enlightenment. They
went about this their task of destroying in a way as effective as has
ever been devised for accomplishing a similar work. They gave a vicious
turn of insinuation against Christianity to as many articles as
possible. In the most unexpected places, throughout the entire work,
pitfalls were laid of anti-Christian implication, awaiting the unwary
feet of the explorer of its pages. You were nowhere sure of your ground.
The world has never before seen, it has never seen since, an example of
propagandism altogether so adroit and so alert. It is not too much to
say further that history can supply few instances of propagandism so
successful. The Encyclopaedists might almost be said to have given the
human mind a fresh start and a new orbit. The fresh start is, perhaps,
spent; the new orbit has at length, to a great extent, returned upon the
old; but it holds true, nevertheless, that the Encyclopaedists of France
were for a time, and that not a short time, a prodigious force of
impulsion and direction to the Occidental mind. It ought to be added
that the aim of the Encyclopaedists was political also, not less than
religious. In truth, religion and politics, Church and State, in their
day, and in France, were much the same thing. The "Encyclopaedia" was as
revolutionary in politics as it was atheistic in religion.
The leader in this movement of insurrectionary thought was Denis
DIDEROT. Diderot (1713-1784) was born to be an encyclopaedist, and a
captain of encyclopaedists. Force inexhaustible, and inexhaustible
willingness to give out force; unappeasable curiosity to know;
irresistible impulse to impart knowledge; versatile capacity to do every
thing, carried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, of
incapacity to do anything thoroughly well; quenchless zeal and
quenchless hope; levity enough of temper to keep its subject free from
those depressions of spirit and those cares of conscience which weigh
and wear on the overearnest man; abundant physical health--gifts such as
these made up the manifold equipment of Diderot for rowing and steering
the gigantic enterprise of the "Encyclopaedia" triumphantly to the port
of final completion, through many and many a zone of stormy adverse wind
and sea, traversed on the way. Diderot produced no signal independent
and original work of his own; probably he could not have produced such a
work. On the other hand, it is simply just to say that hardly anybody
but Diderot could have achieved the "Encyclopaedia." That, indeed, may
be considered an achievement not more to the glory than to the shame of
its author; but whatever its true moral character, in whatever
proportion shameful or glorious, it is inalienably and peculiarly
Diderot's achievement--at least in this sense, that without Diderot the
"Encyclopaedia" would never have been achieved.
We have already, in discussing Voltaire, adverted sufficiently to Mr.
John Morley's volumes in honor of Diderot and his compeers. Diderot is
therein ably presented in the best possible light to the reader; and we
are bound to say that, despite Mr. Morley's friendly endeavors, Diderot
therein appears very ill. He married a young woman whose simple and
touching self-sacrifice on her husband's behalf he presently requited by
giving himself away, body and soul, to a rival. In his writings he is so
easily insincere that not unfrequently it is a problem, even for his
biographer, to decide when he is expressing his sentiments truly and
when not, insomuch that, once and again, Mr. Morley himself is obliged
to say, "This is probably hypocritical on Diderot's part," or something
to that effect. As for filthy communication out of his mouth and from
his pen--not, of course, habitual, but occasional--the subject will not
bear more than this mention. These be thy gods, O Atheism! one, in
reading Mr. Morley on Diderot, is tempted again and again to exclaim. To
offset such lowness of character in the man it must in justice be added
that Diderot was, notwithstanding, of a generous, uncalculating turn of
mind, not grudging, especially in intellectual relations, to give of his
best to others, expecting nothing again. Diderot, too, as well as
Voltaire, had his royal or imperial friends, in the notorious Empress
Catherine of Russia, and in King Stanislaus of Poland. He visited
Catherine once in her capital, and was there munificently entertained by
her. She was regally pleased to humor this gentleman of France,
permitting him to bring down his fist in gesture violently on the
redoubtable royal knee, according to a pleasant way Diderot had of
emphasizing a point in familiar conversation. His truest claim to
praise for intellectual superiority is, perhaps, that he was a prolific
begetter of wit in other men.
D'ALEMBERT (Jean le Rond, 1717-1783) was an eminent mathematician. He
wrote especially, though not at first exclusively, on mathematical
subjects for the "Encyclopaedia." He was, indeed, at the outset,
published as mathematical editor of the work. His European reputation in
science made his name a tower of strength to the "Encyclopaedia,"--even
after he ceased to be an editorial coadjutor in the enterprise. For
there came a time when D'Alembert abdicated responsibility as editor and
left the undertaking to fall heavily on the single shoulder, Atlantean
shoulder it proved to be, of Diderot. The celebrated "Preliminary
Discourse," prefixed to the "Encyclopaedia," proceeded from the hand of
D'Alembert. This has always been esteemed a masterpiece of comprehensive
grasp and lucid exposition. A less creditable contribution of
D'Alembert's to the "Encyclopaedia" was his article on "Geneva," in the
course of which, at the instance of Voltaire, who wanted a chance to
have his plays represented in that city, he went out of his way to
recommend to the Genevans that they establish for themselves a theater.
This brought out Rousseau in an eloquent harangue against the theater as
exerting influence to debauch public morals. D'Alembert, in the contest,
did not carry off the honors of the day. D'Alembert's "Eloges," so
called, a series of characterizations and appreciations written by the
author in his old age, of members of the French Academy, enjoy deserved
reputation for sagacious intellectual estimate, and for clear, though
not supremely elegant, style of composition.
Diderot and D'Alembert are the only men whose names appear on the
title-page of the "Encyclopaedia;" but Voltaire, Rousseau, Turgot,
Helvetius, Duclos, Condillac, Buffon, Grimm, Holbach, with many besides
whom we must not stay even to mention, contributed to the work.
The influence of the "Encyclopaedia," great during its day, is by no
means yet exhausted. But it is an influence indirectly exerted, for the
"Encyclopaedia" itself has long been an obsolete work.
There is a legal maxim that the laws are silent when a state of war
exists. Certainly, amid the madness of a revolution such as, during the
closing years of the eighteenth century, the influence of Voltaire,
Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists, with Beaumarchais, reacting against
the accumulated political and ecclesiastical oppressions of ages,
precipitated upon France, it might safely be assumed that letters would
be silent. But the nation meantime was portentously preparing material
for a literature which many wondering centuries to follow would occupy
themselves with writing.
XIX.
MADAME DE STAEL.
1766-1817.
In Madame de Stael we encounter a truly redoubtable figure in
literature.
But Madame de Stael in her day seemed more than a writer, more even than
a writer of what the Germans would call world-importance; she was, or
she seemed, a prodigious living personal force. For her tongue was not
less formidable than her pen. In truth, the fame of Madame de Stael is
due to the twofold power which, during her life-time, she exercised, and
exercised in very uncertain proportions, first perhaps as a talker and
second as a writer. She is generally allowed, and that upon the most
incontestable authority, to have been one of the most brilliant and most
effective talkers in the history of the human race.
This power in Madame de Stael of personal impression you are not free to
ascribe to any charm that she owned of physical beauty; for Madame de
Stael was not a beautiful woman. By her friend, Madame Recamier, that
charm was exercised to the full, and that charm Madame de Stael, did
not despise. So far from it, she is said once (thus at least the present
writer seems to remember, but he has been unable to verify his
impression) passionately to have exclaimed that she would give all her
genius for one evening of Madame Recamier's beauty. This was not the
vanity on her part of wish to be admired. It was the pathos of longing
to be loved. "Never, never," she cried out in anguish, "I shall never be
loved as I love." She was true woman after all; and it would be
inexpiable wrong against her not to say this also, and say it with
emphasis, however sharply we may be just in pronouncing the masculine
strength of her character. The contrast was so obvious between Madame de
Stael and Madame Recamier in point of mere personal charm that, in a
moment evil for him, a gentleman once seated between them permitted
himself the awkwardness of saying, in ill-advised intention of
compliment to both, but with most unhappy chief effect to the contrary,
alike on this side and on that, "How fortunate! I sit between Wit and
Beauty." "Yes, and without possessing either the one or the other,"
retorted Wit, amply avenging herself for being reminded that she was not
also Beauty. Madame de Stael had certainly justified one half of the
gentleman's compliment; and Madame Recamier, with her serene ineffable
charm, did not need to speak in order to justify the other.
It was, then, by the pure dry light of her intellect and her wit that
Madame de Stael dazzled so in conversation--dazzled so, and so
attracted. Wherever she was, there was the center. She made a _salon_
anywhere, by simply being there. And Madame de Stael's _salon_ was felt
by the ruler of Europe to be a formidable political power implacably
hostile to himself. "Somehow," said Napoleon, "I observe that, whatever
is talked about at Madame de Stael's, those who go there come away
thinking less favorably of me." It seems to have been in part because
she said nothing, and would say nothing, of Napoleon in her "Germany,"
that he finally suppressed that book. "You will speak ill of me when you
get back to your academy," said to Plato the tyrant of Syracuse. "In
the academy we shall not have time to speak of you at all," was the
philosopher's reply.
Madame de Stael was singularly fortunate in heredity on both sides of
her parentage. Her father was an eminent banker and minister of finance,
who enjoyed the noblest and clearest renown as a man both of talent and
of character. Her mother was that beautiful and gifted daughter of a
Swiss pastor whom the historian Gibbon once thought he loved, but whom
he dutifully gave up at the will of his father. "I sighed as a lover and
obeyed as a son," Gibbon says in his "Autobiography." This was after
years had passed with him--"years that bring the philosophic mind!" The
obese but famous English historian, still a bachelor, was a frequent
guest at the house of M. Necker, where he had the opportunity gallantly
to admire the brilliant daughter of the woman who might have been his
wife.
We have said enough to show that, with the exception of personal beauty,
Madame de Stael enjoyed every external advantage that could help to give
her a shining career. Her wealth was something more than a mere
accessory advantage; she needed it to sustain her in the waste of money
made necessary by her wanderings through Europe to escape the tyrannous
hand of Napoleon. Her exile was agony to her, for she loved France, and
she loved Paris with inextinguishable affection. It is impossible to
deny to the obstinacy that refused to burn even a pinch of incense to
the god of her nation's idolatry, for the sake of permission to return
to every thing that she loved--it is impossible, we say, to deny to this
obstinacy in Madame de Stael the title of a true and heroic virtue.
How costly-brave was the attitude that Madame de Stael steadfastly kept
toward Napoleon, during the fifteen years of his unparalleled sway, may
be guessed from the account that she gives of the unnerving, the
prostrating effect upon her of the presence, the character, and the
genius of that extraordinary man. In her "Reflections on the French
Revolution" she has the following passage, almost equally striking
whether taken as a description or as a confession:
Far from gaining re-assurance in meeting Buonaparte oftener, he
intimidated me daily more and more. I confusedly felt that no emotion
of the heart could possibly take effect upon him. He looks upon a
human being as a fact or as a thing, but not as a fellow-creature. He
does not hate any more than he loves; there is nothing for him but
himself; all other beings are so many ciphers. The force of his will
lies in the imperturbable calculation of his selfishness.... His
successes are as much to be credited to the qualities which he lacks
as to the talents which he possesses. Neither pity, nor attraction,
nor religion, nor attachment to any idea whatsoever, could make him
swerve from the main path he had chosen. Every time I heard him talk I
was struck with his superiority; this, however, had no resemblance to
the superiority of men trained and cultivated by study or by society,
a class of which England and France can offer examples. But his
courses of remark indicated a tact for seizing upon circumstances like
that which the hunter has for seizing upon his prey. Sometimes he
recounted the political and military incidents of his life in a manner
to interest greatly; he had even, in narrations that admitted gayety,
a trace of Italian imagination. Still, nothing could get the better of
my revulsion for what I perceived in him. I felt, in his soul, a
sword, cold and cutting, that froze while it wounded; I felt, in his
mind, a fundamental irony from which nothing great, nothing beautiful,
not his own glory even, could escape; for he despised the nation whose
suffrages he sought; and no single spark of enthusiasm mixed with his
wish to astonish mankind.
It was during the interval between the return of Buonaparte (from
Italy), and his setting out for Egypt toward the end of 1787, that I
several times saw him in Paris; and never could I overcome the
difficulty which I experienced in breathing in his presence. I was one
day seated at table between him and the Abbe Sieyes; singular
situation, could I have foreseen the future! [Sieyes, two years later,
became one in a triumvirate of "consuls," of whom Napoleon was
another.] I scrutinized carefully the face of Napoleon; but every time
he detected my observing glances he had the art to rob his eyes of all
expression, as if they were changed to marble. His countenance was
then immobile, save a vague smile that he brought upon his lips at a
venture, in order to throw out any one who might wish to mark the
external signs of his thought.
It was not a light thing, and Madame de Stael did not feel it a light
thing, to hold out as she did, never once dipping her colors, against
the will and the power of the man whom she thus describes.
This passionate woman of genius, twice linked by marriage in a union
marked by violent and opposite disparities of age--for the second
husband was as much younger as the first was older than she--sought
satisfaction for her hungry desire of love in "relations," if not
ambiguous, at least apparently ambiguous, with men other than her
husbands. One of these men was Benjamin Constant, whose conversational
powers, exercised in partnership, never in rivalship, with Madame de
Stael, helped make the society in which they shone as twin stars
together, the admiration, the envy, the despair, of cultivated Europe.
Benjamin Constant, as Madame de Stael's companion of travel in Germany,
was no doubt part, though August Wilhelm Schlegel was part still
greater, of the vitalizing intellectual influence that helped her
produce her work on that country. Schlegel, by the way, had previously
accompanied Madame de Stael in that Italian tour and sojourn of hers,
the fruit of which was the novel, or the book of travels, or both in
one, entitled "Corinne." This book was the first of her books to give
its author a European fame. Besides being studied as a text-book in the
schools, "Corinne" is still read as a production important in literary
history.
The "De l'Allemagne" (literally "Concerning Germany") is generally
esteemed the masterpiece of its author. From this we draw our
illustrations by specimen of the literary quality of Madame de Stael.
The "Germany" may be said to have first introduced that country to
France, almost to Europe in general. Its scope is comprehensive. It
describes Germany in a great variety of aspects; but it is on the
literature of Germany that it expends its strength.
Madame de Stael's "Preface" to her "Germany," written in England, where,
after its arbitrary suppression in France, the volume was finally
published, is an interesting bit of reading. Witness one or two
extracts:
My bookseller took upon himself the responsibility of the publication
of my book, after submitting it to the censors....
At the moment when the work was about to appear, and when the 10,000
copies of the first edition had been actually printed off, the
minister of the police, known under the name of General Savary, sent
his officers to the bookseller's, with orders to tear the whole
edition in pieces, and to place sentinels at the different entrances
to the warehouse, for fear a single copy of this dangerous writing
should escape.
What a glimpse is there incidentally afforded of the intolerable
despotism of Napoleon!
Madame de Stael thinks silently of her lovely and beloved friend Madame
Recamier, who had suffered from Napoleon by her relation with the exiled
woman of letters, when still in her preface she writes:
Some of my friends were banished, because they had had the generosity
to come and see me; this was too much: to carry with us the contagion
of misfortune, not to dare to associate with those we love, to be
afraid to write to them, or pronounce their names, to be the object by
turns, either of affectionate attentions which make us tremble for
those who show them, or of those refinements of baseness which terror
inspires, is a situation from which every one, who still values life,
would withdraw!
We advance into the body of the work.
The German Lessing had himself found in his literary countrymen the same
fault that Madame de Stael, near the beginning of her book, points out
as follows:
In literature, as in politics, the Germans have too much respect for
foreigners, and not enough of national prejudices. In individuals it
is a virtue, this denial of self, and this esteem of others; but the
patriotism of nations ought to be selfish.
Bismarck and Moltke in politics and in war, Herman Grimm, for example,
in literature, with his appalling claim for Goethe's "Faust," as the
"greatest work of the greatest poet of all nations and times," have
lately "changed all that." The fault of Germany now is not over-modesty.
The boundless freedom, nay, audacity, of speculative thought indulged by
the Germans is stimulantly contrasted with their strangely contented
subserviency (which then was) in more material matters. The sentence we
italicize below was canceled by Napoleon's censors, before their master
took the shorter method of canceling the book:
The enlightened men of Germany dispute vehemently among themselves the
dominion of speculations, and will suffer no shackles in this
department; but they give up, without difficulty, all that is real in
life to the powerful of the earth. _This real in life, so disdained by
them, finds, however, those who make themselves possessors of it, and
these, in the end, carry trouble and constraint even into the empire
of the imagination._
The following passage concerning Voltaire and a particular production of
his pen is one of the most trenchantly critical expressions that the
reader would find in the whole course of the "Germany." The German name
of Leibnitz occurring in it will suggest the association of contrast by
which such a criticism of a Frenchman found its way into a book treating
of things German. Leibnitz had propounded a metaphysical theory of
universal optimism, which--like all philosophic hypotheses, even those
apparently least practical, let them once become widely entertained--was
having its influence on national thought and national character. With
Voltaire's "Candide" the readers of this volume will already have
acquired sufficient acquaintance to make Madame de Stael's remarks upon
it here presented additionally interesting: