"It is he who was sitting opposite to you in the _salon_."
I begged that she would introduce him to me; and upon our returning to
the drawing-room she did so. The conversation was resumed, and most
agreeably--every one bore a part in it. Lamartine, Casimir Delavigne,
Dumas, Victor Hugo, and some others, passed under a light but clever
and acute review. Our Byron, Scott, &c. followed; and it was evident
that they had been read and understood. I asked M. de Châteaubriand if
he had known Lord Byron: he replied, "Non;" adding, "Je l'avais
précédé dans la vie, et malheureusement il m'a précédé au tombeau."
The degree in which any country is capable of fully appreciating the
literature of another was canvassed, and M. de Châteaubriand declared
himself decidedly of opinion that such appreciation was always and
necessarily very imperfect. Much that he said on the subject appeared
incontrovertibly true, especially as respecting the slight and
delicate shadows of expression of which the subtile grace so
constantly seems to escape at the first attempt to convert it into
another idiom. Nevertheless, I suspect that the majority of English
readers--I mean the English readers of French--are more _au fait_ of
the original literature of France than M. de Châteaubriand supposes.
The habit, so widely extended amongst us, of reading this language
almost from infancy, gives us a greater familiarity with their idiom
than he is aware of. He doubted if we could relish Molière, and named
Lafontaine as one beyond the reach of extra-Gallican criticism or
enjoyment.
I cannot agree to this, though I am not surprised that such an idea
should exist. Every English person that comes to Paris is absolutely
obliged to speak French, almost whether they can or can not. If they
shrink from doing so, they can have no hope of either speaking or
being spoken to at all. This is alone sufficient to account very
satisfactorily, I think, for any doubt which may prevail as to the
national proficiency in the language. No Frenchman that is at all in
the habit of meeting the English in society but must have his ears and
his memory full of false concords, false tenses, and false accents;
and can we wonder that he should set it down as a certain fact, that
they who thus speak cannot be said to understand the language they so
mangle? Yet, plausible as the inference is, I doubt if it be
altogether just. Which of the most accomplished Hellenists of either
country would be found capable of sustaining a familiar conversation
in Greek? The case is precisely the same; for I have known very many
whose power of tasting the beauty of French writing amounted to the
most critical acuteness, who would have probably been unintelligible
had they attempted to converse in the language for five minutes
together; whereas many others, who have perhaps had a French valet or
waiting-maid, may possess a passably good accent and great facility of
imitative expression in conversation, who yet would be puzzled how to
construe with critical accuracy the easiest passage in Rousseau.
A very considerable proportion of the educated French read English,
and often appear to enter very ably into the spirit of our authors;
but there is not one in fifty of these who will pronounce a single
word of the language in conversation. Though they endure with a polite
gravity, perfectly imperturbable, the very drollest blunders of which
language is capable, they cannot endure to run the risk of making
blunders in return. Everything connected with the externals of good
society is held as sacred by the members of it; and if they shrink
from offending _la bienséance_ by laughing at the mistakes of others,
they avoid, with at least an equal degree of caution, the unpardonable
offence of committing any themselves.
I do not believe that it would be possible for a French person to
enter into conversation merely for the pleasure of conversing, and not
from the pressure of absolute necessity, unless he were certain, or at
least believed himself to be so, that he should express himself with
propriety and elegance. The idea of uttering the brightest or the
noblest thought that ever entered a human head, in an idiom
ridiculously broken, would, I am sure, be accompanied with a feeling
of repugnance sufficient to tame the most animated and silence the
most loquacious Frenchman in existence.
It therefore falls wholly upon the English, in this happy period of
constant and intimate intercourse between the nations, to submit to
the surrender of their vanity, to gratify their love for conversation;
blundering on in conscious defiance of grammar and accent, rather than
lose the exceeding pleasure of listening in return to the polished
phrase, the graceful period, the epigrammatic turn, which make so
essential a part of genuine high-bred French conversation.
But the doubts expressed by M. de Châteaubriand as to the possibility
of the last and best grace of French writing being fully appreciated
by foreigners, was not confined wholly to the English,--the Germans
appeared to share it with us; and one who has been recently proclaimed
as the first of living German critics was quoted as having confounded
in his style, names found among the immortals of the French Pantheon,
with those of such as live and die; _Monsieur_ Fontaine, and
_Monsieur_ Bruyère, being expressions actually extant in his writings.
More than once, during subsequent visits to Madame Récamier, I led her
to speak of her lost and illustrious friend. I have never been more
interested than while listening to all which this charming woman said
of Madame de Staël: every word she uttered seemed a mixture of pain
and pleasure, of enthusiasm and regret. It is melancholy to think how
utterly impossible it is that she should ever find another to replace
her. She seems to feel this, and to have surrounded herself by
everything that can contribute to keep the recollection of what is for
ever gone, fresh in her memory. The original of the posthumous
portrait of Madame de Staël by Gérard, made so familiar to all the
world by engravings--nay, even by Sèvres vases and tea-cups, hangs in
her bed-room. The miniature I have mentioned is always near her; and
the inspired figure of her Corinne, in which it is evident that Madame
Récamier traces a resemblance to her friend beyond that of features
only, appears to be an object almost of veneration as well as love.
It is delightful to approach thus to a being that I have always been
accustomed to contemplate as something in the clouds. Admirable and
amiable as my charming new acquaintance is in a hundred ways, her past
intimacy and ever-enduring affection for Madame de Staël have given
her a still higher interest in my eyes.