VOYAGES TO THE MOON AND THE SUN
By CYRANO DE BERGERAC
_Translated by_
RICHARD ALDINGTON
_With an Introduction and Notes_
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH
Broadway Translations
"_Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety._"
À FRÉDÉRIC LACHÈVRE
TÉMOINAGE D'ADMIRATION ET DE RECONNAISSANCE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
(1) The Legend of Cyrano
(2) The Life of Cyrano
(3) Cyrano's Friends
(4) The Libertin Question
(5) The Works of Cyrano
VOYAGE TO THE MOON
VOYAGE TO THE SUN
APPENDICES
(1) Extracts from Godwin, D'Urfey, and Swift
(2) Bibliography
(3) Genealogy
(4) Coat of Arms
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Portrait of Cyrano
2. Signature of Cyrano
3. Title-page to Lovell's Translation
4. Cyrano's First Attempt
5. Frontispiece to Lovell's Translation
6. Cyrano's Flight to the Sun
7. The Parliament of Birds
8. Gonzales' Voyage to the Moon
9. Cyrano's Coat of Arms
CYRANO DE BERGERAC
I
THE LEGEND OF CYRANO
The legend of Cyrano de Bergerac began, one might say, during his life;
but it was strongly founded by his friend Henry Le Bret who edited _The
Voyage to the Moon_ with an introduction, in 1657, two years after
Cyrano's death. The 'Préface' of Le Bret is one of the chief sources of
information about Cyrano. It is no discredit to Le Bret that he drew as
favourable a portrait of his friend as he could, but we cannot accept
literally everything he says and we are forced to read between the
lines of his panegyric. Le Bret is largely responsible for the moral
legend of Cyrano. He says:
"In fine, Reader, he always passed for a man of singular rare wit; to
which he added such good fortune on the side of the senses that he
always controlled them as he willed; in so much that he rarely drank
wine because (said he) excess of drink brutalizes, and as much care is
needed with it as with arsenic (with this he was wont to compare it)
for everything is to be feared from this poison, whatever care is used;
even if nothing were to be dreaded but what the vulgar call _qui pro
quo_, which makes it always dangerous. He was no less moderate in his
eating, from which he banished _ragoûts_ as much as he could in the
belief that the simplest and least complicated living is the best;
which he supported by the example of modern men, who live so short a
time compared with those of the earliest ages, who appear to have lived
so long because of the simplicity of their food.
"He added to these two qualities so great a restraint towards the fair
sex that it may be said he never departed from the respect owed it by
ours; and with all this he had so great an aversion from self-interest
that he could never imagine what it was to possess private property,
his own belonging less to him than to such of his acquaintance as
needed it. And so Heaven, which is not unmindful, willed that among the
large number of friends he had during his life some should love him
until death and a few even beyond death."[1]
[Footnote 1: Le Bret, Préface, 1657.]
It will be seen later that many of these virtues were probably
necessities arising from an unheroic cause; but this moral character
given by Le Bret was very useful to the 19th-century builders of the
Cyrano legend.
Other 17th-century writers give a very different impression of Cyrano
de Bergerac: where Le Bret saw a noble, almost austere genius, they
went to the opposite extreme and saw a madman. An anecdote in the
_Historiettes_ of Tallemant des Réaux gives us another Cyrano:
"A madman named Cyrano wrote a play called _The Death of Agrippina_
where Sejanus says horrible things against the Gods. The play was pure
balderdash (_un vray galimathias_).[2] Sercy, who published it, told
Boisrobert that he sold out the edition in a twinkling. 'You surprise
me', said Boisrobert. 'Ah, Monsieur', replied the bookseller, 'it has
such splendid impieties'."[3]
[Footnote 2: "Nothing could be clearer or better in style, and it is
less archaic than Corneille." (Remy de Gourmont).]
[Footnote 3: Which means "Strike, there is the enemy", but might also
mean "Strike, there is the sacrament."]
The implication that the success of the play was due to its "impieties"
is repeated in an anecdote of the _Menagiana_ quoted by Lacroix, to the
following effect: When the pious people heard there were impieties in
_The Death of Agrippina_, they went prepared to hiss it; they passed
over in silence all the tirades against the Gods which had caused the
rumour, but when Sejanus said:
"Frappons, voilà l'hostie",[4]
they interrupted the actor with whistling, booing and shouts of:
"Ah! the rascal! Ah! The atheist! Hear how he speaks of the holy
sacrament!"
[Footnote 4: Tallemant des Réaux, _Historiettes_, 1858. Vol. 7: "Suite
des Naifvetez, Bons Mots, etc."]
I cannot find this anecdote in my own copy of the _Menagiana_, but
since my edition is 1693 and Lacroix quotes that of 1715, I presume
his is an addition. In my edition I find another anecdote of Cyrano
which I give here both for its rarity and because it shows 17th-century
contempt for Cyrano at its most virulent:
"What wretched works are those of Cyrano de Bergerac! He studied at the
Collège de Beauvais in the time of Principal Grangier. They say he was
still in his 'rhetoric' when he wrote _The Pedant Outwitted_ against
his head-master. There are a few passable things in this play but all
the rest is very flat. When he wrote his _Voyage to the Moon_ I think
he had one quarter of the moon in his head. The first public sign he
gave of his madness was to go to mass in the morning in trunk hose and
a night cap without his doublet. He had not one _sou_ when he fell
ill of the disease from which he died and if M. de Sainte-Marthe had
not charitably supplied all his necessities he would have died in the
poor-house."[5]
[Footnote 5: _Menagiana_, Amsterdam, 1693, page 199.]
More 17th-century anecdotes of Cyrano will be found in the _Life_;
those cited will at least show the early tendency to attach anecdotes
to him and the curious conflict of contemporary opinion. During the
second half of the 17th century Cyrano remained popular and his works
were frequently reprinted. The 18th century saw a great decline in
reputation and in editions; Voltaire repeated the accusation: "A
madman!" No edition of Cyrano's works appeared in Paris between 1699
and 1855: the last of them before the revival of the 19th century was
the Amsterdam edition of 1761. For a century there was no edition
of Cyrano. He dropped out of sight almost entirely; but in the 19th
century he was destined to be revived as an increasingly legendary
figure, culminating in the heroic apotheosis of Rostand's _Cyrano de
Bergerac_.
Strangely enough the revival began in England in 1820 with an article
in the _Retrospective Review_.[6] This article shows some acquaintance
with Cyrano's originals as well as with the translation reviewed. The
anonymous writer says:
"Cyrano de Bergerac is a marvellously strange writer--his character,
too, was out of the common way. His chief passion appears to have been
duelling; and, from the numerous affairs of honour in which he was
concerned in a very short life and the bravery he displayed on those
occasions, he acquired the cognomen of 'The Intrepid'. His friend Le
Bret says he was engaged in no less than one hundred duels for his
friends, and not one on his own account. Others however say, that,
happening to have a nose somewhat awry, whoever was so unfortunate
or so rash as to laugh at it, was sure to be called upon to answer
its intrepid owner in the field. But however this may be, it is
indisputable that Cyrano was a distinguished monomachist and a most
eccentric writer."[7]
[Footnote 6: _Retrospective Review_, 1820. Vol. I. Part 2. Art. viii.
_Satyrical Characters and Handsome Descriptions in Letters, written to
several Persons of Quality_, by Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac. Translated
from the French by a Person of Honour. London, 1658.]
[Footnote 7: The critic proceeds to sum up Cyrano's writing in the same
Corinthian style. French commentators, quoting this passage, often make
the mistake of dating it 1658 instead of 1820.]
Seventeen years later that amiable man of letters, Charles Nodier,
resuscitated Cyrano in his _Bonaventure Desperiers et Cyrano de
Bergerac_. Before this Nodier had incidentally defended Cyrano in his
_Bibliographie des Fous_:
"As to this book (_The Voyage to the Moon_), which he wrote when _he
was already mad_ (according to Voltaire), would you not be astonished
if you were told that it contained more profound perceptions, more
ingenious foresight, more anticipations in that science whose confused
elements Descartes scarcely sorted out, than the large volume written
by Voltaire under the supervision of the Marquis du Châtelet? Cyrano
used his genius like a hot-head, but there is nothing in it which
resembles a madman."[8]
[Footnote 8: Charles Nodier, _Bibliographie des Fous_. Quoted by F.
Lachèvre.]
Nodier is responsible for that portion of the Cyrano legend which makes
him an innovator, plagiarized from, and persecuted to an early grave.
"It seems that a man who opened up so many paths to talent and who went
so far in all the paths he opened, ought to have left a name in any
literature....
"There was once a wooden horse which bore in its flanks all the
conquerors of Ilion, yet had no part in the triumph. This begins like a
fairy-tale ... and yet it is true.
"Poor wooden horse! Poor Cyrano!"[9]
[Footnote 9: Charles Nodier, _Bonaventure Desperiers et Cyrano de
Bergerac_. Quoted by Remy de Gourmont.]
But, if Charles Nodier carried on the legend, he did little more
than open the way for Theophile Gautier, whose famous _Grotesque_ is
filled with every conceivable error of fact and yet is obviously one
of Rostand's chief sources. _Les Grotesques_ appeared in 1844 and
contained ten pseudo-biographical sketches of "romantic" personalities
in French literature chiefly of the 17th century. The book itself is
an interesting by-product of the romantic movement, but here we are
only concerned with the sixth sketch, _Cyrano de Bergerac_. This opens
with a fantastic divagation upon noses, perhaps the most exaggerated
development of the legendary Cyranesque appendage. If the reader will
examine Cyrano's portraits, without prejudice and with particular
attention to the nose, he will scarcely be prepared for this outburst:
"This incredible nose is settled in a three-quarter face [portrait],
the smaller side of which it covers entirely; it forms in the middle a
mountain which in my opinion must be the highest mountain in the world
after the Himalayas; then it descends rapidly towards the mouth, which
it largely obumbrates, like a tapir's snout or the rostrum of a bird
of prey; at the extremity it is divided by a line very similar to,
though more pronounced than, the furrow which cuts the cherry lip of
Anne of Austria, the white queen with the long ivory hands. This makes
two distinct noses in one face, which is more than custom allows, ...
the portraits of Saint Vincent de Paul and the deacon Paris will
show you the best characterized types of this sort of structure; but
Cyrano's nose is less doughy, less puffy in contour; it has more bones
and cartilage, more flats and high-lights, it is more heroic."
[Illustration: _Cyrano de Bergerac._]
We then learn that Cyrano was a wonderful duellist, that he revenged
any insult to his nose with a challenge; after more disquisition on
noses we read that Cyrano was "born in 1620, in the castle of Bergerac,
in Périgord"[10], that he was unable to endure the pedantry of his
schoolmaster and so that good country gentleman, his father, allowed
him to go to Paris, where at eighteen he threw himself into fashionable
life with the greatest success. Then comes a highly-coloured picture
of the contrast between life in Paris in 1638 and the Bergerac
family in their "tranquil and discreet house, sober and cold, well
ordered and silent, almost always half-asleep in the shadow of its
pallid walnut trees between the church and the cemetery." This is
followed by a defence of Cyrano against the charge of atheism with a
quotation from _The Death of Agrippina_. Next we hear that this Gascon
gentleman joined the Gascon company of guards with Le Bret and of his
numerous prowesses with the sword, and this slides into a description
of Cyrano's early slashing style, with quotations from _The Pedant
Outwitted_ and the story of the actor whom Cyrano forbade to play. This
is followed by several pages of excited panegyric, paraphrased from Le
Bret; we get Cyrano's wounds, his love of study, his disinterestedness,
his love of freedom and scorn of serving _les grands_, his subsequent
service with the duc d'Arpajon, the falling timber on his head and his
death; then we hear of his simple habits, his brilliant friendships
and his study under Gassendi. The essay ends with several pages,
dealing with Molière's famous plagiarism from _The Pedant Outwitted_
and containing a most exaggerated account of Cyrano's writings,
extremely loose in expression, showing that Gautier can have had but a
superficial acquaintance with Cyrano's books.
[Footnote 10: Three errors in ten words!]
If this essay of Gautier's were meant as biography and criticism,
one can only say that it is likely to be misleading; if as fiction,
that the form is not well chosen. Nevertheless, this and Nodier's
article stimulated curiosity in Cyrano sufficiently to cause his works
to be reprinted in 1855. Lacroix in 1858 issued another edition and
wrote an enthusiastic preface (from the point of view of an ardent
free-thinker), making Cyrano a great predecessor of the 18th-century
_philosophes_ and adding more legend.
After this, the legend of Cyrano smouldered for some forty years and
then broke out in a final conflagration in 1897, with Edmond Rostand's
_Cyrano de Bergerac_. Everything picturesque which fancy and rumour
had attached to the name of Cyrano during the centuries was taken up
by Rostand, exaggerated, idealised almost to infinity--and the world
believed, and doubtless still believes, that this is the "real" Cyrano
de Bergerac. Strangely, Rostand apparently shared this illusion; for a
French savant, M. Emile Magne, wrote a pamphlet pointing out some of
Rostand's worst errors, and Rostand replied with a letter, claiming
that his play was historically correct.
Rostand's play is a pleasing, if belated, specimen of the French
romantic drama; its dramatic quality is undeniable, its appeal to
the sentiments irresistible, its verse skilfully handled; it is
characteristically, delightfully, absurdly French; it deserved its
popularity. A man who cannot enjoy Rostand's _Cyrano_ has taste too
fastidious for his own good. But when he has watched the heroic lover
of Roxanne fight his duels to the accompaniment of a ballade, promenade
his huge nose about the stage, exhibit the remarkable delicacy of
his sentiments and finally die a Gascon death--"mon Panache!"--this
imaginary spectator must not tell us that this is "the real" Cyrano
de Bergerac. It is an amusing Cyrano one would prefer not to lose;
but Rostand's invention has nothing to do with the man who wrote the
tragedy of _The Death of Agrippina_ and _The Voyages to the Sun and
Moon_; this is not the young man who enlisted in M. de Casteljaloux's
company of guards; this is not the follower of Gassendi and Rohault;
and this delicate lover is--alas!--not that Savinien de Cyrano,
self-styled de Bergerac, who died miserably in the prime of his age not
so much from the effects of the falling piece of timber as probably of
venereal disease.
II
THE LIFE OF CYRANO DE BERGERAC
The family of Cyrano was not Gascon and was not noble. The first Cyrano
of whom anything was known in France is Savinien I de Cyrano, of
Sardinian origin, bourgeois of Paris and a merchant of fish. Doubtless
the prejudice of noble birth is antiquated, yet when one has been
brought up on Rostand's Cyrano the discovery is a shock, rather like
finding that Sir Philip Sidney's grandfather was a London fishmonger.
But this is only the first of the disagreeable surprises modern
investigators prepare for us.
This Savinien, grandfather of the poet, became notary and '_secrétaire
du Roy_' in 1571. He was wealthy, he owned a large house in the rue des
Prouvaires, various annuities, the fiefs of Boiboisseaux, Mauvières,
and Bergerac, the last two bought in 1582. These purchases represent
a familiar scene in the eternal social comedy of the rise and fall of
families; the genuine old de Bergerac family had disappeared but their
memory lingered on and no member of the Cyrano family ventured to call
himself de Bergerac at Bergerac. Indeed the poet was the only member of
the family who used the name either during the fifty-four years they
possessed the fief or afterwards. In any case this Bergerac is not the
Dordogne or Gascon Bergerac but a little estate not very far from Paris
in the modern department of Seine et Oise.[11] So much for the noble
Gascon of Gautier and Rostand.
[Footnote 11: In Périgord there is no castle called De Bergerac.
(Brun). Mauvières and Bergerac, often known as Sous-Forest, are in
the commune of Saint-Forgeux, canton of Chevreuse, arrondissement of
Rambouillet. (Frédy de Coubertin).]
This Savinien I de Cyrano married Anne Le Maire; their eldest son,
Abel I de Cyrano, '_avocat au Parlement de Paris_,' married Espérance
Bellenger on the third of September 1612.[12] An inventory of their
goods shows that Cyrano's father was an educated man who read Greek,
Latin, and Italian. Abel de Cyrano had six children; the eldest
surviving son was Savinien II, the poet, baptised on the sixth of March
1619 in Paris.
[Footnote 12: The genealogical tree of the Cyrano family will be found
in Appendix III.]
In 1622 Abel de Cyrano left Paris for his house at Mauvières, where
young Savinien de Cyrano remained "until he was old enough to read".
He was then sent to a small private school kept by a country parson,
where he met his lifelong friend and posthumous panegyrist, Henry Le
Bret. Savinien did not like his tutor; and this is not the first or the
last time in history when there has existed a mutual hatred between a
pert boy of talent and some plodding pedagogue. The boy complained so
continually to his father that he was taken away from the parson and
sent to the Collège de Beauvais in Paris.
These meagre details are all we know positively of Cyrano's childhood
except that his godmother left him six hundred _livres_ in 1628. How
much of the rebelliousness of his temper in later years was due to
hatred of this pedagogical parson is a matter of pure conjecture,
but Cyrano's dislike of pedants and priests might plausibly be
attributed at least in part to this man's clumsy usage. We may also
surmise that access to his father's extensive library gave him that
precocity for which he was remarkable, and that the years of childhood
spent at Mauvières created in him a genuine love of nature. Numerous
passages might be quoted from his writings to show that he really
liked out-of-doors life, enjoyed the beauty of the country, and felt
that kinship with wild living things--animals, birds, plants--which
is supposed to be a wholly modern sentiment. This sentiment may be
seen in the _Letters_, expressed with a good deal of affectation; but
unmistakably in those pages of _The Voyage to the Sun_ which describe
the talking birds and trees.
The head-master of Beauvais was at that time Jean Grangier, described
by some as an excellent pedagogue, by others as brutal, superstitious,
violent, and vicious. Apparently he was one of those pedagogues who,
in Ben Jonson's words, "swept their livings from the posteriors of
little children"; and therefore was very unpopular with Cyrano, who
made him the hero of _The Pedant Outwitted_. Flogging will always
drive a sensitive and high-spirited boy to revolt; and when we find
a truculent and sometimes offensive mood of revolt a main feature of
Cyrano's work, we should remember before condemning him that a large
portion of his childhood was passed under the birch of two bigoted
pedants.
Cyrano left Beauvais in 1637, when he was eighteen. In the preceding
year Abel de Cyrano had sold the fiefs of Mauvières, and Bergerac and
had returned to Paris. This sale of land only fifty-four years after
the purchase by the first Savinien de Cyrano shows how rapidly the
affairs of the family declined financially. It would be interesting
to know more of Cyrano's life in the period between his leaving
school and joining the guards. Le Bret tells us that "at the age when
nature is most easily corrupted", and when Cyrano "had liberty to do
as he chose", he (Le Bret) stopped him "on a dangerous incline". It
will easily be conjectured that the change from a flogging school to
complete liberty in the Paris of 1637 would not incline a precocious
youth to the monastic virtues. Many fantastic pictures of Paris under
Louis XIII have been drawn by novelists and essayists; whether it
were quite as picturesque as they make out may be doubted, but that
its taverns were filled with riot, excitement and debauch is certain;
and Cyrano frequented the taverns. The famous _Pomme de Pin_, the
_Croix de Lorraine_, the _Boisselière_, the _Pressoir d'Or_, and a
dozen other taverns were crowded with heterogeneous sets of courtiers,
gentlemen, gossips, poets, atheists, duellists, rogues of all sorts,
talking, laughing, drinking, writing, whoring, gambling and brawling.
From Gaston d'Orléans, the King's brother, downwards, the greater part
of the nobility, gentry and the learned at some time of their lives
frequented these commodious taverns, rubbed shoulders with knaves and
bawds and poets and held high carouse.
"Mordieu! comme il pleut là dehors!
Faisons pleuvoir dans nostre corps
Du vin, tu l'entens sans le dire,
Et c'est là le vray mot pour rire;
Chantons, rions, menons du bruit,
Beuvons ici toute la nuit,
Tant que demain la belle Aurore
Nous trouve tous à table encore."[13]
[Footnote 13: From Saint-Amant's _Le Débauche_. In English it means
roughly: "'Sdeath! how it rains outside | Let us make it rain wine in
our bellies--you understand that without a word spoken and that's the
real jest; sing, laugh, make a row, drink here all night, and to-morrow
let the fair Aurora find us all here still at table."]
Into that society of revellers, unscrupulous, heedless, coarse,
irreligious, but brave, witty, chivalrous, talented and merry, came
a young man of eighteen, the owner of a curious nose "shaped like a
parrot's beak", talented, witty and brave himself, already a brilliant
swordsman, scatter-brained, vain with all the vanity of young men in
Latin countries, eager for knowledge but filled with hatred for the
theology and pedantry of his early masters. Imagine the London of James
the First's reign so vividly and delightfully sketched in _The Fortunes
of Nigel_, adding to it that freedom of speech, morals and speculation
which Scott largely left out; transfer it to the turbulent Paris of
1637 and throw into that _milieu_ not a sober Scotch laird, but a
hot-headed young Frenchman. Is it not almost hypocritical to expect
that he would do anything different from what he apparently did do:
Drink, gamble, blaspheme, whore, talk atheism, play mad pranks and slit
men's throats in duels?
From this wild cabaret life Cyrano was rescued by Le Bret just about
the time when Abel de Cyrano threatened seriously to cut off supplies.
At nineteen Cyrano entered the company of guards commanded by the
"triple Gascon", M. de Carbon de Casteljaloux.
Cyrano de Bergerac was a good soldier, but that does not mean he was
free from the ordinary vices of soldiers. If the "dangerous incline"
from which Le Bret rescued his friend was gambling, he chose a curious
remedy; for gambling is inevitably one means of dispelling the crushing
ennui of military life. Another, almost universal, military amusement
is drinking; one would not expect to find teetotallers among the Gascon
guard. It seems probable that the "dangerous incline" was atheism
or a serious love affair; for the military life is dulling to the
affections and fatal to thought. Certainly, the mess and guard-room
of M. de Carbon de Casteljaloux's company would not greatly differ
from a noisy cabaret. One hardly sees what moral advantages were
gained by the change, except that military discipline and comradeship
probably steadied Cyrano if they failed to correct the extravagance of
his character and behaviour. Casteljaloux's company consisted almost
entirely of Gascons, and this fact has helped to propagate the myth of
Cyrano's noble birth; and doubtless he assumed the Gascon-sounding name
of de Bergerac to increase the illusion. But he must have possessed
some other merit than that of an assumed name to enable him to enter
the guards; this was of course his swordsmanship.
Duelling in France in the first half of the 17th century was more than
a fashionable mania, it was a real danger to the state. The fashion was
at its height in the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII. During eight
years of the former reign no less than two thousand gentlemen lost
their lives in duels. Even the great Cardinal Richelieu only succeeded
in diminishing, not in crushing the habit. The duelling in Rostand's
_Cyrano_ is the most accurate part of the play; indeed it would be
difficult to exaggerate the fantastic nature of these duels. Men fought
for the merest trifles; not so much for honour as for the love of
fighting, of prestige and notoriety. Successful duelling was then a
sure means to those commonly desired ends. The thirst for "monomachy"
was so ardent that the seconds were not content to regulate the combat
but must needs take part in it; so that a girl's ribbon might be the
pretext for six men to pull out their rapiers in mortal combat, with
the result perhaps of several wounds and more than one death. Cyrano
de Bergerac was a brilliant swordsman, a talent which gave him a
position comparable to that of an aeroplane "ace" during the European
war. The stories told of his duelling sound fabulous and are probably
exaggerated, but certainly have a foundation in fact. Le Bret tells us:
"Duels, which at that time seemed the unique and most rapid means of
becoming known, in a few days rendered him so famous that the Gascons,
who composed nearly the whole company, considered him the demon of
courage and credited him with as many duels as he had been with them
days."
The most remarkable thing about these duels, and a point very much in
Cyrano's favour, was that he fought over a hundred as second to other
men and not on his own account. He was no Bobadil. Brun tries to argue
that Cyrano must have fought on his own account, but even M. Lachèvre,
who is hostile to Cyrano, denies it. Moreover, we have Cyrano's own
declaration: "I have been everybody's second."
Casteljaloux's company was ordered for active service in 1639. The
company was besieged in Mouzon by the Croats of the Imperial Army.
Cyrano has described part of the siege in the twenty-fourth of his
_Lettres Diverses_. The garrison was short of provisions and during
one of the numerous sorties Cyrano was shot through the body. He
had not recovered when the garrison was relieved by Chatillon on
the twenty-first of June 1639. Next year Cyrano was again on active
service. He was wounded a second time by a sword-thrust in the throat
at the siege of Arras, sometime before the ninth of August 1640. He had
served this campaign in Conti's gendarmes.
Two severe wounds in fourteen months are "cooling cards" even to a
pseudo-Gascon. Cyrano determined to retire from the service.
"The hardships he suffered during these two sieges," says Le Bret,
"the inconveniences resulting from two severe wounds, the frequent
duels forced upon him by his reputation for courage and skill, which
compelled him to act as second more than one hundred times (for he
never had a quarrel on his own account), the small hope he had of
preferment, from the lack of a patron, to whom his free genius was
incapable of submitting, and finally his great love of learning, caused
him to renounce the occupation of war which demands everything of a man
and makes him as much an enemy of literature as literature makes him a
lover of peace."
Cyrano, then, returned to his studies. Hitherto he had been unfortunate
in his instructors, but he now made the acquaintance of several
scholars and men of letters who had a strong influence on him, whose
ideas he adopted and copied in his works. The celebrated Gassendi, who
revived the philosophy of Epicurus and opposed both the Aristotelians
and Descartes, came to Paris and lectured to a small number of selected
students. Niceron makes the unlikely assertion that Cyrano forced his
way into this learned society at the sword's point. It is certain that
Cyrano sat at Gassendi's feet and picked up from his lectures those
fragments of Epicurean physics he afterwards scattered through his
works. There most probably he met Molière, Rohault, Bernier, Chapelle
and the younger La Mothe Le Vayer. Cyrano was therefore a member of a
distinguished literary group which contained one eminent philosopher
and a dramatist of supreme genius.
Philosophy and the society of men of letters did not cause Cyrano
to abandon his sword. Two documents are extant, dated October 1641,
showing Cyrano's arrangements to take lessons in dancing and fencing.
It is in these years 1641-43 that he began seriously to write and at
the same time performed his most famous feats with the sword.
The battle of the Porte de Nesle, more authentic and even more heroic
than the feats of Horatius celebrated by Lord Macaulay, has been
related by every writer on Cyrano, from Le Bret to Rostand, from
Gautier to M. Emile Magne. What happened, as far as one can make out,
was this. A friend of Cyrano's, the Chevalier de Lignières, had been
rash enough to banter the conjugal infelicities of a great lord who,
sensible of the affront to his person and rank, hired a set of fellows
to fall upon Lignières and to crop his ears in the public highway.
Lignières heard of this, took refuge with Cyrano and remained with
him until night, when they set out together for Lignières's home with
Cyrano as escort and two officers of Conti's regiment as witnesses,
in the rear. At the Porte de Nesle the _bravi_ were ambushed to catch
Lignières on his way to the Faubourg Saint-Germain; Le Bret says there
were a hundred of them. In any event there was a crowd. Incredible
as it seems, the fact is well attested that Cyrano attacked them all
single-handed, killed two, wounded seven and put the rest to flight.[14]
[Footnote 14: See M. Magne's _Chevalier de Lignières_ (1920) for an
elaborate and highly-coloured account of this affair. Marshal Gassion
is said to have offered Cyrano his protection when he heard of it,
which Cyrano refused.]
The battle of Brioché's monkey is less creditable to Cyrano and far
less authentic. The evidence is the unreliable one of an anonymous
work, _Combat de Cyrano de Bergerac avec le Singe de Brioché, au Bout
du Pont-Neuf_, almost certainly written by Dassoucy, a friend with whom
Cyrano had quarrelled. Dassoucy fled to Italy when the pamphlet was
published. The gist of the pamphlet is as follows:
One Brioché exhibited a marionette show near one end of the Pont-Neuf.
Among the troup was a live monkey.
Cyrano came along, and some thirty or forty lackeys, waiting for the
puppet show, began to hustle him and to make fun of his singular
appearance; one of them actually flipped him on the end of his nose.
Out came that deadly rapier in a flash, and the intrepid little "fiery
whoreson," rushed at them, driving the whole mob of them before him.
Brioché's monkey, "making a leg" for a _sou_, got in Cyrano's way and
the gallant swordsman, not unnaturally mistaking it for one of the
rabble, pierced it effectually with his rapier. Brioché brought an
action against Cyrano to recover fifty _pistoles_ damages.
"Bergerac defended himself like Bergerac, that is, with facetious
writings and grotesque jokes. He told the judge he would pay Brioché
like a poet, or 'with monkey's money' (_i.e._ laugh at him); that coins
were an article of furniture unknown to Phœbus. He vowed he would
immortalise the dead beast in an Apollonian epitaph."
It is possible that Dassoucy was merely parodying the battle of the
Porte de Nesle; none of the facetious writings referred to is extant;
but they may have perished with the elegy Le Bret saw Cyrano writing in
the guard-room and the _Story of the Spark_ and Cyrano's _Lyric Poems_.
The third anecdote attached to this period relates to the actor Mondory
or Montfleury, the latter of whom is satirised in Cyrano's letter
_Against a Fat Man_. The 1695 edition of the _Menagiana_ gives the
story as follows:
"Bergerac was a great sword-clanker. His nose, which was very ugly,
was the cause of his killing at least ten people. He quarrelled with
Montdory, the comedian, and strictly forbade him to appear on the
stage. 'I forbid you to appear for a month', said he. Two days later
Bergerac was at the play. Montdory appeared and began to act his
part as usual; Bergerac shouted to him from the middle of the pit,
with threats if he did not leave, and for fear of worse Montdory
retired."[15]
[Footnote 15: _Menagiana._ 1695. Quoted by Remy de Gourmont. The reader
will remember Rostand's use of this anecdote.]
The year 1645 in several respects opens a new phase in Cyrano's life.
His mother was dead, he began to suffer from poverty--due to gambling
it is said--and contracted a disease. There is a mystery about the
death of Cyrano de Bergerac and the "_maladie_" which preceded it. M.
Lachèvre has discovered a document showing the payment of four hundred
_livres_ to a barber-chirurgeon by Cyrano and, from circumstantial
evidence we need not repeat, M. Lachèvre asserts that this was venereal
disease. If so, the moral philosopher created by Le Bret disappears as
completely as the delicate lover invented by Rostand.
It is a remarkable fact that Cyrano did not make a serious appearance
in print until the year before his death, 1654. He wrote earlier and
published prefaces and commendatory poems; he scribbled a few pamphlets
and libels during the Fronde; but his reputation as a writer during his
lifetime must have been based on the circulation of his writings in
manuscript. The letters were not published until 1654, but they must
have been written much earlier; _The Pedant Outwitted_ does not seem
to have been played, and _The Voyage to the Moon_ was circulated in
manuscript for some years before it was published.
The fact is we know very little about the last ten years of Cyrano's
life. Abel de Cyrano died in January 1648 and the poet's share of the
inheritance rescued him at least for a time from the poverty into which
he had fallen. In February 1649 there appeared an anti-Mazarin pamphlet
in verse, entitled _Le Ministre d'Etat Flambé_, signed D. B. This was
followed by several prose pamphlets directed against Mazarin: _Le
Gazetier des Interressé_, _La Sybille Moderne ou l'Oracle du Temps_,
_Le Conseiller fidèle_. Some have denied that these were Cyrano's
work; others are convinced to the contrary. If he did write them he
soon changed his political opinions; for in 1651 he published his
pro-Mazarin _Contre les Frondeurs_. One biographer thinks Cyrano was
bribed by Mazarin to change his politics; another biographer thinks
that since Cyrano undoubtedly wrote for Mazarin he could never have
written against him.
There is a legend that about this time Cyrano visited England, but
there is no confirmation of this.
Hitherto Cyrano had been too independent to enter the service of
any nobleman. We have noticed his refusal of the offers made him by
Marshal Gassion. Subjection to the whims of some wealthy person of
note was a misery endured by many authors of the 17th century; Cyrano
de Bergerac avoided it as long as he could, but about the end of 1652
he entered the service of the duc d'Arpajon. Saint-Simon in his usual
contemptuous way calls this nobleman "Un bonhomme"; he was a good
soldier, religious, vain and probably not very intelligent. Under his
patronage Cyrano's works were printed in two handsome quartos in 1654.
They contained _The Death of Agrippina_, _The Pedant Outwitted_, and
_The Letters_. There was a dedication to the duke and a charming sonnet
to his daughter. The success of these writings was considerable and
their popular vogue lasted at least half a century.
The death of Cyrano de Bergerac is surrounded with mystery. He was only
thirty-five when he died. Was this early death the result of a disease,
as M. Lachèvre asserts; or was it, as other commentators say, the
result of a blow on the head from a falling beam? If he were hit by a
piece of timber, was this an accident, or was it revenge? Had Cyrano's
very free philosophical speculations anything to do with it? It is
impossible to answer these questions definitely; each commentator has
replied to them according to his own prejudices.
The accident, if there were an accident, happened early in 1654. For
some unknown reason Cyrano was turned out of the Hôtel d'Arpajon about
this time. In June 1654 Cyrano was received into the house of M. des
Bois Clairs, with whom he remained for fourteen months until a few days
before his death. He then begged to be moved to a house at Sannois,
belonging to his cousin Pierre de Cyrano, where he died on the 28th of
July 1655. He was not buried in the convent of the Filles de la Croix
as the reference books say (this was his brother Abel), but in the
church of Sannois. He was converted to Christianity on his death-bed,
presumably by his sister, who was a nun, and his friend Le Bret, the
canon. A document is in existence stating that "Savinien de Cyrano,
escuier, sieur de Bergerac," died a good Christian; it is dated the
28th of July 1655, and signed by the parish priest, who owned the
curious name of Cochon. That Cyrano, like most of his contemporaries,
yielded to a death-bed repentance is probably true; it is equally true
that he spent most of his life as a free-thinker.
III
CYRANO'S FRIENDS
Among Cyrano's military friends were two senior officers, M. de
Bourgogne (_mestre de camp_ of the Prince de Conti's infantry) and
Marshal Gassion. They of course would know him simply as a brave
soldier in a company of dare-devils. More intimate soldier friends,
of a rank approaching his own, were Cavoye, brother of the celebrated
Cavoye killed at Lens; Hector de Brisailles, ensign in the Gendarmes
de Son Altesse Royale; Saint Gilles, captain in the same regiment;
Chasteaufort, whom Cyrano may have parodied in _The Pedant Outwitted_.
He also knew Le Bret's brother, a captain in Conti's regiment; Duret
de Montchenin and de Zeddé "braves de la plus haute classe", and de
Chavagne.
Le Bret also mentions the Comte de Brienne, M. des Billettes, M. de
Morlière.
The Comte de Brienne was the son of Louis XIII's minister; he was a
secretary of state, then an Oratorian; and he died mad. Gilles Fileau
des Billettes, brother of the Abbé de la Chaise, was "one of the most
learned men of his day." Adrien de Morlière was a famous genealogist.
Longueville-Gontier, also mentioned by Le Bret, was a "Conseiller au
Parlement". Cyrano appears to have been friendly with the translator,
Michel de Marolles, who has recorded in his Mémoires the fact that
Cyrano sent him copies of _The Death of Agrippina_ and _The Voyage to
the Moon_.
After these respectable gentlemen we come to a more varied group of
Cyrano's friends, most of whom are not mentioned by Le Bret, but who
interest us more. Some of them were perhaps picked up in taverns;
others he met in the course of his studies; others were congenial men
of letters.
Three especially influenced Cyrano in his serious studies, particularly
in philosophy and physics, and confirmed his natural tendency towards
rationalism and scepticism by furnishing him with the knowledge and
arguments he lacked. Chief among these was the celebrated Gassendi,
who was born in 1592 and died in the same year as Cyrano, 1655.
Gassendi was trained as an Aristotelian, but drew away from the
school and followed with special interest the researches of Galileo
and Kepler. He opposed Descartes. He is principally remembered for
his revival of Epicurus, of the Epicurean physics and morals, and
of Lucretius. Three translations of Lucretius were made as a result
of his influence, one by Molière, one by Chapelle, one by Dehénault
(all three friends of Cyrano) and, remarkably enough, all three of
these translations have disappeared. Gassendi exerted a considerable
influence over all the intellectual freethinkers of his age, and Cyrano
de Bergerac was especially indebted to him. Gassendi's exposition of
the Epicurean theory of atoms, his own ideas about "calor vitalis" and
"anima mundi", will be found freely copied in _The Voyages_; while
Gassendi's favourite principle "nihil in intellectu quod non prius
fuerit in sensu" made a deep impression upon Cyrano's mind.
Gassendi's lessons in physics were supported in Cyrano's memory by his
friendship with Jacques Rohault (1620-75). Rohault was a mathematician,
a pupil of Gassendi, but strongly influenced by Descartes. He wrote a
treatise on physics which has so much in common with the fragments of
Cyrano's treatise and the ideas expressed in _The Voyages_ that at one
time Rohault was supposed to have plagiarised from Cyrano. It is now
almost conclusively proved that the opposite is true.
It is difficult to say what relations Cyrano had with the elder La
Mothe Le Vayer (1583-1672). We know that he met his son at Gassendi's
lectures. Old Le Vayer was a famous sceptic and in many ways a
remarkable personality. Like many sceptics he lived to be immensely
old, was highly respected for his erudition and, though he never seems
to have been worried by the clergy, was the reverse of orthodox. His
position in 17th-century Paris is interesting; he was one of the very
few survivors of the great Humanist movement of the 16th century, and,
as such, carried with him an air of enthusiasm, learning and freedom
which must have been very stimulating in days when learning had been
interrupted by civil disturbances and the stifling influence of the
Catholic reaction was increasing.
A learned controversy has shaken a large amount of dust over the
"problem" of Molière's relations with Cyrano. It has been denied that
Molière studied under Gassendi, that he plagiarized two scenes from
Cyrano's Comedy. It seems more probable that both are true.
Jean Dehénault (1611-1682), another literary friend of Cyrano's, was
a melancholy sceptic, consistently unsuccessful in life; he wrote a
certain amount of verse and a prose piece, which had the honour of
being attributed to Saint-Evremond.
Bernier, Chapelle, Lignières, Dassoucy, Tristan l'Hermite, Royer de
Prade were also among Cyrano's friends.
François Bernier (?-1688) became a doctor, travelled in the East and is
remembered by his still readable _Philosophie de Gassendi_. Chapelle
(1626-1686) wrote a _Voyage_ in collaboration with Bachaumont and
furnished Sainte-Beuve with material for a delightful _Lundi_. François
Payot, Chevalier des Lignières (1628-1704), was chiefly concerned in
the Porte de Nesle episode. He was a minor poet of the epigrammatic
kind; Boileau called him "le poète idiot de Senlis." There is a book on
him by M. Magne. Dassoucy was one of the innumerable burlesque poets
of the time, for whom Cyrano wrote a preface and a madrigal; later
they quarrelled and libelled each other. Tristan l'Hermite (1601-1655)
was "an epicure of the cabarets, a hare-brained duellist, a gambler, a
libertin, a beggar"; as a youth he was exiled for killing a man. Cyrano
praises him as the greatest man of the age! Finally, Royer de Prade and
Henry Le Bret were Cyrano's oldest and most faithful friends. Henry
Le Bret was the son of Nicholas Le Bret; born 1617; soldier, lawyer,
then priest; canon in 1659. He lived to be ninety-three. De Prade was a
historian and tragic poet, known to his friends as "le Corneille Tacite
des Français". Cyrano wrote a preface to the 1650 edition of de Prade's
works and the latter wrote a sonnet on _The Voyage to the Moon_.
IV
THE LIBERTIN QUESTION
To write of Cyrano de Bergerac and not to mention the "libertin
question" is to shirk a difficulty. A "libertin" in French means a
free-thinker in religion, generally but not necessarily, a man of
free or even criminal morals. It is particularly applied to a whole
mass of sceptical or at any rate non-Christian French writers of the
17th century. To draw an English parallel: Marlowe, Greene in his
unregenerate days, Rochester, Sedley, even Wycherley and Hobbes would
be libertins; but Hume and Gibbon would be philosophes.
The father of the libertins was Montaigne; great, adorable Montaigne,
whose divine common-sense emerges from the churning floods of
metaphysical quiddities and the gross clouds of popular errors like
a glittering marble rock. _Super hanc petram_ the French libertins
founded their temple of incredulity, but from lack of unanimity the
edifice remains incomplete. It is the habit of official commentators
to insist upon the Stoic element in Montaigne. It is there, because
Montaigne had absorbed the wisdom of the Ancients; but one might
as legitimately insist upon the Epicurean or the Sceptical aspect
of his book. That, at least, is what the libertins did. They took
the sceptical wisdom of Montaigne and tempered it with the mirth of
Rabelais. Sometimes the wisdom was not very apparent and the mirth
was very Rabelaisian. Sometimes the mixture was happy. Molière was
a libertin; so were Saint-Evremond and his friend Ninon de L'Enclos
and the cardinal de Retz and Théophile and Saint-Amant and Boisrobert
and Cyrano and Chapelle and scores more. The degree of "libertinism"
runs from the mere sparkle and freedom from cant of Molière and the
fastidiousness of Saint-Evremond to the brutal orgies of the "goinfres"
and the criminality of Claude le Petit, who was burned for blasphemy,
murder and sodomy. Cyrano began towards the brutal end and developed
towards the gentler standard.
There are two current theories of libertinism. One is particularly
espoused by M. Frédéric Lachèvre, the erudite editor of the Libertins,
whose work is indispensable to a correct understanding of this period
of French literature. This theory refuses the libertins coherence
of thought or any real intellectual importance. It puts aside as
"sceptiques" those writers whose polite manners and respectable morals
make it difficult to disparage them, and concentrates upon those whose
lives show dubious or even criminal episodes. From an immense mass of
facts and skilfully arranged historical conjectures this critic argues
that the libertins are not to be considered as honourable and talented
men seeking truth, but as undisciplined egotists, lacking coherence
of thought and seriousness of purpose; who attacked institutions from
vanity, who cultivated sedition and irreligion because by proclaiming
such ideas they became involved in that stir of publicity for which
paltry vanity craves.
The other theory regards the libertins as expressing more or less
coherently a great trend of thought in French intellectual life, as
the heterodox tradition of France, as an exuberant product of the
French critical spirit. This spirit shows itself not in works of formal
criticism alone, but in a general temper of the mind, a disposition
to examine institutions and ideas critically, a readiness to laugh at
what had seemed terrible or oppressive, to jest down tyranny with a
bawdy song; a spirit co-existent with French literature, already strong
in the 13th century, when England intellectually was a mere Norman
province. The chansons de geste and the tales of chivalry are parodied
in satirical fabliaux; courteous love is mocked by innumerable voices;
the crusades are barely over and the great cathedrals still unfinished
when Rutebeuf writes:
"Papelart et Béguin
Ont le siècle honni."