Born 1752.--Died 1817.
I have frequently regretted, during the composition of these Lives,
that the materials for the early biography of many celebrated men
should be so scanty and incomplete as I have found them. It seems
to be considered sufficient if we can obtain some general notion
respecting their literary career, and, in consequence, criticism too
frequently usurps the place of anecdote and narrative. The Comte de
Choiseul-Gouffier occupied, however, too prominent a place among his
contemporaries, both from his rank and talents, to allow any portion
of his life to pass unnoticed; though it were to be wished that those
who have spoken of him had been less eloquent and more circumstantial.
The style of mortuary panegyric seems less designed, indeed, to make
known the qualities or adventures of the deceased than to afford the
orator an apology for casting over his memory a veil of fine language,
which as effectually conceals from the observer the real nature of
the subject as his stiff sombre pall conceals his hearse and coffin.
Such, notwithstanding, are the only sources, besides his own works,
from which a knowledge of this celebrated and able traveller is to be
derived.
Choiseul-Gouffier was born at Paris in 1752. His family was scarcely
less ancient or illustrious than that of the kings of France, in every
page of whose history, says M. Dacier, we find traces of its importance
and splendour. He pursued his youthful studies at the College
D’Harcourt. Like Swift, and many other literary men who have acquired
a high reputation in after-life, Choiseul did not render himself
remarkable for a rapid progress or precocious abilities at school.
He was attentive to his studies, however; and while he exhibited a
decided taste for literature, his passion for the fine arts was no less
powerful. At this period, says M. Dacier, a great name and a large
fortune had frequently no other effect than to inspire their owners
with the love of dissipation and frivolous amusement, which they were
aware could in no degree obstruct their career in the road to honour
and office, which, however worthless might be their characters, was
opened to them by their birth. From this general contagion Choiseul was
happily protected by his studious habits. Every moment which he could
with propriety snatch from the duties of his station was devoted to
literature and the arts of design. Above all things, he admired with
enthusiasm whatever had any relation to ancient Greece,--a country
which, from his earliest boyhood, he passionately desired to behold, as
the cradle of poetry, of the arts, and of freedom, rich in historical
glory, and rendered illustrious by every form of genius which can
ennoble human nature.
Being in possession of a fortune which placed within his reach
the gratification of these ardent wishes, he nevertheless did not
immediately commence his travels. In defiance of the fashion of the
times, which proscribed as unphilosophical the honest feelings of the
heart, Choiseul seems to have fallen early in love, and at the age
of nineteen was married to the heiress of the Gouffier family, whose
name he ever afterward associated with his own. Like all other persons
of noble birth, he as a matter of course adopted the profession of
arms, and was at once complimented with the rank of colonel, which it
was customary to bestow upon such persons on their entrance into the
service.
At length, after a protracted delay, which considering his years is not
to be regretted, Choiseul-Gouffier departed for Greece in the month
of March, 1776. Having enjoyed the advantages of the conversation
and instruction of Barthélemy, who had himself profoundly studied
Greece in her literary monuments, Choiseul-Gouffier was, perhaps, as
well prepared to exercise the duties of a classical traveller as any
young man of twenty-five could be expected to be. In aid of his own
exertions he took along with him several artists and literary men, of
whom some were distinguished for their taste or natural abilities.
He was transported to Greece on board the _Atalante_ ship of war,
commanded by the Marquis de Chabert, himself a member of the Academy of
Sciences, and appointed by the government to construct a reduced chart
of the Mediterranean. This gentleman, who seems in some measure to have
possessed a congenial taste, engaged to transport Choiseul-Gouffier
to whatever part of Greece he might be desirous of visiting, and to
lie off the land during such time as he should choose to employ in his
excursions and researches.
On his arrival in Greece, Choiseul-Gouffier commenced at once his
researches and his drawings. He was not a mere classical traveller;
his principal object, it is true, was, as his French biographers
assert, to study the noble remains of antiquity, the wrecks of that
splendid and imperfect civilization which had once covered the soil on
which he was now treading, with all the glory of the creative arts;
but, besides this, he had an eye for whatever was interesting in the
existing population, which, with every thinking and feeling man, he
must have regarded as by far the most august and touching ruin which
the traveller can behold in Greece. The mere undertaking of such an
enterprise presupposes an intense enthusiasm for antiquity. Poetry,
history, freedom, beauty, animate and inanimate, had separately and
collectively produced on his mind an impassioned veneration for the
Hellenic soil; and he saw with equal delight the scene of a fable and
the site of a city.
In pursuance of the plan which he had traced out for himself previous
to leaving France, he examined with scrupulous care all the fragments
and ruins within the scope of his researches. After touching on the
southern coast of the Morea, and sketching the castle of Coron, with
various Albanian soldiers whom he met with on the shore, he proceeded
to the isles,--Milo, Siphanto, Naxia, Delos, where the wrecks of
antiquity and the grotesque costume and manners of modern times
exercised his elegant pencil and pen. Those persons who have visited
countries where the ruins of former ages eclipse, as it were, the
stunted heirs of the soil, will comprehend the difficulty of attending,
amid monuments rendered doubly sublime by decay, to the rude attempts
at architecture and the undignified circumstances which mark the
existence of a population relapsed into ignorance. To these, however,
Choiseul-Gouffier was by no means inattentive. He sketched, and it
would seem with equal complacency, the ruins of some venerable temple
and the beautiful dark-eyed girl of the Ionian Islands, plaiting her
tresses, or sporting with her fat, long-haired Angola.
In sketching the life of this traveller, I must beware that I am not
carried away by classical recollections. Here, where
Not a mountain rears its head unsung,
it might, perhaps, be pleasing to a certain variety of minds to
expatiate at leisure over the immortal fields of fable, and the scenes
of actions which man is still proud to have performed; and if I abstain
from entering upon the subject, it is not from any indifference
to its charms, or that I want faith in its powers to produce, if
properly handled, the same effect upon others which it has long
exercised over me. But this is not the place to indulge in themes of
this kind. Biography rejects all pictures of such a description, and
requires narrative; and accordingly I proceed with the history of our
traveller’s labours.
In the course of his visits to the Grecian islands he beheld the famous
Grotto of Antiparos, so eloquently described by Tournefort. Their
opinions respecting its wonderful construction did not, as might very
well be expected, agree; but if the botanist exaggerated, I think
the young antiquarian underrated its richness and grandeur, probably
from a desire to check his ardent imagination, or by an ill-timed
application of his philosophy. From thence, touching at Skyros in
his way, he proceeded to Lemnos, Mitelin, Scio, Samos, Patmos, and
Rhodes, and thence into Asia Minor. Here he commenced operations with
the ruins of Telmissus, in ancient Lycia. He sketched the sarcophagi,
the Necropolis, the tombs, theatre, and other antiquities; and
having also drawn up an account of his researches, and a description
of the existing ruins, set off through Caria towards the river
Mæander, and Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Troy. Throughout the whole of
this incomparably interesting route, the same lavish researches
were undertaken and conducted with vast expense and perseverance.
But on arriving upon the plains of Troy, his exertions, everywhere
enthusiastic, appeared to be redoubled. Choiseul-Gouffier was an
impassioned admirer of Homer. No other poet, in fact, ever possesses so
firm a hold upon the youthful mind as this ancient bard, because no one
paints so truly those boiling passions which prevail in youth, and with
which all men sympathize, until age or some other cause damps their
energy, and makes them, as Shakspeare expresses it, “babble of green
fields,” and tranquillity, and security, and civilization.
For the admirers of Homer, our traveller’s researches in the ancient
empire of Priam must possess more than ordinary charms. Having to the
best of his ability determined the extent and limits of the Trojan
territories, he fixes the site of the city, and traces to their sources
the rivers Simois and Scamander. He then presents the reader with views
of the most remarkable spots in the neighbourhood of the city, which
are either mentioned by Homer, or referred to by celebrated writers of
later date; Mount Gargarus, the camp of the Greeks, the tombs of Ilus,
Achilles, and Patroclus.
On his return to France he laboured assiduously at the arranging of the
rich and various materials which he had collected during his travels.
An author, and, above all, a traveller of distinguished rank, is
always secure beforehand of a flattering reception. Choiseul-Gouffier
experienced this truth. Fearful lest their compliments should come too
late, and be paid, not to his rank, but to his merit, the members of
the Académie des Belles-Lettres, in obedience, says M. Dacier, to the
public voice, elected our traveller a member of their body in the room
of Mons. Foncemagne in 1779, before the publication of the “Voyage
Pittoresque de la Grèce.” This splendid work, which was at least equal
to any thing which had been published of the kind, and in many respects
superior, was expected with impatience, and read on its appearance with
avidity. Praise, which in France is but too lavishly bestowed upon
noble authors, was now showered down in profusion upon our traveller.
He, however, deserved high commendation. The design of the work was in
itself exceedingly praiseworthy, and its execution, whether we consider
the literary portion or the embellishments, highly honourable to the
taste and talents of the author. Barthélemy, in such matters a judge
inferior to none, conceived so favourable an opinion of his accuracy,
that he in many instances appealed to his authority in his “Travels of
Anacharsis.”
What tended still more powerfully to promote the success of the
“Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce” than all these praises was, the
lively, elegant style in which it is composed. Although the polished
simplicity of the preceding age had already begun to give way before
laborious struggles after strength and originality, Choiseul-Gouffier
belonged rather to the old than the new school. His learning a
profession, which young men are rather apt to display than to hide,
was not very profound, I suspect, in 1782, when the first volume of
his travels appeared; and therefore the more credit is due to him for
his moderation in the use of it. But I am far from thinking, with M.
Dacier, that he purposely masked his acquirements, from the fear of
frightening away the men of the world. He was not, as I have already
observed, unmindful of the modern Greeks. Convinced that, next to the
love of God, patriotism, expressed in Scripture by the love of our
neighbour, is the best foundation of national and individual happiness,
our traveller was vehement in his exhortations to the Greeks to recover
their liberty. He even pointed out to them the means by which this was
to be effected. He appealed to the priests, as to those who exercised
the most powerful influence over the popular mind, to sanctify the
enterprise; and, by associating the spirit of religion with that of
liberty, to inspire their flocks with the zeal of martyrs by spiritual
incitements or menaces.
In 1784 the success of the first volume of his travels threw open to
him the doors of the French Academy, where he was elected to fill up
the vacancy occasioned by the death of D’Alembert. The circumstances
attending his reception into this celebrated literary body were
particularly flattering. Never, according to the records of the times,
had there been collected together a more numerous or more brilliant
assembly. The discourse of the traveller was finely conceived, and
executed with ability. The subject was, of course, determined by usage;
it was the eulogium of his predecessor. Having, according to custom, by
which all such things are regulated, occasion to allude to the birth of
D’Alembert, he executed this delicate part of his task in a manner so
judicious and manly, that from a circumstance, in itself unfortunate
and dishonourable, he contrived to attach additional interest to
the memory of his predecessor. “And yet,” said he, “what was this
celebrated man, whom Providence had destined to extend the boundaries
of human knowledge? You understand me, gentlemen; and why should I
hesitate to express what I consider it honourable to feel? Why should
I, by a pusillanimous silence, defraud his memory of that tribute which
all noble minds are fond to pay to unfortunate virtue and genius in
obscurity? What was he?--An unhappy, parentless child, cast forth from
his cradle to perish, who owed to symptoms of approaching death and the
humanity of a public officer the advantage of being snatched from amid
that unfortunate multitude of foundlings, who are kept alive only to
remain in eternal ignorance of their name and race!”
It was on this occasion that he received one of those compliments
which men of genius sometimes pay to each other, and which, when
deserved, are among the most cherished rewards that can be granted to
distinguished abilities. Delille, whom he had long numbered among his
friends, eagerly seized upon the opportunity which was now offered
him of expressing his admiration of his enthusiasm and taste. He
accordingly drew forth from his pocket a splendid fragment of his poem
entitled “Imagination,” which was not published until twenty years
afterward, and read it to the academy. It related to Greece, which
Choiseul-Gouffier had visited and depicted. He represents the forlorn
genius of that ancient country singling out from among the crowd of
ordinary travellers one young lover of the arts, recommending to his
notice the glory of her ancient monuments and brilliant recollections,
and promising him as his reward the academic palm in a _New Athens_.
The verses, in spite of the national vanity of comparing Paris with
Athens, and some other defects which I need not pause to point out, are
highly poetical and beautiful; and the reader will not, I think, regret
to find them here subjoined.
Hâte toi, rends la vie à leur gloire éclipsée
Pour prix de tes travaux, dans un nouveau Lycée
Un jour je te promets la couronne des arts.
Il dit et dans le fond de leurs tombeau épars,
Des Platon, des Solon les ombres l’entendirent:
Du jeune voyageur tous les sens tressaillirent:
Aussitôt dans ces lieux, berceau des arts naissans,
Accourent à sa voix les arts reconnaissans;
Le Dessin le premier prend son crayon fidèle,
Et, tel qu’un tendre fils, lorsque la mort cruelle
D’une mère adorée a terminé le sort
A ses restes sacrés s’attache avec transport,
Demande à l’air, au temps d’épargner sa poussière
Et se plaît à tracer une image si chère;
Ainsi par l’amour même instruit dans ces beaux lieux
Le Dessin, de la Grèce enfant ingénieux,
Va chercher, va saisir, va tracer son image;
Et belle encor, malgré les injures de l’âge
Avec ses monumens, ses héros, et ses dieux,
La Grèce reparaît tout entière à nos yeux.
Shortly after this Choiseul-Gouffier was appointed ambassador of
France to the Ottoman Porte, and, in selecting the companions of his
mission, was not unmindful of Delille. The poet, therefore, accompanied
him to Constantinople; and according to the testimony of both, many
years after their return, nothing could exceed the delight of their
residence in the East, and their visits to the spots celebrated in
Grecian story. Choiseul-Gouffier would, from all accounts, appear to
have been a man of enlarged views, friendly towards all nations, as
well as towards every art, and anxious to promote the general interests
of civilization. His agreeable manners enabled him quickly to acquire
the confidence of Halil Pasha, the Turkish grand vizier, and of Prince
Mauro Cordato, first dragoman of the Porte; and he succeeded in
inspiring both with a desire to introduce among the Turks the arts and
civilization of Europe. By his advice, engineer, artillery, and staff
officers were invited from France to Constantinople, to instruct the
Ottomans in the theory and practice of war. The impulse once given,
the grand vizier, seconded by the dragoman, who would appear to have
possessed unusual influence, repaired the fortifications in the various
strong cities of the empire, improved the system of casting cannon, and
considerably ameliorated the discipline of the Turkish army. Shortly
the public saw with surprise a fine seventy-four, constructed by Leroy,
after the most approved European method, launched from the docks of
Constantinople; and the system thus introduced has ever since been
followed in all the docks of the empire. To crown all these efforts,
our traveller prevailed on the vizier to send thirty Turkish youths to
receive their education in Paris; and had not this part of the scheme
been defeated by religious fanaticism, there is no foreseeing to how
great an extent this measure might have influenced the destinies of
Turkey.
When war had broken out between the Porte and Russia, in spite of the
efforts of the French ambassador to prevent the rupture, he continued
to perform the part of a conciliator. It was by his intercession that
the Russian ambassador, imprisoned contrary to the law of nations in
the Seven Towers, was liberated, and placed on board a French frigate,
commanded by the Prince de Rohan, which conveyed him to Trieste. And
afterward, when Austria had determined to unite its forces with those
of Russia to attack the common enemy of Christendom, Choiseul-Gouffier
succeeded in preventing the imprisonment of its internuncio, whom he
caused to embark with all his family and suite on board two French
ships, which conveyed them to Leghorn. At the same time he effectually
protected the Russian and Austrian prisoners detained in chains at
Constantinople, and carefully caused to be distributed among them
the provisions which their governments or families conveyed to them
through his means. Several of these miserable beings he ransomed from
captivity with his own money, particularly a young Austrian officer who
had fallen into the hands of a cruel master, and who, resigned to his
unhappy condition, appeared only to grieve for the affliction which the
sad lot of their only son would cause his aged parents. His zeal for
the interests of Turkey was not less remarkable. For not only did he
in like manner protect the Turkish prisoners in Russia, but he caused
French ships to transport provisions to Constantinople and the Black
Sea, whose losses, when they incurred any, he made up out of his own
private fortune.
In the midst of those assiduous and important cares which the policy
and critical position of the Ottoman empire required of him, he at no
time lost sight of the commerce and other interests of his country. He
moreover found leisure for the indulgence of his old classical tastes,
and once more ran over, with the Iliad in his hand, the whole of the
Troad and the other places celebrated by Homer. In addition to this,
he despatched several artists to Syria and Egypt at his own expense,
for the purpose of exploring and sketching ancient monuments, ruins,
picturesque sites, and in general whatever was worthy of occupying the
attention of the learned world. In 1791 he was appointed by the new
government ambassador to the court of London; but as his political
principles would not allow him to acknowledge the authority from which
this nomination proceeded, he still continued at Constantinople, from
whence he addressed all his despatches to the brothers of Louis XVI.,
then in Germany. This correspondence was seized during the following
year by the French army in Champagne, and on the 22d of November, 1792,
a decree of arrest was passed against him.
Not long after this event he departed from Constantinople, honoured
with distinguished marks of respect both by the sultan and the grand
vizier, and sincerely regretted by his brother ambassadors, and all the
French established in the Levant. Being unable to return to France,
he retired to Russia, where Catherine, who, as I have already had
frequent occasion to observe, was an excellent judge of men, received
him in the most flattering manner, and afforded him the most honourable
protection. Paul I., on his accession to the throne, distinguished
him by new favours, nominated him privy counsellor, director of the
academy of arts and of all the imperial libraries, and also gave him
many other solid proofs of his esteem. The favour of a madman, however,
was necessarily liable to change. The Comte de Cobentzel, with whom
Choiseul-Gouffier had lived on very intimate terms, falling into
disgrace, he was uncourtly enough to continue the connexion; which so
displeased Paul, that our traveller considered it unsafe to remain
at court, and retired. No longer seeing his old favourite about him,
the imperial lunatic commanded him to return, and upon his approach
remarked, in a friendly tone, “M. le Count, there are stormy cloudy
days in which it rains misunderstandings; we have experienced one of
these; but as we are men of understanding, we have shaken it off, and
are only upon the better footing.”
Our traveller, who no doubt saw clearly enough the state of the
emperor’s head, and dreaded his relapse into ill-humour, very quickly
determined to return to France; where he at length arrived in 1802,
stripped of his titles and fortune, and reduced to rely upon his
literary rank for distinction. He, however, sought for no office or
employment. All his thoughts were now directed towards the completion
of his work on his beloved Greece, and during seven years he laboured
assiduously at this agreeable undertaking. Other travellers had in the
mean while visited and described the same countries; his ideas and
views were regarded as antiquated; the interest inspired by his first
volume, published twenty-seven years before, had in a great measure
ceased; and, more than all this, he himself, worn down by misfortunes,
sobered by long adversity, and somewhat unaccustomed to the art of
composition, was no longer the same _naïve_, lively author that he had
been. He now gave himself up to geographical disquisitions, learned
dissertations, and geological remarks. Homer himself, though still his
favourite, had undergone a transformation in his eyes. Losing sight of
the poet, the matchless painter of human nature, he was satisfied with
admiring him as an historian and geographer.
Nevertheless there still remained a mixture of the old leaven in his
composition. The sight of the rose harvest near Adrianople in Thrace
reawakened all his enthusiasm, and his description of the festival
with which it closes, in which the beautiful Grecian girls perform so
elegant and classical a part, would certainly not disgrace the pages
of Theocritus or Virgil. The completion of the third volume (or
rather the 2d part of the second) seems to have been retarded, among
other causes, by the composition of several memoirs for the Academy
of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, on the Olympian Hippodrome, on
the origin of the Thracian Bosphorus, and on the personal existence
of Homer, which has been called in question by several critics more
learned than wise.
Before the completion of his work, however, he was seized with an
apoplectic fit, which made his friends despair of his life. He was
advised to make trial of the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle, whither he
removed, accompanied by the Princess de Bauffremont, his second wife.
Here he died on the 22d of June, 1817. It was now feared by all those
who had properly appreciated his labours, that the concluding portion
of his work, without which the former parts would be comparatively
valueless, might never appear; but a publisher was at length found to
undertake the expensive and hazardous enterprise. He purchased from the
Princess de Bauffremont all the papers, charts, drawings, engravings,
and copper-plates of her deceased husband, and with a taste, zeal, and
industry for which the arts are indebted to him, completed the “Voyage
Pittoresque de la Grèce” in a style worthy of the commencement. The
portrait of the Comte de Choiseul, which M. Blaise, the publisher,
caused to be engraved by a distinguished French artist, is a
masterpiece of its kind; but there still remain many splendid drawings,
and several valuable maps and charts of various parts of Greece, which
may some day, perhaps, be published as a supplement, or in a second
edition, should it be called for by the public.