There was no poetry in France under the Empire. Chateaubriand was
doubtless an author with great poetic gifts, but Napoleon was the one
poet in the grand style. Chateaubriand who hated him, felt this. He
writes (in the fourth part of his _Mémoires_): "A marvellous power of
imagination inspired this cold politician; but for his muse he would
not have been what he was. His intellect carried out his poetic ideas."
The long succession of his wars, victories, and defeats was a great
Iliad, the Russian campaign a giant tragedy, with which none written at
a desk could compare.
Even in the days of the Revolution, for kindred reasons, poetry had
disappeared. A few poets still wrote tragedies in the old style; only
they transformed Voltaire's philosophical tragedy into political
tragedy, exploiting the republics of Rome and Greece for the benefit
of the new French Republic, which discovered the prototypes of its
heroes in the men whom it called the sansculottes of Rome and Athens.
But the interest of these plays could not compare with the interest of
the great dramas of the National Assembly and the Convention. Just as
in ancient days the gladiatorial combats destroyed men's appreciation
of plays in which no one was really killed, now the fifth acts of
tragedies seemed flat and stale in comparison with the concluding
scenes in the meetings of the Convention, during which the vanquished
were led off to the scaffold. The dagger of Melpomene could not, in the
long run, compete with the guillotine. Who by means of a poetical work
could produce an emotion at all corresponding to what the audience felt
on the occasion of the impeachment, sentence, and death of the King
and Queen? Who could devise stage plots to compare with Robespierre's
and Danton's plots against Vergniaud and the Girondists, or the snares
that were afterwards laid for Robespierre? We have evidence that this
was the feeling of contemporaries. Ducis, the famous translator of
Shakespeare, replies to a friend who has been urging him to write
for the theatre: "Do not talk to me of tragedies! We have tragedies
in every street. I have but to put my foot out at the door to step
into blood up to the ankles." That there is not much exaggeration
in these words is proved by a letter written by Chaumette in 1793
to the municipal authorities of Paris, in which he complains that
short-sighted persons were constantly exposed to the unpleasantness of
stepping into human blood.
Under Napoleon there is another circumstance to be taken into
account, namely, that France had a master. When an author attempted
any slight deviation from the beaten track, he was promptly checked.
Take Raynouard for an example. His play, _Les États de Blois_, which
had been performed at St. Cloud, was prohibited in Paris by express
order of the Emperor. It was the cannon's turn to speak. The great
cannon in front of the Invalides, which was constantly thundering
out the intelligence of a new victory, drowned every other voice.
And all the hearts full of youthful enthusiasm, all the ardent souls
that at another time would have vented their ardour in poetry, all
those who were most warmly attached to liberty and to the ideas of the
Revolution, crowded to the colours, and endeavoured to forget their
longing for liberty and poetry in the intoxication of martial glory.
Intellectual life was extinguished as a sweet song sung in a room is
stopped by the incessant rattling of heavy carts through the street.
A couple of anecdotes may serve to illustrate the noisiness and the
depression. To the question, "What do you think at this time?" Sièyes
replied, "I do not think." To the question, "What have you done under
the Empire for your convictions?" General Lafayette replied, "I have
remained standing upright."
Two of the arts were susceptible of inspiration by the spirit of the
time--the art of the painter and the art of the actor. Gérard painted
the battle of Austerlitz, Gros the plague scenes at Jaffa, the battle
of Aboukir, and the battle of the Pyramids. Talma, who, as he himself
tells, learned for the first time one evening when he was in company
with the leaders of the Girondists to understand and to represent Roman
Republicans, not as they exist in the imagination of school-boys, but
as men--Talma learned from Napoleon to play the parts of Cæsars and of
kings. According to the well known story, Bonaparte employed Talma to
instruct him in the art of assuming imperial attitudes. The real truth
is the reverse of this. It was from Napoleon that Talma learned the
authoritative deportment, the short, commanding tone, the imperious
gestures which he then reproduced on the stage. When, in 1826, the
great actor lay consumed with raging fever, he carefully examined in a
mirror the traces of madness and terror on his own face, and, half mad
at the time, struck himself on the forehead and cried: "Now I have it!
If I ever act again, I shall do exactly this when I play the part of
Charles VI." Thus passionately did this man love his art. But from his
sick-bed he was not to rise again.
One branch of literature alone acquired an influence which it had not
before possessed--the youngest of all the branches, which had hitherto
been of no importance, but which soon became a power--the newspaper.
The well-known _Journal des Débats_ was started to begin the attack
upon Voltaire and to provide the prevailing ideas of the day with an
organ. The French clerical press employed every possible means to
attain its end. In exactly the same spirit which led it, after the
Franco-Prussian war, to dub Voltaire "the miserable Prussian," it now
searched his letters for passages which might convict him of treachery
to his country. In one of the letters to the King of Prussia the great
Frenchman's detractors discovered the offensive phrase: "Every time
I write to Your Majesty I tremble as our regiments did at Rossbach;"
and they hoped with the aid of quotations such as this to irritate the
victor of Jena with the philosophers of the school of Voltaire. They
emphasised the fact that, according to the testimony of contemporaries,
the principal cause of the faintheartedness shown by the French army
in the war with Frederick was the fanatic admiration of its officers
for that king, a feeling which actually prevented their believing in
the possibility of defeating a general who shared and favoured the
convictions by which they themselves were inspired. In place of drawing
an inference from this favourable to the convictions or ideas in
question, the clerical party drew one unfavourable to the persons who,
like Voltaire, had promulgated these ideas in France; they denounced
them as traitors to their country. The following utterance of the
editor of the _Journal des Débats_ gives us some notion of the general
tone of that paper: "When I say the philosophy of the eighteenth
century, I mean everything that is false in legislation, morals, and
politics." The Neo-Catholics had another newspaper entirely in their
hands, the _Mercure de France_, the most notable contributors to which
were Chateaubriand and Bonald. The authors who formed the remnant of
the army of the eighteenth century attempted to combat the influence of
these powerful journals, but with little success.
In former days the whole energy of the contending parties had been
expended in winning over the reading public, or the nation, to their
respective sides; now the desire of both was to win the favour of the
mighty potentate. The _Journal des Débats_ endeavoured to stir up the
Emperor's wrath against "philosophy." "The philosophers" tried to make
him angry with the _Journal des Débats_. The clerical party denounced
the philosophers as destroyers by profession, who, as such, must
inevitably hate Napoleon, the great master-builder. The philosophers
accused the clericals of intending, as soon as the Emperor's building
was completed, to hand over the keys of it to another.
The future showed that the philosophers were right. The adherents
of the Neo-Catholic school were and remained closely attached to
the old royal family. Their mode of procedure was to praise Delille
because he was in disgrace, and Chateaubriand because, by resigning
his appointment after the execution of the Duke of Enghien, he proved
himself to be an enemy of tyranny. They drew men's attention to all the
good points of the old régime under pretext of writing history.
Napoleon, who kept a keen eye upon journalistic literature, at last
lost patience. A written communication has been preserved which was
put into the hands of one of the Emperor's officials, to be by him
transmitted to Fiévée, the publisher of the _Mercure_ (a man with whom
the Emperor sometimes corresponded privately). Every word in this paper
is significant; note particularly the change from the impersonal third
to the first person singular. There is no direct indication as to who
is the writer of the document; in the beginning it is that indefinite,
anonymous being, the Government, that speaks; then all at once we
feel who is wielding the pen--the lion shows his claws. "Monsieur
de Lavalette will go to Monsieur Fiévée and say to him that in the
_Journal des Débats_, which is read with more attention than the other
newspapers, because it has ten times as large a circulation, articles
have been found, written in a spirit altogether favourable to the
Bourbons, consequently with complete indifference to the welfare of the
state; say that it has been determined to suppress any articles in this
paper that are too ill-affected; that the system pursued is undoubtedly
a system of long-suffering; that it is, however, not enough that they
should not be directly hostile; that the Government has the right to
demand that they shall be entirely devoted to the reigning house, and
that they shall not suffer but oppose everything which can add lustre
to the cause of the Bourbons or evoke reminiscences favourable to
them; that as yet no decisive step has been determined on; that the
inclination is to permit the _Journal des Débats_ to continue to appear
if men are presented to _me_ in whom _I_ can have confidence, and to
whom _I_ can entrust the editorship of the paper."[1]
We observe the direction which events were taking. During the course
of the Emperor's reign Neo-Catholicism lost ever more and more of that
favour which it at first enjoyed, and not until the return of the
Bourbons did it once more completely triumph. Immediately after the
accession of Napoleon, Chateaubriand, Bonald, and De Maistre have full
liberty to write, the _Journal des Débats_ is encouraged to undertake
its crusade against the philosophy of the eighteenth century, the
Pope visits Napoleon in Paris, all honour is shown to the clergy,
Frayssinous preaches where and what he pleases. During the last years
of the Empire the leaders of the Catholic party are compelled to be
silent, the _Journal des Débats_ is suppressed, the Pope is a prisoner,
the clergy are in deep disgrace, and Frayssinous may not preach at
all.--Not until the monarchy was restored was there a rehabilitation of
ecclesiasticism, a confirmation of what had been begun by the Concordat.
It has been said, and said with truth, that no real poetry was written
under the rule of Napoleon; nevertheless an attempt, and by no means an
insignificant attempt, was made at this time to give to the France of
the nineteenth century what Voltaire in his _Henriade_ had attempted
to give to the France of the eighteenth--neither more nor less than a
great national epic.
It cannot be denied that the task was a tolerably hopeless one. At a
time when all Europe was resounding with the names of the heroes of
the new empire, and Napoleon was, as has been said, "binding the open
wounds of France with the flags of her enemies," when the doings of the
day were throwing all the doings of times past into the shade, where
was an author to find a hero for an epic or deeds that would enthral
the reading world?
The enterprise was undertaken by no less a man than Chateaubriand,
the successful initiator of the literary movement of the period, the
most admired author of his day. It was not only inclination but also
a certain feeling of duty which induced Chateaubriand to undertake a
great epic work. In his first work he had maintained that the legends
of Christianity infinitely surpassed in beauty those of heathen
mythology; that they appealed far more strongly to the poet; that the
Christian, as father, husband, lover, bride, was more admirable and
of more value to art than the mere natural being. He felt obliged to
follow up his rule with an example, his theory with proof; and for this
reason, and also to show what he was capable of, he determined to write
a Christian epic.
True to the intellectual tendency of which he had been the first
distinguished exponent, he did not choose modern or active heroes, in
fact did not choose heroes at all, but martyrs as his theme. They also
give the name to his work, _Les Martyrs ou le Triomphe de la Religion
Chrétienne_, which, written as it is in prose, produces more the effect
of an ordinary two-volume novel than of an epic. To understand this
choice of subject we must remember that the point of view of the men
of this school was not really that of the Empire at all, but that of
the returned _émigrés_. They had not yet recovered from the horror
excited in them by the deeds of the Revolution. In the leaders of the
Revolution they saw only men of blood, in the vanquished party only
hapless victims. In their eyes the real hero was not the conqueror, not
the adventurous soldier, but Louis XVI., the innocent sufferer. What
were they if not martyrs, all those Christian priests who in the Days
of September were murdered for the sake of their religion, all those
men and women who died in La Vendée for their loyalty to the King by
the grace of God! Victims as innocent as the Princesse de Lamballe, or
the maidens of Verdun, or the lately executed Duke of Enghien, were
heroines and heroes a thousand times more worthy to be sung than the
men who were defiling themselves with blood on all the battle-fields of
Europe.
In 1802 Chateaubriand conceived the idea of his epic; in 1806 the first
cantos were ready for publication. But the events of the epic were to
happen in all parts of the world known to the Romans. Chateaubriand
was not indolent by nature; it was not his aim to finish the work as
quickly as possible in order to rest upon his laurels. He stopped
short, and in July 1806 went off to travel in Greece, Syria, Egypt, and
Carthaginian Africa, returning through Spain. The one object of this
tour was, he himself gives us to understand in the prefaces to _Les
Martyrs_ and the _Notes of Travel (Itinéraire)_, the perfecting of his
work. In the one preface we read: "This journey was undertaken for the
sole purpose of seeing and painting those districts in which I intended
to lay the scenes of _Les Martyrs_"; in the other: "I did not undertake
this journey in order to describe it. I had a purpose, and that purpose
I have accomplished in _Les Martyrs_; I went in quest of pictures--that
was all."
No, that was not all--neither all that Chateaubriand proposed to
himself in taking the journey, nor even all that he wished others
to see in it. Chateaubriand is Childe Harold before the real Childe
Harold; he is a legitimist and Roman Catholic Byron. His René is the
forerunner of the Byronic heroes; he himself, in his pilgrimages, is
a forerunner of that half-fictitious, half-real Harold whom love of
adventure and longing for new impressions drive from land to land. But
the Byron of the ecclesiastical revival could not, like the English
nobleman who still felt the blood of the Vikings in his veins, rest
satisfied with the honest confession of such a simple motive as this
for his wanderings. It would not have been at all in the spirit of
Chateaubriand's period, nor would it have been in keeping with the
part he played in that period, for him to go to Jerusalem to study
landscape, to cover his palette with colours, and fill his sketch-book
with sketches. When Childe Harold talks of his pilgrimage, he employs
the word in its secondary meaning. Chateaubriand uses it in its
original meaning. He tells every one that he is going to the Holy
Land to strengthen his faith by the sight of all the holy places.
He brings back with him water from the Jordan, and when the Comte
de Chambord is born it is with this water that the royal infant is
baptized. He himself says: "It may seem strange nowadays to speak of
sacred vows and pilgrimages, but in this matter, as every one knows,
I have no feeling of shame; I long ago took my place in the ranks of
the superstitious and weak-minded. I am perhaps the last Frenchman who
will set out for the Holy Land with the ideas, aims, and feelings of
a medieval pilgrim. And though I do not possess the virtues which so
conspicuously distinguished the De Coucys, De Nesles, De Chatillons,
and De Montforts, I have at least their faith; by this sign even the
old crusaders would recognise me as one of themselves."
There is an awkward discrepancy between this utterance and the words
quoted above: "I went in quest of imagery--that was all." And in
Chateaubriand's _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_ we find a confession of yet
another object in his quest of pictures, which throws a curious light
upon the feelings and motives of the would-be pilgrim. He hoped by
his efforts after fame, by his studies and his travels, to win the
favour of a lady with whom he was in love. Taken in itself this is most
natural. Chateaubriand was an ardent lover and frantically ambitious.
It is not surprising that he should have said to himself: Fame,
greater, more deserved, that I may deserve her better, that I may show
her my ardent desire to render myself worthy of her favour! The lady
herself appears to have been ambitious for him, and to have allowed him
to view the possession of herself as a possible, far-off reward of new
efforts. Though we may acknowledge that there is something medieval and
chivalrous in such a relationship as this, an extraordinary confusion
of ideas is none the less proved in the man who talks of a crusade and
a pilgrimage. And yet Chateaubriand was no priestly casuist; he was a
haughty, self-important, cynical aristocrat, who defiantly attached the
colours of the church to his helmet and wore them not only at every
joust but at every rendezvous.
In his _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_ he writes: "But have I in my
_Itinéraire_ really told everything about that voyage on which I
embarked from the port of Desdemona and Othello? Was it in the spirit
of repentance that I sought the sepulchre of Christ? _One single
thought_ consumed me; I counted the moments with impatience. Standing
on the deck of my ship, with my eyes fixed on the evening star, I
prayed for a fair wind to carry me swiftly onwards, for fame--in order
that I might be loved. I hoped to win fame in Sparta, at Mount Zion,
at Memphis, at Carthage, and to carry it with me to the Alhambra.
Would another remember me with as great steadfastness as mine under my
probation?... If I secretly enjoy a moment's happiness, it is disturbed
by memories of those days of seduction, of enchantment, of madness."
This is the language of a modern Tannhäuser, looking back with longing
to his Venusberg. Chateaubriand has evidently forgotten that he had
attributed to himself the emotions and aims of a medieval pilgrim. The
lady who had given him a rendezvous at the Alhambra was a young Madame
de Mouchy, who died insane. Contemporaries represent her as a marvel
of beauty, charm, and refinement. Chateaubriand had been married since
1792. His marriage was undoubtedly a rash and foolish one, but, as the
ardent champion of Christian morality, he ought to have considered
himself bound by it, regardless of circumstances. In his _Mémoires_ he
tells how it came about: "The negotiations were entered into without
my knowledge. I had not seen Mademoiselle de Lavigne more than three
or four times.... I did not feel myself at all fitted to be a husband.
All my illusions were still strong; nothing was exhausted in me; the
vigour of life had been redoubled in me by my travels. I was constantly
tormented by my muse. My sister had a high opinion of Mademoiselle
de Lavigne, and saw in this marriage an independent position for me.
Arrange it, then, said I. As a public man I am not to be influenced,
but in private life I am the prey of any one that chooses to take
possession of me; to avoid an hour's annoyance I could let myself be
made a slave for half a century." Fortunately, he did not feel himself
a slave.
In the rôle of the returned pilgrim, then, he wrote his epic. An
epic in the nineteenth century! In our days no one believes in the
possibility of such a thing. A clearer comprehension than that
possessed by any former age of the historical conditions which went to
the production of the great national epics of antiquity has convinced
us of the vanity of endeavouring in modern times to rival works of the
freshness of the _Iliad_ or the naïveté (in spite of a high degree of
culture) of the _Odyssey_. Just as little as it would occur to any
real poet to-day to imitate the _Vedas_, the _Psalms of David_, or
the _Voluspa_, would it occur to him to attempt to compete with the
immortal works in which, late in the morning of their days, nations,
childlike and yet mature, have told the story of their gods and of
their heroes--as the Greeks have done in their national epics, the
Germans in the _Nibelungenlied_, and the Finns in _Kalevala_. The
epics which, like Virgil's and Tasso's, Camoens', Klopstock's, and
Voltaire's, are conscious, laboured imitations of these old popular
works, and which have transformed the miraculous element in them into
dead epic machinery, have never taken rank with their models; their
comparative value depends upon how close, in time and in spirit, they
are to these models. The more naïveté they display, the colder they
leave us. The epic poems written in modern times which have not been
failures--Goethe's _Hermann und Dorothea_, or Mickiewicz's _Herr (Pan)
Tadeusz_--have entirely dispensed with the appurtenances of the old
epic. But this Chateaubriand had not the slightest intention of doing.
Far from it--he rather meant to add to their number, in order to
exhibit the vast superiority of the Christian to the antique apparatus.
As he has no command of verse, he determines to write his epic in
prose; but, great master of prose as he is, we know in anticipation
how he will grope after a style. And we are sensible, as we read, of
a confusion of influences--Homer, the Revelation of St. John, Dante
and Milton, the Fathers of the Church and Suetonius. The action takes
place in the days of Diocletian; one half of the characters are pagans,
the other half Christians. The hero, Eudore, wins the heart of a young
pagan girl; he converts her, and they die together as martyrs in the
arena of the Colosseum. Her father is a Greek priest of the Homeric
gods. Some of the events happen in ancient Gaul.
His imitation of the Homeric style has led the author into much
artificiality and exaggeration. In the first place he has made his
Greeks too religious. They show the same childlike faith in their gods
as do those Homeric heroes from whom they are separated by the space
of eleven centuries. The Greeks of the age of Eudore were for the most
part confirmed sceptics, and those who still believed in their gods did
it in a rationalistic manner. Chateaubriand's Greek maiden comes upon
Eudore in the forest, while he is resting under a tree. He is young
and handsome. He rises hurriedly when he sees her. "Are not you the
hunter Endymion?" she stammers confusedly. "And you," asks the young
man in his turn, "are not you an angel?" These are not simply polite
speeches; the speakers mean what they say. In Chateaubriand's pages
it is the most simple matter possible for two lovers living in the
most enlightened country in the world to take each other for legendary
characters and supernatural beings. Cymodocée's father says in the same
style to the young man: "Prithee, my guest, forgive my frankness; I
have ever yielded obedience to truth, _the daughter of Saturn_ and the
mother of virtue." Even as far back as the days of Plato a Greek was
perfectly capable of naming truth without mentioning either its parents
or the grandparents of virtue.
We come upon phrases which might have been translated from Homer. When
Cymodocée wants to find out who Eudore is, she says: "In what harbours
has your ship cast anchor? Do you come from Tyre, famed for the wealth
of its merchants? or from beautiful Corinth, after receiving precious
gifts from your hosts?" &c.
This sort of thing is passable in dialogue, but the effect is
distressing when the narrator himself either altogether forgets the
1500 years which separate him from the characters of the story, and
writes as they speak, or else employs expressions borrowed from the
medieval romances of chivalry. He writes, for instance, in Homeric
style: Nothing would have disturbed the happiness of Démodocus, if he
could only have found a husband for his daughter who would have treated
her with proper consideration _after leading her home to a house full
of treasures_. And of Velléda, the Gallican Druidess, we are told, in
the true ballad style: _Fille de roi a moins de beauté, de noblesse et
de grandeur_.
And if the author sometimes writes as if he himself were the last of
the Homeridæ, his characters in retaliation often talk as if they
foresaw the whole course of modern intellectual development. The
Christian bishop, Cyrille, speaking of the heathen myths, says: "A time
will perhaps come when these falsehoods of the childish days of old
will simply be ingenious fables, themes for the song of the poet. But
in our days they confuse men's minds." What an enlightened man!
It is unnecessary to pass the whole work in review. The author's great
ability is only displayed in details and incidental episodes. One
beautiful passage is that in which he describes the arrival of the
Greek family to visit the Christian family, who are all in the field,
binding sheaves; it has a peculiar, idyllic charm which recalls the
Book of Ruth, and yet it breathes the New Testament spirit. The account
of Velléda's death is also very fine. There is all the fire and divine
frenzy of Chateaubriand, the poet's, genius in his representation of
Velléda.
There are longer passages than these well worthy of attention, such
as the description of the battle between the Franks and the combined
armies of the Romans and the Gauls, which, written as it was a number
of years before Sir Walter Scott's historical novels, is significant
and novel with its element of national characterisation. As in all
Chateaubriand's works, the descriptions of nature are fine.
It ought to be observed that when, in his _Memoirs_, Chateaubriand
himself has occasion to write of _Les Martyrs_, he does so with proud
modesty; he shows that he is conscious of the faultiness of the work in
certain respects, and draws particular attention to the small degree
of success it has had in comparison with _Le Génie du Christianisme_.
He ascribes the comparatively unfavourable reception which it met
with at first principally to outward circumstances; and in this he is
right. Napoleon's relations with the Pope were at that moment strained
and unfriendly. What Chateaubriand had written of Diocletian as the
persecutor of the Christians was applied to the Emperor. There were
allusions to the humble circumstances of Napoleon's youth and to his
insatiable ambition in the description of Galerius, and allusions to
his court in the description of Diocletian's.
Hence _Les Martyrs_ was not supported and circulated by the Government,
as Chateaubriand's first work had been. And the clergy, with the Bishop
of Chartres at their head, did not consider the book sufficiently
orthodox; they discovered heresies in it. But in the end, in spite of
everything, it made its way. Four editions were sold in a few years.
What Chateaubriand desired to prove by means of this work was
the peculiar adaptability of the Christian legend, of Christian
supernaturalism, to the use of the poet. What he succeeded in proving
was that in our days orthodox Christian poetry comes centuries too
late. The poets who have dealt with supernatural themes have as a
rule been more successful in their representations of hell than in
their descriptions of the state of the blessed. In Dante a perfect
host of bold figures, so powerfully conceived that they dominate
the whole poem, emerge from the waters and the flames of perdition.
Amongst the damned of the Inferno those whom we remember best are the
almost superhumanly defiant and proud Italian nobles of the poet's own
day--Farinata, for example. As to Milton, his Satan is universally
acknowledged to be his most masterly character; and it has been
maintained, not without reason, that the prototype of this character
is to be sought among those energetic Puritan rebels who, even when
they were overcome, did not cease to defy the royal authority. Each
age paints its Lucifer in its own image. Chateaubriand's rebellious
spirit is not the traditional devil either, but a devil who has
brought about the French Revolution. Every time he and his attendant
courtiers open their mouths it is to utter one or other of the
watchwords of the revolutionary period. In Satan's speech to his army
we are astonished to hear the echo of the oratory of 1792. After a few
introductory Biblical phrases he falls into the style of the hymns of
the Revolution, which Chateaubriand has amused himself by caricaturing.
Satan says: "_Dieux des nations, trônes, ardeurs, guerriers généreux,
milices invincibles, magnanimes enfants de cette forte patrie, le jour
de gloire est arrivé."_
French literature had progressed so far that the Marseillaise was put
into the mouth of the devil by the country's greatest poet.
And what kind of being is he, this devil? A spark of life is
communicated to him by caricaturing Rouget de Lisle. But for this he is
a boneless, bloodless allegorical figure. Watch him descending to his
kingdom. "Quicker than thought he traverses space, which will one day
disappear (a truly marvellous idea, this!); on the farther side of the
howling remains of chaos he comes to the boundaries of those regions
which are as imperishable as the vengeance which created them--cursed
regions, death's grave and cradle, over which time has no power,
and which will still exist when the universe has been carried away
like a tent that is set up for a day; ... he follows no path through
the darkness, but, drawn downwards by the weight of his crimes(!),
descends _naturally_ into hell." In his kingdom he is surrounded by
figures which are either purely allegorical--in which case they are the
funnier the more terrible the author has intended them to be--or else
caricatures of Voltairians and Voltaire, which, in the middle of this
solemn epic poem, produce the effect of scraps of ill-natured newspaper
articles which have found their way in by some mistake.
Death is thus described: "A phantom suddenly appears upon the threshold
of the inexorable portals--it is Death. It shows like a dark spot
against the flames of the burning prison-cells behind it; its skeleton
allows the livid yellow beams of hell-fire to pass through the
apertures between its bones.... Satan, seized with horror, turns away
his head to avoid the skeleton's kiss." And here are two other demons:
"Bound by a hundred knots of adamant (!) to a throne of bronze, the
demon of Despair sits ruling the empire of Sorrow.... At the entrance
of the first vestibule the Eternity of Sufferings lies stretched upon
a bed of iron; he is motionless; his heart does not even beat; in his
hand he holds an inexhaustible hour-glass. He knows and says only one
word--Never." We are reminded of the automaton upon a clock, which says
nothing but Cuc-koo.
These demons are like nothing upon earth, but the prototypes of the
demons of false wisdom are unmistakable. We have seen that all the
ideas of the day on the subject of religion might be summed up in
the one word, _order_. Hence in hell, as well as in heaven, order is
pertinaciously insisted on. Apropos of a quarrel in hell we read: "A
terrible conflict would have ensued if God, who is the sole origin of
all _order_, even in hell, had not reduced the brawlers to silence."
And we are told of the demon of False Wisdom: "He found fault with the
works of the Almighty; he desired in his pride to establish another
_order_ amongst the angels and in the kingdom of heavenly wisdom; it
was he who became the father of Atheism, that horrible spectre whom
Satan himself had not begotten, and who fell in love with Death."
Curiously enough it is precisely a change of order, a change in the
order of precedence in the court of heaven itself, which this most
hateful of all devils has been attempting to make.
He speaks. "The feigned severity of his voice, his apparent calmness,
deceive the blinded crowd: 'Monarchs of hell, ye know that I have
always been opposed to violence; we shall only prevail by gentleness,
by argument, by persuasion. Let me spread among my worshippers and
among the Christians themselves those principles which dissolve the
ties of society and undermine the foundations of empires!'"
Compare with this the description of the philosophers of the day:
"These disciples of a vain science attack the Christians, praise a
life of retirement, live at the feet of the great, and ask for money.
Some of them occupy themselves seriously with the idea of forming a
sort of Platonic commonwealth, peopled by sages, who will spend their
lives together as friends and brothers; others meditate profoundly
on the secrets of nature. Some see everything in mind, others seek
everything in matter; some, although they live under a monarchy, preach
a republic, asserting that society ought to be demolished and rebuilt
upon a new plan; others, in imitation of the Christians, attempt to
teach the people morality. Divided as regards what is good, of one
accord in all that is evil, swollen with vanity, taking themselves
for great geniuses, these sophists invent all manner of extraordinary
notions and systems. At their head is Hieroclos, a man worthy to be the
leader of such a battalion.... There is something cynical and shameless
in his face; it is easy to see how unfit his ignoble hands are to wield
the sword of the soldier, how fit to handle the pen of the atheist or
the sword of the executioner."
These assertions are made of Rome and of Hieroclos, but Paris and
Voltaire are so plainly indicated that proof is unnecessary.
French literature had now come the length of representing Voltaire,
the man who time after time struck the sword out of the hands of the
Catholic executioners and extinguished the flames in which they were
preparing to burn innocent victims, as a man specially cut out for the
trade of executioner. And so careless had the champions of orthodoxy
become that they forgot his obstinate faith in God, and, desiring to
paint the devil as black as possible, represented him as an atheist.
Now, whatever else Satan and his comrades may be, they neither are nor
can be atheists.[1]
Let us turn from Chateaubriand's hell to his Paradise. It is always
difficult to describe heaven. We all know what hell is, but when heaven
is in question a certain feeling of embarrassment comes over us.
Information is scarce, as a French lady said. And to describe it was
doubly difficult at the time when Parny, in his _Guerre des Dieux_,
had, so to speak, produced in anticipation a parody of any such attempt
that might be made. Fragments of Parny's graceless poem were still in
all men's minds. Its best scenes, such as the arrival of the Trinity
at Mount Olympus, and the return visit paid in heaven by the gods,
are really witty, although the style, instead of corresponding to the
imposing title, is as smooth and polished as the paintings of "Velvet"
Breughel. Yet even Parny's scurrility did not make the heaven of
orthodoxy as comical as it is made by Chateaubriand's enthusiasm.
"In the centre of the created worlds, in the midst of the innumerable
stars which serve as ramparts, roads and avenues, is suspended the
great city of God, of which no mortal tongue can tell the marvels. The
Almighty himself laid its twelve foundation stones, and surrounded
it with that wall of jasper which the beloved disciple saw the
angel measuring with the golden reed. Clothed with the glory of the
Most High, Jerusalem is adorned like a bride for her bridegroom....
Richness of material vies with perfection of form. Here hang in mid-air
galleries of sapphires and diamonds, which the genius of man feebly
imitated in the gardens of Babylon. There rise triumphal arches, built
of dazzling stars. Arcades of suns traverse the endless spaces of the
firmament...."
A native of Copenhagen is irresistibly reminded by all this of the
glories of "Tivoli" as they revealed themselves to his childish eyes on
evenings when the grounds were illuminated.
We are allowed a glimpse of the interior of the holy city. Here the
choirs of cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, principalities
and powers, are perpetually meeting and separating. These beings, who,
it would seem, had not been entirely safe from ridicule, seeing that
Parny had belaboured them so unmercifully[2], now hold a new triumphal
entry. From this time onward they become regular denizens of the realm
of poetry; we find the whole host assembled even in De Vigny's _Eloa_
(1823) and in Victor Hugo's _Odes_ (livre i., ode 5, ode 9, ode 10). We
learn what their occupations are; "Some are the keepers of the 20,000
war-chariots of Zebaoth and Elohim, others guard the quivers of the
Lord, his deadly thunderbolts, and the terrible horses which are the
carriers of pestilence, war, famine, and death. One million of these
ardent beings order the courses of the stars, relieving each other in
this glorious occupation like the vigilant sentinels of a great army."
In Parny's poem their occupation is less arduous. The duty he assigns
to them, because of their limited intelligence, is principally that
of acting as decorations. They stand in rows along the walls and look
on.[3]
All the things which Chateaubriand's angels guard lie, as it were, in
a great arsenal ready for use on given occasions. In the following
description we see them in use. The occasion is the proclamation by
the Trinity to the blessed saints of Eudore's approaching martyrdom:
"When these vicissitudes of the church had been communicated to the
elect by a single word of the Almighty, there was silence in heaven
for the space of half-an-hour. All the celestial beings cast their
eyes to the ground. From the heights of heaven Mary let a first look
of love fall upon the poor victim confided to her tender care. The
palms of the confessors grew green again in their hands. The glorious
squadron opened its ranks to make room for the new martyrs." Michael,
the dragon-slayer, shoulders his redoubtable spear; his deathless
comrades don shining cuirasses; diamond and golden shields, the quivers
of the Lord, and the flaming swords are taken down from the vaulted
roof of heaven; the wheels of the chariot of Immanuel turn upon their
axles of fire and lightning; the cherubim spread their rushing wings,
"_et allument la fureur de leurs yeux_." This is half masquerade, half
ballet.
But let us pass from these adjuncts to bliss itself. We find it thus
described: "The chief happiness of the elect lies in the consciousness
that their bliss is boundless; they experience for ever the delectable
feelings of the mortal who has just done a virtuous or heroic deed,
or of the genius in the act of conceiving a great idea, or of the man
enjoying the delights of legitimate (!) love or of a friendship tried
by long misfortune. The grandeur and the omnipotence of the Almighty
are the constant theme of their discourse. 'O God,' they cry, 'how
great Thou art!'"
Chateaubriand has not succeeded in making heavenly bliss particularly
attractive. Our first feeling is apt to be one of pity for the
unfortunate Deity thus compelled eternally to listen to his own
praises. He is thus described: "Far from the eyes of the angels is
accomplished the mystery of the Trinity. The Spirit which mounts and
descends perpetually from the Son to the Father and from the Father
to the Son unites itself with them in these unfathomable depths. A
triangle of fire appears at the entrance to the Holy of Holies. The
awe-stricken spheres stop in their courses, the hosannas of the angels
are silenced.... The fiery triangle disappears, the sanctuary opens,
and the three Potentates are seen. The Father sits upon a throne of
clouds, a compass in his hands, a sphere beneath his feet; on his right
hand sits the Son, armed with lightnings; on the left the Holy Spirit
rises like a pillar of fire. Jehovah gives a sign, and time, reassured,
continues its course."
We are not informed how many times in the day, week, or month this
magnificent ceremony takes place. Possibly it is in the intervals of
these accomplishments of the mystery of the Trinity that the Divine
Being divides itself, for at times it appears to be divided: "Appealed
to by the God of mercy and peace on behalf of the threatened church,
the mighty and terrible God made known his plans to the assembled hosts
of heaven."[4]
On ordinary occasions the Son sits at a mystic table, and four and
twenty elders, clothed in white, with crowns of gold on their heads,
sit upon thrones by his side. Close by stands his living chariot, the
wheels of which emit fire. When the Expected of the Nations deigns to
vouchsafe a perfect vision of himself to the elect, they fall down
before him as if dead; but he stretches forth his right hand and says
to them: "Rise, ye blessed of my Father! Look upon me. I am the First
and the Last!"
We feel as if this performance must lose much of its impressiveness by
repetition.
As an example of the supernaturalness of this heaven, it may be
mentioned that the raiment of the holy elders is made _white_ in the
blood of the Lamb. That it is a modern production we observe from the
fact that, in spite of the remarkable arbitrariness which prevails, its
author has not escaped the influence of the spirit of his day, for even
in this heaven we hear of laws of nature. We are told of the blessed
that they desire to comprehend the laws which explain the easy flight
of heavy bodies through the ether. This is a sort of anticipation of
the standpoint in Byron's _Cain_.
From the artistic point of view it is interesting to observe the
kind of imagery by means of which Chateaubriand, when he is neither
borrowing from the Revelation of St. John nor from Milton, attempts
to give an idea of the glories of heaven. When Dante makes the same
attempt, he has recourse to visions, to the glories of that mystic rose
which the Gothic cathedral builders feebly endeavoured to imitate;
but Chateaubriand, the man of modern ideas and of much experience as
far as the outward world is concerned, has recourse to impressions of
travel. The arcades of heaven are compared to the gardens of Babylon,
to the pillars of Palmyra in the sands of the desert. When the blessed
spirits are hastening through the created world we are told of the
scene that displays itself to them: "Thus present themselves to the
eye of the traveller the great plains of India, the fertile valleys
of Delhi and Kashmir, shores covered with pearls and fragrant with
ambergris, where the tranquil waves lay themselves to rest beneath the
blossoming cinnamon trees." Such imagery is somewhat too realistic for
the spiritual theme. We shrink from representing all these archangels
to ourselves in Indian surroundings. But it is in such ways that nature
revenges herself upon the man who believes he can set her aside or
can produce something superior to her productions. A later author of
this same school, De Vigny, who writes as much under the influence of
Ossian as of Milton, compares the ether of the firmament to the mists
of the Scottish mountains. The indistinct form of Lucifer descried
far off in space by the angel Eloa is compared to the waving plaid of
some wandering Scotchwoman, seen through the misty clouds falling on
the hill-tops. The conjunction of an angel and a plaid strikes us as a
curious one.
The scenery which this group of authors considers unquestionably the
most beautiful is not the jumbled, potpourri landscape of the German
Romanticists; no, what they, in harmony with the spirit of their day,
admire is that Paradisaic landscape in which the strictest order
prevails--symmetrical, architectural, a sort of dilution of Claude
Lorraine. Take, for an example, the commencement of De Vigny's _Le
Déluge_:
La terre était riante et dans sa fleur première;
Le jour avait encor cette même lumière
Qui du ciel embelli couronna les hauturs
Quand Dieu la fit tomber de ses doigts créateurs.
Rien n'avait dans sa forme altéré la nature,
Et des monts _réguliers_ l'immense architecture
S'élevait jusqu' aux cieux par ses degrés _égaux_
Sans que rien de leur chaîne eût brisé les anneaux.
* * * * *
Et des fleuves aux mers le cours était _réglé_
Dans un _ordre_ parfait qui n'était pas troublé.
Jamais un voyageur n'aurait, sous le feuillage
Rencontré, loin des flots, l'émail du coquillage,
Et la perle habitait son palais de cristal;
Chaque trésor restait dans l'élément natal,
Sans enfreindre jamais la céleste défense.
This partiality for model, ideal landscape tempts our authors more and
more frequently to lay the scenes of their works in heaven.
Chateaubriand continues to be a greater master in the description of
earthly than of heavenly surroundings.
The action of De Vigny's earliest poems takes place, in genuine
Seraphic style, midway between heaven and earth.
The scene of Victor Hugo's ode, _Louis XVII._, is the gate of heaven,
that of _La Vision_ heaven itself, the heavenly Jerusalem. In _La
Vision_ we come upon familiar imagery:
Le char des Séraphins fidèles,
Semé d'yeux, brillant d'étincelles,
S'arrêta sur son triple essieu;
Et la roue aux traces bruyantes,
Et les quatres ailes tournoyantes
Se turent au souffle de Dieu.
* * * *
Adorant l'Essence inconnue
Les Saints, les Martyrs glorieux,
Contemplaient, sons l'ardente Nue,
Le Triangle mystérieux.
Though Lamartine in his first works lingers lovingly over terrestrial
scenes, he yet constantly soars in hymns into the celestial ether
where, as he tells us, sacred poetry dwells, crowned with palms and
stars.
Lord Byron, who, like De Vigny, writes a poem on the Flood (_Heaven and
Earth_), is also partial to ether, though not such theological ether,
as a surrounding; but he loves wilder scenery, and it is as the painter
of the sea that he finds his true sphere. He lifts poetry out of its
ethereal environment and deposits it in the fresh, salt element.
Chateaubriand, then, hardly succeeded in proving what he wished to
prove, the superiority of Christianity to the purely human sources
of poetic inspiration. Each time he attempts to do so he exposes or
condemns himself. I adduce one other striking example of this.
His hero, Eudore, sailing up the Gulf of Megara, with Ægina in front
of him, Piræus on the right and Corinth on the left, sees all these
towns, which once were so flourishing, lying in ruins. A Greek
fellow-passenger is moved to tears by the remembrance of his country's
ancient glory, and we are told in touching words how the individual
feels as if his individual griefs disappeared when he is brought
face to face with the great, overwhelming calamities which crush
whole nations. Then Eudore says: "Such an idea seemed to be beyond my
youthful grasp, and nevertheless I understood it, whilst the other
young men who were on board did not. What caused this difference
between us? Our religions. They were pagans, I was a Christian."
Chateaubriand plainly desires to impress upon us that such an
appreciation of natural surroundings and the lessons taught by them
is a special possession of the Christian, of which the pagan, as
pagan, is destitute. But his position is considerably weakened by our
knowledge that the utterance referred to by Eudore is nothing more nor
less than a translation from a famous letter written by Sulpicius to
Cicero,[5] that the sentiments in question are actually the sentiments
of a pagan. We can hardly be expected to accept this as a proof of the
pagan's want of poetic feeling. But the trait is typical. Throughout
all Chateaubriand's writings dogmatic religion is constantly proclaimed
to be in possession of certain supernatural beauties and qualities of
which nature, as nature, is devoid; and yet everything in that religion
which is of poetical or moral value is simply an expression of human
nature. As Feuerbach puts it: "Every theory of God is, in its essence,
a theory of human nature."
Passing this half audacious, half conventional work, _Les Martyrs_,
once again in review, we cannot deny that the part of it which directly
treats of the supernatural world of Christianity is a failure. Indeed,
Chateaubriand himself openly confesses as much in his _Memoirs_.
The parts which have any real value are the purely human parts, one
of which we shall presently criticise. It was inevitable that the
doubt and indifference of the century concerning the supernatural
world should set its mark on the work of an author whose own
religious enthusiasm was as much a matter of deliberate intention and
determination as Chateaubriand's.
Chateaubriand was not a conscious hypocrite, but he deceived
himself. Proof of the manner in which he himself was affected by the
reading of his _Martyrs_ is to be found in that refined and charming
autobiographical work, which all agree in accepting as reliable--_Les
Enchantements de Prudence_, by Madame de Saman, otherwise Madame Allart
de Méritens, the last woman whom Chateaubriand loved, and who loved him
in return.
This lady tells how, in the summer of 1828, they used to meet at the
Pont d'Austerlitz and dine together in the Jardin des Plantes in a
private room. "He ordered champagne, to dispel my coldness, as he said;
and then I sang to him Béranger's songs--_Mon âme, La bonne vieille.
Le Dieu des bonnes gens_, &c. He listened as if enchanted." She paints
these meetings in the warmest colours,[6] and she mentions that it was
one of Chateaubriand's greatest pleasures to listen to her reading
passages from his works. (Both in this book and elsewhere Madame de
Saman shows herself to have been possessed of excellent literary
taste.) He especially loved to hear her read his descriptions of
landscape. "But sometimes," she says, "to affect him more profoundly,
I produced _Les Martyrs_, and read the speeches and thanksgiving
hymns of the confessors, or the thrilling prison and torture-chamber
scenes. Then he could not restrain his tears. One day he began to
weep; I continued to read; he sobbed convulsively; I still went on,
and when I came to the passage which tells how Eudore secretly offered
to sacrifice himself in order to win the salvation of his mother,
who had been too weak in her love for her children, he could contain
himself no longer, and burst into a passion of tears and sobs. It was
a case of emotions returning to their source. His highly strung nerves
gave way. Completely overcome, exhausted with weeping, he expressed
his gratitude to me, said that he had never experienced such rapture,
called me by all the sweet names men give to the Muses, told me that I
was beautiful, more especially praised my eyes and their expression,
imagining in the ardour of his passion that he had never seen
anything like them before." The lady was at this time about twenty,
Chateaubriand exactly sixty years old.
This quotation shows us that even such frigid passages in _Les Martyrs_
as the speeches of the white-robed elders had really been _felt_ by
the author himself. We are touched by this young and noble woman's
enthusiastic admiration for an old man, and the man himself rises in
the reader's estimation from the fact of his being able, even at that
age, to win the love of such a woman. But it is in strange surroundings
that we come upon this outburst of strong emotion, a thing so rare
with Chateaubriand that it may almost be called unique. Champagne, the
songs of his political and religious opponent, Béranger, caresses and
declarations of love, fits of weeping and sobbing over _Les Martyrs_,
followed by more love-making! What an environment for the epic of
orthodoxy! What an excess of human passion in a Seraphic poet, a former
minister of state and pilgrim to Jerusalem![7]
_Les Martyrs_ shows Chateaubriand's weakest side as an author. Such
a scene as that described with the best intentions by Madame Allart
de Méritens shows his weakest side as a man. And yet this outburst of
human passion makes almost a satisfactory impression upon us compared
with the artificiality by which he is so often distinguished. God and
the king are too constantly in his mouth. We must not, however, allow
this artificiality to blind us to what is really great in the talent
and in the life of this remarkable personage.
In order to get a complete impression of Chateaubriand it is necessary
to read the twelve volumes of _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_, as also those
by which they are supplemented. Just as Rousseau's _Confessions_
form the most interesting of his books, so the _Mémoires_ constitute
Chateaubriand's most impressive work. In them we find a complete
personality--a whole man, and that a man of mark. This important
personage, who possesses no great acuteness of observation as far as
humanity in general is concerned, who, in fact, occupies himself very
little with humanity in general, has focussed all his acuteness upon
the one subject which really interests him, his own ego, and has half
consciously, half unconsciously, but in any case very completely,
revealed and exhibited it to us. It is an ego proud to the verge
of arrogance, melancholy to the verge of despondency, sceptical to
the verge of indifference, without faith in progress of any kind,
profoundly persuaded of the vanity of even those things which afford
it temporary pleasure, such as love, fame, worldly position, and, as
time goes on, ever more saturated with ennui and ever more absorbingly
occupied with itself. It is an ego which owns a warm, prolific
imagination and great artistic talent, and which, at a period (the end
of the eighteenth century) when taste was all in favour of the light,
the pretty, the small, felt itself solitary in its love of the grand,
of the beauty of magnitude.
In a certain sense Chateaubriand was like no other man of his day.
He satisfied, as we saw, the requirement of the moment so exactly
with his _Génie du Christianisme_ that, as a sort of intellectual
standard-bearer, he acquired an importance out of proportion to his
character and talent.
In so far the moment at which he made his appearance magnified him.
But, looking at the matter from the other side, it may be maintained
with equal certainty that the moment at which he entered upon his
career forced on him a part which, for half a century, brought him into
conflict with his own inmost nature. That nature was always rebelling
against the part; the man's independence and uncontrollableness were
in perpetual collision with the politico-religious orthodoxy which it
had become his life-task to give expression to and champion. In other
words, his position in the world involved him in incurable discord with
himself.
In his old age he sometimes plainly confesses this. Towards the
conclusion of his work on the congress of Verona he says openly: "As an
officer of the regiment of Navarre I had come back from the forests of
America to join legitimate monarchy in its exile and to fight under its
banner _against my own judgment_ (contre mes propres lumières)--_all
this without conviction_, simply from a soldier's sense of duty, and
because I, having had the honour of driving in the royal carriages
from and to Versailles, considered myself peculiarly bound to support
a prince of the blood royal."[8] We find him, however, only two pages
farther on in the same book ascribing the fortunate issue of the war
in Spain, which he had forced on against the desire of France, Spain,
and England, less to his own ability, which he is not at all given to
undervaluing, than to "one of the latest miracles performed by Heaven
for the race of St. Louis."
Here, as in all his later works, he makes a marked difference between
monarchy as an idea and the person of the monarch. He tries to
reconcile avowed, unaltered loyalty to ideas with a frank contempt for
the capacities and characters of kings.
There is no doubt that the foolish ingratitude of the Bourbons towards
the man to whom they owed so much added largely to this contempt. But
in his Memoirs he shows that it began early; he would have us believe
that it dated from his earliest acquaintance with Louis XVIII, and
his environment. He soon perceived that King Louis did not favour
him, and it wounded his pride to find that the King's brother, the
future Charles X., had not read one of his books, not even _Le Génie
du Christianisme_. Looking back on his past life he writes: "Louis the
Eighteenth and his brother did not understand me at all. The latter
said of me: 'Good-hearted and hot-headed!' These hackneyed words ...
were completely misapplied. My head is very cool, and my heart has
never beat very warmly for kings."
The old monarchy, unless it actually felt itself so self-dependent
as to be indebted to no one, was bound to regard itself as under
obligation to Chateaubriand, not only because, as an officer in Condé's
army, he had fought and suffered in its cause, not only because, under
Napoleon, he had stopped midway in his career and defied the mighty
potentate by sending in his resignation after the execution of the
Duke of Enghien, but also because, in 1814, even before Napoleon's
abdication at Versailles, he had influenced public opinion in favour of
the Bourbons by means of a pamphlet which Louis XVIII himself declared
to have been as useful to him as a hundred thousand soldiers.
The pamphlet in question, _Buonaparte et les Bourbons_, is perhaps
the most passionate, most vindictive, most venomous, and most
artificially enthusiastic party work written by Chateaubriand. It is
an insane shriek of hatred of the fallen Napoleon, who is stripped of
every fragment of his glory, and a hurrah of hollow enthusiasm for
sunken-chested Louis XVIII, who is deified. In no other work does
Chateaubriand display so much vindictive stupidity. He goes so far
as to deny Bonaparte's ability as a general. He describes him as an
incompetent officer, who could do nothing but command his troops to go
forward, and who gained his victories simply by the excellence of these
troops and not by his conduct of them, as a commander who never ensured
and never knew when to make a retreat, and who, far from improving
the art of war, led it back to its infancy again.[9] The Marquise de
Seiglière in Sandeau's famous comedy does not talk greater nonsense
about Napoleon.
Louis XVIII, on the other hand, is called a prince famed for his
sagacity. We are told that, of all the rulers possible for France at
the moment, he is the one most suited to the position of the country
and the _spirit of the century_, whilst Bonaparte is the one of all
others least fit to reign.
This is what we find in the official pamphlet. But how differently
Chateaubriand thinks and speaks in his Memoirs! In them he does justice
to Bonaparte's military skill; he says of him that "he invented war in
the grand style;" and he has also suddenly discovered that the winning
of one battle after another is no inconsiderable part of the duty of
a general. Because they flatter his own vanity, he relates various
anecdotes which show how Napoleon, unbiassed by his (Chateaubriand's)
hatred, displayed his appreciation of him. After Chateaubriand had
turned against him, Napoleon demanded to be informed by the Academy,
why a prize had not been awarded to the _Génie du Christianisme_. And
when (at Fontainebleau) he had read with perfect calmness the offensive
pamphlet described above, he merely remarked: "_This_ is correct;
_that_ is not correct. I do not blame Chateaubriand. He was my enemy in
my day of prosperity; but those miscreants," &c, &c. Apropos of this,
Chateaubriand makes the amusing and surprising remark: "My admiration
of Bonaparte (this time without the _u_) has always been great and
sincere." He is undoubtedly telling the truth. He admired and envied
Napoleon. He measured himself with him and felt the disadvantage of
having such a contemporary.
In his Memoirs he also tells the truth about those kings for whom he
professed such loyalty and reverence.
He tells that in 1814 he dreaded the impression likely to be produced
by Louis XVIII's personal appearance, and he gives a copy of the
high-flown description which he in consequence circulated of the King's
entry into Paris, a description which he wrote, he says, without being
asked to do so, and without any taste for such compositions, but
_beautifying everything with the aid of the Muses_. "A man makes his
appearance before the officers, who have never seen him, before the
grenadiers, who hardly know him by name. Who is this man? He is the
King! One and all fall down at his feet."
Then he tells the real facts of the entrance, and calmly remarks: _I
lied with regard to the soldiers_. He gives a fine description of the
attitude of the remnant of Napoleon's Old Guard, who were drawn up
outside Notre Dame, and through whose ranks the King had to pass. "I
do not believe that human countenances ever wore a more terrible and
threatening expression." He declares that they looked as if they were
on the point of cutting the King to pieces.
And he makes no endeavour to show the baselessness of their contempt.
After telling how his plan of defence during the Hundred Days was
foiled by the cowardliness of the King and his immediate following,
he exclaims: "Why did I come into the world _in an age in which I am
so out of place?_ Why have I been a Royalist _against my instinct_ at
a time when a miserable tribe of courtiers would not listen to me,
could not understand me? Why was my lot cast amongst that crowd of
mediocrities who looked on me as a madman when I spoke of courage, as a
revolutionist when I spoke of liberty?"[10]
As the Memoirs advance, the champion of monarchy throws ever more light
upon the piety, understanding, and character of Louis XVIII. "It is
to be feared that to_ the most Christian King's_ religion was no more
than a medicinal liquor, well adapted to form one of the ingredients
of the brew called monarchy." He writes of "the voluptuous imagination
which the King had inherited from his father." He remarks that he was
fond of praising himself and making fun of himself at the same time;
for instance, when speaking of possible heirs to the throne, "he drew
himself up with a capable, arch air; but it was not my intention to
dispute the King's ability in this or any other matter."[11] When
giving a more minute description of Louis's character, he says:
"Selfish and devoid of prejudices, it was his aim to preserve his
own tranquillity at all costs.... Without being cruel, the King was
inhuman." He tells how Louis boasted of being able to raise a favourite
so high as to make him the object of universal envy, and thereupon
remarks: "To be able to raise others, one must be certain of not
falling one's self. But what were kings in the days of Louis XVIII.?
Though they could still make a man rich, it was no longer in their
power to make him great. They were now nothing but their favourites'
bankers."
And not content even with such severe language as this, Chateaubriand
at times takes to satire. In his account of the Congress of Verona he
tells how it came about that he at one time stood so high in the King's
favour that his fellow-ministers were positively jealous of him: "The
King often went to sleep in the Cabinet Council; and it was the best
thing he could do, for when he was not asleep he told stories. He had
a great gift of mimicry. But this did not amuse M. de Villèle, who
wished to discuss affairs of state. M. de Corcière put his elbows, his
snuffbox, and his blue pocket-handkerchief on the table; the other
ministers listened in silence. I alone could not help being amused by
His Majesty's anecdotes, and this evidently delighted him. When he was
searching for an excuse to tell a story, he would say in his little
thin, clear voice: 'I want to make M. de Chateaubriand laugh.'"[12]
It does not surprise us that Chateaubriand, after demonstrating how
in a democratic community men make their way by talking volubly of
liberty, the progress of humanity, the future, &c, should wind up
with the following description of the conditions prevailing in the
aristocratic, royalist society, the praises of which he had always
sung: "Play whist, bring out with an air of seriousness and profundity
the impertinences and witticisms which you have prepared, and the
brilliant career of your genius is assured."
Thus completely was the man who inaugurates the half-beliefs, the
æsthetic Christianity, and the affected royalism of the nineteenth
century cured of all illusions.
He was too proud to wear his mask to the end, and he threw it off
completely "beyond the grave."
He himself names as his "chief faults" ennui, disgust with everything,
and constant doubt. These faults had their good sides. Profound
indifference to all this world has to bestow preserved him from the
temptations of base ambition; doubt preserved him from placing implicit
confidence in the doctrines which a spirit of aristocratic defiance
more than anything else led him to champion; his pride sustained him,
and though it did not preserve him from hypocrisy, it kept him from
ever committing a mean action. But, until the ingratitude of the
authority which he had reinstated roused him to rebellion, there was a
hopeless discord between his nature and the part he played.
[1] Paul Heyse expresses this thought in an excellent epigram:
Bist du schon gut, weil du gläubig bist?
Der Teufel ist sicher kein Atheist.
[2]
O honte, ô crime! on rosse les Puissances,
On jet à bas dix mille intelligences
Qui figuraient dans les processions;
De leurs gradins les Trônes on renverse,
On foule aux pieds les Dominations
Et des Vertus le troupeau se disperse.
... l'on jet à leur nez,
Devinez quoi? les têtes chérubines
Aux frais mentons, aux lèvres purpurines.
Parny, _La Guerre des Dieux_, canto 10.
[3]
Propres sans plus à garnir les gradins,
À cet emploi se borne leur génie,
C'est ce qu'au bal nous autres sots humains
Nous appelons: faire tapisserie.
[4]
_Cf_. Parny:
Étaient-ils trois, ou bien n'étaient-ils qu'un?
Trois en un seul; vous comprenez, j'espère?
Figurez-vous un vénérable père,
Au front serein, à l'air un peu commun,
Ni beau, ni laid, assez vert pour son âge
Et bien assis sur le dos d'un nuage ...
De son bras droit à son bras gauche vole
Certain pigeon coiffé d'un auréole ...
Sur ses genoux un bel agneau repose,
Qui, bien lavé, bien frais, bien délicat,
Portant au cou ruban couleur de rose,
De l'auréole emprunt aussi l'éclat.
Ainsi parut le triple personnage....
[5] _Ad familiares_, lib. iv. Epist. 5.
[6] "In this condition he was more enamoured, more vivacious; he told
me that I gave him the most rapturous pleasure, called me a seductress,
&c, and in that secluded place did what he pleased" (Madame de Saman,
_Les Enchantements de Prudence. Avec préface de George Sand_, 1873, pp.
166, &c).
[7] Chateaubriand, _Les Martyrs_, more particularly books iii. and
viii.; _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_; Sainte-Beuve, _Chateaubriand et
son groupe littéraire sous l'Empire_; Nettement, _Histoire de la
littérature française sous la Restauration_, i., ii.
[8] _Congrès de Vérone_, ii. 527.
[9] _Buonaparte et les Bourbons_, pp. 36, 37.
[10] _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_, 1849, iv. 452, &c, vi. I, &c.
[11] "Et il se rengorgea d'un air capable et goguenard; mais je ne
prétendais disputer au Roi aucune puissance."
[12] _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_, viii. 216, 222; _Congrès de Vérone_, i.
172, ii. 525.