1854-5 of 'Histoire de la Societe Pendant la Revolution' and the same
'Pendant le Directoire' the aim of which, they said, was "to paint in
vivid, simple colors the France of 1789 to 1800." This object they
accomplished, so far as it concerned the society of which they
themselves were descendants; but the reactionary spirit in them was too
strong for an impartial view of the struggle, and their lack of true
philosophic spirit and broad human sympathy led them to make a picture
that, interesting as it is, is sadly distorted. Their vivid colors are
lavished mainly on the outrages of the rioters and the sufferings of the
aristocrats. But for wealth of detail, the result of tireless research,
the history is of value as a record of the manners and customs of the
fashionable set of the period. Of the same sort were their other
semi-historical works: 'Portraits Intimes du XVIIIieme Siecle,' separate
sketches of about a hundred more or less well-known figures of the age;
'L'Histoire de Marie Antoinette,' and 'La Femme au XVIIIieme Siecle,' in
which the gossip and anecdote of former generations are told again
almost as graphically as are those which the authors relate of their own
circle in their memoirs. Their most important contribution to literature
was their 'L'Art au XVIIIieme Siecle,' monographs gathered and published
in seventeen volumes, and representing a dozen years' labor. This was
indeed a labor of love, and it was not in vain; for it was these
appreciative studies more than anything else that turned public
attention to the almost forgotten delicacy of the school of painters
headed by Watteau, Fragonard, Latour, Boucher, Debricourt, and Greuze,
whose influence has ever since been manifested on the side of sound
taste and sanity in French art.
A volume entitled 'Idees et Sensations,' and their Journal and letters,
complete the list of the more important of their works outside the field
of fiction. The Journal will always be valuable as an almost complete
document of the literary history of France in their time, made up as it
is of impressions of and from the most important writers of the day,
with whom they were on terms of intimate friendship, including Flaubert,
Gautier, Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Hugo, Saint-Victor, Michelet, Zola, and
George Sand. In fiction the De Goncourts were less prolific, but it is
to their novels mainly that they owe their reputation for individuality,
and as true "path-breakers" in literature. They have been called the
initiators of modern French realism. Their friend Flaubert perhaps
better deserves the title. Their determination to see for themselves all
that could be seen, the result of which gave real worth to their
historical work, even where their prejudice robbed it of weight, was
what put the stamp of character upon their novels. How much importance
they attached to correct and comprehensive observation may be gathered
from their remark, "The art of learning how to see demands the longest
apprenticeship of all the arts." They took life as they found it,
examined it on every side,--rarely going far under the surface,--and
then sought to reproduce it on their pages as the artist would put it on
canvas. Capable of terseness, of suggestiveness, quick to note and
communicate the vital spark, they were yet rarely content with it alone.
Every minute particle of the body it vivified, they insisted on adding
to their picture. Nothing was to be taken for granted; as nothing was
accepted by them at second hand, so nothing was left to the imagination
of the reader until their comprehensive view was his. It was in this way
that they were realists. They did not seek out and expose to public view
the grossness and unpleasantness of life. Their own preference was for
the beautiful, and in their own lives they indulged their refined
tastes. But they looked squarely at the world about them, the ugly with
the beautiful, the impure with the pure, and they did not hesitate to
describe one almost as faithfully as the other.
Curiously, the discrimination against the masses and the bias that mar
their history do not appear in their fiction. "They began writing
history which was nothing but romance," says one of their critics, "and
later wrote romance which in reality is history." Indeed, their novels
are little more than sketches of what occurred around them. 'Madame
Gervaisais' is a character study of the aunt of strong literary
predilections who influenced Edmond; 'Germinie Lacerteux' is the
biography of their servant, at whose death, after long and faithful
service, they discovered that she had led a life of singular duplicity;
'Soeur Philomene' is a terribly true glimpse of hospital life, and
'Manette Salomon,' with its half-human monkey drawn from the life, is
transferred without change from the Parisian studios under the Empire.
'Renee Mauperin' comes nearest to the model of an ordinary novel; but no
one can read of the innocent tomboy girl struck down with fatal remorse
at the consequences of her own natural action, on learning of her
brother's dishonor, without feeling that this picture too was drawn from
the life. Several of their stories were dramatized, but with scant
success; and a play which they wrote, 'Henriette Marechal' and had
produced at the Comedie Francaise through the influence of Princess
Mathilde, their constant friend and patroness, was almost howled
down,--chiefly however for political reasons.
After the death of Jules de Goncourt, his brother wrote several books of
the same character as those which they produced in union, the best known
of which are 'La Fille Elisa,' and 'Cherie,' a study of a girl, said to
have been inspired by the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. The best
critics in France, notably Sainte-Beuve, have given the brothers
Goncourt a very high place in literature and conceded their originality.
English reviewers have been less ready to exalt them, mainly on account
of the offensive part of their realism. They have objected also to their
superficiality as historians, and to their sympathy with the sentimental
admirers of such types as Marie Antoinette; but they too have been ready
to praise the brothers as leaders of a new fashion, and especially for
their devotion to style. In this respect the Goncourts have few rivals
in French literature. Balzac himself was not more finical in the choice
of words, or more unsparing of his time and energy in writing and
re-writing until his exact meaning, no more or less, had been expressed;
and they covered up the marks of their toil better than he. In a letter
to Zola, Edmond de Goncourt said:--"My own idea is that my brother died
of work, and above all from the desire to elaborate the artistic form,
the chiseled phrase, the workmanship of style." He himself spent a long
life at this fine artistry, and died in Paris in July, 1896.
TWO FAMOUS MEN
From the Journal of the De Goncourts
March 3D [1862].--We took a walk and went off to find Theophile
Gautier.... The street in which he lives is composed of the most squalid
countrified buildings, of court-yards swarming with poultry, fruit shops
whose doors are ornamented with little brooms of black feathers: just
such a suburban street as Hervier might have painted.... We pushed open
the door of a house, and found ourselves in the presence of the lord of
epithet. The furniture was of gilded wood, covered with red damask,
after the heavy Venetian style; there were fine old pictures of the
Italian school; above the chimney a mirror innocent of quicksilver, on
which were scraped colored arabesques and various Persian
characters,--such a picture of meagre sumptuousness and faded splendor
as one would find in the rooms of a retired actress, who had come in for
some pictures through the bankruptcy of an Italian manager.
When we asked him if we were disturbing him, he answered: "Not at all. I
never work at home. I get through my 'copy' at the printing-office. They
set up the type as I write. The smell of the printers' ink is a sure
stimulant to work, for one feels the 'copy' must be handed in. I could
write only a novel in this way now; unless I saw ten lines printed I
could not get on to the next ten. The proof-sheet serves as a test to
one's work. That which is already done becomes impersonal, but the
actual 'copy' is part of yourself; it hangs like filaments from the root
of your literary life, and has not yet been torn away. I have always
been preparing corners where I should do my work, but when installed
there I found I could do nothing. I must be in the midst of things, and
can work only when a racket is going on about me; whereas, when I shut
myself up for work the solitude tells upon me and makes me sad."
From there Gautier got on the subject of the 'Queen of Sheba.' We
admitted our infirmity, our physical incapacity of taking in musical
sound; and indeed, a military band is the highest musical enjoyment of
which we are capable. Whereupon Gautier said, "Well, I'm delighted to
hear that: I am just like you; I prefer silence to music. I do know bad
music from good, because part of my life was spent with a singer, but
both are quite indifferent to me. Still it is curious that all the
literary men of our day feel the same about music. Balzac abhorred it,
Hugo cannot endure it, Lamartine has a horror of it. There are only a
few painters who have a taste for it."
Then Gautier fell to complaining of the times. "Perhaps I am getting an
old man, but I begin to feel as if there were no more air to breathe.
What is the use of wings if there is no air in which one can soar? I no
longer feel as if I belonged to the present generation. Yes, 1830 was a
glorious epoch, but I was too young by two or three years; I was not
carried away by the current; I was not ready for it. I ought to have
produced a very different sort of work."
There was then some talk of Flaubert, of his literary methods, of his
indefatigable patience, and of the seven years he devoted to a work of
four hundred pages. "Just listen," observed Gautier, "to what Flaubert
said to me the other day: 'It is finished. I have only ten more pages to
write; but the ends of my sentences are all in my head.' So that he
already hears in anticipation the music of the last words of his
sentences before the sentences themselves have been written. Was it not
a quaint expression to use? I believe he has devised a sort of literary
rhythm. For instance, a phrase which begins in slow measure must not
finish with a quick pace, unless some special effect is to be produced.
Sometimes the rhythm is only apparent to himself, and escapes our
notice. A story is not written for the purpose of being read aloud: yet
he shouts his to himself as he writes them. These shouts present to his
own ears harmonies, but his readers seem unaware of them."
Gautier's daughters have a charm of their own, a species of Oriental
languor, deep dreamy eyes, veiled by heavy eyelids, and a regularity in
their gestures and movements which they inherit from their father; but
this regularity is tempered in them by womanly grace. There is a charm
about them which is not all French; nevertheless there is a French
element about it, their little tomboyish tricks and expressions, their
habit of pouting, the shrugging of their shoulders, the irony which
escapes through the thin veil of childishness intended to conceal it.
All these points distinguish them from ordinary society girls, and make
clear a strong individuality of character which renders them fearless in
expressing their likings and antipathies. They display liberty of
speech, and have often the manner of a woman whose face is hidden by a
mask; and yet one finds here simplicity, candor, and a charming absence
of reserve, utterly unknown to the ordinary young girl.
* * * * *
November 23D [1863].--We have been to thank Michelet for the flattering
lines he wrote about us.
He lives in the Rue de l'Ouest, at the end of the Jardin du Luxembourg,
in a large house which might almost be workmen's dwellings. His flat is
on the third floor. A maid opened the door and announced us. We
penetrated into a small study.
The wife of the historian has a young, serious face; she was seated on a
chair beside the desk on which the lamp was placed, with her back to the
window. Michelet sat on a couch of green velvet, and was banked up by
cushions.
His attitude reminded us of his historical work: the lower portions of
his body were in full sight, whilst the upper were half concealed; the
face was a mere shadow surrounded with snowy white locks; from this
shadowy mass emerged a professorial, sonorous, singsong voice,
consciously important, and in which the ascending and descending scale
produced a continuous cooing sound.
He spoke to us in a most appreciative manner of our study of Watteau,
and then passed on to the interesting study which might be written on
French furniture.
"You gentlemen, who are observers of human nature," he cried suddenly,
"there is a history you should write,--the history of the lady's-maid. I
do not speak of Madame de Maintenon; but you have Mademoiselle de
Launai, the Duchesse de Grammont's Julie, who exercised on her mistress
so great an influence, especially in the Corsican affair. Madame Du
Deffand said sometimes that there were only two people sincerely
attached to her, D'Alembert and her maid. Oh! domesticity has played a
great part in history, though men-servants have been of comparative
unimportance....
"I was once going through England, traveling from York to Halifax. There
were pavements in the country lanes, with the grass growing on each side
as carefully kept as the pavements themselves; close by, sheep were
grazing, and the whole scene was lit up by gas. A singular sight!"
Then after a short pause:--"Have you noticed that the physiognomy of the
great men of to-day is so rarely in keeping with their intellect? Look
at their portraits, their photographs: there are no longer any good
portraits. Remarkable people no longer possess in their faces anything
which distinguishes them from ordinary folk. Balzac had nothing
characteristic. Would you recognize Lamartine if you saw him? There is
nothing in the shape of his head, or in his lustreless eyes, nothing but
a certain elegance which age has not affected. The fact is that in these
days there is too great an accumulation of people and things, much more
so than in former times. We assimilate too much from other people, and
this being the case, we lose even the individuality of our features; we
present the portrait of a collective set of people rather than of
ourselves."
We rose to take our leave; he accompanied us to the door; then by the
light of the lamp he carried in his hand we saw, for a second at least,
this marvelous historian of dreams, the great somnambulist of the past
and brilliant talker of the present.
THE SUICIDE
From 'Sister Philomene'
The next morning the whole hospital knew that Barnier, having scratched
his hand on the previous day while dissecting a body in a state of
purulent infection, was dying in terrible agonies.
When at four o'clock Malivoire, quitting for a few moments the bedside
of his friend, came to replace him in the service, the Sister went up to
him. She followed from bed to bed, dogging his steps, without however
accosting him, without speaking, watching him intently with her eyes
fixed on his. As he was leaving the ward:--
"Well?" she asked, in the brief tone with which women stop the doctor on
his last visit at the threshold of the room.
"No hope," said Malivoire, with a gesture of despair; "there is nothing
to be done. It began at his right ankle, went up the leg and thigh, and
has attacked all the articulations. Such agonies, poor fellow! It will
be a mercy when it's over."
"Will he be dead before night?" asked the Sister calmly.
"Oh no! He will live through the night. It is the same case as that of
Raguideau three years ago; and Raguideau lasted forty-eight hours."
That evening, at ten o'clock, Sister Philomene might be seen entering
the church of Notre Dame des Victoires.
The lamps were being lowered, the lighted tapers were being put out one
by one with a long-handled extinguisher. The priest had just left the
vestry.
The Sister inquired where he lived, and was told that his house was a
couple of steps from the church, in the Rue de la Banque.
The priest was just going into the house when she entered behind,
pushing open the door he was closing.
"Come in, Sister," he said, unfurling his wet umbrella and placing it on
the tiled floor in the ante-room. And he turned toward her. She was on
her knees. "What are you doing, Sister?" he said, astonished at her
attitude. "Get up, my child. This is not a fit place. Come, get up!"
"You will save him, will you not?" and Philomene caught hold of the
priest's hands as he stretched them out to help her to rise. "Why do you
object to my remaining on my knees?"
"Come, come, my child, do not be so excited. It is God alone, remember,
who can save. I can but pray."
"Ah! you can only pray," she said in a disappointed tone. "Yes, that is
true."
And her eyes sank to the ground. After a moment's pause the priest went
on:--
"Come, Sister, sit down there. You are calmer now, are you not? Tell me,
what is it you want?"
"He is dying," said Philomene, rising as she spoke. "He will probably
not live through the night;" and she began to cry. "It is for a young
man of twenty-seven years of age; he has never performed any of his
religious duties, never been near a church, never prayed to God since
his first communion. He will refuse to listen to anything. He no longer
knows a prayer even. He will listen neither to priest nor any one. And I
tell you it is all over with him,--he is dying. Then I remembered your
Confraternity of Notre Dame des Victoires, since it is devoted to those
who do not believe. Come, you must save him!"
"My daughter--"
"And perhaps he is dying at this very moment. Oh! promise me you will do
all at once, all that is in the Confraternity book; the
prayers,--everything, in short. You will have him prayed for at once,
won't you?"
"But, my poor child, it is Friday to-day, and the Confraternity only
meets on Thursday."
"Thursday only--why? It will be too late Thursday. He will never live
till Thursday. Come, you must save him; you have saved many another."
Sister Philomene looked at the priest with wide-opened eyes, in which
through her tears rose a glance of revolt, impatience, and command. For
one instant in that room there was no longer a Sister standing before a
priest, but a woman face to face with an old man.
The priest resumed:--
"All I can do at present for that young man, my dear daughter, is to
apply to his benefit all the prayers and good works that are being
carried on by the Confraternity, and I will offer them up to the Blessed
and Immaculate Heart of Mary to obtain his conversion. I will pray for
him to-morrow at mass, and again on Saturday and Sunday."
"Oh, I am so thankful," said Philomene, who felt tears rise gently to
her eyes as the priest spoke to her. "Now I am full of hope; he will be
converted, he will have pity on himself. Give me your blessing for him."
"But Sister, I only bless from the altar, in the pulpit, or in the
confessional. There only am I the minister of God. Here, my Sister, here
I am but a weak man, a miserable sinner."
"That does not signify; you are always God's minister, and you cannot,
you would not, refuse me; he is at the point of death."
She fell on her knees as she spoke. The priest blessed her, and added:--
"It is nearly eleven o'clock, Sister; you have nearly three miles to get
home, all Paris to cross at this late hour."
"Oh, I am not afraid," replied Philomene with a smile; "God knows why I
am in the street. Moreover, I will tell my beads on the way. The Blessed
Virgin will be with me."...
The same evening, Barnier, rousing himself from a silence that had
lasted the whole day, said to Malivoire, "You will write to my mother.
You will tell her that this often happens in our profession."
"But you are not yet as bad as all that, my dear fellow," replied
Malivoire, bending over the bed. "I am sure I shall save you."
"No, I chose my man too well for that. How well I took you in, my poor
Malivoire!" and he smiled almost. "You understand, I could not kill
myself. I did not wish to be the death of my old mother. But an
accident--that settles everything. You will take all my books, do you
hear? and my case of instruments also. I wish you to have all. You
wonder why I have killed myself, don't you? Come nearer. It is on
account of that woman. I never loved but her in all my life. They did
not give her enough chloroform; I told them so. Ah! if you had heard her
scream when she awoke--before it was over! That scream still re-echoes
in my ears! However," he continued, after a nervous spasm, "if I had to
begin again, I would choose some other way of dying, some way in which I
should not suffer so much. Then, you know, she died, and I fancied I had
killed her. She is ever before me,... covered with blood.... And then I
took to drinking. I drank because I love her still.... That's all!"
Barnier relapsed into silence. After a long pause, he again spoke, and
said to Malivoire:--
"You will tell my mother to take care of the little lad."
After another pause, the following words escaped him:--
"The Sister would have said a prayer."
Shortly after, he asked:--
"What o'clock is it?"
"Eleven."
"Time is not up yet;... I have still some hours to live.... I shall last
till to-morrow."
A little later he again inquired the time, and crossing his hands on his
breast, in a faint voice he called Malivoire and tried to speak to him.
But Malivoire could not catch the words he muttered.
Then the death-rattle began, and lasted till morn....
A candle lighted up the room.
It burnt slowly, it lighted up the four white walls on which the coarse
ochre paint of the door and of the two cupboards cut a sharp
contrast....
On the iron bedstead with its dimity curtains, a sheet lay thrown over a
motionless body, molding the form as wet linen might do, indicating with
the inflexibility of an immutable line the rigidity, from the tip of the
toes to the sharp outline of the face, of what it covered.
Near a white wooden table Malivoire, seated in a large wicker arm-chair,
watched and dozed, half slumbering and yet not quite asleep.
In the silence of the room nothing could be heard but the ticking of the
dead man's watch.
From behind the door something seemed gently to move and advance, the
key turned in the lock, and Sister Philomene stood beside the bed.
Without looking at Malivoire, without seeing him, she knelt down and
prayed in the attitude of a kneeling marble statue; and the folds of her
gown were as motionless as the sheet that covered the dead man.
At the end of a quarter of an hour she rose, walked away without once
looking round, and disappeared.
The next day, awaking at the hollow sound of the coffin knocking against
the narrow stairs, Malivoire vaguely recalled the night's apparition,
and wondered if he had dreamed it; and going mechanically up to the
table by the bedside, he sought for the lock of hair he had cut off for
Barnier's mother: the lock of hair had vanished.
THE AWAKENING
From 'Renee Mauperin'
A little stage had been erected at the end of the Mauperins'
drawing-room. The footlights were hidden behind a screen of foliage and
flowering shrubs. Renee, with the help of her drawing-master, had
painted the curtain, which represented a view on the banks of the Seine.
On either side of the stage hung a bill, on which were these words,
written by hand:--
LA BRICHE THEATRE
THIS EVENING,
'THE CAPRICE,'
To conclude with
'HARLEQUIN, A BIGAMIST.'
And then followed the names of the actors.
On all the chairs in the house, which had been seized and arranged in
rows before the stage, women in low gowns were squeezed together, mixing
their skirts, their lace, the sparkle of their diamonds, and the
whiteness of their shoulders. The folding doors of the drawing-room had
been taken down, and showed, in the little drawing-room which led to the
dining-room, a crowd of men in white neckties, standing on tiptoe.