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