CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND THOUGHT IN FRANCE.
Summary.—Politics: Agitations during the Parliamentary Recess—Unjust Accusations levelled at the Ministry—Reforms carried out or projected in the Public Instruction—Justice—Public Works—Activity and Liberalism of the Ministry—Its want of Cohesion and Unity—Renewal of the Socialist Agitation—Return of the Amnestied—Election of M. Humbert in Paris—M. Blanqui's and M. Louis Blanc's Addresses in the Provinces—Socialist Congress at Marseilles—Reaction against these exaggerations—Dangers caused by the attitude of the Conservative Party inspired by the Clerical spirit—Efforts to create a Republican Conservative Party—"Le Parlement"—Unfortunate effect of the Ministry's Anti-clerical Campaign—Legitimist Banquets—The Bonapartist Party and its hopes—M. Naquet's Campaign in favour of Divorce. Literature: Novels—Mme. Greville, Mme. Bentzon, M. Lemonnier, M. Gualdi, M. Daudet, M. Zola, Flaubert, M. Theuriet—"L'Eglise Chrétienne," by M. Renan—"Rodrigue de Villandrando," by M. Quicherat—"Mémoires de Mme. de Rémusat"—"Nouvelle Revues". Science: Geographical Studies—"Géographie Universelle"—"La Terre et les Hommes," by Elisée Reclus—Map of France on scale of 1⁄100000—Lectures on Historical Geography, by M. A. Longnon. Fine Arts: Subjects opened to Competition—Death of MM. Viollet Le Duc, Cham, Taylor. Theatres: Le Grand Opera, l'Opéra Populaire, Pasdeloup and Colonne Concerts—Professor Hermann—The Hanlon-Lees—"Jonathan," by M. Gondinet—"Les Mirabeau," by M. Claretie—Le Théâtre des Nations.
T HE Parliamentary recess is generally a time of political tranquillity for the country, and leisure or peaceful occupation for the Ministers; not so, however, in France this year. M. Blanqui's candidature at Bordeaux; M. Humbert's election in Paris; the return of the amnestied from New Caledonia; the Workmen's Congress in Marseilles; the Legitimist banquets of September 29; MM. J. Ferry's, Louis Blanc's, and Blanqui's tours in the provinces; the inauguration of Denfert-Rochereau's, Arago's, and Lamoricière's monuments, have kept France in a state of perpetual agitation, if not disturbance. And even the business world, which generally slumbers quietly through the summer months, has been stung with a craze for speculation. A number of financial companies have sprung up, based chiefly on most unsound and absurd combinations, some of which threaten to collapse before they have even begun to work. The great jobber, M. Philippart, who so upset the Bourse some years ago, reappeared in greater force than ever, only to get another ducking at the end of a couple of months. Even the Republican party, which hitherto seemed to have kept out of the way of dangerous speculations, has been drawn into the current, and names of Republican deputies, senators, and municipal councillors have appeared on the lists of the administrative councils by way of an advertisement to subscribers. Nor, with so many causes of disturbance at home, was the country free from anxieties abroad: the settlement of the financial supervision to be exercised conjointly with England in Egypt; the difficulties raised with regard to the same by Italy, who would have wished to form a third in this new order of syndicate; and Turkey's opposition to the decisions of the Berlin Congress concerning Greece, must have caused M. Waddington more than one sleepless night.
Has the Ministry been weakened or strengthened by the toils of the Parliamentary recess? The attitude of the Chambers when they meet (Nov. 27) for the first time in their new, or rather old, quarters will show. According to the enemies it has, both in the Republican and Monarchical camp, it is in a state of complete dislocation; and M. Waddington, in particular, is unable to exercise any authority over his colleagues. This is the favourite theme, nightly recurred to, of M. E. de Girardin, who, under colour of Radicalism, seems to be entering on a campaign against the Republic of 1879, in favour of Prince Jerome Napoleon, similar to his former one against the Republic of 1848, in favour of Prince Louis Napoleon. The injustice of most of his attacks, it must be acknowledged, borders on dishonesty. Complaints are made of the Ministry's weakness and inaction. But on what grounds? By the one side, because it leaves the Socialists free to put forward their views; by the other, because it lets the Royalists banquet in peace, and expels neither the Orleans princes nor the Bonapartes. People in France always regard Government as a gendarme whose business it is to imprison or escort to the frontier those whose opinions are displeasing to them; if not, they declare there is no Government. Or else it is still looked upon as a Providence, whose duty it is to make the people happy from morning till night. If trade be dull and the crops bad, as they are this year, the Government is pronounced incapable, and the change to have been not worth the cost. People cannot understand that a Government's sole mission is to give a general direction to politics, to attend to the wise administration of the country, to protect the liberty and the rights of all, even of those who do not like it, and see to the carrying out of existing laws and the making of new ones. The present Ministry has not seriously failed in any one of these duties, and to charge it with inaction would be most unjust. The new appointments have almost all been excellent; particularly in the administration of public instruction, where considerable changes have been made, the most competent men have in every instance been chosen without regard to political party. The remodelling of the Council of State was an absolute necessity, as the Ministry could not work with men radically hostile to its views. This remodelling was carried out with extreme moderation; if the voluntary retirement of MM. Aucoc, Groualle, Goussard, &c., gave it a more radical character, the retiring members, not the Ministry, are to blame. Of the activity of the Minister of Public Instruction there can be no doubt; he has even been laughed at for his zeal in propagating his views, as shown in his southern tour, during which he found time to make a series of speeches in favour of the famous Clause 7, that deprives unauthorized religious bodies of the right of teaching, and to plan important material improvements in the constitution of the Faculties of Letters, Science, Medicine, and Law. The inspection of the infant-schools, of the drawing-instruction, have at length been properly organized, and a project for the reform of secondary instruction has been elaborated. With regard to the administration of justice, M. Le Royer has drawn up a very important scheme, whereby the courts of justice will be reduced to one-half the present number, important economies effected, the administration of justice accelerated, and the number of unemployed magistrates, barristers, and lawyers, which constitutes one of the evils of the country and of the Parliamentary assemblies, diminished.
Can M. de Freycinet be accused of inaction, seeing that every day he is told he will sink under the load of vast undertakings he has on hand for the improvement of the harbours and the completion of the railway and canal system? What accusations can be brought against General Gresley, seeing that our military organization is making daily progress, and that the autumn manœuvres have been more satisfactory this year than ever? The very criticisms addressed to the Ministry with regard to its weakness towards its enemies prove how it has respected the common liberty. It is, however, the habit in France, when a Government allows the attacks of party free play to laugh at its timidity, and when it puts them down to accuse it of persecution. The thing to do, therefore, is to apply the principle said to have been formulated by the President of the Republic himself—"To let everything be said, and nothing done."
The only point whereon the criticisms of the Cabinet's adversaries seem in some sense well-founded, is the charging it with having no definite political line, and being consequently incapable of any homogeneous influence either upon the Chambers or public opinion. It is quite certain that the Cabinet is wanting in unity; that MM. Waddington, Léon Say, and Gresley represent a less strongly accentuated political shade than MM. Le Royer, Jauréguiberry, Tirard, and Cochery, and these again a less strongly marked shade than MM. J. Ferry, De Freycinet, and Lepère. Each Minister has his particular plans, and occasionally the question suggests itself how far his colleagues approve and support him. In any case, the Cabinet's most important projects, M. Le Royer's judicial reform, M. de Freycinet's plans, the Ferry laws, were accepted rather than desired by M. Waddington, who cannot in consequence be considered to exercise any paramount sway over his colleagues. This subdivision of the Ministerial responsibility is unquestionably to be deplored, and impairs the strength of the Government; but is it not the fault of the Ministers, or rather the result and the faithful image of the Republican majority, whose unity proceeds solely from the necessity of fighting against Monarchical parties, and which represents very different tendencies? A homogeneous Ministry representing one of these tendencies only would command no majority. The Republic is still in the period of struggle and formation. It cannot observe the rules of the Parliamentary system quite regularly yet. Every Ministry is fatally a coalition Ministry, and consequently without unity. When it is, like the present one, agreed as to its general lines of policy, at once liberal and moderate, and sufficiently sympathetic to both Chambers, it would be hard, we must acknowledge, to find a better, and to wish for a change would be madness.
Not the constitution of the Ministry, but rather the political condition of the country, may, indeed, be productive of difficulties and dangers to the Republic. Were we to believe the reactionary papers and the anxious spirits, the greatest danger France is exposed to arises from the revival of Socialistic ideas occasioned by the return of the insurgents of the Commune. That disquieting signs and tendencies show themselves in that direction is true. The amnestied, who should have been received as penitent and pardoned culprits, have, by many—by M. Talandier, M. L. Blanc, and others of the Extreme Left—been welcomed as reinstated martyrs. People even went so far on their arrival as to dare to raise a cry of "Vive la Commune." One of the most criminal, M. Alphonse Humbert, who edited in 1871 a filthy and bloodthirsty paper, Le Père Duchesne, and in it directly provoked the murder of Gustave Chaudey, has been elected municipal councillor of Paris by the Javel Ward. Though the Comité Socialiste d'aide aux Amnistiés had rudely repudiated all community of action with the Republican committee presided over by V. Hugo, and contemptuously alluded to it as le comité bourgeois, the Rappel did not hesitate to support this candidature, stained as it was with blood. Hardly is old Blanqui released from his imprisonment at Clairvaux when he starts for a tour in the south to propagate his revolutionary doctrines, and finds people credulous enough to applaud the senile declamations in which he accuses M. Grévy and M. Gambetta of having sold themselves to the Jesuits and the Orleanists. M. Louis Blanc, whilst issuing in book form, under the title of "Dix ans de l'Histoire d'Angleterre" (Lévy), the wise and impartial letters he addressed to Le Temps from London between 1860 and 1870, has reverted to his dreams of 1848, and, more intent on winning a vain popularity than on consolidating the Republican régime, has aroused the passions and desires of an ignorant multitude by unfolding to them the chimerical and deceptive picture of a complete remodelling of the French Constitution, and the prosperity which, according to him, might be secured to all if they would lay down their liberties and their rights for the benefit of a Socialist State. Finally, the Workmen's Congress in Marseilles revealed with the utmost naïveté the false notions, the gross ignorance, and the bad instincts that M. Blanqui draws out from a fanatic monomania, and M. Louis Blanc encourages from desire for noisy popularity. The majority of the Congress plainly declared that they preferred the revolutionary course of an insurrection to the peaceful course of voting and legal action, that gradual progress was a chimera, that individual property must be converted into collective property, and that such conversion could only be effected by force. What was, perhaps, even more disquieting at the Marseilles Congress than these brutal declarations, was the almost fabulous ignorance, stupidity, and credulity displayed by most of the delegates, who must, nevertheless, be among the most intelligent and educated members of the Syndical Chambers. Neither in England nor in Germany would an assembly of workmen put up with such silly and empty discussions in which not a single practical question was treated seriously, and the general reform of society was accomplished in three or four high-sounding and pretentious phrases. The ignorance of the multitude is an immense danger, leaving it a prey to every illusion and dream and to the brutal impulse of its instincts.
Without being blind to the gravity of these symptoms, or denying that much of the leaven that produced the Commune is still to be found amongst the inhabitants of the great towns, I do not think the fact presents any immediate danger, or that there is any chance of a rising in Paris, or a revival of the Commune. The late manifestations have done exactly the reverse of furthering the end in view. At Bordeaux, Blanqui, who was elected in the first instance, failed in the second. His journey, triumphant at the outset, ended amidst murmurs on the one hand and indifference on the other. Humbert's election excited the disgust of the most advanced Republicans, and has insured the rejection of every new proposal of pardon for the members of the Commune. The folly talked at the Marseilles Congress provoked the protests of a strong minority in the very heart of the Congress, which energetically defended the principles of good sense and public order. If the revival of Socialism threaten the existence of the Republic, it is not so much on account of the possibility of its bringing back the Commune as that it may serve to provoke an anti-Republican reaction.
This is much more to be dreaded at present than any demagogical excesses. The attitude of the Conservative party presents much greater dangers to the Republic than that of the Socialist party. The Republic's only chance is its free acceptance by the bourgeoisie and the formation of a large Conservative but not reactionary party to counteract the impatience of the progressive element. Until now no such party exists. Many Conservatives have undoubtedly stuck to the Republic, but they are absorbed by the progressive Republican mass; the others have preserved a hostile attitude, and cherish visions of a Monarchical or Imperialist restoration. Clerical ideas confirm them in this attitude, and render them the irreconcilable enemies of the present order of things; they follow the inspirations of the clergy, who are convinced that no Republic can give them the liberty of action they desire, and who, moreover, consider themselves persecuted wherever they are not masters. The thing is to convince this Conservative mass, now enrolled under the banner of clericalism, that it is possible to give the clergy the honours and the liberty they deserve, whilst confining them strictly within the religious domain, and that the public régime can be a secular one without recourse to persecution. This is what the few members of the old Left Centre who refused to join the ranks of the Ministerial Left, and are headed by MM. Dufaure, De Montalivet, Ribot, Lamy, &c., are trying to convince the Conservatives of. They have started a new paper, Le Parlement, to vent their ideas, conducted with talent and earnestness, which if it succeed in its object will have done the Republic good service by calling a Republican Right into existence, whereas at present only a Republican Left exists, without any counterweight, and bounded by two abysses, the Commune on the one hand and Bonapartism on the other.
Certain members of the Republican party and even of the present Ministry thought that the deplorable influence Catholicism exercises on public affairs might be counteracted by open contest, and this was the origin of Clause 7, and the war at present waged everywhere against the Catholic bodies and the action of the clergy. Unfortunately there is a fatal solidarity between the Catholic religion itself and its most compromising representatives; the regular and secular clergy are united by the closest ties; it is impossible to deal a blow at the clergy on one point without in appearance attacking religion itself. Moreover it loves strife, and above all persecution; it feeds upon it; it wins the sympathy of the simple-minded by resisting, in the name of conscience, all even the most legitimate attacks against the authority it has usurped. The duty of a wise Government, therefore, is as far as possible to let all religious questions lie dormant, to cultivate towards them a salutary indifference, to avoid the possibility of being accused either of favouring or persecuting the clergy, so as to secure the countenance of all those who, without being hostile to the Church, have no wish to be its blind servants. One must be content to resist the Church's encroachments without attacking it in its own precincts. The present Ministry has stirred up, we think with unfortunate precipitancy, questions which might still have remained awhile untouched, and thus needlessly lessened the number of its partisans. But to be fair, it is certainly very difficult to be impartial and indifferent in face of a body in open revolt against the Government, whose bishops, like Monseigneur Freppel at the inauguration of the monument to Lamoricière, preach contempt for the Constitution and the law. The behaviour of the Belgian episcopate, on the occasion of the new school law, has proved that neither justice nor moderation is to be expected from the Catholic Church. Whence violent minds are too disposed to conclude that reconciliation being impossible, intolerance must be met by violence, and fanaticism by persecution.
Were it not for this unfortunate clerical question, the opposition to the Republican form of Government would be reduced to a minimum. The Legitimist banquets organized throughout the country in commemoration of the Comte de Chambord's birthday, September 29th, testified to the ridiculous weakness of a number of aged children who indulge in the phrases and fables of a bygone time. This flourish of forks was met by all parties with ironical compassion. The Bonapartist party has but imperfectly recovered from the blow dealt it in the death of the Prince Imperial. Prince Jerome Napoleon may alter his outward line, become as reserved as formerly he was unguarded in his language, organize his house on a princely footing, have his organs amongst the press, rally round him a great number of those who but now overwhelmed him with the most ribald insults; he will never either wipe out a too well-known past, or with all his intelligence make up for the total absence of military prestige or personal regard. Nevertheless, Bonapartism is so decidedly the fatal incline towards which France will always be impelled if she become disgusted with the Republic, that he appears to some the only issue in case of a new revolution, and more than one of those who had of late reattached themselves to the Republic were seen to turn their eyes to Prince Napoleon when Humbert's election or the Socialist speeches at Marseilles renewed their old terrors. Universal suffrage is always threatening France with sudden surprises. If, as some politicians wish, the scrutin de liste be substituted for the scrutin d'arrondissement, it might yet be that the name of Napoleon would find a formidable echo in the popular mass, and eclipse all the new names which want its legendary and historical prestige. This might happen, especially if the depression of trade and the clerical contest were by degrees to weary and disgust the mass of the electors with political questions, as would appear to have been the case at the legislative elections of Bordeaux and the Paris municipal elections, when more than two-fifths of the electors abstained from voting. It might, above all, happen if the Chambers continue to postpone all the reform laws, those relating to the army, to education, and to the magistracy, which await discussion and passing from session to session.
Many look forward to a time when these everlasting political questions will cease to burn so fiercely, when the suppression of State or Church will no longer be a daily question, and more modest and practical measures of reform can be taken in hand. A committee of lawyers has elaborated an important scheme for the reform of our criminal procedure, long known to be seriously defective. Will there be an opportunity of bringing it before the Chambers? Even more interesting is the divorce question, which has found an able, persevering, and eloquent advocate in M. Naquet. Of all others, this reform is the most urgent. Those acquainted with family life in France know the fatal moral consequences arising from judicial separation, the only resource of ill-assorted couples. Not to speak of the flagrant injustice which allows the man to separate from his wife on account of offences she is obliged to tolerate in him, the two, though separated, remain jointly and severally liable. The woman is obliged, in a number of instances, such as the marriage of a child confided to her care, to obtain the husband's authorization, whilst she, on her part, can drag in the mire the name of her husband which she continues to bear, or pass off children upon him which are not his. Separation has all the drawbacks of divorce, besides others peculiar to it, which divorce remedies. M. Naquet has treated the question from the tribune, as also in a series of articles published in the Voltaire, wherein he cites a number of heartrending cases in which divorce would be the only possible remedy, and, finally, in the lectures he has been holding in all the large towns. His campaign has been crowned with success, and the law will, it is believed, be passed by the Chambers. No small credit is due to M. Naquet, for he had to contend with prejudices of several kinds—the religious prejudices of Catholicism, which does not admit the power of the civil law to cancel a sacrament of the Church; the political prejudices of Republican theorists, who affect to attach a more sacred and indelible character to the civil consecration of the magistrate than to the religious one of the priest; the prejudices of immoral and unprincipled men, who form a numerous class everywhere, who never having felt the restraints of moral law are not troubled by the misfortunes springing from unhappy marriages, but, on the contrary, are glad to take advantage of them; finally, with the prejudices of some serious-minded persons, who are afraid that in sanctioning divorce the Republic may appear to violate the respect due to marriage. The last aspect of the question has been ably supported by a deputy, M. Louis Legrand, in his interesting study, "Le Mariage;" but M. Naquet finds no difficulty in proving that marriage is more respected where divorce is possible than where judicial separation only can be obtained, nor in showing religious men that the Church has always recognised fourteen cases in which marriage becomes void, whilst the French law only recognises one, mistaken identity, which practically never occurs.
We have but to open a French novel, or visit the theatre, to convince ourselves of the necessity of divorce. Mme. Gréville, in "Lucie Rodey" (Plon), depicts a young woman reduced by her husband to the most wretched condition, with no resource but resignation and a pardon all but dishonourable to her; Mme. Bentzon, in "Georgette" (Lévy), describes with exquisite delicacy the painful position of a woman who, separated from her husband, and living on terms the world condemns with a man of elevated character, is driven in the presence of her innocent daughter to blush for a position the disgrace of which her own elevation of sentiment had hitherto veiled from her. Half the novels in France turn on the domestic misery arising from the indissolubility of the marriage tie. Hackneyed as the subject is, it presents so many aspects that new effects can always be derived from it. Such dramas will ever remain the most touching source the imagination of the novelist has to draw upon. From the princess to the peasant, humanity is the same in its affections and sufferings. If you want to know how the peasant suffers read "Un Coin de Village," by M. Camille Lemonnier (Lemerre), a picturesque and piquant young writer, who combines the touching grace of Erckmann-Chatrian with a power of realistic observation quite his own. If you wish for something more recherché, dealing with the richer and higher classes of society, M. Gualdi, a young naturalized Italian, French in talent, provides you with a drama of the most brilliant originality in his "Mariage Extraordinaire" (Lemerre). A charming but poor girl, Elise, is on the point of marrying a man she does not love to save her parents from ruin. She is attached to a young man, Giulio, worthy of her, but poor also; he has been obliged to expatriate himself, and Elise's mother makes her believe that her fiancé has forgotten and betrayed her. The Comte d'Astorre, an elegant and magnificent viveur, with a generous soul under his frivolous exterior, is touched by Elise's fate; to enable her to escape a hateful marriage he offers her the shelter of his name and house, promising that he will consider himself as a friend, not a husband. For a time the compact is kept, but the Comte d'Astorre ends by falling in love with his wife; the quondam viveur becomes the timid, trembling, and naïf suitor. Elise ends by allowing herself to be moved, and when poor Giulio comes back from India, true to the faith he had sworn, she repulses him, first in the name of duty, and soon, one is made to feel, in the name of a new nascent love. This singular and delicate theme is treated by M. Gualdi with a refinement of touch that indicates the acute psychologist, and the passionate scene between Giulio and Elise on their meeting again is really beautiful.
To ascend a step higher in the social hierarchy and learn what a queen, wounded in her feelings as a woman and a mother, can suffer, read M. A. Daudet's last novel, "Les Rois en Exil" (Dentu), in which he continues to work the vein he opened so successfully in "Le Nabab," the portraiture of Parisian life, viewed from its most brilliant side as from that most flecked with impurity, disorder, and adventure. In the "Nabab," M. Daudet had the advantage of describing the world he had been most familiar with, since his two chief personages were M. de Morny, whose secretary he had been for several years, and M. Bravay, his former friend. But this advantage was also a defect, for no true novel is possible with very well-known contemporary personages for the characters; and the "Nabab," marvellous as regards truth and vivid detail, was poor as regards composition. In "Les Rois en Exil" we again meet with a number of well-known personages: the King of Hanover, the Queen of Spain, the Prince of Orange, the Queen of Naples, Don Carlos. Elysée Méraut, the little prince's tutor, is said to be the portrait of an excellent youth, by name Thérion, also entrusted with a prince's education, and who was horrified to find that he believed more firmly in the principles of legitimacy and divine right than his pupil's parents. The father of Elysée Méraut, the old Legitimist peasant who sees his son's future insured because the Comte de Chambord promises to bear him in mind, is no other than A. Daudet's own father. But all the real portraits are secondary characters that form the background of the picture. The leading personages of the drama, Christian II., the dethroned king of Illyria, who takes his exile very lightly, and forgets it by wallowing in the mire of Parisian dissipations; his wife, the noble Fréderique, who lives but for one thing, the recovery of the throne of her husband and son, and in that hope endures every affront; their trusty attendants, the two Rosens; and finally John Lévis, the unscrupulous man of business, who knows the tariff of all the vices, and with his wife Séphora, takes advantage of the dissolute weakness of Christian II.,—all these leading figures, though compounded of traits, if not real at least profoundly true, are the author's own creation. They are artistically superior, moreover, to those of the "Nabab," more complete, more lifelike even, for they are stripped of such traits as are too personal, secondary, fleeting, contrary to actual reality, and wear rather the character of types. Types they truly are, this king and queen, representative of all the grandeur and vileness, the heroism and cowardice, the noble pride and foolish prejudice, dwelling in the exiled sovereigns who came to Paris, some to weep for monarchy, others to hold its carnival, some as to the centre of pleasure, others to that of political intrigue; and is there not a philosophy, historical and political, in M. Daudet's novel, in his picture of Christian II. forced to abdicate his royal pretensions after sacrificing them to the love of an unworthy woman who has fooled him, and Fréderique bidding farewell to all the hopes that centred in her little Zara, forgetting everything besides being a mother, and devoting all her powers towards rescuing her child from the sickness that is killing him? It is unfair to M. Daudet to say that he only possesses the art of painting the chatoyant lights, the picturesque outside of Parisian life, the dresses, the furniture, and the scenery; to represent him as merely a skilful manufacturer of bimbeloterie. We may tax him with abuse of description, and that habit of reportage peculiar to the daily press; and it would be vain to look in him for the sobriety that enhances the beauty of some immortal works of art; but such sobriety is incompatible with an art which aims at painting human life in all its aspects, all its details, all its colours. Neither Shakspeare, Dickens, nor Balzac is sober. To be sure M. Daudet is neither a Dickens nor a Balzac, but his delicate sensibility makes him penetrate far below the outer crust, to the human ground of the characters, and the life they live is a real one. On account of this, the first quality of a novelist, one forgives the brutality and the pretentious passages, an imitation, the one of M. Zola, the other of M. de Goncourt, and the inequalities of a style which is, nevertheless, in wonderful harmony with the world he paints.
That which constitutes M. Daudet's great superiority over other novelists of the realistic school, is that he has no contempt for humanity, that he always loves it, often pities, and sometimes admires it. Nothing can be more false, more unpleasant, or, we may venture to say, more tiresome, than the view taken by a certain would-be scientific pessimism of humanity, as being nothing but a compound of vileness, vapidness, and folly. M. Zola is learning it to his cost. After the immense success of "L'Assommoir," due to the great power of the painter, as also to the horror inspired by scenes of unparalleled crudeness, he wished to outdo himself and depict in "Nana" the lowest depths of Parisian corruption. To make the impression the more complete, he has not let in a single breath of pure air; or introduced a single character which was not insipidly stupid and sensual, enslaved by the lowest appetites, incapable of a single noble thought or generous sentiment. The effect on the public was weariness rather than disgust. Le Voltaire, which had expected to make its fortune by bringing out the book in feuilletons, was greatly surprised to see its circulation rapidly fail, actually on account of M. Zola's novel. We are afraid the same thing will happen with regard to the work announced by M. Flaubert. This great writer and conscientious artist is unfortunately persuaded, in spite of his admiration for I. Tourguéneff (that true painter of humanity, of its virtues as of its vices), that the novel should confine itself to the portrayal of the mediocre and uniform mass which makes up the majority of men. Already in "L'Education Sentimentale" he sought to show the vulgarity and coarseness that generally conceal themselves under what is called love; in the novel he is now engaged on he shows us two men brutalized by the mechanical routine of a bureaucratic career, studying every human science, and finding in the study merely an occasion for the better display of their incurable folly. Such mistakes committed by men of genius cause us the better to appreciate less powerful certainly, but more human, works, by writers who seek to render life attractive to us, such as A. Theuriet, for instance, who has just produced a new novel, "Le Fils Mangars" (Charpentier). M. Theuriet is one of the few French writers of fiction who, instead of dealing with the tragedies of guilty passion succeed in shedding a dramatic interest over the affections and sufferings of pure young hearts. In this he resembles the English novelists. Innocent love forms the groundwork of his books, and constitutes their poetry and their charm. "Le Fils Mangars" is the first of a series of studies entitled "Nos Enfants," dealing with the various complications arising out of the disagreement of parents and children. In "Le Fils Mangars" we are introduced to a father, who has devoted all his efforts towards amassing a fortune for his son, has to that end made use of dishonest means, and finds his punishment in the loyalty of the one for whom he committed the wrong. His son refuses to benefit by the wealth dishonestly acquired, and falls in love with the daughter of one of the men his father has ruined. This poignant theme is handled with the airy and attractive delicacy that characterizes Theuriet's touch.
Were the surly critics to be trusted, we should not be leaving the domain of fiction in turning to the new volume M. Renan has devoted to the history of the sources of Christianity, entitled "L'Eglise Chrétienne" (Lévy). It deals with the definitive constitution of the Church, at the moment when dogma forms itself by contact with, and in opposition to, the various heresies, and the organization of the hierarchy takes place. It is true that M. Renan could, if he so wished, be a wonderful writer of fiction. With what art he brings on his personages, how admirably he infuses life into the thousand dry and scattered fragments collected by erudition, and forms them into a co-ordinate and complete whole! With what psychological penetration he enters into the minds of his personages, and makes us familiarly acquainted with the Roman Cæsars or the Church Fathers! What wealth of imagination! what witchery of style! At times he is, no doubt, led away by his imagination; too often the desire to invest old facts with life and reality leads him to compare, or even assimilate, the present with the past, and, in his exposition of ancient ideas, to mix them up with his own, ideas so peculiar to our time and to M. Renan himself, that the intermixture produces a false impression. It is daring to ascribe the Fourth Gospel to Cerinthus, and still more so to regard the letter of the Lyons Church on the martyrdom of Pothin and his companions as a proof of the Lyonnese being false-minded, and to connect the fact with the Socialist tendencies of modern Lyons. From his comparing Hadrian in some respects to Nero, we gather that M. Renan has yielded to the indulgence he had already testified towards Nero in his volume on "L'Antechrist," an indulgence grounded on the artistic tastes, or rather pretensions, of the royal stage-player. But these blemishes, and occasional breaches of historical truth or good taste, ought not to blind us to the historical value of a work which, if it be the work of a great artist, is likewise that of a scholar of the first order. Numbers of men can pore over texts and critics, but to revive the past, and introduce into the domain of history, and make the general public familiar with subjects reserved hitherto to theologians and critics by profession, is the work of a genius only. Scholars find much to censure in Michelet's "Histoire de Franceau moyen Age;" but whatever its inexactitudes, he is the only man who has succeeded in restoring to life the France of bygone days. And is not life one of the most important elements of reality? Even an imperfect acquaintance with a living man enables one to form a truer notion of the man than the most minute autopsy of a dead body. Moreover, as regards the past we have not the whole body, but only scattered fragments; the breath of genius must pass over these dry bones—restore to them flesh, blood, colour, movement, and voice.
But genius can only do her magic work when the materials that are to serve for this wonderful transformation have been collected by erudition. M. Renan would not have been able to construct his historical monument had not German criticism prepared the way for him. Erudition occasionally arrives at astonishing results by digging, either in the earth which has swallowed up the ancient buildings or in the dust of the archives. Here is an individual who played a very important part in the fifteenth century in the struggle between France and England, who, though a stranger and fighting more especially as an adventurer greedy of spoil, helped to restore France to independence, who was almost unknown, whose name was not mentioned in any of our histories. M. I. Quicherat has brought him to life, and "Rodrigue de Villandrando" (Hachette) will see his name cited in all the histories of the reign of Charles VII. The book is a model of historical reconstruction. It is wonderful to see how, with a series of scattered indications, most of them the very driest of documents, not only the incidents of a life, but the features of a character, can be pieced together again.
Such a character as Rodrigue's is not very complicated, it is true. There are historical personages to penetrate the depths of whose nature an accumulation of documents and testimony would be necessary. Such is Napoleon, whom each day throws some new light upon, and on whom, after his having been magnified beyond all measure, posterity will, no doubt, be called to pass severe judgment. Never was such overwhelming testimony pronounced against him as in the "Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat," the first volume of which is just out. Mme. de Rémusat was so placed as to be more thoroughly acquainted than any one with the character of Napoleon. Lady-in-waiting to Josephine, and wife of one of Napoleon's "Maîtres du palais," she bowed for a long while to the ascendancy of Napoleon's genius, and the liking he testified for her was sufficiently strong to awaken, though unjustly, the momentary jealousy of Josephine. The speaker is not an enemy, therefore, but an old friend who tries to explain at once her adherence to the imperial régime and the motives that caused her to alter her political creed. She is thus in the best state of mind, according to M. Renan, for judging a great man or a doctrine, that of having believed and believing no longer. Add to this the sweetness of mind natural to a woman, and the kind of indulgence peculiar to times when sudden political changes lead to frequent changes of opinion. All these considerations only render Mme. de Rémusat's testimony the more overwhelming for Napoleon, and its value is singularly increased on its being seen to agree with that which all the sincere witnesses of the time, Ph. de Ségur, Miot de Mélito, as well as Sismondi, lead us to infer. The genius of Napoleon is not diminished, and nothing is more remarkable than the conversations related by Mme. de Rémusat, wherein he judges everything, literature, politics, and history, with a haughty originality from the point of view of his own interests and passions. Some of his sayings relative to the government of men are worthy of Machiavelli. The reasonings whereby he explains and justifies the assassination of the Duc d'Enghien would form a splendid chapter to the "Prince." But from the moral point of view Napoleon strikes us as the most perfect type of a tyrant. No moral law exists for him; he does not admit the obligation of any duty; he does not even recognise those duties of a sovereign, that subordination of the individual to the interests of the State, which constitute the greatness of a Cromwell or a Frederick II.; he recognises but one law, that of his nature, which insists on dominating and being superior to everything that surrounds him. Quia nominor Leo, is his only rule. Morals always have their revenge on those whose encroaching personality refuses to recognise laws. Writers or sovereigns, whatever their genius, relapse into falsehood and extravagance. This was Napoleon's fate. You are always conscious in him of the parvenu acting a part—the commediante tragediante, as Pius VII. put it. He had fits of goodness, of weakness even, but his human and generous sides had been crushed by his frightful egoism. He liked to make those he loved best suffer. He treated his wife and his mistresses with brutal contempt; he could no longer lament the death of those who seemed dearest to him. "Je n'ai pas le temps de m'occuper des morts," he said to Talleyrand. By the side of this great figure Mme. de Rémusat has, in her Memoirs, sketched many others—the frivolous, good, touching, and unfortunate Josephine; the amiable Hortense Beauharnais, the dry, cold Louis, Napoleon's sisters, jealous, proud, and immoral; and others—but all pale before the imperial colossus.
Besides M. Daudet's novel, M. Renan's new volume, and the Memoirs of Mme. de Rémusat, the last three months have witnessed another literary event of some consequence—the birth of an important Review, which aims at the position occupied for thirty years past by the Revue des Deux Mondes. The Nouvelle Revue was started and is edited by a woman, Mme. Edmond Adam, known as a writer under the name of Juliette Lamber. A new phenomenon this in the literary world, the strangest feature of it being that Mme. Adam has taken exclusively upon herself the bulletin of foreign politics. If the task of editing a Review be arduous for a man, who in the interest of his undertaking must brave every enmity and quench his individual sympathies, how much more so for a woman whose staff of contributors is recruited from the habitués of her salon, and who must be constantly tempted to carry into her official transactions the habits of gracious hospitality which have made her house one of the most courted political and literary centres of Paris?
The aim of the Nouvelle Revue also is to be up with the times; it is inclined to judge an article rather by the fame of the name at the end of it than by its own intrinsic merit; it will insert the superficial lucubrations of General Turr or M. Castelar, which but for the signature are worthless. It gives political questions an importance hardly appreciated by those who find all their political needs supplied by the daily press, and look to a Review for literary or scientific interests. Finally, the chief obstacle in the way of the Nouvelle Revue is that our best essayists are bound not only by chains of gratitude and habit, but also by chains of gold, to the Revue des Deux Mondes. Nevertheless there is plenty of room in our literary world for a new review, so far at least as writers are concerned. If she makes talent her aim, and not merely opinions agreeing with her own, Mme. Adam will not want for contributors. To get readers will be more difficult in a country of routine, where the Revue des Deux Mondes has become an indispensable item of every respectable family's household furniture. Until now the Nouvelle Revue has been successful; the sale has reached from 6000 to 8000 copies per number, and, without having yet published anything very first-rate, it has been fairly well supplied with pleasant articles. The recollections of the singer Duprez have hitherto been its greatest attraction. A novel by Mme. Gréville, and articles by MM. de Bornier, Bigot, and de Gubernatis also deserve mention.
Perhaps, after all, our judgment is partial, and the success of the Nouvelle Revue is due to its attention to the immediate interests of the present, and the space allotted to politics. The number of those who take an interest in literature daily grows smaller in France. Of those not absorbed by politics some forsake pure literature for erudition, and the greater number give themselves up to science. It is owing to the scholars that the Revue Philosophique is succeeding so brilliantly; all the scientific societies are flourishing, and L'Association pour l'Encouragement des Sciences again verified its growing advancement at its late meeting at Montpellier. The geographical section, recently founded, promises to become one of the most active, for geographical studies, so long neglected in France, have suddenly made an extraordinary start. The Geographical Society now has 1700 members, and has built itself a magnificent hôtel; the Alpine Club, a geographical rather than a climbing society, is increasing so rapidly in numbers that it is impossible to give the exact figure. It amounts to several thousand. If unscrupulous speculators have taken advantage of this reawakening zeal for geographical study to publish a swarm of superficial and hastily compiled handbooks, and carelessly engraved maps, some works of real merit have appeared that do credit to our French editors. And here the firm of Hachette holds the first rank. "La Tour du Monde" is an illustrated journal of travels, admirably arranged and printed; the great Historical Atlas and Universal Dictionary of Geography of M. Vivien de Saint Martin have but one fault, the excessive tardiness of their publication. M. Elisée Reclus's handsome work, "La Terre et les Hommes," on the contrary, is issued with unexceptionable regularity. The fifth volume, now approaching completion, comprises the countries of Northern Europe, principally Russia, which is now attracting the attention of historians and politicians generally. M. Reclus's point of view is especially calculated to answer to the nature of the present interest, for he enters more particularly into the relations of the people to the soil; to the administrative geography, details concerning which are to be found everywhere, he pays only secondary attention, devoting himself more especially to the physical geography, customs, and institutions. His book is more particularly a work on geology, ethnography, and sociology; and therein lies its originality and usefulness. Hachette is also engaged in publishing a map of France that exceeds in beauty and precision everything that has ever been produced of the kind until now. It is drawn by the Service des Chemins Vicinaux at the expense of the Ministry of Interior, and will consist of 467 sheets. The scale is 1⁄100000. The admirable engraver, M. Erhard, has been entrusted with the execution, which is beyond criticism alike as regards fulness of detail, clearness, and colouring. Each sheet costs only 75c., a moderate sum, considering the exceptional merit of the work, the most considerable of its kind since the Staff map. A proof of the importance attached in these days to the study of geography is the foundation of Chairs of Geography in several of our Faculties of Letters—Bordeaux, Lyons, Nancy—and a course of lectures on historical geography at the École des Hautes Études. This course will be given by M. A. Longnon, whose works on "Les Pagi de la Gaule" and "La Géographie de la Gaule au sixième siècle," have made him a European authority. By the combined use of the philological laws of the transmutation of sounds, historical documents, and archæological data, he has reached a precision it seemed impossible to attain in these matters. He may be said to have founded a new science, and the happiest results are to be expected from his teaching.
There is always a lull in the artistic as in the literary and scientific world during the summer and autumn, so that there is little of importance to be noted. The designs sent in for the monument to Rabelais, for the statue of the Republic, for a decorative curtain to be executed by the Gobelins, all public works opened to competition, have been exhibited. The question of such competitions was much discussed on the occasion. It seems at first sight the best way of securing the highest work, but practically it is not so. Artists of acknowledged merit do not generally care to enter into competition with brother artists; they shrink from the expense, often considerable, which, in case of failure, is thrown away. That incurred, for instance, by the competitors for the statue of the Republic, amounted to about 4000 francs, and the premium awarded to the three best designs to just that sum. It would evidently always be better, when a really fine work is required, to choose the artist most capable of executing it well, and leave him free to follow his own inspiration. This method seems too little democratic for the days in which we live, so under colour of democracy a number of poor devils are made to involve themselves in enormous expenses for nothing.
The most notable events of the last three months in the artistic world have been the deaths of men variously famous. M. Viollet Le Duc leaves behind him the twofold reputation of a learned archæologist of the first order and an archæological architect still more remarkable. He had fame, indeed, of a third kind—as a stirring and noisy politician, who, from having been one of Napoleon III.'s familiar associates, and a constant guest at Compiègne, became one of the most advanced members of the Municipal Council of Paris, a courtisan of the multitude. But one is glad to forget him under these unfavourable aspects and to think of him only as the author of the two great historical dictionaries of "L'Architecture" and "Le Mobilier," and the clever and learned restorer of our mediæval monuments. Thanks to him, Notre Dame has been completed and finished, and reconstituted in the very spirit of the thirteenth century; thanks to him, we have at Pierrefonds the perfect model of a feudal castle. An indefatigable worker, this Radical has allied his name in a manner as glorious as it is indissoluble to the visible memorials of Catholic and Monarchical France.
Of a slighter, but perhaps more universal kind still was the reputation of the caricaturist Cham, or, to speak more correctly, the Viscomte de Noé. Son of a French peer known for his retrograde opinions, Cham worked all his life for the Republican papers, though people say he adhered to his Legitimist opinions. But he enjoyed an independence in the Republican papers which would not have been allowed him by the reactionary press; and a caricaturist's first condition is to have plenty of elbow-room to be able to give free play to his humour. The spring of Cham's humour was inexhaustible. An indifferent and monotonous draughtsman, his mind was wholly and entirely in the story of his drawings. The war of ridicule he waged in 1848 against the Socialistic theories of Proudhon, Pierre Leroux, Cabet, and Considérant exercised an undoubted influence on the public mind. His comic reviews of the annual Salon contained, amongst many amusing follies, some just and stinging criticisms. Cham leaves no successor, Bertall, who is a cleverer draughtsman, has none of his wit; Grévin can only sketch with exquisite grace the ladies of the demi-monde and the young fops of the boulevard; Gill's political caricatures are either bitter or violent. The lively and good-natured raillery of Cham has no doubt vanished for ever.
In conjunction with these two artists the name of a man should be mentioned, who, himself an indifferent artist, was the unfailing patron, the providence of artists, Baron Taylor, who died almost at the same time as Cham. He it was who taught artists to form themselves into associations against want. He was in particular the soul of the Société des Artistes Dramatiques, and amongst the immense crowd that attended his funeral were, no doubt, hundreds indebted to him for an easy career and a sure means of existence.
We are a long way removed from the time when the life of an artist was one long struggle with misery, when men of the first class continued obscure or barely maintained themselves by their works. Many difficulties still remain no doubt, but how much smoother the road has become! Musicians, more especially, found themselves in those days condemned to obscurity and oblivion. Now, thanks to concerts and theatres, they can almost always have the public for their judges. The Opera is at present in the hands of an enterprising and intelligent director, M. Vaucorbeil, who is anxious to rescue it from the groove it has been dragging on in for so long, with its current repertory of two or three antiquated works, barely bringing out a new one in four or five years. True, we have not got beyond good intentions until now, M. Gounod still intending to retouch the "Tribu de Zamora," M. A. Thomas to finish his "Françoise de Rimini," and M. Saint-Saens still unsuccessful in getting his "Etienne Marcel" accepted. Besides the Grand Opéra there is L'Opéra Populaire located in the Gaîté's old quarters, which intends, it is said, to revive the lost traditions of the lyric theatre, and to be the theatre of the young generation and of reform. But at present it is to the Pasdeloup and Colonne Concerts that the rising musical school owes the opportunity of making itself heard, and the Parisian public its familiar acquaintance with foreign works. The great reputation M. Saint-Saens now enjoys was made at Colonne's Concerts at the Châtelet. Lately Schumann's "Manfred" was given there. At the Cirque the "Symphonie Fantastique," by Berlioz, was played with immense success, also for the first time a pianoforte concerto by the Russian composer, Tschaikovsky, and M. Pasdeloup shortly intends to give a performance of the whole of the music of "Lohengrin."
Considered apart from music, the theatre is far from improving, and has, moreover, become the scene of performances that bear no relation to dramatic art. At the Nouveautés, Professor Hermann, of Vienna, is performing sleight-of-hand feats bordering on the miraculous; at the Variétés the Hanlon-Lees have transformed the stage into a gymnasium, where they defy every law of equilibrium and gravity. Holden's Marionettes, also one of the great attractions of the day, are not more dislocated or agile than these wonderful mountebanks. In the way of new plays the great rage at present is "Jonathan," M. Gondinet's latest work, which is being played at the Gymnase. Neither its wit nor its cleverness, any more than the talent of the actors, are to be denied; but what are we to think of a dramatic art whose sole end would seem to be to get accepted on the stage a story so scandalous that a brief account of it would be intolerable? By dint of shifts, doubtful insinuations, fun, and spirit, the sight of it is just rendered endurable. No heed is paid to truth, nor to either character or manners. It is the last utterance of the literary decadence. We thought that with "Bébé" we had reached the utmost limits of this kind of piece. To "Jonathan" is due the honour of having extended those limits.
One feels grateful to those who, like M. Claretie, dare to shed a purer atmosphere over the stage. "Les Mirabeau" is far from being a masterpiece. It exhibits, like all M. Claretie's works, rather a careless facility, but at the same time a true understanding of the Revolutionary period; the tone is strong and healthy, and some scenes, in which Mdlle. Rousseil shows herself a great actress, are exceedingly dramatic. It is given at an enterprising theatre, the Théâtre des Nations, which is devoting itself to historical drama, and, in a double series of dramatic matinées held on Sunday afternoons, is giving, on the one hand, a set of plays relating to every epoch of French history, on the other, a set of foreign plays translated into French, and intended to promote the knowledge of the dramatic works of other countries, ancient as well as modern; an ingenious and happy undertaking, to which we cannot but wish every success.
G. Monod.
| Transcriber's Note Some of the words from the Article, "Hinduisn and Jainism" contain stand-alone acute accents, which have been retained. e.g., As´oka; Pars´vanātha; Pajjūsan; Sādhvinī; S´iva-rātri; Upās´raya. Errata Page 555: 'Governmeut' corrected to 'Government' "... was forced upon the Government by the attitude of Russia...." Page 580: 'botantist' corrected to 'botanist'. "... by the German botantist, Hildebrand,..." Page 642: 'is' corrected to 'Is' "... in bonds and debentures? Is not part of the profit realized...." Page 714: Extraneous 'the' removed. "Besides the Grand Opéra there is L'Opéra Populaire [the] located...." [Return to Top] |