I remembered this saying more than once whilst creating Porthos, it was more pregnant than it seemed at the first utterance. My brevet for wittiness was, then, bestowed on me by Lassailly, a good fellow, who was not lacking in a certain sort of merit, but who, as regards wit, was as badly equipped by nature as the fox whose tail was cut off was with cunning. Besides, at that period I should have recognised the marvellous quality of mirthfulness which I had latent within my soul, fearfully hidden from all eyes. Then, the only mirth permissible was satanic, the mirth of Mephistopheles or of Manfred. Goethe and Byron were the two great sneerers of the century. In common with others I had put a mask on my face. Witness my portrait sketches of that period: there is one of Devéria, written in 1831, which, with a few alterations, could perfectly stand for the portrait of Antony. This mask, however, was gradually to fall and to leave my real face to be disclosed in the Impressions de Voyages. But, I repeat, in 1832 I was still looked upon as a Manfred and a Childe Harold. But, when one is of an impressionable temperament, this kind of whim only takes one during a headstrong period; and, the times themselves, being gloomy and terrible, were instrumental to the success both of my début as a democratic poet and also as a romance writer.
[1] M. Buloz's ambition was to have a review. I had the good fortune to help him in this ambition; I think I have previously said how; may I be excused if I repeat myself.
[CHAPTER V]
Success of my Scènes historiques—Clovis and Hlodewig (Chlodgwig) —I wish to apply myself seriously to the study of the history of France—The Abbé Gauthier and M. de Moyencourt—Cordelier-Delanoue reveals to me Augustin Thierry and Chateaubriand—New aspects of history—Gaule et France—A drama in collaboration with Horace Vernet and Auguste Lafontaine
My Scènes historiques sur le règne de Charles VI. were my first successful things in the Revue des Deux Mondes. We shall presently see the result which this proved success had for me. That success decided me to write a series of romances which should extend from the reign of Charles VI. to our own day. My first desire is always limitless; my first inspiration even to achieve the impossible. Only when I become infatuated, half through pride and half through love of my art, do I achieve the impossible. How?—I will try to tell you, although I do not understand it very thoroughly myself: by working as nobody else works, cutting off all the extraneous details of life and doing without sleep. When once ambition has taken shape in my thoughts my whole mind is set to the putting of it into execution. Having discovered a vein of gold in the well of the beginning of the fifteenth century, in which I had been digging, I never doubted, so great was my confidence in myself, that at each fresh well I dug in a century nearer our own times, if I did not find a vein of gold I should at least find one of platinum or silver. I put the silver last because, at this period, platinum still held an intermediary value between silver and gold. Nevertheless, one thing made me uneasy: from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, from Charles VI. to Napoleon, I should teach history to the public whilst learning it myself—but who would teach it me from Clovis to Charles VI.? May I be forgiven for saying Clovis. I called it so then, I still call it so now, but, from 1833 to 1840, I spoke of Hlodewig (Chlodgwig). True, no one understood whom I meant; that is why I returned to calling it Clovis—like the rest of the world.
I decided to write a few pages of introduction to my novel, Isabeau de Bavière, which was intended to open the series of my historical novels. You shall judge of my ignorance and appreciate my innocence, for I am going to tell you something that certainly no one else would admit. To learn the history of France, of which I did not know a word in 1831 (except that connected with Henri III.), and which, in common with general opinion, I held to be the most wearisome history in the whole world, I bought the Histoire de France, at the request of, and in response to, the Abbé Gauthier, since revised and corrected by M. de Moyencourt. So I bravely set to work to study the history of France, copying out such notes as the following as seriously as possible, which summed up a whole chapter poetically: