That Sainte-Beuve was not converted was, indeed, obvious enough, seeing that he was making violent love to his neighbour's wife at the time—between him and 'conversion' stood the obstructive charms of Madame Olivier. But it is equally true that he was not convinced; and, by a crowning irony, he found his faith evaporating as he got to close quarters with the subject, through the study of which he had expected to achieve conviction. The great history of Port Royal, begun by a believer, was finished by a sceptic. 'Moral bankruptcy,' is M. Michaut's description of his condition, and there is a sense in which it might be applied even by those who desire to dissociate morality from creeds. It was the end—at any rate, for Sainte-Beuve—of all emotion which was not either purely sensual or purely intellectual. He could not be a mystic, as he could not be a poet, because he lacked the necessary genius; and forms of religion which depended, not on intuition, but on authority, were repugnant to his sane intelligence. So he said a sad farewell to Christianity, and sought no substitute. 'I am mournfully looking on at the death of my heart,' he wrote to Vinet; and he went away and resigned himself to become a materialist, a voluptuary, and a critic.
And now a word about that Juste Olivier to whom Sainte-Beuve owed his appointment, and to whose wife Sainte-Beuve made love. The poet and the critic had met at Paris, where Olivier had gone to prepare himself for the Chair of Literature at Neuchâtel. He was promoted, three years later, to the Chair of History at Lausanne, which he occupied for twelve years, acting also, during part of the time, as editor of the Revue Suisse, to which Sainte-Beuve contributed. The Revolution of 1845 unseated him. He went to Paris, where he achieved no great success, and was homesick there for five-and-twenty years. The Swiss forgot him, and the Parisians did not understand him. But, in 1870, when there was no longer a living to be made in Paris, he came home again. One may quote the pathetic picture of his home-coming, drawn by M. Philippe Godet:
'He had to live. For three winters the poet travelled through French Switzerland, lecturing, reading his verses, relating his reminiscences, with that melancholy humour which gave his speech its charm. The public—I speak of what I saw—was polite, respectful, and nothing more. Olivier felt almost a stranger in his own country. But he consoled himself, in the summer, at Gryon, "the high village facing the Alps of Vaud," which he has so often celebrated. He was to sing, at the mid-August fête, his song to the Shepherds of Anzeindaz. And there they understood him and applauded. He had his day of happiness and glory among these simple mountaineers. He was, for an hour, what it had been the dream of his life to be, the national singer of the Vaudois country.'
But the end is melancholy. He died in a chalet at Gryon in January, 1876, a broken and disappointed man, reluctant even to speak of his work or hear it spoken of. There is a deep pathos in one of his last letters which M. Godet quotes:
'It is a melancholy history—that of our country. It did nothing for Viret or Vinet; and, though I do not rank myself with them, I too know what neglect means. "Come and have a drink"—that is their last word here. I had hoped for better things. What a beautiful dream it was! At least I have been loyal to it, even if I have not, as I fancy, done all that it was in me to do. Since the day when, in one of my first printed poems, I wrote, "Un génie est caché dans tous les lieux que j'aime," I have obstinately sought out that genius, and tried to make it speak. It has answered me, I think more often than its voice has been heard.'
LUTRY