[1] Thiers was the grandson of this lady's sister.
[2] Sainte-Beuve is evidently in error, when, in his comparison of André Chénier with Mathurin Régnier (in his book on French poetry in the sixteenth century), he attributes the poem La Liberté to a period subsequent to Chénier's residence in London. Becq de Fouquières has proved the improbability of Andre's having been in London before 1790.
[VII]
DE VIGNY'S POETRY AND HUGO'S "ORIENTALES"
The first author to show the influence of Chénier was one of the most artistically audacious of the school, one of its original leaders—Alfred de Vigny—who as lyric poet was at times very faulty, at times an immaculate master. Chaste, lucid, pure, and austere, there is a quality in his best verse which has led all the critics who have attempted to describe it to employ such figures as the sheen of ivory, the whiteness of ermine, the sailing of the swan. It has the artistic severity, the sober colouring, the conciseness and the fastidiousness which also characterise Chénier's. And De Vigny was evidently afraid that these qualities would be attributed to Chénier's influence. For although no collection of his poetry was published before 1819, he took the trouble in later editions to furnish a number of the poems which seem to bear the clearest marks of this influence, with earlier dates, going even as far back as 1815. But even leaving out of consideration the fact that single poems of Chénier's had been given to the public (in Chateaubriand's Génie du Christianisme and as a supplement to Millevoye's poetical works) still earlier than this, it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that, in spite of the absolute uprightness which as a rule distinguished him, Alfred de Vigny has antedated his poems to give himself an undeserved appearance of complete originality. For the single poems which he published before the first collection in question are far inferior to those contained in it which bear a much earlier date—so inferior that he excluded them from the complete edition of his works. André Chénier's influence upon De Vigny is thus indisputable. The latter assimilated many of the characteristics of the rediscovered master, though he emancipated himself from the old-fashioned Hellenism of style which hampered Chénier's flight. The poem La Dryade, to which he gives the additional title of "Idyll in the manner of Theocritus," is in reality an idyll in the manner of André Chénier. What distinguishes De Vigny most markedly from Chénier as a lyric poet is his cult of pure intellect and his proud, stoic feeling of solitude. He has painted his own ideal portrait in such poems as Moïse, La colère de Samson, and La mort du loup. He is very present in Moses' sad cry:
"O Seigneur, j'ai vécu puissant et solitaire,
Laissez-moi m'endormir du sommeil de la terre!"
I seem to hear the plaint of his strong, sorely wounded self-esteem in Samson's outburst of wrath over Delilah's treachery (his Delilah being the great actress, Marie Dorval). Thrice already has he forgiven her, but she has been more ashamed than surprised at finding herself discovered and forgiven:
"Car la bonté de l'Homme est forte et sa douceur
Écrase, en l'absolvant, l'être faible et menteur."