How great was the popularity of the brothers Lameth, when Mirabeau made the terrible allusion: “And I too could command a triumph. But from the Capitol to the Tarpeian rock, there is but a step!” How great was the popularity of that very colossus of eloquence, Mirabeau himself; who died in the nick of time that he might not survive the public favour which was rapidly declining.
What King was ever so popular as Louis XVI.? Yet his popularity had passed away long before he ascended that throne of revolutions, the scaffold. The popularity of Henri IV. lasted during his life, and was renewed by his tragic end; but lay torpid for a century after his death, to be revived by the genius of Voltaire. Under Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., the name of Henri IV. was never mentioned; and had not the poem of the Henriade refreshed the memory of the only King of whom the people are said to keep holy the recollection; Henri IV., like Louis XII., and other excellent Kings of France, would have been forgotten.
After repopularizing Henri IV., Voltaire became in his turn the most popular man in France, especially in the regions of the social and intellectual world. Voltaire was the prince of flatterers. He flattered, at the same time, kings and the people, but reproved as skilfully, so that he delighted kings by their personal praise, and the people by general reproaches against kings.
Voltaire enjoyed immense popularity during his life, and high honours after death; but in the sequel, he reaped the bitter fruits of the tree of evil he had planted. All but forgotten during the Revolution, quite so during the Empire, Voltaire only renewed his popularity at the Restoration. The official censure issued against the reprinting of his works, served for a time to restore him to importance.
Voltaire so completely absorbed the attention of his time, that not one of the great geniuses moving in the same sphere, arrived at any thing approaching his popularity. Montesquieu would not compete with him; and even Jean Jacques Rousseau, in spite of the superiority of his style, barely acquired popularity.
In general, popularity attaches rather to political than literary eminence; inclining towards trivialities, such as songs and epigrams, rather than to works of merit. A particular style of dress, or a cap of a particular colour is often necessary to secure popular favour. Yet popularity among the vulgar is not to be despised, being often the guerdon of works of genuine merit; more particularly as regards the Fine Arts. Barrel organs grinding the beautiful airs of our great composers in the streets, stamp them with a certificate of popularity; while, as regards pictures, their popularity is often insured by the intervention of some unskilful engraver.
Popularity sometimes attaches itself to tyrants; and Caligula and Nero were more popular in Rome than Germanicus. What mattered the slaughter of senators and patricians, or the confiscation of their property, so long as the proceeds afforded food and sports to the people? The populace delight especially in the downfall of royal favourites; and the overthrow of the statue of Sejanus, once the idol of Rome, was hailed with shouts of exultation. We cannot be surprised, however, that the Emperors of Rome were popular; since Louis XI. of France, and Henry VIII. of England were popular because they humbled the great, and summoned into their council men of the lowest origin.
Cardinal Richelieu completed the work of Louis XI. and destroyed the last vestiges of feudalism. But in this case, the same course produced a contrary effect. Richilieu was not popular. So true is it that popularity knows neither law nor precedent. Louis XIV., though not individually popular, was honoured for his conquests, so long as he remained victorious. Louis XV. was popular only twice in his long life; once, when a false report of his death had prevailed; and once, when he alighted from his carriage in Paris to kneel before the Holy Sacrament. Popularity possesses a somewhat loose morality; at times adopting the mistresses of Kings; such as Gabrielle d’Estrées, Agnes Sorel, and even the infamous Pompadour and du Barry.
Of the great men who adorned the reign of Louis XIV., few were popular during their life-time, with the exception of Molière and Corneille. Molière, because the power of his genius placed itself between the monarch and his people, castigating the vices of all classes with equal ridicule; Corneille, because he excited the heroism of the kingdom by exalting the Romans. His popularity was, however, less the result of his genius, than of the envious persecutions of Cardinal Richelieu.
Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, acquired only posthumous fame, purely literary, and likely to last for ever. Men of science are seldom popular; their devotion to science, and the purity of their calling confining their renown within certain limits. Those who benefit by the results of their labours, think of them as lightly as those who enjoy the warmth of the sun, without bestowing a thought upon its source. Few who use the barrow and the truck are aware that for these useful inventions they are indebted to Pascal; and what more popular than certain proverbs and quotations forming part of every conversation, of which few of us are able to name the author.