"In one of the foregoing stanzas I speak of the 'lyres' which France owes to M. de Chateaubriand. I do not fear that that verse will be contradicted by the new poetic school, which, born beneath the eagle's wings, has often and rightly prided itself on that origin. The influence of the author of the Génie du Christianisme has also made itself felt abroad, and it would perhaps be just to recognise that the singer of Childe Harold belongs to the family of René."
In an excellent article on Lord Byron, M. Villemain[312] re-echoes M. de Béranger's remark:
"Some incomparable pages in René" he says, "had, it is true, exhausted that poetic character. I do not know whether Byron imitated them or revived them with his genius."
Literary affinity.
What I have just said as to the affinity of imagination and destiny between the chronicles of René and the singer of Childe Harold does not detract in the smallest degree from the fame of the immortal bard. What harm can my pedestrian and luteless muse do to the muse of the Dee[313], furnished with a lyre and wings? Lord Byron will live whether, a child of his century like myself, he gave utterance, like myself and like Goethe before us, to its passion and misfortune, or whether my circumnavigation and the lantern of my Gallic bark showed the vessel of Albion the track across unexplored waters.
Besides, two minds of an analogous nature may easily have similar conceptions without being reproached with slavishly following the same road. It is permitted to take advantage of ideas and images expressed in a foreign language, in order with them to enrich one's own: that has occurred in all ages and at all times. I recognise without hesitation that, in my early youth, Ossian[314], Werther[315], the Rêveries du promeneur solitaire[316] and the Études de la nature[317] may have allied themselves to my ideas; but I have hidden or dissimulated none of the pleasure caused me by works in which I delighted.
If it were true that René entered to some extent into the groundwork of the one person represented under different names in Childe-Harold, Conrad, Lara, Manfred, the Giaour; if, by chance, Lord Byron had made me live in his own life, would he then have had the weakness never to mention me[318]? Was I then one of those fathers whom men deny when they have attained to power? Can Lord Byron have been completely ignorant of me when he quotes almost all the French authors who are his contemporaries? Did he never hear speak of me, when the English papers, like the French papers, have resounded a score of times in his hearing with controversies on my works, when the New Times drew a parallel between the author of the Génie du Christianisme and the author of Childe-Harold?
No intelligence, however favoured it be, but has its susceptibilities, its distrusts: one wishes to keep the sceptre, fears to share it, resents comparisons. In the same way, another superior talent has avoided the mention of my name in a work on Literature[319]. Thank God, rating myself at my just value, I have never aimed at empire; since I believe in nothing except the religious truth, of which liberty is a form, I have no more faith in myself than in any other thing here below. But I have never felt a need to be silent, where I have admired; that is why I proclaim my enthusiasm for Madame de Staël and Lord Byron. What is sweeter than admiration? It is love in Heaven, affection raised to a cult; we feel ourselves thrilled with gratitude for the divinity which extends the bases of our faculties, opens out new views to our souls, gives us a happiness so great and so pure, with no admixture of fear or envy.