I had kept the scored manuscript with religious care; ill-fortune willed that, when I left the Infirmerie de Marie-Thérèse, it was burnt with a heap of papers. Nevertheless the readers of these Memoirs shall not be deprived of it: one of my colleagues had the generosity to take a copy of it; here it is:
My inaugural speech.
"When Milton published Paradise Lost, not a voice was raised in the three kingdoms of Great Britain to praise a work which, in spite of its numerous defects, remains nevertheless one of the noblest monuments of the human mind. The English Homer died forgotten, and his contemporaries left to futurity the task of immortalizing the singer of Eden. Have we here one of the great instances of literary injustice of which examples are presented by nearly every century? No, gentlemen; the English, but recently escaped from the Civil Wars, were unable to bring themselves to celebrate the memory of a man who was remarked for the ardour of his opinions in a time of calamity. What shall we reserve, they asked, for the tomb of the citizen who devotes himself to the safety of his country, if we lavish honours upon the ashes of him who, at most, is entitled to claim our generous indulgence? Posterity will do justice to Milton's memory, but we owe a lesson to our sons: we must teach them, by our silence, that talents are a baleful gift when allied with the passions, and that it is better to condemn one's self to obscurity than to achieve celebrity through one's country's misfortunes.
"Shall I, gentlemen, imitate this memorable example, or shall I speak to you of the person and works of M. Chénier? To reconcile your usages and my opinions, I feel it my duty to adopt a middle course between absolute silence and a thorough consideration. But, whatever the words I may utter, no rancour will poison this address. Should you find in me the frankness of my fellow-countryman Duclos[40], I hope also to prove to you that I possess the same loyalty.
"Doubtless it would have been curious to see what a man in my position, holding my principles and my opinions, could have to say of the man whose place I occupy to-day. It would be interesting to examine the influence of revolutions upon literature, to show how systems can mislead talent and direct it into fallacious ways which seem to lead to fame and only end in oblivion. If Milton, despite his political aberrations, has left works which posterity admires, it is because Milton, without repenting his errors, withdrew from; a society which was withdrawing from him, to seek in religion the assuagement of his ills and the source of his glory. Deprived of the light of heaven, he created for himself a new earth, a new sun, and quitted, so to speak, a world where he had seen nought save misery and crime; he set in the bowers of Eden that primitive innocence, that blessed felicity which reigned beneath the tents of Jacob and Rachel; and he placed in the lower regions the torments, passions and remorse of the men whose furies he had shared.
"Unfortunately, the works of M. Chénier, though they show the germ of a remarkable talent, glow with neither that antique simplicity nor that sublime majesty. The author was distinguished for an eminently classical mind. None better understood the principles of ancient and modern literature; the stage, eloquence, history, criticism, satire: he embraced all these; but his writings bear the impress of the disastrous days that witnessed his birth. Too often dictated by the spirit of party, they have been applauded by factions. Shall I, in discussing my predecessor's works, separate what has already passed away, like our discords, and what will perhaps survive, like our glory? Here we find the interests of society and the interests of literature confounded. I cannot forget the first sufficiently to occupy myself solely with the second; wherefore, gentlemen, I am obliged either to keep silence or to raise political questions.
"There are persons who would make of literature an abstract thing and isolate it in the midst of human affairs. Such persons will say to me, 'Why keep silence? Treat M. Chénier's works only from the literary point of view.' That is to say, gentlemen, that I must abuse your patience and my own by repeating commonplaces which you can find anywhere and which you know better than I. Manners change with the times: heirs to a long series of peaceful years, our forerunners were able to indulge in purely academic discussions which were even less a proof of their talent than of their happiness. But we, who remain the victims of a great shipwreck, no longer have what is needed to relish so perfect a calm. Our ideas, our minds have taken a different direction. The man has in us taken the place of the academician: by divesting literature of all its futility, we now behold it only in the light of our mighty memories and of the experience of our adversity. What! After a revolution which has caused us, in a few years, to live through the events of many centuries, shall the writer be forbidden all lofty considerations, shall he be denied the right to examine the serious side of objects? Shall he spend a trivial life occupied with grammatical quibbles, rules of taste, petty literary judgments? Shall he grow old, bound in the swaddling-clothes of his cradle? Shall he not show, at the end of his days, a brow furrowed by his long labours, by his grave reflections, and often by those manly sufferings which add to the greatness of mankind? What important cares, then, will have whitened his hair? The miserable sorrows of self-love and the puerile sports of the mind.
"Surely, gentlemen, that would be treating ourselves with a very strange contempt! Speaking for myself, I cannot thus belittle myself, nor reduce myself to the condition of childhood at the age of strength and reason. I cannot confine myself within the narrow circle which they would trace around the writer. For instance, gentlemen, if I wished to pass a eulogy on the man of letters, on the man of the Court who presides over this meeting[41], do you believe that I would content myself with praising in him the light and ingenious French wit which he received from his mother[42], and of which he displays to us the last model? No, assuredly: I should wish to make glow once more in all its brilliancy the noble name which he bears. I should mention the Duc de Boufflers[43] who forced the Austrians to raise the blockade of Genoa. I should speak of the marshal, his father[44], of the governor who held the ramparts of Lille against the enemies of France, and who, by that memorable defense, consoled a great king's unhappy old age. It was of that companion of Turenne that Madame de Maintenon said:
"'In him the heart was the last to die.'
My speech continued.
"Lastly, I should go back to that Louis de Boufflers[45], called the Robust, who displayed in combat the vigour and valour of Hercules. Thus, at the two extremities of this family, I should find force and grace, the knight and the troubadour. They say that the French are sons of Hector: I would rather believe that they descend from Achilles, for like that hero they wield both the lyre and the sword.
"If I wished, gentlemen, to talk to you of the celebrated poet[46] who sang the charms of nature in such brilliant tones, do you think that I would confine myself to pointing out to you the admirable flexibility of a talent which succeeded in rendering with equal distinction the regular beauties of Virgil and the less correct beauties of Milton? No: I would also show you the poet refusing to part from his unfortunate countrymen, accompanying them with his lyre to foreign shores, singing their sorrows to console them; an illustrious exile among that crowd of banished men whose number I increased. It is true that his age and his infirmities, his talents and his glory had not protected him against persecution in his own country. Men tried to make him purchase peace with verses unworthy of his muse, and his muse could sing only the redoubtable immortality of crime and the reassuring immortality of virtue:
"Rassurez-vous, vous êtes immortels[47]!
"If, again, I wished to speak to you of a friend very dear to my heart[48], one of those friends who, according to Cicero, render prosperity more brilliant and adversity less irksome, I should extol the refinement and purity of his taste, the exquisite elegance of his prose, the beauty, the strength, the harmony of his verses, which, while formed after the great models, are nevertheless distinguished by their original character. I should extol that superior talent which has never known the feelings of envy, that talent made happy by every success other than its own, that talent which, for ten years, has felt all that has happened to me of an honourable nature with the deep and simple joy known only to the most generous characters and the liveliest friendship. But I should not omit my friend's political side. I should depict him at the head of one of the principal bodies of the State, delivering those speeches which are master-pieces of propriety, moderation and exaltedness. I should represent him sacrificing the gentle commerce of the Muses to occupations which would no doubt be without charm, if one did not abandon one's self to them in the hope of forming children capable of one day following the example of their fathers and avoiding their errors.
"In speaking of the men of talent of whom this meeting is composed, I could not therefore prevent myself from considering them from the point of view of morality and society. One is distinguished among you by a refined, delicate and sagacious wit, by an urbanity nowadays so rare, and by the most honourable constancy in his moderate opinions[49]. Another, under the ice of age, found the warmth of youth wherewith to plead the cause of the unfortunate[50]. A third[51], an elegant historian and agreeable poet, becomes more venerable and more dear to us by the memory of a father[52] and a son[53], both mutilated in the service of the country. Yet another, by restoring their hearing to the deaf, their speech to the dumb, recalls to us the miracles of the Gospels, to the cult of which he has devoted himself[54]. Are there not, gentlemen, among you some witnesses of your former triumphs who can tell the worthy heir[55] of the Chancelier d'Aguesseau[56] how his grandsire's name was once applauded in this assembly? I pass to the favourite nurselings of the nine Sisters, and I see the venerable author of Œdipe[57] retired in his solitude and Sophocles forgetting at Colonos the glory that calls him back to Athens. How greatly must we cherish the other sons of Melpomene who have interested us in the misfortunes of our fathers! Every French heart has throbbed anew at the presentiment of the death of Henry IV[58]. The tragic muse has re-established the honour of those gallant knights dastardly betrayed by history, and nobly revenged by one of our modern Euripides[59].
My speech continued.
"Coming to the successors of Anacreon, I would pause at the amiable man[60] who, similar to the veteran of Teos[61], still re-tells, after fifteen lustra, those love-songs which one begins to write at fifteen years. I would also, gentlemen, go to seek your renown on the stormy seas which were formerly guarded by the giant Adamastor[62], and which became appeased by the charming names of Éléonore[63] and Virginie[64]. Tibi rident æquora.
"Alas, too many of the talents in our midst have been wandering and restless! Has poetry not sung in harmonious verse of the art of Neptune[65], that so fatal art which transported it to distant shores? And has not French eloquence, after defending the altar and the State, withdrawn, as though into its source, to the land where St. Ambrose[66] first saw the light[67]? Why can I not here place all the members of this assembly in a picture the colours of which have not been embellished by flattery! For, if it be true that envy sometimes obscures the estimable qualities of men of letters, it is still more true that this class of men is distinguished by lofty sentiments, by disinterested virtues, by the hatred of oppression, devotion to friendship, and fidelity to misfortune. It is thus, gentlemen, that I love to consider a subject from all its aspects, and that I love especially to give a serious character to literature by applying it to the most exalted subjects of morality, philosophy and history. With this independence of mind, I must needs abstain from touching upon works which it is impossible to examine without irritating the passions. Were I to speak of the tragedy of Charles IX, could I refrain from avenging the memory of the Cardinal de Lorraine and discussing the strange lesson there given to Kings? Caius Gracchus, Calas, Henri VIII, Fénelon[68] would in many respects present sent to me a distortion of history upon which to rest the same doctrines. When I read the satires, I there find immolated men occupying places in the first ranks of this assembly; nevertheless, written as they are in a pure, elegant and easy style, they agreeably recall the school of Voltaire, and I should take the more pleasure in praising them inasmuch as my own name has not escaped the author's malice[69]. But let us leave on one side works which would give rise only to painful recriminations: I will not disturb the memory of a writer who was your colleague and who still numbers friends and admirers among you; he will owe to religion, which appeared to him so contemptible in the writings of those who defend it, the peace which I wish to his tomb. But even here, gentlemen, shall I not have the misfortune to strike upon a rock? For, in offering to M. Chénier this tribute of respect which is due to all the dead, I fear to meet beneath my steps ashes very differently illustrious. If ungenerous interpretations would impute this involuntary emotion to me as a crime, I should take refuge at the foot of those expiatory altars which a powerful monarch erects to the manes of outraged dynasties. Ah, how much happier would it have been for M. Chénier not to have taken part in those public calamities which at last fell back upon his head! He has known, like myself, what it means to lose in the storms a fondly cherished brother[70]. What would our unhappy brothers have said, had God summoned them on the same day before His tribunal? If they had met at the hour of death, before mingling their blood they would doubtless have cried to us, 'Cease your intestine wars, return to thoughts of love and peace; death strikes all parties alike, and your cruel divisions cost us our youth and our life.' That would have been their fraternal cry.
My speech continued.
"If my predecessor could hear these words, which now console only his shade, he would appreciate the tribute which I am here paying to his brother, for he was by nature generous: it was even this generosity of character which drew him into new ideas, very seductive no doubt, since they promised to restore to us the virtues of Fabricius[71]. But, soon deceived in his hopes, he found his mood becoming embittered, his talent changing its nature. Removed from the poet's solitude into the midst of factions, how could he have abandoned himself to those sentiments which make the charm of life? Happy had he seen no sky save the sky of Greece under which he was born[72], had he set eyes upon no ruins save those of Sparta and Athens! I should perhaps have met him in his mother's beautiful country, and we would have sworn mutual friendship on the banks of the Permessus; or else, since he was to return to his paternal fields, why did he not follow me to the deserts upon which I was flung by our tempests! The silence of the forests would have calmed that troubled soul, and the huts of the savages would perhaps have reconciled him to the palaces of kings. Vain wish! M. Chénier remained upon the stage of our excitements and our sorrows. Attacked while still in his youth by a mortal malady, you have seen him, gentlemen, droop slowly towards the tomb and leave for ever.... I have not been told of his last moments.
"None of us, who have lived through the troubles and excitements, shall escape the eyes of history. Who can flatter himself that he shall be found stainless in a time of frenzy when none has the entire use of his reason? Let us then be full of indulgence for others; let us excuse that of which we cannot approve. Such is human weakness, that talent, genius, virtue itself are sometimes able to overstep the limits of duty. M. Chénier worshipped liberty: can we ascribe it to him as a crime? The knights themselves, were they to issue from their tombs, would follow the light of our century. We should see that illustrious alliance formed between honour and liberty, as under the reign of the Valois, upon our monuments. Gothic battlements crowned with infinite grace the orders borrowed from the Greeks. Is not liberty the greatest of benefits and the first of man's needs? It kindles genius, it elevates the heart, it is as necessary to the friend of the Muses as the air he breathes. The arts are, to a certain point, able to live in dependence, because they make use of a language apart, which is not understood by the crowd; but letters, which speak an universal language, pine and perish in irons. How shall one compose pages worthy of the future, if one must forbid one's self, in writing, every magnanimous sentiment, every great and powerful thought? Liberty is so naturally the friend of science and literature, that she takes refuge with them when she is banished from the midst of the peoples; and it is we, gentlemen, whom she charges to write her annals and to revenge her on her enemies, to hand down her name and her cult to posterity for all time. To prevent any mistake in the interpretation of my thought, I declare that I am here speaking only of the liberty which is born of order and gives birth to laws, and not of that liberty which is the daughter of license and the mother of slavery. The wrong of the author of Charles IX did not, therefore, lie in offering his incense to the former of these divinities, but in believing that the rights which she gives us are incompatible with a monarchical form of government. A Frenchman displays in his opinions that independence which other nations show in their laws. Liberty is for him a sentiment rather than a principle, and he is a citizen by instinct and a subject by choice. If the writer whose loss you are mourning had made this reflection, he would not have embraced in one and the same love the liberty that creates and the liberty that destroys.
My speech concluded.
"Gentlemen, I have finished the task which the customs of the Academy have laid upon me. On the point of ending this speech, I am struck with an idea which saddens me: it is not long since M. Chénier pronounced upon my writings some findings which he was preparing to publish; and to-day it is I who am judging my judge. I say, in all the sincerity of my heart, that I would rather continue exposed to the satire of an enemy, and live peacefully in solitude, than bring home to you, by my presence in your midst, the rapid succession of men upon earth, the sudden apparition of that death which overthrows our projects and our hopes, which snatches us away at a stroke, and which sometimes hands over our memory to men entirely opposed to us in sentiment and principle. This platform is a sort of battle-field in which talents come by turns to shine and die. What diverse geniuses has it not seen pass! Corneille, Racine, Boileau, La Bruyère[73], Bossuet, Fénelon, Voltaire, Buffon[74], Montesquieu.... Who would not be afraid, gentlemen, to think that he is about to form a link in the chain of that illustrious lineage? Overcome by the weight of those immortal names, and unable to make myself recognised through my talents as the lawful heir, I will at least try to prove my descent by my sentiments.
"When my turn shall have come to yield my place to the orator who is to speak on my tomb, he may treat my works severely, but he will be obliged to say that I loved my mother-land passionately, that I would have endured a thousand ills rather than cost my country a single tear, that I would without hesitation have made the sacrifice of my days to those noble sentiments which alone give value to life and dignity to death.
"But what a moment have I chosen, gentlemen, to speak to you of mourning and obsequies! Are we not surrounded by scenes of festivity? A solitary traveller, I was meditating a few days since on the ruin of the destroyed empires: and now I see a new empire arise. Scarce have I quitted the graves in which the buried nations sleep, and I perceive a cradle laden with the destinies of the future. The acclamations of the soldier resound on every hand. Cæsar mounts to the Capitol; the nations tell of marvels, of monuments upraised, cities beautified, the frontiers of the country bathed by those distant seas which bore the ships of Scipio, and by those remote waters which Germanicus did not see.
"While the triumpher advances surrounded by his legions, what shall the tranquil children of the Muses do? They will go before the car to add the olive-branch of peace to the palms of victory, to mingle with the warlike recitals the touching images which caused Æmilius Paulus[75] to weep over the misfortunes of Perseus[76].
"And you, daughter of the Cæsars[77], come forth from your palace with your young son[78] in your arms; come, to add mercy to greatness; come, to soften victory and to temper the glitter of arms by the gentle majesty of a queen and a mother."
In the manuscript which was handed back to me, the commencement of the speech, which relates to the opinions of Milton, was struck out from one end to the other by Bonaparte's hand. A part of my protest against the isolation from affairs of State, in which it was desired to keep literature, was also stigmatized with the pencil. The eulogy of the Abbé Delille, which recalled the Emigration and the fidelity of the poet to the misfortunes of the Royal Family and to the sufferings of his companions in exile, was placed between brackets; the eulogy of M. de Fontanes had a cross set against it. Almost all that I said of M. Chénier, of his brother, of my own, of the expiatory altars which were being prepared at Saint-Denis was slashed with pencil marks. The paragraph commencing with the words, "M. Chénier worshipped liberty," etc., had a double longitudinal line drawn through it. Nevertheless, the agents of the Empire, when publishing the speech, kept this paragraph pretty correctly.
All was not ended when they had handed me back my speech; they wanted to force me to write a second. I declared that I stood by the first, and that I would write no other. The committee then declared to me that I should not be received into the Academy.
Gracious, generous and courageous persons, unknown to myself, interested themselves in me. Mrs. Lindsay, who at the time of my return to France, in 1800, had brought me from Calais to Paris, talked to Madame Gay[79]; the latter addressed herself to Madame Regnaud de Saint-Jean-d'Angély, who asked the Duc de Rovigo to leave me alone. The women of that time interposed their beauty between power and misfortune.
Bonaparte's comments.
All this perturbation was prolonged, by the decennial prizes, until the year 1812. Bonaparte, who was persecuting me, sent to the Academy to ask, in the matter of those prizes, why they had not put the Génie du Christianisme on their list. The Academy explained; several of my colleagues wrote their unfavourable judgment of my work. I might have said what a Greek poet said to a bird:
"Daughter of Attica, nurtured on honey, thou who singest so well, thou snatchest a grasshopper, a fine songstress like thyself, and carriest her for food to thy young ones. Both of you have wings, both inhabit these regions, both celebrate the birth of spring: wilt thou not restore to her her liberty? It is not just that a songstress should die by the beak of one of her fellows[80]."
This mixture of anger against and attraction for me displayed by Bonaparte is constant and strange: but now he threatens, and suddenly he asks the Institute why it has not mentioned me on the occasion of the decennial prizes. He goes further, he declares to Fontanes that, since the Institute does not think me worthy to compete for the prizes, he will give me one, that he will appoint me superintendent-general of all the libraries of France: a superintendence with the salary attached to a first-class embassy. Bonaparte's original idea of employing me in a diplomatic career did not leave him: he would not admit, for a reason well known to himself, that I had ceased to form part of the Ministry of External Relations. And yet, in spite of this proposed munificence, his Prefect of Police invited me, some time later[81], to remove myself from Paris, and I went to continue my Memoirs at Dieppe.