XXVIIWE DISCUSS FRENCH LITERATURE
THE school-house in our old garden had been built during the summer months. It was now being finished with all possible haste. The school was to be reopened in October in the new building. One could see the odious structure above the high wall, for which I felt a violent hatred. In the evening large fires were lit in it, which I could see from the hall leading to my room on the first story, and they looked to me like the mouth of the infernal regions.
I continually declared that I would never, never, go to that school, and it was in vain that grandmother and my mother, at the family dinner given on the day of my first communion, endeavoured to make me promise I would go to the new school in October. My father was not present at the dinner, for he disapproved of, although he submitted to, what he called the continuation of my baptism. I literally lost my head when I thought that I might be obliged to repeat my lessons over the destroyed ground of my garden, or play over the place where my “temple of verdure” had been.Grandmother was distressed at my obstinacy, and perhaps was even more irritated by it. Our affection suffered from all this, and we hurt each other’s feelings often in spite of the deep love we bore each other. I took no more interest in my dear grandparents’ happiness; I stood between them no longer; I kept silence when a discussion arose; the impersonal pronouns were frequently used again. Blondeau was sad over my grief, and I was all the more unhappy because Maribert excited ill-feeling against me at school, keeping up a relentless fight. There were two hostile camps. The girls were either on her side or on mine. Her party was full of activity, tormenting us, playing us all manner of bad tricks; mine resisted indolently, because I, their head, was discouraged, and worked no longer. I was constantly scolded and punished. I became ill-tempered, I, whom my companions had loved until then especially on account of my good-humour. I could no longer, as formerly, bring them fruit from my garden. The sugar-plums were a thing of the past; in a word, I was undone and did not care for anything.
My visit to my aunts at Chivres, where I recovered a little serenity, was shorter than usual that year. My vacation was to be no longer than that given by the school, and my father claimed hisshare of it. I had hardly finished the story of my journey, day by day, to my aunts, I had scarcely told all about my first communion, when I should have been obliged to leave, had I not obtained a prolongation of my stay for a month more, by writing to my father imploring him to keep me when the school opened in October, and to spare me the grief of going into the new building at that time.
Aunt Sophie scolded me a great deal for my laziness and negligence regarding the study of Latin. But she accepted my excuses, and I began again to work with good will.
I found my aunts much excited over politics. They readLe National, and all three, as well as my great-grandmother, were Liberals. They talked continually of Odilon Barrot, and with the greatest respect for him. They had their individual opinions about each member of the royal family. They mourned the death of the Duke of Orléans; loved the Duke d’Aumale and the Prince de Joinville; esteemed Queen Amélie, but judged King Louis Philippe severely, and raised their arms to heaven when speaking of the corruption of the times. If they had been less afraid of the revolution, they would have dethroned the King, proclaimed the Duchess of Orléans as the Regent, andprepared the reign of the little Count of Paris, with Odilon Barrot as President of the Council.
My aunts considered Odilon Barrot “the model representative.” They were enthusiastic about the reformist banquets, of which he was at once the promoter and the hero.
But they were irritated over the “doings” of Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, and others, who altered the nature and changed the object of the reformist banquets; they were anxious about Pierre Leroux’s revolutionary ideas concerning work, and Proudhon’s insane theories about property. Apropos of these two individuals and their opinions they would exclaim:
“It is the end of the world!”
When my aunts were discussing these matters, they declared themselves faithful to “immortal principles.” They were enemies of Napoleon I., less, however, than of Jacobites and Socialists, but they could not forgive him for the entrance of the allies into France, nor for the terrors of the invasion.
They taught me Auguste Barbier’s famous iambic: “O Corse à cheveux plats, que la France étoit belle,” so that I might repeat it to grandfather.
“Bonaparte,” my great-grandmother at Chivressaid, as my father had also said, “gave us back France smaller than he took it.”
They were not fond of Béranger, and when I sang his songs which grandfather had taught me they listened, but made protestations against the poet and the song. M. Thiers seemed dangerous to them, with his worship of Napoleon, who Bonapartised thebourgeoisie, while Béranger Bonapartised the people.
“And,” said aunt Sophie, “whatever may be the form of government we shall have after this of Louis Philippe, authoritative ideas, I am afraid, will triumph. Liberalism, which can alone save France, which can give her her political existence, and make her benefit by the intelligence of her race, seems to exist only in Odilon Barrot’s mind and in de Lamartine’s writings.”
They read and re-read hisLes Girondins, and the manner in which they spoke of it remains ineffaceably in my memory.
“The old provincialism of France must be reawakened, the country must be governed by a great number of administrative seats; there must be decentralisation; France must return to the Girondist programme and struggle against the exclusive influence of the capital, against the autocracy of new ideas, more oppressing, more tyrannicalthan the tyrants themselves”—this was my aunts’ and my great-grandmother’s political programme, which they made me write out in order to communicate it to my parents and grandparents.
“You will keep it, Juliette,” aunt Sophie said to me one day, “for there will come a moment in your life, I am certain, when, after Jacobite and Bonapartist experiences, after probable revolutions, you will remember how wise and truly French and nationalist were your old aunts’ ideas. France should act from her centres of action, and not revolve like a top, in her capital.”
My aunts had never talked politics together before me so much as during my vacation in 1847.
“You are wearying that child,” great-grandmother would say, to which one or the other of her daughters would reply: “She is old enough to listen and to understand.”
“It will not be useless to you should you have to listen—not with your ears, but with your mouth yawning—to know what such persons of high competency as your aunts think of public affairs,” said aunt Constance, with her habitual mockery. “So listen, Juliette, listen!”
I listened without yawning, for my mind was open to all political and literary things. My aunts were the personification of thatbourgeoiseclass, of whom my father spoke, who admitted only the medium way in social experiments, who cared only for average impressions—“natures insupportably equibalanced,” he would say.
My aunts found Victor Hugo too sonorous, too resounding for their calm minds. Aunt Sophie said he was “not sufficiently bucolic.” They detested Quasimodo’s ugliness, criticised theOde à la Colonne Napoleon II., which seemed to make Victor Hugo a Bonapartist; they found his plays too intense, too pompously improbable, too wordily humanitarian.Lucrèce Borgia,Marie Tudor,Les Burgraves,Ruy Blas, put them out of patience. Their classicalism was revolted. They blamed his political conduct, too oscillating and too diverse. Aunt Anastasie implored grace for hisLes Rayons et les Ombres, in which she delighted.
They spoke of Mme. George Sand with reserve. I heard more exclamations than approbation about her novel,Lélia, whose pretty name I remembered, as I had seen the book in grandmother’s hands. But they liked many of Mme. George Sand’s writings, especially those on peasant life.La Petite Fadettethey considered a chef-d’œuvre.
“We are verybourgeoise,” said aunt Sophie, when speaking of Mme. George Sand, “althoughour minds are emancipated by liberalism more than by education, and from regarding public acts more than private actions. Juliette, remember the name of this writer, George Sand,” she added. “She will have a great influence on your generation, and you will certainly be enthusiastic about her when you are of age. No matter what is said of her, Mme. George Sand has remained very womanly, and she will never really be understood except by women; but the greater part of the things she has written, outside of her stories of peasant life, are suited to younger minds than ours, which she must delight, and which she certainly reflects. It is easier for us to understand Mme. de Staël and herCorinne.” And my aunts initiated me in the beauty, so dissimilar, of Mme. de Staël’sCorinneand Mme. George Sand’sLa Petite Fadette. I found, to their delight, the two books equally admirable, though in a different way. It is true they read them aloud to me, pointing out what I should admire; but my aunts, in spite of my affection for them, and the great confidence I felt in their intelligence, would never have made me enthusiastic about them if I had not myself felt their power.
My grandmother, who adored Balzac, used frequently to read to me long extracts from his works,which I found tedious. She had finally renounced trying to make me like her dear, her great, her unique novel-writer. I sometimes vexed her by saying:
“He is neither Homeric nor Virgilian enough.”
My aunts detested Balzac.
“He is a creator of unwholesome characters,” said aunt Anastasie; “the heroes of Monsieur de Balzac can easily enter into one’s life and lead one to live in the same manner in which they live themselves. They are so real that you think you have known them; they take possession of me when I read one of his novels. I cannot free my mind of people whom I do not like, whose acts I blame, and who impose themselves on my judgment, as an ugly fashion is sometimes imposed on well-dressed women. I am convinced that Balzac will form even more characters than those he has painted. I fear that my sister Pélagie acts under his influence oftener than she is aware. If you let yourself be captured by that man’s power, he possesses you, and he is an ill-doer who leads you to doubt, to be sceptical about people and things.”
“Take care, my niece, of Monsieur de Balzac, later in life,” added aunt Constance, “he is the most dangerous of all writers of the present day. He will create contemporaries for you, whom I donot envy you; egoists, people athirst for position. Remember what your old aunt has said to you—even write it down: Balzac will engender brains, but never consciences nor hearts. To Balzac, virtue is an imbecility.Eugénie GrandetandLe Père Gariotrevolt me. I do not even make an exception of theLys dans la Vallée.”
Ah! if grandmother, who was a fanatic about him, had been there, what passion she would have thrown into those discussions about Monsieur de Balzac with her sisters. I told my aunts that when I left Chauny grandmother was readingLes deux Jeunes Mariéesfor the fifth time.
Aunt Sophie dictated to me a criticism of de Balzac’s works, which I read to grandmother on my return. She became angry and made me reply to her sister in her name. I had thus two contradictory lessons on de Balzac and I remember them both.
De Balzac was a whole world to grandmother. Through him, and with him, one could exclude the banality of social intercourse from one’s existence. One lived with his heroes as if they were friends; they were flesh and blood. One talked with them, saw them; they peopled one’s existence, they came and visited one.
I wrote pages on pages to aunt Sophie about deBalzac. She replied to grandmother, and then began a correspondence between the two sisters on the literature of the day, which was communicated to me whenever it could be, and which instructed me about many works of the time that were vibrating with interest.
My aunt and grandmother agreed in disapproving of the writings of Eugène Suë, who taught the people to hate priests by his portrayal of the character of Rodin.
Grandmother sought distraction in her readings; aunt Sophie sought reflection. The one was interested only in lovers’ adventures, the other in the elegant forms in which thought was clad, in descriptions of nature, in the philosophy of life. They never understood each other nor agreed about any work whatever.