Deux héroïnes de la Révolution française; from L'histoire des Girondins. Edited by Mary Bentinck Smith

' On ne doit donner à ces œuvres de complaisance de l'imagination que les heures laissées libres par les devoirs de la famille, de la patrie et du temps : ce sont les voluptés de la pensée. Il ne faut pas en faire le pain quotidien d'une vie d'homme . . . Qu'est - ce qu'im homme qui, à la fin de sa vie, n'aurait fait que cadencer

X DEUX HÉEOINES DE LA EÉVOLUTION

ses rêves poétiques, pendant que ses contemporains combattaient, avec toutes les armes, le grand combat de la patrie et de la civilisation; pendant que tout le monde moral se remuait autour de lui dans le terrible enfantement des idées ou des choses ? Ce serait une espèce de baladin propre à divertir les hommes sérieux, et qu'on aurait dû renvoyer avec les bagages parmi les musiciens de l'armée.'

To this conception of the functions of an author, which, not unlike Carlyle, rates the teacher, with a practical message to deliver, higher than the artist, we owe his Histoire des Girondins. The work was begun in 1843, and appeared in 1847, on the very eve of political events which seemed destined to recall the fateful occurrences of the last décade of the eighteenth century. It brought a séries of vivid pictures of the past Kevolution; to the reader it seemed an anticipation of one about to break out. Sainte-Beuve in his Portraits contemporains speaks of it as 'le manifeste et le programme des journées de février et de la quasi-dictature de Lamartine.'

The book is not so much an historical record as a romance interspersed with fine historical passages. It has been called ' un vaste poème en prose.' Lamartine thought, in ail good faith, that his work was historically valuable because ail his statements were based on documentary évidence ; but he lacked the historical knowledge and the critical faculty which would hâve enabled him to sift and weigh the évidence he used rather indiscriminately. This matters less, however, if we bear in mind that his purpose in writing was ethical, rather than scientific. He intended a glorification of the

INTEODUCTION xi

Kevolution and of revolutionary ideas — an apotheosis of ail the chief actors in that lurid tragedy. Hence his perhaps undue exaltation of, in tums, the most opposite characters. He is ail things to ail men : Royalist and Révolu tionist, Girondin and Jacobin. To secure his approbation it suffices to hâve 'marched breast forward.'

In form, the work consista of sixty-one books, divided into sections or chapters, the Connecting links being frequently so slight that there is no apparent transition from one épisode to another. This arrangement relieves the author of the necessity of foUowing a rigid plan and elaborating a consistent séquence of argument. Digressions cease to be blemishes, a wealth of détail may serve to hide a flaw in the ground-plan.

Yet, in spite of the kaleidoscopic nature of the work, it must be granted that Lamartine possessed many of the qualities which go to the making of a great historian. He has an extraordinary gift of picturesque and rapid description ; he takes a wide and comprehensive view of popular movements, he is capable of appreciating the gênerai trend of popular opinion at any given moment. He has leamed much from Tacitus, though he has not improved upon the Roman historian. In his realistic depiction of masses of détail he recalls Balzac. It has been objected that ail the orators of the Histoire des Girondins represent Lamartine himself, that their style and diction are réminiscences of his own speeches. This is a somewhat exaggerated view of the case, and it should be borne in mind that ail the oratory of the Révolution was marked by a certain sameness of expression and idea. The speakers on either side were inspired by the

xii DEUX HÉKOÏNES DE LA KÉVOLUTION

philosophy of the eighteenth century, and more especially by that of Rousseau. This common stock for their ideas gave an afïinity to their utterances which was not the les8 real for being unintentional, and thus the somewhat obvions similarity of the rhetoric scattered throughout the Girondins has some historical justification.

The chief merit of the work lies in its glow of personal feeHng, its sustained appeal to the sensibility and sentiment of the reader. It has been quickened by that touch of nature which 'makes the whole world kin.' We become spectators of the death-agony of the ancien régime, we are called upon to watch the birth-throes of the new.

Lamartine has been more especially successful in his portrayal of female characters, two of which are hère reprinted. He was not less conscious than Michelet of the fact that in the great political movement of the eighteenth century women were the leaders. It was they who first translated ideas into action.

'Le caractère de ce moment unique, c'est que les partis y deviennent des religions. Deux religions se posent en face, l'idolâtrie dévote et royaliste, l'idéalité républicaine . . . Les femmes . . . marchent bien loin devant les hommes dans ces deux religions ... La patrie, la liberté, le bonheur du genre humain, ont envahi les cœurs des femmes. La vertu des temps romains, si elle n'est dans les mœurs, est dans l'imagination, dans l'âme, dans les nobles désirs. Elles regardent autour d'elles où sont les héros de Plutarque ; elles les veulent, elles les feront. H ne sufl&t pas pour leur plaire, de parler Rousseau et Mably. Vives et sincères, prenant

INTEODUCTION xiii

les idées au sérieux, elles veulent que les idées deviennent des actes. Toujours elles ont aimé la force. Elles comparent l'homme moderne à l'idéal de force antique qu'elles ont devant l'esprit. Rien peut-être n'a plus contribué que cette comparaison, cette exigence des femmes à précipiter les hommes, à hâter le cours de notre Révolution . . . Les femmes régnent alors par le sentiment, par la passion, par la supériorité aussi, il faut le dire, de leur initiative. Jamais, ni avant, ni après, elles n'eurent tant d'influence. Au xvnie siècle, sous les encyclopédistes, l'esprit a dominé dans la société, plus tard ce sera l'action. En 1789 le sentiment domine, et, par conséquent, les femmes.'

When the Révolution of 1848 broke out Lamartine cherished the hope of being elected Président of the Republic, but, though from February until June of that year he was practically Dictator, his political ambitions were not realized, and he ceased from that time to play any considérable part in poHtical affairs. His financial difficulties had meanwhile increased, and, as he himself said, he was henceforward ' condamné aux travaux forcés littéraires,' in order to pay his debts. Very little of the work produced under this pressure is of permanent value. The Confidences, Graziella, and Raphaël, which did not appear until 1849, had been written under happier auspices. Les Confidences are a poetical autobiography; Graziella is another, though an inferior, Paul et Virginie; the theory of love embodied in Raphaël had been anticipated more than thirty years previously in Le Lac.

Lamartine died in 1869 in comparative poverty and obscurity.

xiv DEUX HÉEOÏNES DE LA KEVOLUTION

As regards style he is the most spontaneous and least

studied of writers : —

Je chantais, mes amis, comme l'homme respire, Comme l'oiseau gémit, comme le vent soupire, Comme l'eau murmure en coulant.

His prose is remarkable for its warmth of colour, its graphie touches, its luxuriance, his aim in writing history or fiction being to reproduce, as vividly as possible, material impressions, whereas in verse he evokes not so much an image of the object described as a conception of the underlying idea. The structure of his sentences, whether in prose or verse, is loose and négligent, and this defect of his style will doubtless detract from his permanent réputation, though the musical harmony of his verse may never be surpassed.

His own judgement on his literary merits and demerits is probably a just one : —

' Je le dis sans aucune fausse modestie, je ne crois pas léguer un héritage de chefs-d'œuvre à la plus courte postérité. J'ai trop écrit, trop parlé, trop agi, pour avoir pu concentrer dans une seule œuvre capitale et durable le peu de talent dont la nature m'avait peut-être doué. Comme le grand oiseau du désert (qui n'est pas l'aigle) j'ai semé dans le sable çà et là les germes de ma postérité, et je n'ai pas assez couvé, pour les voir éclore, les œufs dispersés du génie. J'ai eu de l'âme, c'est vrai ; voilà tout. J'ai jeté quelques cris justes du cœur. Mais si l'âme suffit pour sentir elle ne suffit pas pour exprimer. Le temps m'a manqué pour une œuvre parfaite, parce que j'ai dilapidé le temps, ce capital du génie. Prodigue du temps, il est juste que l'avenir me manque. Je m'en affiige, mais je ne m'en plains

INTRODUCTION xv

pas ... H y a longtemps que la dernière racine de toute vanité littéraire ou politique est séchée, en moi, comme si elle n'y avait jamais germé. Je ne me crois ni classique en poésie, ni infaillible en histoire, ni toujours irréprochable en politique. Quand je repasse mes œuvres, ou ma vie, je me juge moi-même avec plus de justice, mais avec autant de sévérité que peuvent le faire mes ennemis ... Il faut être impitoyable envers ses passions, ses faiblesses ou ses fautes, pour mériter d'être pardonné ici-bas et absous là-haut.'

GiRTON Collège, Cambridge.

Jvly, 1904.

COI^TENTS