CHAPTER XVIII

A FEW LITERARY MEN

During the many years which I spent in Paris I had numerous opportunities of meeting the majority of the remarkable literary men who abounded in France towards the end of last century. Since then their number has considerably decreased, indeed it is very much to be doubted whether the great thinkers, such as Taine, Renan, Guizot, or Thiers, have ever been replaced.

I knew Renan intimately, and wish I could describe him as he deserves. To hear certain people speak of the author of the “Origines du Christianisme” one would think that he was a ferocious hater, not only of religion, but also of everything that approached it. In reality Renan was intensely religious. Few people have understood so fully the beauties of the moral preached by Christ, and few people have had more reverence for the sacred individuality of the Saviour of mankind. He tried to imitate Him in all the actions of his life, to be, like Him, kind and indulgent and compassionate for the woes of the world. From his sojourn in the seminary of St. Sulpice, he had kept the demeanour and the manners of a Catholic priest, and do what he could, that atmosphere clung to him.

But he had a quality which many clericals fail to possess, a very clear insight into religious matters, and the faculty of being able to set aside what was superstition, and retaining what could be kept of the poetry that attaches to the teachings of the different churches that divide the world. He always sought truth, and never rested until he thought he had found it, but he never gave out his own ideas as perfect ones, nor tried to impose them upon others. His was essentially an impartial and a tolerant mind. Indeed his thoughts were so constantly directed towards those regions where it is to be hoped eternal truth exists, that he did not believe it worth while to assume an intolerance which I do not think he could ever have felt, no matter in what circumstances nor under what provocation. I have never met a man more indifferent to criticisms directed against his person or his works, and I remember once when a very bitter article concerning his book, “La Vie de Jésus,” had been brought to his notice, he merely smiled and quietly said: “Why do you think I must be angry at this? Isn’t every one entitled to have an opinion of his own?”

This book, so wonderful in its simplicity, among all those which he had written, was the one he cared for the most, partly because he had composed it in collaboration with his sister, Henriette Renan, who had such a singular influence over his life, and who was as remarkable a personality as himself. During the journey which they had undertaken together in the Holy Land, they had thought about the book which they wanted to write. In his “Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse,” Renan recognises that the person who had had the greatest influence over his mind had been his sister, and he walked in the road her footsteps had trodden until he also saw the great Light after which they had both longed so much. In speaking about him, one could use with justice the words he applied to his sister when he wrote that “though noble lives haven’t the need to be remembered by anyone else than God, one must nevertheless try to fix their image in the minds of the generations that come after them.”

I am thinking about these words as I am now remembering all the conversations we had together, and the patience with which he explained to me all the various points I asked him to develop. He was patience personified; he never regarded anything trouble when, by inconvenience to himself, he could be useful to others. His conversations were always instructive, always attractive, and always worth listening to, even when they strayed on to frivolous subjects, which he often liked to touch. It must not be supposed that Renan was a grave philosopher who did not care for the congenial or the pleasant, or the amusing things which happen in life. He could enjoy mirth like, and with the frankness of, a child.

His works have been discussed more perhaps than those of most writers of his time, and though they have left a deep impress upon the minds of serious people, no one who has read them can say that their influence has been anything else but to good. The image that he has drawn for us of the person of Christ is so pure, so noble, so entirely religious, that even those who object to the way in which he has presented it cannot but be attracted by the image that his pen has evoked.

However strange it may seem to say so, Renan himself was more surprised than anyone else to find he had written a work which evoked so many criticisms. He had been so entirely absorbed by his subject that he had never given a thought to anything else but the picture of the Redeemer, such as it had presented itself to him, in the spot which had seen Him work and die. He had never intended publishing a book of controversy, and in presence of the storm which it provoked he was even more astounded than sorry. It was not in his nature to be angry, and regret was impossible for a soul like his, which only performed what it thought and firmly believed to be right.

Contrary to the feeling some express about him, Renan had never indulged in atheistic opinions, and he strongly condemned and opposed those who supported them. His belief and faith in a Supreme Being were as firm as they were sincere, and he only deplored that his convictions had not allowed him to remain a son of the Catholic Church, in which in his youth he had hoped to become a priest. Her teachings had left their impress upon his soul, and directed it towards the deeper studies in which he became absorbed.

Renan had married a woman well worthy of him, and who made him a wonderful helpmate. She knew how to smooth all difficulties from his path, and proved well fitted for her difficult position as the wife of one of the greatest thinkers of modern times. She was an accomplished hostess. To the evening parties which saw their friends assembled in their little home in the Rue de l’Observatoire, she gave the impress of her own charming personality, and presided over the conversations with immense tact and dignity. Their daughter, who married a professor at the Sorbonne, M. Psichari, a Greek by origin, continued the traditions left to her by her parents, and until lately had a literary salon, which was well known in Paris. I do not know whether it still exists or not.

Renan was extremely ugly; this has been repeated too often for anyone not to be aware of it. But a more attractive face than he possessed is not easily to be found. There was such kindness in his smile, in the look of his eyes, and such intelligence in that large head with its noble brow, that one could not help being struck by it, and admiring it far more than if it had indeed been a beautiful face. The painter Bonnat has made a portrait of him that is, I think, the best one that has ever come from his brush. It shows Renan as he really was; one has only got to look at it, and the original appears as we, who knew him well, saw him sitting in his deep arm-chair, with his head slightly bent down on his chest, and the expressive countenance that used to brighten up whenever he met a friend, or heard about some noble deed such as he himself would have liked to perform. It was impossible to know him and not to admire the man in him, even more, perhaps, than the great thinker or the great writer, because, after all, intellect or genius can be met sooner than real virtue or real goodness--and Renan was essentially good.

From Renan to Taine is not a far step, and somehow it seems to me that the latter’s name is the only one worthy to be pronounced immediately after that of my old friend and master. I have also known Taine well, met him often, and always been struck by his large, wide mind, so utterly devoid of prejudices, and at the same time so absolute in the judgments which he thought he had the right to formulate. I must emphasise the words, “which he thought he had the right,” because those judgments assume the intelligence as well as the moral personality of Hippolyte Taine. He was an historian before everything else, perhaps even before he was a critic, though he counts among the greatest that French literature has seen; but his inclinations led him before everything else towards the study of the past, and of the causes that had brought about the great transformations that the world has witnessed, ever since society in the sense we understand it to-day began to exist; and whilst trying to fathom these causes he slowly came to convictions, which he never would renounce when once he thought them justified. Nothing would move him to change one line in the writings which, after due consideration, he decided to publish, and even his long friendship with the Princesse Mathilde did not influence him in describing Napoleon in any other sense than the one in which he had understood that colossal figure. The story goes that after having read the study which he first gave to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, she sent him her card with “p.p.c.” written on it, a hint which he took, and as is known everywhere, their intercourse of many years came to an end.

Taine used to spend the greater part of the year at Menthon, in Savoy, on the borders of the Lake of Annecy, and it was during a visit which I paid to him there, from Aix-les-Bains where I was undergoing a cure, that I had with him the longest and perhaps the most interesting conversation in the whole time of our intercourse with each other. We discussed many subjects, and among others his great work, the “Origines de la France Contemporaine.” He told me how he had begun it with the intention of stopping after the first two volumes devoted to the _Ancien Régime_, and how gradually the subject had taken hold of him and he had come to the conclusion that he must develop it, and bring it to the point which he considered to be the only right one for properly understanding the immense and terrible drama of the Revolution. He hated anarchy, he thought it his duty to show it up in all its vivid horror, and he tried to write the story of that tragedy with the same impartiality he would have brought to bear on the description of it in any other country than his own. As he told me on that day: “C’est un pauvre patriotisme que celui qui s’imagine que l’on doit excuser les crimes de son pays, simplement par ce qu’on en est un citoyen (“It is a poor kind of patriotism which imagines that it must excuse the crimes of its own country, simply because one is born a citizen”).

With this direction of mind it is not to be wondered that, though admired by many, Taine was merely liked by the few. He could not be complaisant to the illusions or the false idols of the crowd, and he repudiated all that he called in his expressive language, “les exagérations d’ignorants qui se croient instruits” (“the exaggerations of ignoramuses who believe themselves learned”). He was a philosopher in his way, though it was entirely a personal philosophy which was founded on his own experience rather than on the teachings of those who had preceded him on the road of life and knowledge. Living most of his time far away from Paris, he was, according to the words of Balzac, one of those great minds “which solitude had preserved from all worldly meannesses.” Left face to face with the magnificences of Nature, he had acquired some of its impassivity before the woes of mankind, and in his judgments of events he often forgot the tears and the sorrows, and the blood out of which they had developed.

Renan was a soft and kind moralist, Taine was an inexorable thinker, Dumas Fils was the type of the sceptical worldly philosopher who hastens to follow the advice of Figaro, that it is better to laugh at some things for fear of being obliged to cry over them. Anything more sparkling than his conversation it would be difficult to describe, anything more amusing than the paradoxes which he loved to develop has never been met with. But with it all there was also about that charming, delightful man a strong leaning towards the tendency to moralise, and to pose as a moralist. Indeed he might, perhaps, have become a moralist in fact, had his rambling, sharp mind allowed him to think about moral problems otherwise than in associating them with his “bons mots.” These constitute the great attraction of his plays, and give to some of them that bitter flavour which, in spite of all the wit displayed in the dialogue, hangs about their whole construction.

In his sadly truthful comedy, “La Visite de Noces,” the analysis which he makes there of the great fact, which especially in France has absorbed so much of public attention, the fact of love outside marriage, is certainly full of ingenious reasonings. But though it strikes the mind, it does not appeal to the heart of those who listen to it, because it is not with witty phrases that a social evil can be mended. However, this last fact did not disturb the equanimity of Alexandre Dumas. He did not pose as an apostle, and he knew very well that principles fall down very easily before the strength of passion aroused. He had no hopes of curing the evils of mankind, but it amused him to satirise them, and to laugh at them, and to talk of them, and he did perhaps more than any other writer of his generation to acclimatise society to the fact of the existence of many things, which until he made them popular had never been mentioned--in the society of ladies at least.

Alexandre Dumas was married to a Russian, a very intelligent and, in her youth, a very attractive woman, but who, towards the end of her life, developed slatternly habits. Those who called upon her unawares found her with her hair wrapped up in curl-papers, her face seldom washed, and in an untidy dressing-gown, the garment she most affected. I remember one morning at Dieppe, where the clever dramatist had a villa, I found her sitting in her garden overlooking the sea, in a kind of white wrapper, none too fresh, and without any stockings on her feet. When lunch was announced Dumas turned to his wife and asked her whether she would not tidy herself up a bit, to which she replied with indifference: “Why, I am all right.” To watch her husband shrug his shoulders was a sight in itself.

Two daughters were born to M. and Mme. Dumas. The eldest married a banker, Maurice Lippmann, with whom she

could not agree, and a divorce soon followed. Colette Dumas was a pretty, wild kind of creature, gifted with a charm quite her own, and absolutely devoid of what is commonly called moral sense. She had never been baptised, and she was never brought up, but simply grew as she liked, mostly in her father’s study, where she heard expounded the whole time the theories after which she tried later on to shape her own life. There was no harm about her, but, alas, no principles ever ruled her conduct, and a more lovely little animal never existed. The poor girl discovered later on that life was not the comedy she had been led to think it, and before she died a few years ago she must have often regretted the false education that she had received, and lamented the views which she had taken of existence, which to her youthful eyes had appeared in the light of one great enjoyment.

Her sister Jeannine was quite a different character, as sedate as Colette was hasty, and with strong common sense instead of passionate cravings after the impossible. She was married to an officer belonging to the old aristocracy, and she knew very well how to adapt herself to her new existence in the provincial town where she settled, and where, like all happy people, she had no history.

At the time I am writing the description, the Goncourts were talked about a great deal in French literary circles. I have attended receptions at their house, but I never could share the enthusiasm that some of their writings excited among the general public. They were both clever, Jules the more so of the two, but though they showed themselves very hard workers, one can well question the use their work has proved to the development of the intellectual capacities of their contemporaries. It is very much to be doubted whether their books will survive them for any considerable time. One thing is certain, they were the first to start the school of self-admiration that now reigns so completely over French modern literature.

Of quite a different type was the Comte de Falloux, a member of the Academy, and a writer of no mean talent. The Comte was just as well known for his political as for his literary activity, and he represented in the Chamber of Deputies, and afterwards in the Senate, the Legitimist party, of which he was one of the leaders, and where his opinion carried much weight. M. de Falloux was an Ultramontane of the purest water, who always looked towards Rome for his inspirations, and who saw nothing good outside the Pope and the Jesuits. He was a great favourite among a certain coterie of the Faubourg St. Germain, and though a great friend of Mgr. Dupanloup, the famous Bishop of Orleans, used always to quarrel with him, and thought him far too liberal and too leniently inclined towards compromise, his own stern, obstinate nature never accepting any. He was extremely well read, but he was not an amiable man, and certainly was not sympathetic. He was a man of letters belonging to that school of grand seigneurs of which the Duc de Broglie and the Duc d’Audiffret Pasquier were such brilliant examples.

Though I shall speak later on about M. Zola when discussing the Dreyfus case, which is so entirely associated with his name, yet I must also here say a few words concerning him. In the ’eighties--the period to which I am referring--he had already made a great name for himself as the father of the new Naturalistic school. Whether he had directed his attention that way because he really believed that fictional literature, such as it had been understood until he arrived to transform it, was based on false principles I cannot say. Perhaps he simply wanted to make more money in trying to offer to the public something that hitherto it had not seen, and which was bound to interest it by its unexpectedness if by nothing else. But what I can certify through personal knowledge of the man is that he had enough vanity to prefer being hissed than passed by in silence. That he had considerable talent no one can deny, but that he might have used it in a different direction is also not to be questioned. One effect of his style was to turn the heads of would-be authors, who, not having the necessary capabilities to write a good book, imagined that by imitating Zola, and scribbling plots of questionable taste, they would likewise rise to fame, and, what was still better, earn fortune, forgetting entirely that talent such as Zola possessed could allow itself a latitude which people with fewer capabilities were better advised not to attempt.

M. Zola married a very superior and most intelligent woman, who was gifted with most remarkable qualities of heart and mind. She showed extraordinary dignity, and most uncommon forbearance in regard to her husband, whose memory to this day she tries to defend against any possible attack. When he died she took to her heart two children of which he was the father, and brought them up, and established them in the world with a total abnegation of her own personal feelings. Indeed, Madame Zola’s conduct in life, even under the most trying circumstances, must always be admired. She certainly was far superior to her husband in regard to moral character, and she is liked and esteemed by all those who have had the privilege of meeting and knowing her.

In thus recounting the literary men I have met with in Paris I find I have forgotten to mention Alphonse Daudet, with his leonine countenance and his black locks. And yet I knew him better than I did Zola, was a frequent visitor at his house, and a great admirer of his amiable and clever wife, who has since also made a name for herself in the world of letters. Daudet was an extremely capricious man, and one whose temper was of the same character, but his abilities were incontestable, and some of his books will very probably outlive those of Zola. When he happened to be entirely in good health, which unfortunately was not often the case in the last years of his life, Daudet was a most pleasant companion, full of conversation, and possessing the French spirit of “le mot pour rire.” I remember he made us roar one afternoon by relating to us how once he had received an anonymous letter, in which he was asked, in case he was “tall, fair, with blue eyes, and wore a pink tie,” to come to a rendezvous in the garden of the Tuileries. The writer obligingly added that unless he fulfilled these conditions in his personal appearance, and consented to put on a pink tie, he had better not waste his time by coming, as the lady who wanted to make his acquaintance was determined to do so only if he fulfilled the ideal she had nursed for long years. It seemed that the ideal in question depended for a great part on the pink tie.

Alphonse Daudet left two sons and a daughter. Leon Daudet, his eldest boy, has also written psychological books, but they evince none of his father’s wit. He also has made himself conspicuous by his political vagaries, and his divorce from the granddaughter of Victor Hugo, which, owing to certain rather strange circumstances connected with it, caused considerable scandal. He is a fervent Catholic, but having, out of consideration to the feelings of the Hugo family, consented to be married only at the mairie, without the help of the Church, he had the bad taste to say publicly, when he married again, that his first marriage had not been legal, which, of course, was severely commented upon even by his best friends. His brother, Lucien Daudet, is a mild young man, who has also literary ambitions, and whose principal occupation consists in attendance on the Empress Eugénie, whom he has attempted to describe in a little volume that could not have been pleasant reading for the Empress, because nobody gifted with common sense likes to be turned into a perfection and a genius rolled into one, or whilst still alive to be subjected to such extravagant praise. The youngest brother of Alphonse Daudet, Ernest Daudet, is also a writer, who has given his attention principally to historic subjects. His books are all worth reading, if a little dull, and he is a great favourite in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, where his monarchical opinions have won him an entrance.

I wish I had more space at my disposal to mention otherwise than in passing Jules Claretie, the late Director of the Comédie Française, and the author of so many charming novels, which mostly can be put into everybody’s hands. Many people did not like him, but those who knew him well have always felt great sympathy for him. He wrote the French language as no one else perhaps, with a light, pleasant, vivid style that at once conveyed to the reader the author’s thoughts and his way of looking upon things. For years before his death in 1914 he wrote a delightful weekly chronicle for the _Temps_, called “La vie à Paris,” which will certainly be consulted later on by all who wish to learn the social history of Paris of the period.