CHAPTER V

Success of my _Scènes historiques_--Clovis and Hlodewig (Chlodgwig) --I wish to apply myself seriously to the study of the history of France--The Abbé Gauthier and M. de Moyencourt--Cordelier-Delanoue reveals to me Augustin Thierry and Chateaubriand--New aspects of history--_Gaule et France_--A drama in collaboration with Horace Vernet and Auguste Lafontaine

My _Scènes historiques sur le règne de Charles VI._ were my first successful things in the _Revue des Deux_ _Mondes._ We shall presently see the result which this proved success had for me. That success decided me to write a series of romances which should extend from the reign of Charles VI. to our own day. My first desire is always limitless; my first inspiration even to achieve the impossible. Only when I become infatuated, half through pride and half through love of my art, do I achieve the impossible. How?--I will try to tell you, although I do not understand it very thoroughly myself: by working as nobody else works, cutting off all the extraneous details of life and doing without sleep. When once ambition has taken shape in my thoughts my whole mind is set to the putting of it into execution. Having discovered a vein of gold in the well of the beginning of the fifteenth century, in which I had been digging, I never doubted, so great was my confidence in myself, that at each fresh well I dug in a century nearer our own times, if I did not find a vein of gold I should at least find one of platinum or silver. I put the silver last because, at this period, platinum still held an intermediary value between silver and gold. Nevertheless, one thing made me uneasy: from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, from Charles VI. to Napoleon, I should teach history to the public whilst learning it myself--but who would teach it me from Clovis to Charles VI.? May I be forgiven for saying _Clovis._ I called it so then, I still call it so now, but, from 1833 to 1840, I spoke of _Hlodewig (Chlodgwig)._ True, no one understood whom I meant; that is why I returned to calling it _Clovis_--like the rest of the world.

I decided to write a few pages of introduction to my novel, _Isabeau de Bavière,_ which was intended to open the series of my historical novels. You shall judge of my ignorance and appreciate my innocence, for I am going to tell you something that certainly no one else would admit. To learn the history of France, of which I did not know a word in 1831 (except that connected with Henri III.), and which, in common with general opinion, I held to be the most wearisome history in the whole world, I bought the _Histoire de France,_ at the request of, and in response to, the Abbé Gauthier, since revised and corrected by M. de Moyencourt. So I bravely set to work to study the history of France, copying out such notes as the following as seriously as possible, which summed up a whole chapter poetically:

"MÉMOIRES D'ALEX. DUMAS

En l'an quatre cent vingt, Pharamond, premier roi, Est connu seulement par la salique loi. * Clodion, second roi, nommé le Chevelu, Au fier Aétius cède, deux fois vaincu. * Francs, Bourguignons et Goths triomphent d'Attila. Chilpéric fut chassé, mais on le rappela. * Clovis, à Tolbiac, fit vœu d'être chrétien; Il défait Gondebaud, tue Alaric, arien; Entre ses quatre fils partage ses États, Source d'atrocités, de guerres, d'attentats. * Childebert, en cinq cent, eut Paris en partage; Les Bourguignons, les Goths éprouvent son courage."

And this went on up to Louis-Philippe, of whom this is the distich--

"Philippe d'Orléans, tiré de son palais. Succède à Charles-Dix, par le choix des Français."

There was in these quatrains and distichs, instructive though they were, one singular feature which, indeed, distressed me somewhat: amongst all these verses, there were only two to be found which were feminine. There must verily be a reason for that: as the _History of France_ was specially intended for schools, it was necessary, doubtless, to bring before the notice of school children as few evil ideas as possible, that might even indirectly remind them of a _genus_ which brought destruction upon the human race. I apparently took my notes with desperate seriousness, and deemed that I already knew enough history to teach it to others when, by good fortune, Delanoue came to my study. Quick as I had been in hiding my Abbé Gauthier, revised by M. de Moyencourt, Delanoue saw the action.

"What are you reading there?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Why you had a book in your hand!"

"Oh! a book ... yes."

No doubt he imagined it was some obscene book which I wished to conceal from him. He insisted in such a manner that it was impossible to resist him.

"There," I said to him, rather humiliated at being surprised reading such an elementary subject as a history of France.

"Oh! Abbé Gauthier's history ... well, upon my word!" And, without needing to cast a glance at the book, he repeated--

"Neuf cent quatre vingt-sept voir Capet sur le trône. Ses fils ont huit cents ans conservé la couronne!"

"Oh, you know it by heart?"

"It is the companion to _Racine's grecques_--

'O, se doit compter pom septante; Ὀδελός la broche tournante.'"

Delanoue assumed in my eyes fabulous proportions of learnedness.

"What! do you not know the Abbé Gauthier's _Histoire de France_ and the _Jardin des Racines grecques,_ by M. Lancelot?"

"I know nothing, my dear fellow!"

"It must make you laugh."

"Not very much."

"Then why do you read it?"

"Because I want to get exact details about the early centuries of our history."

"And you are looking for them in the Abbé Gauthier?"

"As you see."

"Ah! You are funny! Did you get your details for _Henri III._ from this?--

"'Henri-Trois, de Bologne, en France est ramené, Redoute les ligueurs, et meurt assassiné!'"

"No, from l'Estoile, Brantôme, d'Aubigné, and the _Confession de Sancy_; but I did not know there was anything like that about Mérovée or Clovis."

"In the first place, they are not called Mérovée and Clovis now."

"What are they called, then?"

"Méro-wig and Hlode-wig; which mean _the eminent warrior_ and _the celebrated warrior."_

"Where did you see that?"

"_Parbleu!_ in the _Lettres sur l'histoire de France_ by Augustin Thierry."

"The _Lettres sur l'histoire de France,_ by Augustin Thierry?"

"Yes."

"Where can it be got?"

"Anywhere."

"What does it cost?"

"Perhaps 10 or 12 francs, I am not sure exactly how much."

"Will you be so good as to buy it for me and have it sent in as soon as you leave me?"

"Nothing could be simpler."

"Do you know any other books on this period?"

"There is Chateaubriand's _Études historiques_ and the original sources of information."

"Who are these?"

"The authors of the Decline, Jornandès, Zozimus, Sidonius Apollinaris, Gregory of Tours."

"Have you read all those authors?"

"Yes, partly."

"Did the Abbé Gauthier not read them?"

"In the first case he could not have read Augustin Thierry, who has written since his death. As to Chateaubriand, he was his contemporary, and historians never read contemporary historians; finally, as regards Jornandès, Zozimus, Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours, I suspect the Abbé Gauthier of never having even known of their existence."

"But whence, then, did he get his history?"

"From the Abbé Gauthier's who wrote the same sort of histories before him."

"Will you also buy me Chateaubriand at the same time as Thierry?"

"Certainly."

"See; here is the money ... I shall not see you again."

"No; but you want your Augustin Thierry and Chateaubriand?"

"I confess I do."

"You shall have them in a quarter of an hour's time." And I had them a quarter of an hour later.

I opened one of the books haphazard.... I had alighted on Augustin Thierry. I read--I am mistaken, I did not read, I devoured--that marvellous work on the early kings by the author of the _Conquête des Normands_; then the sort of historical tableaux entitled _Récits Mérovingiens._ Then, without needing to open Chateaubriand, all the ghosts of those kings, standing on the threshold of monarchy, appeared before me, from the moment when they were made visible to the eyes of the learned chronicler--from Clodio, _whose scouts reported that Gaul is the noblest of countries, full of all kinds of wealth, and planted with forests of fruit trees,_ who was the first to wield the Frankish rule over the Gauls, to the great and religious-minded Karl, _rising from table filled with a great fear, standing for a long time by a window which looked to the east, with arms crossed, weeping without stanching his tears,_ because he saw on the horizon the Norman vessels. I saw, in fact, visions which I had never suspected hitherto, a whole living world of people of twelve centuries ago, in the dark and deep abysses of the past. I remained spellbound. Until that moment I had believed Clovis and Charlemagne were the ancestors of Louis XIV.; but here, under the pen of Augustin Thierry, a new kind of geography was revealed, each race flowed by separately, following its own particular channel through the ages: Gauls, as vast as a lake, Romans, as noble as a river, Franks, as terrible as a flood, Huns, Burgundians, West-Goths as devouring and rapid as torrents. Something equivalent to what happened in me at General Foy's repeated itself. I perceived that, during the nine years which had rolled by, I had learnt nothing or next to nothing; I remembered my conversation with Lassagne; I understood that there was more to see in the past than in the future; I was ashamed of my ignorance, and I pressed my head convulsively between my hands. Why, then, did not those who knew produce their knowledge? Oh! I did not know at that period with what fatherly goodness God treats men; how he makes some into miners who extract gold and diamonds from the earth, of others, the goldsmiths who cut and mount them. I did not know that God had made Augustin Thierry a miner and me a goldsmith.

I was seven or eight days hesitating before the enormous task which I had to accomplish; then, during that halting time, my courage returned to me and I bravely set to work, forgetting everything for the sake of the study of history. It was during this period that I wrote _Térésa_ and the piece of which I am about to speak. Horace Vernet had sent a large picture from Rome depicting _Édith aux longs cheveux cherchant le corps d'Harold sur le champ de bataille d'Hastings._ It was a picture belonging to the category that Vernet laughingly styled his grand manner. It was singularly fascinating to me on account of the heroine's name, not because of the subject. I was seized with the whim to write a drama with the title _Édith aux longs cheveux._ One could only write in verse a drama with so poetical a title. _Charles VII._ had somewhat familiarised me with what is still called at the Academy the language of the gods. How was all this which I saw but imperfectly, and which it was an absolute necessity I should study, to remain in my poor brain without its bursting? And be careful to notice that I was as yet only brooding over the earliest races. How was I to disentangle the surroundings of Charlemagne and his son and to represent the interests and types of the Frankish race? How was I to pick out the Eudes and Roberts, the National Kings who sprang up and reigned over the conquered land which was to produce its Camilles and Pélages? It was staggering to know nothing at thirty of what other men knew when they were twelve. I had studied the theatre; I knew enough about it to be satisfied on that head. I must, then, study history as I had studied the theatre, and I believed that history was a barrier put in my path. Who was there to tell me that there would be a fresh course of study to make, longer, drier and more arduous than the preceding one? The study of the theatre had taken me five or six years. How much time was the study of history going to take me? Alas! I should have to study it for the rest of my life! If I had studied at the age of other people, I should have had nothing else to do but produce! I had as yet only the title to my drama. It need hardly be said that all I knew about the battle of Hastings was that which I had read in Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe._ So I purposed to compose something after the style of Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_ and not a historical drama. Accordingly, I read by chance a romance by Auguste Lafontaine--I would indeed like to tell you which but I have forgotten--all I remember is that the heroine's name was Jacobine. However, if you wish to remove all doubts about the matter, my friend Madame Cardinal, rue des Canettes, will tell you. She knows her Auguste Lafontaine by heart. Anyhow, Jacobine is made to take a narcotic and is put to sleep so that she may pass for dead, and, thanks to this supposed death, which releases her from the trammels of the earth, she can marry her lover. It is a little like _Romeo and Juliet;_ but what is there on this earth here below which does not resemble some other idea, more or less? You will notice that I had already had this tiresome drama in my head for a very long time; for I had suggested it to Harel in the month of August 1830, instead of _Napoléon,_ which I strongly disliked doing. We have seen how Harel fought and overcame my resistance. As for _Édith aux longs cheveux,_ he had refused it outright, and you will see directly that he was not ill advised in doing so.