Index

A

• air travel 64–5
• Ajax 85
• Alain 57
• Alexandria 23
• Alps 28
• Alvarez, Balthazar, Tratado de la oración de silencio 42
• Angelico, Fra 74
• animals 14, 82
• Annunciation 75
• Antonioni, Michelangelo, Blow-up 82
• Apocalypse 45, 108
• apostolate, practice of the 49
• Aristotle 85
• armistice 63
• army 55, 57, 95
• Ars, curé of 92
• ars meditandi 41–2
• Artaud, Antonin 68
• asceticism 51
• Auburn penal system 59
• Austen, Jane 33

B

• Bachelard, Gaston 21, 80
• Baecque, Antoine de 89
• Baläy, Olivier 61
• Balzac, Honoré de
  • Béatrix 36–7
  • La Comédie humaine 37
• Barbey d’Aurevilly, Jules 5, 34–5, 37–8
  • Le Chevalier des Touches 38
  • ‘The Crimson Curtain’ 9, 103
  • Un Prêtre marié (A Married Priest) 5, 35
• Barbizon School 79
• Barbusse, Henri, Le Feu (Under Gunfire) 63–4
• barking dogs 62
• Barthélemy, Guy 24–5, 26
• battlefields 63–4
• Baudelaire, Charles 6–7, 52, 116
• bedrooms 1, 6–7, 8–13, 101
• bells 10, 37, 56, 57, 61–2
• Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 56
• Bernanos, Georges, Monsieur Ouine 10–12, 103–4, 117
• Bernard, St 46
• Biasi, Pierre-Marc de 27
• Blanchot, Maurice 79–80
• Böcklin, Arnold, Isle of the Dead 77
• Bonnard, Pierre, L’Homme et la femme 77
• Bonnefoy, Yves 75, 114
• Borromeo, Charles 42
• Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne 45–6, 66–7
  • ‘Meditation on Silence’ 46
  • ‘Second Panegyric upon St Benedict’ 46
• Bouguereau, William-Adolphe, The Birth of Venus 77
• Breschand, Jean 20
• Broch, Hermann, Der Tod des Virgil (The Death of Virgil) 117–18
• Brontë sisters 33
• Bruges 5, 21, 35
• Byron, Lord 116

C

• Camus, Albert
  • ‘La mer au plus près’ (‘The Sea Close By’) 31
  • The Outsider 16, 102, 118
• cars 62
• Carthusian rule 44–5
• Castiglione, Baldesar, Book of the Courtier 85–6, 98–9
• catastrophe 116
• cathedrals and churches 14–15, 55
• cats 14, 82
• Celan, Paul 114
• Cézanne, Paul 79
• Chaix, Gérald 44–5
• Champaigne, Philippe de 76
• Chaplin, Charlie 81
• Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon 79
• Chartres 15
• Chateaubriand, François René de 20–1, 23–4, 32, 38, 39, 48
• Genius of Christianity 21, 30, 38, 56
  • René 34
• Chavaud, Frédéric, Histoire de la haine (History of Hate) 105–6
• children 14, 55, 58, 116
• cinema 14, 20, 49, 65, 81–3, 106–7
  • silent films 81–2
• Claudel, Paul 76
  • Conversations dans le Loir-et-Cher 73
  • L’Oeil écoute (The Eye Listens) 6, 72–3
• Colin, Auguste 25
• communautés taisibles 93
• Compline 56
• connectivity, permanent 3
• Conrad, Joseph, The Shadow Line 30–1
• Constant, Benjamin
  • Adolphe 90, 99–100
  • Cécile 100
• Constantinople 23
• contagiousness of silence 57
• contemplation 1, 5, 44, 66, 67
• contemplative ideal 49
• convents 15–16
• Corpus Christi 56
• Coulange, Pierre 69–70, 109, 110
• Counter Reformation 45
• countryside 1, 19, 33–5, 92–5, 116
• courtiers 85–7, 99
• courtly love 98
• Creation 69–70, 79, 108
• Crebouw, Yvonne 93–4
• crowing cocks 62
• cry of pain 64
• cry of pleasure 64

D

• Dalí, Salvador 78
  • At the Seaside 78
  • Enigma 78
• David, Félicien, ‘Le Désert’ 25
• death 2, 11–12, 48, 77, 116–21
• decor 12–13
• Degas, Edgar, L’Absinthe 77, Plate 5
• Deguy, Michel 114
• Delacomptée, Jean-Michel vi
• Delacroix, Eugène 72, 73, 90–1
  • Journal 91
• Delvau, Alfred, Dictionnaire érotique moderne 103
• Dennis, Maurice 78
• desacralizing silence 57
• Desert Fathers 22, 51
• deserts 1, 22–7, 46, 50
• Deslandes, Léopold 102
• Dictionnaire de théologie morale 84–5
• Dido 85
• Dinouart, Abbé, L’Art de se taire 88–90
• Dionysius Cato 85
• Dreyer, Jeanne de 81
• du Bos, Charles 68
• Dufresny, Charles 88

E

• Earth, destruction of 120–1
• education and discipline of silence 54–65
• Elias, Norbert 58, 85
• Eliot, George 33
• Emanuel, Pierre, La Révolution parallèle (The Parallel Revolution) 69
• eroticism 9, 102
• Escorial 39
• etiquette manuals 58

F

• fear of silence 115–16
• Fénélon, François, Télémaque 89
• First World War 63–4
• flâneur 63
• Flaubert, Gustave 23, 27
  • Madame Bovary 91
  • Voyage en Égypte 27
• forests and woods 31–3, 52
• Foucauld, Charles de 49–50, 67
• Foucault, Michel 57
• Franciscans 49
• Friedrich, Caspar David 77
  • The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog 76–7
• Fromentin, Eugène 23, 25–7, 34
  • Un Été dans le Sahara (A Summer in the Sahara) 26–7
• Fumaroli, Marc 42, 73, 74, 75, 87
• Futurists 62

G

• Gabin, Jean 107
• García Lorca, Federico 78
• Garrel, Philippe 14
• Gasnier, Thierry, ‘Le silence des organes’ (‘The silence of the organs’) 58
• Gastyne, Marco de, L’Angoisse du Poilu (The Anguish of the Poilu) 63
• Gélard, Marie-Luce 59
• Genette, Gérard 91
• Gethsemane 110, 111
• God
  • hidden God (Deus absconditus) 109, 111
  • listening to 5, 24, 42, 46
  • relationship with 41, 42–3
  • silence of 108–14
  • silent speech of 69–70, 108
  • word of God 24
• Gogh, Vincent van 79
• Goncourt, Edmond de 16
  • La Fille Élisa 16
• good government 89
• Gracián, Baltasar, Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia (The Courtier’s Oracle or The Art of Worldly Wisdom) 85, 86–7
• Gracq, Julien 92, 116
  • The Opposing Shore 5, 16–17, 38, 92
• Granada, Luis de 42
• Grand Dictionnaire universel Larousse du XIXe siècle 55
• Granier-Deferre, Pierre, The Cat 106–7
• ‘green sickness’ 58–9
• Guerande 36–7
• Guérin, Maurice de 18, 20

H

• Harpocrates 10, 54
• hate-filled silence 105–7
• historians 60
• Hopper, Edward 5, 78–9, 106
  • Gas Plate 8
• hospitals 64
• houses 1, 4, 5–13
• Hughes, Arthur, The Long Engagement Plate 4
• Hugo, Victor 9–10, 111–12, 119
  • Contemplations 21, 34, 70–1, 100–1, 119
  • ‘Les Mages’ 112
  • Les Rayons et les Ombres 9–10, 119–20
  • Les Voix intérieures (Inner Voices) 32, 34, 39–40
  • Sous les arbres (Beneath the Trees) 101
• hunting 95
• Huysmans, Joris-Karl 7, 14–16, 52, 94–5, 114–15
  • En rade (Becalmed) 94–5, 104
  • The Cathedral 15–16, 74, 113–14
• hyper-mediatization 3

I

• Ignatius Loyola, St 42–3, 84
• injunctions to be silent 54, 55, 57, 64–5
• interiority 2, 5, 41, 66, 112, 115
• internal gustatory sensations 58–9
• intimacy of places 1, 4–17
• invalids 2, 117
• Ionescu, Eugène, Fragments of a Journal 68
• Isaiah 110

J

• Jacottet, Philippe 22, 114
• James, St 45
• Jerome, St 76
• Jerusalem 23
• Jesus 46, 47, 49, 50, 66, 67, 84, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113
• Job 109
• John of the Cross, St 43–4, 70, 109
  • Spiritual Canticle 109
• Joseph of Nazareth 66, 67
• Joubert, Joseph 20
• Judea 23

K

• Kafka, Franz 7
• Khnopff, Fernand, Silence 77, Plate 1
• Kierkegaard, Søren 69
• Klotz, Nicolas 20
• Kupka, Frantisek, The Voice of Silence 78

L

• La Bruyère, Jean de 7, 88
• ‘la petite mort’ 103
• La Rochefoucauld, François de 87–8
• La Tour, Georges de, Saint Joseph the Carpenter 75–6, Plate 3
• Lamartine, Alphonse de 23, 24
• Lamentations 110
• Lande de Lessay 34
• Laroche, Michel 51
• Laude, Patrick 81
• Laurent, Thierry 52
• ‘law of silence’ 58
• Le Clézio, Jean-Marie, L’Extase matérielle (The Material Ecstasy) 69
• Leconte de Lisle, Charles Marie René 18
  • Poèmes barbares 120–1
• Léonard, Jacques 61
• Leonardo da Vinci, Virgin of the Rocks 75
• Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 72
• libraries 16
• liturgy 16
• Lourdes 15
• lovers 1–2, 9, 96–107
• Luc, Jean-Noël 57
• Lucretius, De rerum natura 20
• Lyon 61

M

• Maeterlinck, Maurice 52, 54–5, 68, 71, 96–7, 115, 118
• Magritte, René, Empire of Light 78, Plate 7
• Malherbe, François de 118
• Mallarmé, Stéphane 18, 118
• Marcel, Gabriel 68
• Marcus Aurelius 42
• Marin, Louis 76
• Martha and Mary 49
• Mary Magdalene 76
• Masson, Bernard 91
• Mastrangelo, Giulia Latini 78
• masturbation 102
• Mauriac, François 80
  • Thérèse Desqueyroux 80, 104–5
• meditation 1, 5, 41, 43, 48, 74, 84
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 71
• Michaud, Stéphane 114
• Michelet, Jules 30
• Millet, Jean-Francois, Angelus 77
• Milton, John 99, 115
• ‘minute’s silence’ 57
• Modiano, Patrick 52
• Molière 58, 90
• monastic tradition 41–2, 44–5, 46, 47–8, 49, 51
• Moncade, M. de 88
• Mons, Alain 82
• Montauban 62
• Montesquieu 87
• moon 21, 22
• moors 34–5
• moral philosophy 42
• Moreau, Gustave, Orpheus at the Tomb of Eurydice 77–8
• Morisot, Berthe, The Cradle 77
• Moulin, Émile 32, 89, 90
• mountains 1, 27–9, 30
• Mozet, Nicole 37
• Muir, John 29, 33
• mysticism 43–4, 51

N

• Nadar 61–2
• nature 18–40
• Nazareth 49–50, 66–7
• Nazarova, Nina 81
• Neri, Philip 42
• Nerval, Gérard de 23
  • ‘Le Christ aux Oliviers’ 112–13
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morality 52
• night 20–2, 28, 32
• Nivernais 34
• noise
  • city noise 2–3, 60–1
  • lower-class associations 61
  • tolerance of 2, 60, 61–2

O

• objects that speak to the soul 12–13
• oceans and seas 1, 30–1
• O’Dwyer, Michael 80
• orgasm 102, 103
• Orient 23
• Orthodox theology 51, 108–9

P

• paintings 1, 71–9
  • Dutch paintings 72
  • muta eloquentia 72, 73
  • school of silence 73
  • vanitas paintings 48, 76
• Palmyra 38
• Paris 38, 39–40, 60–1, 63
• Parry, Margaret 51
• Pascal, Blaise 73, 99, 109, 115
• Passion of Jesus 110, 111
• peasants 92–5
• Péguy, Charles 98, 118
• Pennsylvania penal system 59
• Perpetual Adoration 55–6
• Perrot, Michelle 6
• Picard, Max 4, 12, 14, 19–20, 31, 38–9, 68–9, 72, 98, 108, 117
• Piero della Francesca
  • The Madonna of the Parturition Plate 6
  • Resurrection 75
• Plato, Euthydemus 30
• Poirier, Léon, L’Appel du silence 49
• Ponge, Francis 52
• Port-Royal 39
• Poussin, Nicolas 72, 73
• power of silence 60, 68, 71, 74, 115
• prayer 1, 5, 41, 92
  • interior 41, 42, 43, 73
  • silence as precondition for 48
• primordial silence 69–70
• prisons 16, 59
• private sphere 60
• Proust, Marcel 7, 21–2, 52, 104
  • In Search of Lost Time 8–9, 101
• Proverbs 85, 110
• prudence in conversation 46, 47, 87, 88, 89
• Prudhomme, Sully, Les Solitudes 32
• Psalms 70, 109–10
• Publilius Syrus 85

Q

• Quignard, Pascal 69, 102
  • Tch’eng Lien’s Last Music Lesson 71
  • Tous les matins du monde (All the World’s Mornings) 71–2

R

• Racine, Jean, Esther 90
• Radcliffe, Ann, The Mysteries of Udolpho 33
• Rancé, abbot of 45, 47–8
• Raphael, Silence of the Virgin 75
• Redon, Odilon, Closed Eyes Plate 2
• Reformation 45
• Relais di silence 53
• religious establishments 41–2, 44–5, 46, 47–8, 56–7
• religious services 55–6
• Rembrandt van Rijn 72–3, 76
  • The Night Watch 73
  • Stormy Landscape 73
• reverie 1
• rhetoric of the body 89, 99
• Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich 97
• Rilke, Rainer Maria 8
• Rodenbach, Georges 5, 12–13, 21, 29, 35–6, 97–8, 116–17
  • ‘Les malades aux fenêtres’ (‘The sick at the windows’) 117
• Roubaud, Félix 102
• Rousseau, Théodore 79
• ruins 38–40
• Russolo, Luigi 62

S

• Sablé, Madame de 88
• Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de 27, 102, 116
• Saint-Simon, Henri de 60
• Samain, Albert 80–1
• Sansot, Pierre 38
• Saussure, Horace-Bénédict de, Voyages dans les Alpes (Travels in the Alps) 28
• schools 57
• search for silence 41–53
• seasons 20
• secret societies 58
• Senancour, Étienne Pivert de, Obermann 16, 28–9, 51–2, 90, 100, 115–16
• Seneca 42, 85, 86
• sensuality of silence 102–4
• seraglio 23
• serpent 115
• servants 58, 93
• Shasta, Mount 29
• Shroud of Turin 73
• Signoret, Simone 107
• Silentiarios 55
• Simmel, Georg 59, 63
• Simon, Claude 108
  • The Grass 105
• snow 29–30
• social relations 84–95
• Soligny 39, 46
• Solomon 85
• sound landscape, transformation of 61–3
• sovereigns 89
• Sparta 23
• speech of silence 68–83
• Staffe, Baronne 58
• stoical silence 116
• Stoics 85
• street cries 61, 63
• street music 61
• sublime, cult of the 1, 24, 27–8
• Surrealist painters 78
• symbolist painters 77–8

T

• taciturnity 90, 92, 94, 95
• Tacitus 86
• tactics of silence 84–95
• talking 54–5
  • art of suspending thought 54
  • knowing when, and when not to 59, 60
  • malfunction of the natural order 57
  • risks of speech 85–8
• Tapié, Alain 48
• Teresa, Mother (St Teresa of Calcutta) 110
• thaumaturgy of silence 117
• Theresa of Avila, St 44, 110
• Theresa of the Infant Jesus, St 110
• Thoreau, Henry David 18–19, 32, 69, 95
  • Journal 19, 52
• Thuillier, Guy 34
• the tomb 2, 119
• Tours 37
• towns and cities 35, 116
  • city noise 2–3, 60–1, 63
  • episcopal cities 37
  • provincial towns 10, 36–8
• tragedy of silence 108–21
• trains and trams 63, 64
• transcendence 52, 69, 109
• types of silence 88–9, 90, 94

U

• Urfé, Honoré d’, L’Astrée 99

V

• Valéry, Paul 4, 22, 91–2
• vanitas paintings 48, 76
• Vasak, Anouchka 76
• Vecchiali, Paul 82
• Venayre, Sylvain 95
• Vercors, The Silence of the Sea 6
• Vermeer, Johannes 72
• Verne, Jules, A Fantasy of Dr Ox 10
• Vespers 56
• Vigny, Alfred de 100, 102, 114, 116, 120
  • ‘Dolorida’ 105
  • ‘Le Mont des Oliviers’ 110–11
• virtue, silence as a 84, 85

W

• Walden 19
• Walser, Robert 33
• warfare 63–4
• Whitman, Walt 7–8, 21
• William of Orange (the Silent) 90
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig 69
• workers 58, 93
• Wray, Fay 82
• writing 79–80

Z

• Zola, Émile
  • A Love Affair 29–30
  • The Dream 10
  • The Earth 92