London, April to September 1822
A SOCIETY has recently been formed in London to give aid to men of letters, both English and foreign. When this society invited me to its annual meeting, I considered it my duty to attend and pay my subscription. His Royal Highness the Duke of York occupied the president’s chair; to his right were the Duke of Somerset, Lord Torrington, and Lord Bolton; I was seated to his left. At the meeting, I also saw my friend Mr. Canning. This poet, orator, and illustrious minister made a speech, a certain passage of which was far too respectful toward me and was printed in all the newspapers the next day: “Although the person of my noble friend, the French Ambassador, is but little known in England, his character and writings are well known in Europe. He began his career by uncovering the principles of Christianity; he continued by defending the principles of the Monarchy; and now he has come again to England, to help unite our two States with the common bonds of monarchical principles and Christian virtues.”
It has been many years since Mr. Canning, the man of letters, was schooled in London politics by Mr. Pitt: almost the same number of years that have passed since I began to write, in total obscurity, in this same English capital. Both of us have come into high regard, and we are now members of a society dedicated to the relief of destitute writers. But is it the affinity of our accomplishments or the harmony of our sufferings which has united us? What are a Governor of the East Indies and a French ambassador doing together at a banquet for the stricken Muses? It is only George Canning and François de Chateaubriand sitting there, talking over their past adversity and, perhaps, their past happiness: they drink to the memory of Homer, who recited his verses for a morsel of bread.
If the Literary Fund had existed when I arrived in London from Southampton on May 21, 1793, it might have paid for the doctor who came to see me in my garret in Holborn, where my cousin La Bouëtardais, my uncle de Bedée’s son, had found me lodgings. Everybody spoke of the change of air as though it would perform miracles and restore me a soldier’s strength; but my health, instead of improving, declined. My chest was afflicted; I became thin and pale; I coughed frequently; I breathed with difficulty; I broke into sweats and coughed up blood. My friends, who were all as poor as I, dragged me from physician to physician. These disciples of Hippocrates made my band of beggars stand outside their door and then announced to me, for the price of a guinea, that I must endure my illness with patience, adding, “’Tis done, dear sir.” Doctor Godwin, famous for those experiments in drowning he had performed, according to careful instructions, on his own person, was more generous: he offered me his opinion free of charge, but told me, with the same austerity that he turned upon himself, that I might last a few months, perhaps a year or two, provided that I give up everything that fatigued me. “Do not count on a long career.” Such was the gist of his consultations.
The certainty that my end was fast approaching, while intensifying the native gloominess of my imagination, gave me an incredible sense of calm. My state of mind explains the note printed in my Essai historique,[10] and also this passage in the Essai itself: “Attacked by an illness which leaves me little hope, I look upon the things of this world with a tranquil eye; the calm air of the tomb brushes the face of a traveler who is no more than a few days distant.” The bitterness of the reflections scattered throughout the Essai should come as no surprise to anyone: the work was composed under the stunning blow of a death sentence, between the judgment and the execution. A writer who thinks he has come to the end, who lives in a state of penury and exile, can hardly cast a smiling eye on the world.
The question was how to spend the grace days accorded me. I could either live or die without delay by the sword; but the sword was forbidden me. What remained? A pen? But the pen was unknown and untried: I was ignorant of its power. Could my inborn taste for letters, the poems of my childhood, the rough sketches of my travels, command the attention of the public? The idea of writing a work comparing revolutions had occurred to me; it had stuck in my mind as a subject suited to the interests of the day. But who would burden himself printing a manuscript with no one to praise or promote it? And while I composed this manuscript, who would support me? Even if I had only a few days left to live on earth, it was nonetheless necessary to have some sustenance for those days. My thirty louis d’or, already seriously depleted, would not go much further, and, beyond my private afflictions, I felt it my duty to help alleviate the common distress of my fellow émigrés. My companions in London had all taken up occupations. Some had gone into the coal trade; some helped their wives make straw hats; others taught the French that they hardly knew. Yet they were all very cheerful. Flippancy, the great defect of our national character, was at that time changed into a virtue. We laughed in the face of Fortune—that thief who had sheepishly carried off what no one would ask her to return.