London, April to September 1822
WHEN, after the sad news of my mother’s death, I suddenly resolved to change my course, the title The Genius of Christianity, which came to me on the spot, inspired me. I set myself to work, and I toiled with the ardor of a son building a mausoleum for his mother. My materials had long been roughed out and assembled by my previous studies. I knew the works of the Church Fathers better than they are known today. I had studied them in order to combat them, but having started down that road with wicked intentions, I left it not as the victor but as the vanquished.
As for history properly so called, I had been particularly occupied by it when composing the Essai historique. The Camden manuscripts I had recently examined had made me familiar with the manners and institutions of the Middle Ages. Finally, the terrific manuscript of The Natchez (all two thousand three hundred and ninety-three folio pages) contained everything that The Genius of Christianity could need in the way of descriptions of nature. I would draw largely from this source, as I had already done in the Essai.
When I finished the first part of The Genius of Christianity, the Dulau brothers, who had become the preferred booksellers of the émigré French clergy, agreed to publish it. The first sheets of the first volume were printed. The work thus begun in London in 1799 was finished in Paris in 1802, as one can see by the different prefaces to The Genius of Christianity. A kind of fever consumed me during the whole of its composition: no one shall ever know what it was to carry Atala and René simultaneously in his brain, in his blood, in his soul, and to combine with the painful birthing of those ardent twins the labor of conceiving the other parts of The Genius of Christianity. The memory of Charlotte warmed and governed all my thoughts, and, to finish me off, the first desire for fame and glory inflamed my feverish imagination. This desire came to me out of filial affection; I wanted to make such a stir that it would rise up to my mother’s dwelling place and inspire the angels to sing of my holy expiation.
As one course of study leads to another, I could not occupy myself with French scholia without taking note of the literature and the men of the country in which I was living: I was soon drawn into this new line of research. I spent my days and nights reading, writing, and taking Hebrew lessons from a learned priest called Abbé Caperan; I consulted libraries and educated men, roamed the fields lost in my implacable reveries, and paid and received visits. If future events had retroactive and symptomatic effects, I should have been able to prophesy the commotion to be caused by this work which would make my name by the turmoil in my mind and the throbbing of my muse.
Some readings of my first sketches served to enlighten me. Readings are excellent means of instruction, so long as one doesn’t take the obligatory flattery for genuine coin. An author who reads aloud in good faith will quickly discover, through an instinctive impression of others, the weak places in his work, and especially if this work is too long or too short—whether he has achieved, undershot, or exceeded the proper measure. I have a letter from the Chevalier de Panat, giving his opinion of the readings of a work that was then unknown. The letter is charming: the dirty Chevalier’s droll and scornful wit had never seemed susceptible to getting so mixed up with poetry. I do not hesitate to give this letter as a document of my history, although it is so smeared from one end to the other with my praise it may seem as if the caddish author had taken pleasure in pouring his inkwell over the page:
This Monday
Mon Dieu! What an interesting reading you have given this morning! Our religion has counted some great geniuses among its defenders: those great athletes, the illustrious Fathers of the Church, vigorously wielded all the weapons of reason; unbelief was vanquished. But it was not enough. It was necessary to show all of this admirable religion’s charms; to show how well fitted it is to the human heart; to reveal the magnificent images it offers the imagination. You are not a theologian but a great painter—a man of feeling opening up a new horizon. Your work was missing from the landscape, and you were, I believe, called to do it. Nature has endowed you with all the eminently fine qualities that she requires: you belong to another century. . .
Ah! If the truths of feeling are first in the order of nature, no one can communicate the feelings of our religion better than you. You will confuse the impious at the temple gate and lead the delicate minds and sensitive hearts straight to the inner sanctum. You put me in mind of those ancient philosophers who gave their lessons with their heads crowned with flowers and their hands bathed in sweet perfumes. Yet this is but a weak image of your spirit—so sweet, so pure, and so ancient.
I find myself more pleased each day by the happy circumstances that brought me close to you. I cannot forget that this kindness was done me by Fontanes, whom I love all the more for it. My heart shall never separate these two names, which should be united in the same glory, if Providence should elect to open our country’s gates to us again!
Chevalier de Panat
Abbé Delille also came to hear me read several fragments of The Genius of Christianity in London. He seemed surprised, and he did me the honor, shortly after, of versifying the prose that had pleased him. He naturalized my wild American flowers in his various French gardens and put my rather overheated wine to cool in the frigid water of his clear spring.
The unfinished edition of The Genius of Christianity, begun in London, differed a bit from the order of materials as published in France. Consular censorship, soon to become imperial censorship, showed itself to be sensitive on the subject of kings; their persons, their honor, and their virtue were dear to it a priori. Already Fouché’s police saw the white pigeon, the symbol of Bonaparte’s candor and Revolutionary innocence, descending from heaven with its sacred vial. The sincere believers in the Republican processions of Lyon forced me to cut out a chapter titled “The Atheist Kings” and to disperse its paragraphs here and there throughout the body of the work.