London, April to September 1822
I WAS MARRIED at the end of March 1792, and on April 20 the Legislative Assembly declared war on Francis II of Germany, who had recently succeeded his father Leopold; on April 10, Benedict Labre had been beatified in Rome. There you have two worlds. The declaration of war hastened the exodus of those French nobles who still remained at home. On the one hand, the violent persecutions redoubled; on the other, it was no longer possible for a Royalist to remain by his hearthside without being accused of cowardice. It was now time for me to make my way toward the camp that I had come so far to seek. My uncle de Bedée and his family found passage on a boat bound for Jersey, and I set off for Paris with my wife and my sisters Lucile and Julie.
We had secured an apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Cul-de-Sac Férou, at the Petit Hôtel de Villette. I was eager to see my old friends again. I went to visit the Parisian men of letters whom I used to know. Among other new faces, I encountered the learned Abbé Barthélemy and the poet Saint-Ange. The Abbé has modeled his descriptions of Athenian Gynaecums too much on the salons of Chanteloup. The translator of Ovid was not without talent; but talent is a gift, an isolate thing, which can be combined with other mental faculties or exist by itself, and Saint-Ange furnished proof of this. He made a concerted effort not to be stupid, but he could never quite prevent himself. A man whose style I have admired and admire still, Bernard de Saint-Pierre, also lacks intelligence, and unfortunately his character is on a level with his intelligence. How many descriptions in his Études de la nature are spoiled by a flaw in the writer’s soul!
Rulhière had died suddenly, in 1791, before my departure for America. I have since seen his little house in Saint-Denis, with the fount and the pretty statue of Love, at the foot of which one reads these verses:
D’Egmont avec l’Amour visita cette rive:
Une image de sa beauté
Se peignit un moment sur l’onde fugitive:
D’Egmont a disparu; l’Amour seul est resté.[3]
When I left France, the theaters of Paris still resounded with The Awakening of Epimenides:
J’aime la vertu guerrière
De nos braves défenseurs,
Mais d’un peuple sanguinaire
Je déteste les fureurs.
À l’Europe redoutables,
Soyons libres à jamais,
Mais soyons toujours aimables
Et gardons l’esprit français.[4]
By the time of my return, The Awakening of Epimenides was forgotten, and if these lines had been sung, they might have had terrible consequences for their author. Charles IX had prevailed. The play had come into vogue largely thanks to circumstance. The alarm bells, the people armed with pikes, and the hatred of kings and priests offered the audiences a reproduction, behind closed doors, of what was playing out in the streets. Talma, the debutant, continued his success.[5]
While tragedy reddened the streets, pastoral flourished in the theater. This meant not merely innocent shepherds and virginal shepherdesses. Meadows, streams, fields, sheep, doves—a whole golden age under thatch—were revived to the music of the reed-pipe played before the cooing Phillis for the naive tricoteuses[6] fresh from the spectacle of the guillotine.[7] If Sanson had the time, he might have played the role of Colin, and Mademoiselle Théroigne de Méricourt the role of Babet.[8] The members of the National Convention made believe they were the most benign men on earth: good fathers, good sons, good husbands, they took their small children on walks around the city; they hired nurses for them; they wept tenderly at the sight of their simple games; gently, they took these little lambs in their arms and showed them the horsie that led the cart which carried victims to their punishment. They sang of nature, peace, pity, beneficence, candor, and domestic virtues, and meanwhile these blessed philanthropists sent their neighbors to have their necks sliced, with extreme sensibility, for the greater happiness of the human race.