Chapitre VI

Literary life at Savigny-Joubert's encouragement and advice-Fontanes' practical help-Publication of Le Génie du Christianisme-Contents and character of the work-Madame Hamelin's account of its enthusiastic reception-Chateaubriand "buried beneath a heap of perfumed notes."

SAVIGNY is in the Department of Seine-et-Oise, on the high-road to Paris. The house which Chateaubriand and Madame de Beaumont occupied there stands in a small park. Vine-clad terraces rise behind it, and a curtain of trees screens it. Some of the most glowing pages of the Mémoires are consecrated to Chateaubriand's recollections of his sojourn there- " In the morning," he writes, " we used to breakfast together. After breakfast I used to withdraw to my work, and Madame de Beaumont was so good as to copy out for me the quotations which I indicated. This noble woman offered me a place of refuge when I had none. Had it not been for the tranquillity which she afforded me, I should very likely never have finished a work which I had failed to bring to completion in the days of my misfortunes.

" Never to the end of my life shall I forget certain of the evenings spent in this haven of friendship. We used to gather, when we returned from our daily walk, close to the pool of running water, situated in the

G 2 83 midst of a lawn in the garden. Madame Joubert, Madame de Beaumont, and I sat side by side on a bench. Madame Joubert's son played on the grass at our feet. M. Joubert paced to and fro along a gravel path at a little distance from us."

M. Joubert might well do so, having discovered that two were company and that he was no longer one of the two; but his stay at Savigny was of brief duration. For the great part of the time Chateaubriand and Madame de Beaumont were alone, as honeymooners should be, and Chateaubriand kept ennui at bay and was happy. " What bliss," he exclaims, " for a man who had lately returned from exile, and who, save for a few days too quickly passed, had for eight years lived a life of complete isolation!" And then, with the inevitable touch of egotism: " Never have I depicted the wilderness of the New World so eloquently." And then, with the inevitable touch of sentiment—

" At night, when the windows of our rustic drawing-room were open, Madame de Beaumont used to point out the various constellations, telling me that, some day, I should remember that it was from her that I had learnt to know them. Since I have lost her, I have, again and again, at Rome, in the midst of the Campagna, looked for the stars whose names she taught me. I have seen them shining brightly above the Sabine Hills, their long rays smiting the surface of the Tiber »

Did he also, one wonders, search for them on those other nights, only a few years later, when at F'Fervacques- -? But that is another of the questions that can wait. For the moment they were both happy and believed that their happiness would last; and Pauline de Beaumont even believed that her happiness was curing her malady. "I do really think," she wrote to Fontanes, "that my health is improving;" and her letters to Joubert are full of a delight as naïve and innocent as that of a bride.

" We have hardly been here four-and-twenty hours, and already I am impatient to tell you our news. No doubt you are more anxious to hear about the solitary one than about myself. You know how the country charms me, and how happy I am in solitude; so it is about the savage that I am going to talk to you.

" Almost before our journey was finished, he had forgotten his talks with Fontanes, and all his anxieties and annoyances. Never have I seen him more calm, more gay, more child-like, more reasonable. ... By ten o'clock the whole household was in bed and fast asleep.

"This morning the savage read me the first part of his first volume, pointing out the changes that he had to make in it. In truth I hope he may find critics cooler-headed and more enlightened than I am; for 1, for my part, cannot escape from the spell, and am even less severe than he is himself »

And then again, thanking Joubert, on Chateaubriand's behalf, for sending him a copy of an Italian translation of Atala- " He glanced with delight at the Italian apparel of this daughter of his pen. It is a pleasure for which he is much indebted to you, but which he can only enjoy hastily, so deeply is he immersed in his work. He sacrifices his sleep and his meals to it, and can scarcely spare a moment to sigh for the happiness which he knows awaits him at Villeneuve. For the rest, I think he is to be congratulated on this species of intoxication which prevents him from feeling the void caused by your absence."

There is a mention in the same letter of the dispute between Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, which Madame de Beaumont composed. The trouble broke out, she says, "at a time when we were leading a life so delightfully tranquil that we were meaning to settle down to it for ever"; and she adds, having told the story: "But we must not mind the worries of this world. We must look on at them only as we look on at the tempest from the shore, congratulating ourselves that its fury cannot harm us." And then elsewhere we read that " M. de Chateaubriand is working like a nigger," and that Madame de Beaumont will be very much obliged if Madame Joubert will buy her some teaspoons.

No doubt Madame Joubert bought them. Very likely she was grateful to Chateaubriand for removing and monopolizing the lady to whom her husband was accustomed to apologize for her own lack of charm. And the aphorist himself still gave no sign that his feelings were wounded by the preference shown to the younger and more distinguished man. We know that they were wounded-we shall come to the proof-but he did not wear his heart upon his sleeve. He was magnanimous; he lapsed, as it were, into the rôle of father-in-law, maintaining both his affection and his enthusiasm at the same pitch as before, prophesying smooth things while giving good advice. He implores Chateaubriand, for instance, not to be too unctuously religious—

" Let him accustom us once more to regard Christianity with some degree of favour, to breathe with some degree of pleasure the incense which it exhales to heaven, and to listen to its canticles with some degree of satisfaction. He will then have done the work that he is best capable of doing, and his task will have been fulfilled. Religion itself may be left to do the rest. If philosophy and poetry once bring a man back to it, it will soon lay hold of him, for its power of seduction is great."

He appeals to him again not to rely too much upon the quotations which he is marshalling in such formidable array—

"Tell him that he is inclined to quote too much. Tell him that the public will care very little for his citations, but a great deal for his thoughts; that the world is curious, not about his knowledge but about his genius; that beauty, not truth, is what will be looked for in his work; that it is not his doctrines but his talents that will make his literary fortune; that Christianity will not make us like Chateaubriand, but that we rely upon Chateaubriand to make us love Christianity. He is quite different from the rest of our prose writers. Let him follow his métier and enchant us »

If he does so, his success will not be doubtful-

"I do not share your fears. That which is beautiful cannot fail to please. There is a Venus in his work, celestial for some of us, terrestrial for others, whose presence will be felt by all. Since the book is finished, the critical hour is passed. It will succeed because it is the work of the Enchanter. It must succeed, even if it had a thousand faults, because it also contains so many beauties. That is my verdict. »

Such were the cheering messages that reached Chateaubriand as he "worked like a nigger" under Madame de Beaumont's devoted eyes; and his friends not only advised and applauded, but also circulated the puff preliminary, and pulled the wires.

Fontanes was even more useful in these respects than Joubert; for he was an editor, and was in the confidence of Napoleon, and on terms of close friendship with Napoleon's brother Lucien, and his sister, Madame Bacciochi. Chateaubriand was able to write letters on topics of the day to Fontanes' paper and subscribe himself "the author of Le Génie du Christianisme" while his work was still in the printer's hands. His editor never lost an opportunity of referring to him, in various connections, as "the author of the long expected volume on the beauties of the Christian religion," etc. The First Consul himself was approached and persuaded that here was a valuable literary ally-an enthusiastic exponent, worth humouring and favouring, of the new policy of reconciliation between France and Rome.

The Peace of Amiens had just been signed, and negotiations were proceeding with the Pope for the conclusion of the Concordat. It was arranged that Le Génie du Christianisme should be issued on the morrow of the publication of that instrument, that its author should be put forward as the man of genius who was on the side of the angels, and that Fontanes' eulogy of it should be reproduced, with the imprimatur of the Government in the Moniteur. Those were the auspicious circumstances in which, after much anxious thought and delicate negotiation, the brilliant Catholic apology was launched. It is the moment to pause and consider what manner of book it was.

Assuredly it was not a book to make any deep or permanent appeal to really religious people. It appeals to really religious Catholics as little as to really religious Protestants. Whether it is actually insincere is a point which may be, and has often been, debated. It certainly lacks " inwardness"; but those who knew Chateaubriand best will be most ready to maintain that this lack is itself a proof, for what it may be worth, of sincerity. The author, as his life shows, was more sentimental than pious; and it was natural and reasonable and proper that this distinction should be mirrored in his writings.

One may go further and say that Christianity, for Chateaubriand, was not a religion at all, but, as it were, a work of art. The contemplation of it never moved him, any more than the contemplation of a masterpiece of sculpture would have moved him, to the humble aspiration of Saint Thomas à Kempis : "O utinam per unum diem in hoc mundo conversati essemus uti debemus." How should it, seeing that he, a married man, with a wife in Brittany, was living with a divorced woman while expounding the beauties of the Christian creed? He was not, as the world commonly understands the words, a religious man, but rather, as Sainte-Beuve puts it, "a voluptuary with a Catholic imagination." That was how he differed alike from his Catholic predecessors of the seventeenth century, and from those evangelical revivalists who were his contemporaries in England. He preached, it is instructive to remember, at pretty much the same date as Simeon and Legh Richmond; and what a difference between his preaching and theirs !

Religion, in the view of the English revivalists, was an intimate personal matter, and implied austere corollaries: the conviction of sin; the renewal of the heart; the renunciation of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-of that sort in the attitude of the leader of the Catholic reaction in France. The imagination boggles, indeed, at the thought of Chateaubriand renouncing pomps, and, as for the sinful lusts of the flesh, few men have ever seemed less ashamed of their concessions to them. Such regrets as we shall find him expressing on this head are hardly to be distinguished from boasts; and the most that can be said of his fidelity to the law of Christ is that he was " faithful in his fashion"- -which was not the fashion of the ascetics.

As for the "argument" of his great apologetic work, perhaps we may sum it up as follows-Beauty is truth, truth beauty. Christianityespecially Catholic Christianity-is beautiful; therefore it is the only religion for a man of taste. Observe how beautiful it is in detail-in its dogmas and in its ceremonies! How beautiful are the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement! How beautiful is Extreme Unction! How beautiful are Baptism and the Supper of the Lord! What beautiful emotions steal over one in ruined cloisters and in cemeteries! What beautiful stories are told about Eremites and Conobites and missionaries and martyrs! How mysterious are mysteries, and how chaste is the chastity of nuns! How impressive is Gothic, architecture! How marvellous is the effect of the setting sun shining through a stained glass window! How deep is the indebtedness to Catholicism of the arts of music, of painting, and even of literature! How great are Palestrina, and Michael Angelo, and Racine! How great then-how poetical and how philosophical

is the creed from which they all drew their inspiration !

The paragraph is not a parody of a summary. It is a fair and faithful summary. Chateaubriand, as we see, does not precisely reason or plead with the sinner, but talks to him like an art critic, endeavouring to work up enthusiasm for a neglected masterpiece. His words, indeed, seem to be meant, not for sinners, but for men of taste. The impression which they leave is of a man admiring a picture in a galleryand not only admiring it, but striking attitudes in front of it-and not only striking attitudes, but observing the effect of them in the looking-glass. One feels that most unmistakably when one reads that "a man may have talent without religion, but it is very difficult for him to have genius"-a sentiment which has just as much truth as the opposing sentiment of Chateaubriand's contemporary Daunou¹,! that "genius can only spring in the breast of a Republican."

1 A great savant. Before the Revolution a priest and schoolmaster, he became first a member and then President of the Convention, and was the principal author of the Constitution of Year III. ↩

The Catholics of to-day-those of them who take their Catholicism seriously-do not set much store by the apologetics of Le Génie du Christianisme. "It is all useful, it goes in with the rest," is the most enthusiastic comment that one can extract from them. Which means-which can only mean-that the temporal glory of the Church of Saint Peter is an end in itself, and that no argument which has brought men and women to own allegiance to the Sovereign Pontiff is to be disdained merely because it happens to be unsound. But, if that be the modern view, the Catholics of Chateaubriand's own time did not share it. Their enthusiasm knew no bounds in its expression, and was qualified by no mental reservations.

It is true, of course, that the official Catholicism of France in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a very abominable thing. It had slaughtered the Huguenots in the streets of Paris; it had dragooned the Camisards in their mountain home; it had broken Calas-and many another-on the wheel. In another field of energy, it had driven Rousseau into exile, and had maliciously obstructed the scientific work of the Encyclopædists. Voltaire had had every warrant for his famous exhortation: " Ecrasez l'infâme."

When Chateaubriand wrote, however, the memory of these outrages had been obliterated. The Jacobins had persecuted in their turn; and their victims had often been harmless or even meritorious personsprelates who were in sympathy with progress, and devoted parish priests who had done their humble duty according to their lights. Public worship had been suppressed; churches had been desecrated and pillaged; their ministers had been manacled and driven, with insults, to Fouquier-Tinville's judgmentseat. They could claim the sympathy due to the weak and helpless; and the man who openly stood up for them might seem to have something of the chivalry of the sailor in the melodrama denouncing him who lays his hand upon a woman-" save in the way of kindness."

That turn of public opinion was in Chateaubriand's favour; and there were other sentimental conditions which had prepared the way for his Gospel.

The interests of the Church had been bound up with the interests of the privileged classes. The aristocracy had toyed with unbelief in the spirit with which children play with fire; and they had done more than burn their fingers. The fire had consumed their privileges and their property; they themselves had survived as if by a miracle; every one of them recalled the memory of some friend or relative who had perished in the flames. The thought of religion -of magnificent official religion-recalled happy memories of the days before their sufferings, trials, and losses. Their position was hardly that of contrite sinners seeking pardon at the throne of grace; but they did turn to religion sentimentally, for old sake's sake, and in the spirit of tearful regret for the dear dead days beyond recall, and they were ready to accord an ovation to any man who helped them to indulge that vein of sentiment.

That was what Chateaubriand did; that was the responsive chord in their bosoms which he touched. He gave them what they wanted. They wanted a sentimental system of religion suitable for worldly and fashionable people; and he gave them thatgave it them, too, in rich French prose of novel splendour, as melodious as the psalms and canticles of their Church. That is the reason why the success of Le Génie du Christianisme was immense and instantaneous.

It met, of course, with a certain amount of hostile criticism. Madame de Staël was moved to laughter by the chapter " On Virginity in its Poetical Aspects." Benjamin Constant found in it "an equal lack of sensibility and good faith." Ginguené reflected even more severely on the author's sincerity. He told a story to the effect that Chateaubriand, on his return from exile, had called on him and confided to him that, as he had failed to make any impression by attacking Christianity, he proposed to make a second bid for fame by defending it. He also referred maliciously to the author's relations with Madame de Beaumont, declaring that it was incumbent upon those who preached the Gospel to keep a watchful eye upon "their own hearts and reins." There were a few other discordant voices; but they were very few indeed, and were drowned in the clamorous applause of the faithful, and of Society.

A letter written by Madame Hamelin¹ shows us how Society took Chateaubriand's part-

1 A lady conspicuous in society under the Consulate and Empire, but not specially conspicuous for virtue. She had mysterious relations with the authorities, and was probably a police spy. ↩

"At the beginning of this noisy century I saw a young Breton crusader carrying a torch by the mysterious light of which we read these charming words: Atala, Amélie, René, Chateaubriand.

"In Paris, that day, there was not a woman who slept. We snatched copies out of each other's hands; we stole them. And then, what an awakening! What a clatter of tongues! What palpitations of the heart! 'What! Is that Christianity?' we all exclaimed. 'Why Christianity is perfectly delightful. Who is it who expounds it thus?' 'A gallant young soldier of the army of Condé,' replied the beautiful Duchesse de Châtillon. . . . I stationed myself in the advance guard of the young enthusiasts; and, as soon as we met one of the wits of the Academy, we began to skirmish with him."

And Chateaubriand himself tells us that he was overwhelmed by the attentions of " the crowd of Christian women"; that he was "buried beneath a heap of perfumed notes"; that admirers fought for his autograph; that invitations were showered upon him; that he accepted some of them; but that-

" Easy though it might have been for me to take advantage of some transitory fancy, my sincerity was revolted by the thought of arriving at the gratification of voluptuous desires by the chaste paths of religion. The idea of being loved for Le Génie du Christianisme, for what I had written on Extreme Unction, and on the Festival of the Dead! Never could I have been such a shameful hypocrite as that!"

Never ?

But we have seen, and we shall see. Before the story of Madame de Beaumont is finished, the story of Madame de Custine has to be begun.

Delphine de Custine

/ From a Portrait by Campana reproduced by permision of M. Aginor Bardous)