"Les gens an air of importance on the dangers of the with a real literary enthusiasm. times. "Nos droits," he cried, "nos privi- de goût sont les hauts-justiciers de la littéraléges sont menacés." "Nos droits?" cried ture. L'esprit de critique est un esprit d'orthe duc de Crequi, who was standing by. dre; il connaît les délits contre le goût et les "Eh bien, qu'est-ce que vous trouvez donc porte au tribunal du ridicule; car le rire est singulier en ce mot? ” "C'est votre pluriel," souvent l'expression de sa colère, et ceux qui, replied the duke, "que je trouve singulier." le blâment ne songent pas assez que l'homme The young aspirant to fame, however, was de goût a reçu vingt blessures avant d'en faire too sure of his powers to be easily abashed, une. The critical activity thus explained and he contrived that his first literary task and defended led him before long to undershould call attention to his hereditary re- take a systematic onslaught on a host of spectability. Coming to Paris, and appar- insignificant poetasters, who at this time ently absorbed in frivolous amusements, he crowded the booksellers' windows with worthwas in reality working hard at a translation less productions. This was the Petit Almaof Dante. "C'est un bon moyen," he told nach de Grands Hommes, a sort of prose Dunhis friends laughingly, "de faire ma cour aux ciad in which the chief literary culprits of Rivarol d'Italie ;" and elsewhere he explains, the year were, under a transparent veil of "J'ai traduit l'Enfer de Dante parceque j'y bombastic eulogy, held up to well-merited retrouvais mes ancêtres." The undertaking derision. As with the victims of Pope's imof so ambitious a task bespoke already the mortal satire, time has already effectually lofty designs which were concealed under af- completed the assailant's purpose, and the fected manners and an ostentatious indolence. heroes of the Petit Almanach are for the most Success soon smiled upon his hopes. His part only known to fame by the very instrugraceful manners and imposing delivery pro- mentality which was intended for their more cured him an easy triumph in several literary speedy consignment to oblivion. cafés, especially "Le Caveau," where a set Rivarol had now, however, graver employof brilliant talkers were accustomed to meet. ments before him. Immediately upon the In 1784 he acquired an almost European celeb- outbreak of the Revolution, he made the rity by carrying off the prize offered by the choice which interest, taste, and prejudice, Academy of Berlin, under the auspices of alike recommended, and stood boldly forward Frederick the Great, for the best treatise on against the advancing current of democracy. the universality of the French language, and A journal named Politique National was the the probable causes of its continuance. The organ of the most enlightened Conservatives, essay, though as rhetorical and high-flown and to this Rivarol contributed the most foras was natural under the circumstances, im- cible, and certainly the most sagacious, explied a real critical faculty, and was the positions of the existing crisis which had as means probably of directing its author to a yet appeared upon his side of the controversy. line of grammatical inquiry on which he sub- With a vehemence which lost none of its efsequently grounded other and far deeper spec- fect by being polished and antithetical, hẹ ulations. The labored enjoyments of Paris- denounced the jealous vanity of the bourian salons and a life of polished dissipation geoisie, as being, rather than the sufferings were, however, beginning to tell upon his of the mass, the true cause of disturbance. powers, and before his thirtieth year he be- Though the slave of his own brilliancy, and gan to complain of diminishing versatility. too epigrammatic to be invariably correct, he "Ma vie est un drame si ennuyeux," he gives from time to time satisfactory evidence writes, "que je prétends que c'est Mercier of his real thoughtfulness and political inqui l'a fait. Autrefois je réparais dans une sight. For one thing, he thoroughly appreheure huit jours de folie; et aujourd'hui il ciated the gravity of the statesman's task: me faut huit grands jours de sagesse pour ré-" La politique," he said, "est comme le parer une folie d'une heure." His judgment sphinx de la fable elle dévore tous ceux as a critic, and his never-failing loquacity, qui n'expliquent pas ses énigmes." The placed him, however; daily in a more conspicuous social position. His taste in authorship was delicate, sensitive. and correct, and the judgments he pronounced were tinged follies of his own party did not escape him any more than the crimes of his antagonists. Upon the blind tardiness of the court he was especially severe; he pointed out the futility of concessions withheld till their worth and rol, however, was not allowed to continue his efficacy is lost: "La populace de Paris," he literary championship undisturbed. In 1790, writes, "et celle même de toutes les villes du he found it expedient to attempt escape, but royaume, ont encore bien des crimes à faire, failed to elude the vigilance of the patriots, avant d'égaler les sottises de la cour. Tout and only two years later succeeded in making le règne actuel peut se réduire à quinze ans his way to Brussels, Amsterdam, and ultide faiblesse, et à un jour de force mal em- mately London. He now set about the most ployée." He observed of the aristocrats, the serious enterprise of his life,—his Théorie du men who forgot nothing and learnt nothing, Corps Politique, on which he was still en"qu'ils prenaient leurs souvenirs pour des gaged when, some years later, his mortal illdroits:" of the anti-revolutionary alliance, ness overtook him. The object of the work "ils ont toujours été en arrière d'une année, was to combat the doctrine-which Rousseau d'une armaée, et d'une idée." On the other had rendered fashionable—of the sovereignty hand, the contempt for the mass, which with of the people. Defining power to be organChamfort exploded in a sneer, became in his ized force, sovereignty to be conservative mind a guiding principle in speculation, and power, and the people to be essentially unsatisfactorily explained the social phenom- conservative, he demonstrated with a lucidena of the time: "Le peuple," he said, "neity, for which every good Tory should revere goûte de la liberté, comme de liqueurs violantes, que pour s'enivrer et devenir furieux." "Le peuple," so runs another of his maxims, "est un souverain qui ne demande qu'à manger: sa majesté est tranquille quand elle digère. Here is another, still more trenchant in its tone: his memory, the truth that the true governance of society must be vested in the hands of the aristocratic few. Society, however, still stole him from his tasks; and we have an amusing account of the troubles of an unfortunate publisher who, during Rivarol's subsequent residence in Hamburg, had actthe composition of a long-promised prelimiually to keep him under lock, to expedite "Il n'est point de siècles de lumière pour la populace; elle n'est ni française, ni anglaise, ni espagnole. La populace est tou-nary discourse to a new dictionary of the jours et en tout pays la même-toujours cannibale, toujours anthropophage; et quand elle se venge de ses magistrats, elle punit des crimes qui ne sont pas toujours avérés par des crimes qui sont toujours certains." French language. It was doubtless far more agreeable to dictate to fine ladies than to be the slave of a printer's devil; and Rivarol would not do the one so long as he had the least chance of enjoying the other. At Hamburg he appears to have lived in an agreeable and somewhat dissolute society. The animal spirits of emigration, he said, fled thither for refuge; and we may infer that merriment was not the only characteristic of the expiring régime which the high-bred exiles carried with them to their new abode. Rivarol, no doubt, knew extremely well how to enliven supper-parties, where manners were good and morals indulgent, which were graced by the gentle radiance of "des yeux de vclours," and the sophistries of controversialists more lovely than immaculate. Once, for instance, we find him parodizing the mixed greediness and patriotism of Lally-Tolendal. 66 Another and less successful project was the publication of the "Acts of the Apostles," a gigantic squib, intended to show the proceed- Oui, messieurs, j'ai vu couler ce sang,ings of the revolutionary leaders in a ridicu- voulez-vous me verser un verre de vin de lous aspect but the joke was on too large a Bourgogne ?-oui, messieurs, j'ai vu tomber scale, and too long supported to suit the cette tête,-voulez-vous me faire passer une fastidious taste of Parisian readers, and in aile de poulet?" etc. etc. One can fancy the its present shape defies the most enterprising glee with which such a scene would be enacted student by its insupportable dulness. Riva- to a royalist audience, and the witticisms which it would suggest at the expense of rev-| He launched forthwith into a friendly critiolutionary gourmandism. 66 cism of his visitor's latest production, and Here, too, among other excitements, Rivarol promised him a speedy growth of power in fell in with the most fervent of all his admir- the invigorating sunshine of his own society. ers. Chênedollé, at this time young, roman- "J'espère," he said, “ que nous ferons queltic, burning with literary enthusiasm, and a que chose de vous. Venez me voir, nous hero-worshiper of the devoutest order, was mettrons votre esprit en serre chaude, et tout as enraptured as a priest of Apis with a new-ira bien. Pour commencer, nous allons faire found calf, at the discovery of so worthy an aujourd'hui une débauche de poésie." Hereobject of adoration. Four years before, the upon began a marvellous display of versatile young poet had joined the party of the emi- loquacity. Starting from the first principles grants, had served for two campaigns under of his theme, the orator maintained that the royalist banners, and had arrived in Ham-savage and the poet are one: both speak by burg, early in 1795, a fugitive from the arms hieroglyphics, though the latter moves in a of his victorious countrymen. His zeal for larger orbit, and enjoys a more extended greatness was hot, his temperament of the range of vision. Armed with this idea, and order that is familiarly described as "gush- enlarging it gradually to the proposition, ing; "and the neighborhood of so great an that art should aim at nothing short of the intellectual celebrity threw him into a fever infinite, Rivarol performed prodigies of dexof excitement. Already the Héloïse of J. J. terity, dazzled his auditors with a sparkling Rousseau, the Georgics of the Abbé Delille, cascade of metaphor, analogy, and retort, the Arcadia of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, quenched their occasional dissent with an above all the graphic descriptions of Buffon, authoritative "point d'objections d'enfant," had excited ecstasies of wonder and delight. and charmed them no less by the melody of All these, however, were as nothing to his his voice than the cogency of his reason into latest passion. Several chance meetings with fancying themselves for awhile the favored Rivarol at the fashionable restaurant of the visitors to an intellectual fairyland. After city, and a few brilliant expressions stealthily dinner, however, still greater wonders awaited overheard, intoxicated the young votary al- them: the party adjourned to the garden; most to the verge of insanity. "I saw, I and Chênedollé has invested the scene with thought, I dreamt nothing but Rivarol; the classical dignity due to a Platonic discusc'était une vraie frénésie, qui m'ôtait jus- sion. qu'au sommeil." After six weeks of frantic expectation, an opportune friend volunteered to introduce him to "the king of conversation." The young poet arrived in a ludicrous state of mixed nervousness and satisfaction which he has delineated with unblushing fidelity, and which M. SainteBeuve, in his sketch of "Chateaubriand and his literary friends," has preserved entire. The sun was sinking to the west, the sky was clear as that of Greece, the foliage rivalled the plane-trees of the Academy, and the modern Socrates began to talk, and this time upon no abstract theme. Rapidly surveying the writers of the century, he passed a trenchant, searching, and, it must be confessed, somewhat uncharitable judgment upon each. Against Voltaire especially he evinced Nothing can be more graphic than the a sort of personal animosity, and, as his panaccount given by Chênedollé of the much-de- egyrist observed," pushed jealousy very far." sired interview, or more characteristic of the The Henriade, he said, was nothing “qu'un inordinate pretentiousness, vanity, and bom- maigre croquis, une squelette épique, où bast into which the triumphs of society and manquent les muscles, les chairs, et les coula long course of flattery can stimulate a na- eurs: the tragedies are cold and glittering ture for which really grave pursuits possess philosophical treatises; in the style there is no charm, and which honest criticism has always "une partie morte: " the Essay on never curbed into decent self restraint. Manners an elegant but barren and untruthChênedollé might well tremble, for Rivarol ful sketch,—a miserable parody of Bossuet's was not only a great talker, but a fine gentle- | immortal discourse. "One must needs," man, and affected the graceful condescension continued the critic, "be very médiocre oneof one who belonged to the innermost and self to imagine that there is nothing beyond most refined circle of the Parisian world. the thought of Voltaire: "rien de plus in 66 thrust, impalement on a pun, or the sweep of a glittering invective. The Abbé Delille was "nothing but a nightingale who had got his brain in his throat; "the luminous phrases of Cerutti were the work of a sort of literary snail leaving a silvered track—in reality, mere froth and drivel. Chabanon, a translator of Theocritus and Pindar, was said to have done it "de toute sa haine contre le Grec." Le Brun was sketched sitting on his bed with dirty sheets-a shirt a fortnight old surrounded by Virgil, Horace, Corneille, Racine, and Rousseau, angling for a word in one or the other to compose the mosaic of his poetry. Condorcet was described as writing with opium on leaves of lead. Mirabeau as a big sponge always filled up with other people's ideas. “Il n'a eu quelque réputation," continued his assailant, que parce qu'il a toujours écrit sur des matières palpitantes de l'intérêt du moment; there are in his big books some happy expressions, but they are borrowed from Cerutti, Chamfort, or myself." complet que cette pensée: elle est vaine, su- | au gré de toutes ses sensations et de toutes ses perficielle, moqueuse, dissolvante, essentielle- affections. Aussi passionne-t-il tout ce qu'il ment propre à détruire, et voilà tout. Du touche." St.-Georges de l'épigramme," as reste, il n'y a ni profondeur, ni élévation, ni Rivarol was entitled, was now fairly astride unité, ni avenir, rien de ce qui fonde et sys- his battle-horse, and warming with achieved tématise." In support of so rigorous a sen- success, strode right and left across the battence the literary culprit's works were next tle-field of letters, and driving all before the reviewed in detail, and some stinging sar-terror of his arms. At every word a reputa casm, like a drop of aquafortis, bestowed on tion dies; scarce a contemporary had the luck each. Buffon was the next to suffer: "Son to escape the discomfiture of a sarcastic style a de la pompe et de l'ampleur, mais il est diffs et pâteux : on y voit toujours flotter les plis de la robe d'Apollon, mais souvent le dieu n'y est pas." Chênedollé's enthusiasm must have died away, as one by one his favorite descriptions were analyzed and disapproved. That of the Dog was too long; "not characterized by the splendid economy of style of the old masters: " the. Eagle was not sufficiently vigorous or masculine: the Peacock especially provoked the critic's indignation at its insufficiency; it was diffuse, yet incomplete; "cela chatoie plus encore que cela ne rayonne ;" to paint this "opulent oiseau," one ought, he said, "to dip one's brushes in the sun, and shed the colors on its outline as rapidly as that great luminary darts its rays upon sky and mountain. I have in my head a peacock, new, magnificent, after a very different fashion, and I would only ask for an hour to beat this one." M. Sainte-Beuve's criticism is too obviously appropriate not to be recorded: "not only," he says, "had he a peacock in his head, but he was the peacock in person when he could speak like this." Frenchmen, however tolerant of vanity, have yet a limit to their endurance, and even Chênedollé was a little shocked. "I was confounded, I confess," he writes, "by the severity of the judgments, and the tone of assurance and infallibility with which they were delivered; it seemed to me out of the question that a man who talked so well could possibly be wrong." Upon a subsequent occasion, Chênedollé Presently, however, Rousseau fell under the was allowed to hear the beginning of the lash, and Rivarol became viciously epigram- Théorie du Corps Politique; a work which, matic at his expense. "He is a grand mas- written methodically on separate slips of ter-sophist, who does not think a word of what paper, and once suffered to fall into confuhe says or writes-c'est le paradoxe incarné:sion, defied all the efforts of Rivarol's postgrand artiste d'ailleurs en fait de style . . . humous commentators to reduce it into a il parle du haut de ses livres comme du haut systematic arrangement. Part of it was d'une tribune; il a des cris et des gestes dans son style, et son éloquence épileptique a dû être irrésistible sur les femmes et les jeunes gens. Orateur ambidextre, il écrit sans conscience, ou plutôt il laisse errer sa conscience 66 Three hours slipped unperceived away; the sun, regardless of the unfinished oration, went ruthlessly down; and the delighted visitors, armed with a copy of the great man's translation of Dante,—a mine of expressions, as he informed them, most valuable to a youthful poet,-heads, hearts, and mouths full of naught but Rivarol, at length took their departure. stolen, and printed under another name at IIamburg, and a single chapter was published separately by the author himself many years later at Paris. Rivarol's premature death cut short the scheme half way; and 66 que we have only the conjectural decisions of | piter ni Socrate, et j'ai trouvé dans ma maifriends or foes to tell us how much the son Xantippe et Junon." "Un jour," so world lost by its non-completion. Chêne- runs another of his complaints, "je m'avisai de médire de l'amour, il m'envoya l'hymen dollé, in unwavering loyalty, believes that his genius was capable of rising to the dizzi- pour se venger. Depuis je n'ai vecu que de regrets." At last a separation ensued, and est heights of political speculation: and, had an illiterate, but very fascinating, young lady time but been allowed him, of reducing the consoled the weary husband for his late perbewildering phenomena of the Revolution to secutions. Such a domestic régime throws a lucid simplicity, and even, perhaps, of ar- somewhat suspicious light upon Rivarol's resting its course. Catching his master's high moral tone and the theological speculations which advanced him almost to the chair epigrammatic tone, he pronounces Beaumarof De Maistre. His views of religion, howchais, Mirabeau, and Rivarol the three most ever, as a political engine and mainstay of distinguished men of letters at the close of the fabric of society, are sensible and well the 18th century: "Beaumarchais, par son expressed; the reckless skepticism of his conFigaro, donna le manifeste de la Révolution; temporaries affected him with sincere alarm: Mirabeau la fit; Rivarol la combattit et fit" C'est un terrible luxe," he said, ,,l'incrédulité.” tout pour l'enrayer: il mourut à la peine. "Il ne croit pas en Dieu," Calmer judges will probably have no trouble he wrote of one of his contemporaries, whose in convincing themselves that pretty analo- convictions were stronger than his piety, "mais il craint en Dieu." It is, however, gies, nicely-balanced phrases, and fortunate retorts, though cogent in the controversies with less profound topics that Rivarol's wit of the drawing-room, and fascinating to a played most at case, and exhibited in the coterie of fine ladies or aspiring authors, most striking manner its astonishing range have yet the smallest possible influence on and pliability. With a few specimens of the stern facts of life, the sentiments of suf- this we conclude a notice already, we fear, fering classes, the march of a revolution; prolonged beyond the conventional limits. and that twenty clegant treatises, polished de répétition, served as the butt for a succesHis brother, whom he styled "ma montre by easy thinkers, like Rivarol, into well-bred gracefulness, and welcomed with all the sion of stinging pleasantries: "Il serait l'hosannas of St. Germains, would have done homme d'esprit d'une autre famille, c'est le but little towards either explaining or im- sot de nôtre." He appears to have been of peding any social convulsion, and would a melancholy temperament: "Jérémie," have left the course of things in France observed his merciless relative, "aurait été un buffon á côté de lui." Once he came to much as they found it. very 39 Of the Duke announce that he had been reading a newly- For two years Chênedollé's trance of admiration lasted; every thought, every faculty, every wish seemed absorbed in the homage of his idol. "The god of conversation" exacted almost divine honors, and the young man was too busy listening to be able either to think or to write. One is hardly surprised to find that an intimacy so extravagant and foolish was broken off at last on a trifle about which two children would be ashamed to quarrel. The hero and the worshipper came to black looks and angry trious parentage, was described as "the worst words, exchanged a brief fusillade of snappish notes, and resolved at once to part. chapter of natural history his father ever Their common friends in vain attempted reconciliation: Chênedollé was immovable. "J'adore le talent de Rivarol," he said, "et j'aime sa personne; mais je ne le reverrai plus." Adoration and love, we may suspect, had sunk to a low ebb, when the first pretext for estrangement was thus readily embraced. A curious little episode of love, which resulted in the French wit being caught by an Irish adventuress, is worth recording only for the witty language in which the victim expressed his sufferings: "Je ne suis ni Ju wrote." "C'est un terrible avantage que de n'avoir rien fait, mais il ne faut pas en abuser. "On lui demandait son sentiment sur Madame de Genlis. Je n'aime,' répondit-il, 'que les sexes prononcés.' "Les journalistes qui écrivent pesamment sur les poésies légères de Voltaire sont comme les commis de nos douanes qui impriment leurs plombs sur les gazes légères d'Italic. 6 "Lorsqu'il apprit que l'archévêque de Toulouse s'était empoisonné il dit, C'est qu'il aura avalé une de ses maximes.' |