IS ERNE< 
 
 = NAN 13

 
 IRecollectione anb OLcttcra 
 
 OF 
 
 ERNEST RENAN 
 
 ISABEL F. HAPGOOD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY 
 CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 rights reserved. 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE, v 
 
 EMMA KOSILIS, i 
 
 SUPPLEMENT TO PAGE 119 OF "SOUVENIRS D'EN- 
 
 FANCE," 30 
 
 THE DOUBLE PRAYER 35 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE 
 STATUE OF BRIZEUX AT LORIENT, SEPTEMBER 
 
 9, 1888, 44 
 
 LOVE AND RELIGION 4g 
 
 THE CELTIC DINNER, 55 
 
 THE GAULS IN BRITTANY, 68 
 
 CAN ONE WORK IN THE COUNTRY ? A SPEECH DELIV- 
 ERED AT THE SORBONNE AT A GENERAL SESSION 
 
 OF THE CONGRESS OF THE LEARNED SOCIETIES, 
 
 JUNE 15, 1889, 72 
 
 SPEECH AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE FELIBRES, AT SCEAUX, 
 
 JUNE 21, 1891 83 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE " JOURNAL DES DEBATS," . . 91 
 LETTER TO M. BERTHELOT, MINISTER, . . . in 
 A WORD ON THE EXPOSITION. LETTER TO M. JULES 
 
 LEMA!TRE, 123 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTENARY OF POMPEII. LETTER 
 TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE " JOURNAL DES DE- 
 BATS," 125 
 
 THE PORTRAITS OF ST. PAUL. LETTER TO M. MEZIERES 
 
 OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, 146 
 
 iii
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 REPLY TO THE SPEECH OF RECEPTION INTO THE FRENCH 
 ACADEMY OF M. JULES CLARETIE, FEBRUARY 21, 
 
 1889, 156 
 
 LECTURE BEFORE THE ALLIANCE FOR THE PROPAGATION 
 
 OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, FEBRUARY 2, 1888, 186 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT MONTMORENCY, ON THE OCCA- 
 SION OF THE REMOVAL OF THE ASHES OF MICKIE- 
 
 wicz, JUNE 29. 1890 198 
 
 VICTOR HUGO, . ...... 203 
 
 GEORGE SAND, 209 
 
 M. COUSIN 214 
 
 MADAME HORTENSE CORNU, 218 
 
 QUEEN SOPHIE OF HOLLAND, . . . . . 233 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL OF M. ERNEST 
 
 HAVET, DECEMBER 24, 1889 238 
 
 SPEECH AT THE FUNERAL OF M. CUVILLIER-FLEURY, 
 
 OCTOBER 21, 1887 244 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE 
 
 STATUE OF M. ABOUT, DECEMBER 20, 1887, 250 
 LETTER TO M. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT ON THE " TEMPTA- 
 TION OF SAINT ANTHONY," .... 254 
 
 HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL 262 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE, . 295
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE composition of this little volume was sug- 
 gested to me, so far as the first part is concerned, 
 at least, by my dear friend Calmann-LeVy, in one 
 of the last visits which he paid me at the College 
 de France, about the month of May last. We cal- 
 culated together the delay which the completion of 
 the fourth volume of the " History of the People 
 of Israel " would entail. The result of our calcu- 
 lation was, that it could be done only for the end 
 of the year 1892. "Could you not," he said to me, 
 " give me, in the meantime, a volume of miscellanies 
 which could appear next winter ?" 
 
 I enumerated to him several instructive articles 
 which had never been collected together. " No," 
 he said to me ; " take me as the measure of the 
 public. What we wish from you, just now, is a 
 volume in the style of your ' Souvenirs,' interesting 
 
 for everybody, simple, personal " " I have," I 
 
 told him, " several Breton papers, made up of old 
 images, already firmly fixed. Perhaps others will 
 occur to me. But, in order to form a volume from 
 them, years would be required." " You have also 
 some short speeches, some lectures. Could not you
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 with these compose a volume which would form a 
 sort of sequel to your " Souvenirs " ? 
 
 I have on several occasions reproached the 
 minds of our day with being too subjective, with 
 busying themselves too much over themselves, with 
 not being sufficiently carried away, absorbed by 
 the object, that is to say, by that which is before 
 us, by the world, nature, history. It is always bad 
 to talk of one's self. That presupposes that one 
 thinks a great deal about one's self ; but time de- 
 voted to thinking of one's self is a theft from God, 
 as people would have said in former days. At the 
 time when I began to make that series of my con- 
 fidences, in the Revue des Deux Motides, I met 
 Jules Sandeau, who told me that he had found pleas- 
 ure in reading them. " Dulcia vitia I " I answered 
 him ; " the public, which is indulgent now, will take 
 its revenge some day. And how shall I know when 
 it is on the point of changing its mind ?".... 
 " No, Renan," he said to me, "the public will al- 
 ways be glad when you speak to it of yourself." 
 Sandeau's opinion has led me rather far, it may 
 be ; but let my friends who treat these little vol- 
 umes as puerilities cease their fears ; I shall com- 
 mit no more. I have been playing a rather danger- 
 ous game for some time : talking incessantly of 
 dying, and gaining constantly in health. I am 
 afraid of being soon called upon to keep my word, 
 under penalty of no longer being taken seriously. 
 Having entered upon one course of action, I am
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 speedily assailed by this verse, which Augustin 
 Thierry often quoted to me to hold me back, when 
 he thought that I was going too far : 
 
 Claudite jam en rivos pueri ; sat prata biberunt.* 
 
 A few days after the conversation which I held 
 with my dear Calmann, I heard one morning of the 
 fatal blow which had taken him from us. Great 
 was my grief. Calmann was one of the best men 
 whom I have ever known. He really belonged to 
 the tribe of those who love peace ; he had no pre- 
 sumption, no pride, none of the defects which lead 
 men astray and render them unhappy. The 
 serenity of his soul was that of a good man, sure 
 of being in accord with superior rule. He had 
 true piety, that which comes from a tradition re- 
 ceived by the heart, and he followed Hillet's pre- 
 cept : " Be the disciple of Aaron, who loved 
 peace." The frightful egotism of this epoch had 
 not attacked his house ; for he was not an egotist 
 himself. The profound sentiment of affection and 
 respect which his collaborators cherished for him 
 was touching. He had solved for himself the 
 great difficulty of our time, which is to make 
 numerous subordinates contribute to a common 
 work. He solved it by making himself beloved 
 by them, by making them love what they did. 
 Ah ! if all the chiefs of great industries did the 
 same, the ulcers which are devouring us, and which 
 
 * Close the gates, boys ; the meadows have drunk enough.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 threaten the life of modern societies, would soon 
 be healed. 
 
 It was in his family, above all, that he was him- 
 self, calm, happy, sure of recovering new life in a 
 united family, in perfect accord with him. Every 
 day he played for an hour with his grandsons, 
 tasting that great joy of seeing the windows of life 
 open on one side, when they were closing on the 
 other. The veneration which he cherished for his 
 brother, during the latter's life and after his death, 
 arose from the admiration which he felt from 
 childhood for the astounding intelligence of 
 Michel ; that marvelously lucid brain, that sur- 
 prising activity subjugated him. He. had not cre- 
 ated the house, but he was well constituted to 
 maintain and continue it. His rare judgment 
 enabled him to avoid all errors ; thanks to him, 
 the great publishing establishment founded by 
 Michel remained at the service of French letters, 
 a powerful instrument in disseminating them. 
 The hours which he came to spend with me re- 
 stored my youth. I feel the need of uprightness 
 about me ; I like to have the pages on which I write 
 well ruled, and, as I grow older, my great joy is to 
 retrace old memories. Farewell, dear Calmann ! 
 
 It is under the auspices of this friendly name, 
 that I present once more, to an indulgent public, 
 a volume composed of those little frivolities which, 
 while evoking thought, render life amiable and 
 cause it to be endured. Nevertheless, I have in-
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 troduced into it a little philosophy ; in particular 
 the examination of my conscience for 1889. I 
 have not modified my manner of regarding the 
 universe materially since that time. I perceive, 
 more and more clearly, that we know very little of 
 what we would like to know. In philosophy, one 
 must have confidence in the infinite goodness, and 
 guard one's self against vain eagerness. One 
 gains nothing by importuning truth, by soliciting 
 it every day. That is a bad sign, if you like ; 
 truth is deaf and cold, and our ardor has no effect 
 upon her. Die neue Philosophic Die neuere 
 Philosophic Die neueste Philosophie (The new 
 Philosophy The newer Philosophy The newest 
 Philosophy). Good Heavens ! how childish are 
 these rising degrees of emphasis ! Why thus dis- 
 pute with each other for priority in error ! Let 
 us learn to wait ; perhaps there is nothing at the 
 end ; let us learn to be ignorant, that the future 
 may know. Who knows ? Perhaps truth is sad ; 
 let us not be in such a haste to learn it. 
 
 I am pained by the sort of agitation which I per- 
 ceive in the young people who, by the privilege of 
 their age, should be so serene. One would say that 
 this young generation had read neither the history 
 of philosophy nor Ecclesiastes. " What has been 
 
 is that which will be " But, dear children, 
 
 it is useless to give yourselves such a headache. 
 Amuse yourselves, since you are only twenty years 
 old ; work also. If we know nothing of meta-
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 physics, on the other hand, physics, chemistry, 
 astronomy, geology, and history, are full of revela- 
 tions. Oh ! what things you will know in forty or 
 fifty years, which I shall never know ! And then, 
 what humanitarian problems you will see solved ! 
 What is the Emperor William III. ? What will 
 become of the conflict of European nationalities ? 
 What turn will social questions take ? Will any- 
 thing come out of the Socialistic movement, properly 
 speaking ? What will be the fate of the Papacy 
 in the near future ? Alas ! I shall die before 1 have 
 seen these things, and you will know them ! It is 
 asserted that there exist in Lebanon, ancient 
 Arabic testaments, where the dead man makes it a 
 condition of his donations, that the people shall 
 come and inform him, in his tomb, when the French 
 become masters of the land once more. There are 
 moments, in fact, when I say to myself, that there 
 is a piece of news which, whispered furtively in my 
 ear, in my grave, would make me quiver to the 
 point of coming to life again. But I have too often 
 read in the Bible that one really knows nothing in 
 the depths of sheol of what is taking place on 
 the earth, that one hears nothing there, that one 
 remembers nothing, to put any clause of that sort 
 at the end of my will. 
 
 Why rise in revolt against truths as old as the 
 world ? Was it only yesterday that it was discov- 
 ered that man is a fragile and perishable creature ? 
 I am not one of those of whom that very ancient
 
 PREFA CE. XI 
 
 prophet speaks, Qui nihil patiebatur super contritione 
 Joseph. 
 
 I pity that poor Joseph, I pity the young men 
 who are devoured by a pessimism which will not be 
 consoled. We frequently read on ancient tombs : 
 " Courage, dear so and so ; no one is immortal ; 
 Hercules himself died." One may find the conso- 
 lation rather feeble ; it is real, nevertheless 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, dear friends, was superior to all 
 others in goodness, and Marcus Aurelius was con- 
 tent with it. Have we ever believed that we 
 should not die ? Let us die calmly, in the com- 
 munion of humanity and the religion of the future, 
 when we have accomplished our destiny. The 
 existence of the world is assured for a long time to 
 come. France, in her giddy comet-flight, will per- 
 haps come out of it better than certain indications 
 would lead one to believe. The future of science 
 is guaranteed ; for. in the scientific balance, every- 
 thing is added, and nothing is lost. Error does 
 not found anything ; no error lasts long. Let us be 
 tranquil. In less than a hundred thousand years 
 the earth will have discovered the means of supply- 
 ing the place of coal, and, up to a certain point of 
 
 virtue there will be bad times to traverse 
 
 Moral value is on the ebb, that is sure ; abnega- 
 tion has almost disappeared ; we see the day 
 coming when everything will be syndicates, where 
 organized egotism will take the place of love and 
 devotion. Our century has created more and
 
 XU PREFACE. 
 
 more perfect tools, without perceiving that the use 
 of these tools supposes a certain degree of moral- 
 ity, of conscience, of devotion, in work or in man. 
 The two things which, up to this time, have resisted 
 the fall of respect the army and the church both 
 founded on illusions, will soon be carried away in 
 the general torrent. It is of no consequence ; the 
 resources of humanity are infinite. Eternal works 
 will be accomplished, without the foundation of 
 living forces, always rising to the surface, being 
 ever exhausted. Science, above all, will continue 
 to astonish us by its revelations, which will put the 
 infinite of space and time in the place of a petty 
 svorld conceived according to the measure of 
 imagination of a child. Is the need of eternal 
 consciousness which torments us, moreover, a 
 simple illusion ? No, no. On such a matter, 
 formal negations are as rash as absolute affirma- 
 tions. Religion is true in the infinite. When God 
 shall be complete he will be just. I am convinced 
 that virtue will turn out definitely, one of these 
 days, to have been the better part. Let us stand 
 firm ; let us endure the raillery of those who pre- 
 tend to be better informed. Merit lies in affirm- 
 ing duty against apparent evidence. If virtue 
 were a good investment, business people, who are 
 very sagacious, would all have noticed the fact ; 
 they would all be virtuous. No, it is a bad invest- 
 ment in the finite order, but, in the infinite, 
 parallels meet ; in the infinite, negations vanish, 
 contradictions are merged.
 
 PREFACE. xill 
 
 Nothing proves to us that there exists in the 
 world a central consciousness, a soul of the uni- 
 verse ; but nothing proves the contrary, either. 
 We do not remark in the universe any sign of 
 deliberate and thoughtful action. We may affirm 
 that no action of this sort has existed for millions 
 of centuries. But. thousands of centuries are noth- 
 ing in infinity. What we call long is very short in 
 comparison with another measure of size. When 
 the chemist arranges an experiment that is to last 
 for years, everything which takes place in his 
 retorts is regulated by the laws of absolute uncon- 
 sciousness ; which does not mean that a will has 
 not intervened at the beginning of the experiment, 
 and that it will not intervene at the end. Mil- 
 lions of microbes may have been produced in 
 the interval ; if these microbes had had sufficient 
 intelligence, they might, by reasoning on the brief 
 period permitted to their observations, allow them- 
 selves to go so far as to say : " The world has 
 no room for special volitions." And they would 
 be mistaken. 
 
 What we call time is, perhaps, a minute between 
 two miracles. " We do not know ; " that is all 
 that one can say clearly about that which lies 
 beyond the finite. Let us deny nothing, let us 
 assert nothing, let us hope. An immense moral, 
 and, perhaps, intellectual decline will follow the 
 day when religion disappears from the world. We 
 can get along without religion, because others have 
 it for us. Even those who do not believe are
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 swept along by the more or less believing masses ; 
 but woe to us on that day when the masses have 
 no longer any enthusiasm. One can do much less 
 with a humanity which does not believe in the 
 immortality of the soul than with a humanity 
 which does believe in it. A man's value depends 
 upon the proportion of religious sentiment which 
 he has carried away with him from his early educa- 
 tion, and which perfumes his whole life. The 
 religious zones of humanity live on a shadow. 
 We live only upon the shadow of a shadow. What 
 will the people who come after us live upon ? 
 
 Let us not quarrel over the quantity or the for- 
 mula of religion ; let us confine ourselves to not 
 denying it ; let us preserve the category of the 
 unknown, the possibility of dreaming. Christian- 
 ity has rendered us too exacting, too hard to please. 
 We want heaven, nothing less. Let us content 
 ourselves with smaller profits. A few years ago 
 when M. de Rothschild was upholding with vivacity, 
 in the Israelite consistory, the doctrine of the 
 immortality of the soul, a learned Israelite of the 
 most ancient school said to me : " Can one under- 
 stand that ? So rich a man and he wants a para- 
 dise to boot ! Let him leave that to us poor 
 devils." 
 
 The Middle Ages entertained very philosophical 
 views on this point. Beasts receive in this world 
 the reward for the good that they have done. It 
 was related that some nuns had trained a hind to
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 be very devout to the Virgin. The little animal 
 knelt upon a praying-stool before the sacred 
 image ; it was full of piety. As hinds possess 
 no immortal soul, and, consequently, cannot enter 
 into paradise, the nuns were very anxious that 
 their little pet should have here below those pleas- 
 ures which it craved ; they stuffed it with pre- 
 serves. Very nearly the same thing can be read in 
 the life of the Fathers of the desert. The lion 
 which St. Anthony made come for the purpose of 
 burying St. Paul, worked away with his claws with 
 astonishing zeal. By way of wages, St. Anthony 
 bestows upon him his benediction, the effect of 
 which is to make him immediately meet a sheep, 
 which he devours. Where is the justice for the 
 sheep ? you will say to me. Ah ! that is precisely 
 what is not clear; or rather, it is clear that, in the 
 whole organization of the world, there is not a 
 trace of justice for the sheep. 
 
 Let us accustom ourselves, like the nuns' hind, 
 to be content with little dainties, let us try to ac- 
 quire a taste for them. Let us be austere toward 
 ourselves, but let us not impoverish life. On all 
 these points we must not listen to the literary 
 subtleties of our day. Let us not deprive human- 
 ity of its joys ; let us find our joy in watching it 
 enjoy itself. The joy of others is a great part of 
 our joy ; it constitutes the great reward of the 
 upright life, which is gayety. 
 
 I have been much reproached for preaching
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 that religion which is easy in appearance, but 
 which, in reality, is the most difficult of all. Not 
 everyone is gay who wills to be so. For that, one 
 must come of an ancient race, which has not suf- 
 fered surfeit ; one must also be content with one's 
 life. My life has been that which I wished, that 
 which I conceived as the best. If I had to live it 
 over again, I would not make any great change in 
 it. On the other hand, I am a little afraid of the 
 future. I shall have my biography and my legend. 
 My legend ? . . . . Having some experience of ec- 
 clesiastical writers, I can sketch out in advance the 
 .way in which it will be written up in Spanish in 
 some Catholic review of Santa Fe, in the year 
 2000. The legends of the enemies of the official 
 church are all run in the same mold. The end 
 which the book of the Acts attributes to Judas 
 " crepuit medius " (he burst in twain) forms the 
 perfunctory base of them. For one part of his- 
 torical tradition, I shall end like that, in a manner 
 combined from Arius and Voltaire. Heavens ! 
 how black I shall be ! I shall be so all the more, 
 because the Church, when she feels that she is lost, 
 will end with malice ; she will bite like a mad dog. 
 In spite of all this, I have confidence in reason. 
 The enlightened portion of humanity, the only one 
 for which I care, will form some esteem for me. 
 Five hundred years hence the commission on the 
 " Literary History of France," of the Academy of 
 Inscriptions and Belles-letters, will write my notice.
 
 PREFACE. xvii 
 
 It will be obliged to combat documents which will 
 tell it that I received a million from M. de Roths- 
 child for writing the " Life of Jesus," nearly as 
 much from the Emperor Napoleon III., who, later 
 on, having dismissed me, gave me a rich pension 
 on the Journal des Savants. The commission will 
 unravel all this, in accordance with the rules of 
 criticism ; I am sure that its verdict will be ad- 
 mitted by sensible people. 
 
 In reality, I fear nothing but apochryphal texts. 
 There exists already a considerable mass of texts, 
 sayings, and anecdotes which are attributed to me, 
 and amuse the Catholic press. The clergy, as a 
 rule, quote at second hand ; they buy few books; 
 they take their quotations from the petty clerical 
 reviews of the lower class. Already, almost every- 
 thing that the Bishops quote as from me is fab- 
 ricated, or full of contradictions. I entreat the 
 friends of truth, in the future, not to accept, as 
 coming from me, anything but what has appeared 
 in the volumes published by Levy. The sayings 
 and conversations which are attributed to me are 
 nearly all invented. At the epoch when I published 
 the " Vie de Jesus," journals paid by the Jesuits 
 published, as mine, counterfeited autographs against 
 which I have never entered a complaint. I repeat, 
 five hundred years hence, the commission on the 
 " Literary History " will be of the opinion that this 
 proves nothing. And then, five hundred years is a 
 very long time. Man has such puerile ideas about
 
 xvni PREFACE. 
 
 death that he imagines he is less dead when he is 
 buried than he is five hundred years later. We 
 are less solicitous as to what will be said about us 
 after the lapse of several centuries than of what is 
 said about us on the day of our funeral, a day 
 when we are still alive and the slumbering hero of 
 the festival. 
 
 I confess that I should not feel indifferent at be- 
 ing the object of a fine funeral in Paris. There 
 are, in the new people of Paris, materialistic sides 
 which I no longer comprehend ; but the people of 
 Paris in former days were brave, chivalrous, friends 
 of the right, absurd, idealistic. Oh ! how I have 
 loved them ! To be for such people as that the 
 cause of a day's repose, of joy, of love, and of 
 virtue, would make me very happy. And if they 
 were to introduce into it a little feasting and revelry, 
 oh ! really, what harm would that do ? Popular 
 festivals, even when their character is sad, always 
 have a little the air of a fair ; for the masses need 
 to purchase on the street, and a throng of poor 
 people are glad to do a bit of peddling on that day, 
 and earn a little money. 
 
 I have related elsewhere how a pious person of 
 the neighborhood of Nantes, who evidently believes 
 that I live in the midst of feasts and dissipations, 
 writes me the following words every three months : 
 " There is a hell." This person, whom I thank for 
 his good intentions, does not alarm me as much as 
 he thinks. I should like to be sure that there is a
 
 PREFACE. xix 
 
 hell, for I prefer the hypothesis of hell to that 
 of nothingness. Many theologians, think that, for 
 the damned, it is better to be than not to be, and 
 that the unhappy wretches are perhaps accessible 
 to more than one good thought. For my part, 
 I imagine that if the Eternal, in his severity, 
 were to send me to that bad place, I should 
 succeed in escaping from it. I would send up to 
 my Creator a supplication which would make him 
 smile. The course of reasoning by which I would 
 prove to him that it was through his fault that I 
 was damned, would be so subtle that he would find 
 difficulty in replying to it. Perhaps he would 
 admit me to paradise, where people must be dread- 
 fully bored. He certainly does allow that Satan, 
 criticism, to enter, from time to time, among the 
 children of God to amuse the assembly a little. 
 
 To tell the truth, as I have already allowed it to 
 be understood elsewhere, the fate which would suit 
 me best is purgatory, a charming place, where 
 many charming romances begun on earth must be 
 continued, and which one can be in no haste to 
 leave, especially in view of the few attractions of 
 paradise. What sometimes renders me not so very 
 anxious to attain that place of delight is its mo- 
 notony. Can one change one's place there ? 
 Heavens ! how quickly one will have exhausted 
 one's neighbor ! Trips from planet to planet would 
 suit me well enough ; but the devout old women, 
 who, they say, will form the majority of the elect,
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 would not suit me at all. May God's will be 
 done ! 
 
 Celestial Father, I thank thee for life ! It has 
 been sweet and precious to me, surrounded as I 
 have been by excellent beings who have not allowed 
 me to doubt thy designs. I have not been exempt 
 from sin ; I have had the defects of all men ; but 
 I have always pulled the bridie of reason in time. 
 Whatever those who cail themselves thy priests 
 may say, I have not committed any very evil actions. 
 I have loved truth, and I have made sacrifices 
 for it; I have desired thy day, and I still believe in 
 it. Thy joys are promised to the sincere man ; 
 the frivolous man shall not approach thee. During 
 my first journey in Syria, I received hospitality in a 
 patriarchal house of Lebanon, where there was an 
 aged father, of great piety, who conceived a great 
 affection for me. When the " Life of Jesus " ap- 
 peared, he heard many sermons against me, and 
 entered into great doubts. He applied to his son 
 Dominique, who was well posted on French affairs 
 and who had accompanied me in my travels. " Tell 
 me, my son, what are M. Renan's errors. Let us 
 proceed in due order. Among the things which 
 must be believed there is, first, God the Father. 
 Let us see does he believe in God the Father?" 
 " Oh ! yes," answered Dominique, "on that point 
 his solidity defies attack." " That is a great deal, 
 my son; that is a great deal," replied the old man. 
 
 Let us not renounce God the 'Father ; let us not
 
 PREFACE xxi 
 
 deny the possibility of a final day of justice. We 
 have never been in one of those tragic situations 
 where God is, in some sort, the necessary con- 
 fidant and consoler. What would you have a pure 
 woman, accused unjustly, do, if not raise her eyes 
 to heaven ? or the victim of an irreparable judicial 
 error, a man who dies in the fulfillment of an act of 
 self-devotion a noble and peaceful man massacred 
 by barbarous soldiers ? Where shall we seek the 
 true witness if not on high, in unknown space ? 
 Even in our peaceful lives, where great trials are 
 rare, how often we feel the need of appealing to 
 the absolute verity of things, of saying to it, " Speak, 
 speak." The moment of death must be one of 
 those moments. I think that very few men have 
 died without an appeal to God, without prayer. 
 The moments of this sort are, perhaps, those in 
 which we are in the right. But the strange thing 
 about it is that we never obtain the slightest sign 
 to show that our protests have touched anything. 
 When Nimrod launched his arrows against heaven, 
 they came back to him stained with blood. We 
 obtain no response. O God ! whom we adore in 
 spite of ourselves, to whom we pray twenty times 
 a day without knowing it, Thou art in verity a 
 hidden God. 
 
 I should be glad to have this small volume give 
 the reader a little of the pleasure which I have 
 taken in composing it. It completes my " Souve- 
 nirs," and they are an essential part of my work.
 
 XXll PREFACE. 
 
 Whether they augment or diminish my philosophi- 
 cal authority, they explain me they show the 
 origin of my verdicts, true or false. My mother, 
 with whom I was so poor, by whose side I have 
 toiled for hours, pausing only to say to her : 
 " Mamma, are you satisfied with me ? " the little 
 friends of my childhood, who enchanted me with 
 their discreet, pretty ways ; my sister Henriette, 
 so lofty, so pure, who, at twenty years of age, led 
 me into the path of reason, and lent me her hand 
 to traverse a difficult passage, have embalmed the 
 beginning in an aroma which will last until death. 
 I was brought up by women and by priests ; therein 
 lies the whole explanation of my good qualities and 
 my defects. In Brittany, the women are superior 
 to the men, scold the men, despise them. The 
 priest, also, formerly enjoyed a great superiority 
 over laymen ; the women loved their parish priest 
 much better than they did their husbands. The 
 sort of embarrassment which I feel in the company 
 of those who are not consecrated to moral and in- 
 tellectual things, arises from the scorn which my 
 masters taught me to entertain for laymen. There 
 is a priest's and a woman's disdain in my awkwar 1- 
 ness. In my manner of feeling I am three-quar- 
 ters a woman. 
 
 One loves thoroughly, all one's life, only the 
 heads of little girls which one has seen at the age 
 of sixteen. That is what incessantly carries me 
 back to those old images, now almost effaced. If
 
 PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 I am wrong in this, it is the indulgence which the 
 public showed to my " Souvenirs" which has in- 
 duced me to do evil. I must say that my phi- 
 losophy counts for something in this matter. On 
 many points, it seems to me that people of the 
 world have the right of things against the scholas- 
 tics. They see better the living whole. Not a 
 single philosopher has ever turned his attention to 
 love. Now, I persist in thinking that love is a 
 strange mystery, and the best proof that many 
 things which go on in us proceed from beings 
 which are in us but are not us. On this point I 
 am full of discourse. I always wish to begin over 
 again all that I have said. 
 
 How, you will say, does it come that you talk so 
 continually of that of which you know so little ? Oh! 
 here I enter my protest. In these matters, to be too 
 well posted is to be case-hardened. Arnauld was 
 right in his book on " Frequent Communion." The 
 Jansenists thought, very justly, that too frequent 
 use of the communion destroys the taste for it, de- 
 creases its savor. The same thing may be said of 
 love. Those who speak the best of it are those 
 who have misused it the least, and have considered 
 it as a religious act. Yes, a religious act, a sacred 
 moment in which man tastes the immense joy of 
 begetting life, rises above his habitual mediocrity, 
 sees his faculties of enjoyment and sympathy ex- 
 alted to their highest limit. Dear and touching 
 aberration ! love is as eternal as religion. Love is
 
 XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 the best proof of God ; it is the umbilical cord be- 
 tween us and nature our true communion with 
 the infinite. 
 
 I often reproach myself, at my age, when my mind 
 should be occupied with nothing but eternal truths, 
 for devoting a part of my days, which are numbered, 
 to recalling thoughts which many people would 
 characterize as frivolous. My excuse is that I 
 have given myself up to this work only after hav- 
 ing completed the task of my old age, the " His- 
 tory of the People of Israel." Many and able 
 readers have been so good as to charge me to for- 
 bid myself all episodical labor until I shall have 
 completed this work, which is the principal work 
 of my life. I have followed their advice. The 
 " History of the People of Israel, down to the Ap- 
 pearance of Christianity," is finished. I shall still 
 require a long time to correct the proofs but the 
 foundation of the book is settled. If I were to die 
 to-morrow, the book could appear, with the assist- 
 ance of a good corrector. The arch of the bridge, 
 which still remained for me to construct between 
 Judaism and Christianity, is established. I have 
 succeeded, so far as is possible, in showing the 
 special soil whence Jesus sprung. Thus my prin- 
 cipal duty is accomplished, At the Academy of 
 Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, the work on the 
 rabbis is also nearing its end, and the Corpus in- 
 scriptionum semiticarum is in excellent hands. All 
 this causes me great inward satisfaction, and this
 
 PREFACE. XXV 
 
 is what makes me believe that, after having paid 
 nearly all my debts, I may well amuse myself a little, 
 and, without scruple, surrender myself to the joy of 
 gathering together these leaves which are often 
 slight. My time has been so good to me, it has 
 pardoned me so many faults, that I hope it will 
 exercise its customary indulgence toward me en 
 this occasion also.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 AND 
 
 LETTERS OF ERNEST RENAN. 
 
 EMMA KOSILIS. 
 
 ROSMAPAMON IN LOUANNEC. 
 
 AMONG the traits of idealism in the Breton char- 
 acter there is one which I have reproached myself 
 for not having sufficiently explained in my " Sou- 
 venirs d'Enfance " it is the capacity to live and 
 die of a single idea, of love unuttered, unvaried, per- 
 sistent even unto death. 
 
 This trait has been recalled to me by those 
 Breton servants who, having been brought to Paris 
 in honest families, can remain for years without go- 
 ing out, who traverse Paris without looking at it, 
 with unseeing eyes ; who ask but one thing, that they 
 may live alone, apart, seen of no one. Nearly 
 always a secret thought fills their being. Mystic 
 reverie is sometimes mingled with it ; but it is 
 rarely the principal cause of this obstinate need for 
 silence.
 
 4 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Most frequently, its foundation is a love of their 
 childhood, repressed, chimerical, backed by an ex- 
 cessively strong moral instinct. Unconfessed ex- 
 ternally, this sentiment reigns within them in an 
 'absolute silence. Nothing exists for such a state 
 of soul, nothing pleases, save the precious thought. 
 They caress it for hours and hours. It may suffice 
 for years, and it renders them indifferent to every- 
 thing else. 
 
 Ancient physiology designated this sort of 
 temperament as melancholy, and attributed to 
 it all the extraordinary things which occur in 
 this world. There are, in fact, very few strong 
 lives at whose base we do not find the secretum 
 meum mihi the personal secrecy of the great 
 dwellers in solitude, and of great men. The 
 love of solitude ordinarily arises from an inward 
 thought which devours all about it. One day I 
 quoted to my sister the saying of Thomas a Kern- 
 pis : in angello cum libello* The remark struck 
 her as so beautiful that she took to repeating it to 
 me incessantly as her motto. Life restricted to 
 one's self and God is the condition requisite to act 
 upon men and to conquer them. 
 
 The great patriotic, scientific, and charitable 
 applications of life, come from prolonged inter- 
 course with one's self. Mankind will never know 
 anything of these extraordinary examples of moral 
 force in which the Eternal rejoices, that jealous wit- 
 * In a nook with a book.
 
 ERNEST RENAX. 5 
 
 ness of souls, who reserves for himself the most 
 beautiful spectacles. The delectatio morosa the 
 morose pleasure of the Middle Ages is, in one 
 sense, the supreme formula of the universe. 
 
 The slowness of body in the Breton race, that 
 possibility, even among the children, of remaining 
 motionless for hours, springs, in great part, from 
 that necessity for long periods of voluptuousness, 
 of idle contemplation, if I may venture to charac- 
 terize it thus, which combines ill with external 
 activity, and seems to exact complete repose of the 
 senses. Tedium does not exist for such natures ; 
 what others call ennui is for them profound delight, 
 a soliloquy in the infinite. This race has few de- 
 sires, few needs ; in love it knows how to wait. 
 My sister related to me, on this subject, an anec- 
 dote which she admired greatly ; it was the history 
 of the mother of one of her friends. She took 
 pleasure in it, because it was a case of heroic love, 
 which corresponded singularly well with her own 
 character. I had forgotten this history ; some re- 
 cent circumstances have recalled it to my memory. 
 My sister has frequently told me the name of the 
 respectable person to whom she had dedicated so 
 great a worship. I shall call her Emma Ko- 
 silis.* 
 
 She was not of perfect beauty ; but her face had 
 an indescribable charm, my sister affirmed. Her 
 eyes were exquisitely languorous, her eyelids, which 
 * Kosilis means " old church."
 
 6 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 expressed the most imperceptible quivers of timid 
 modesty, had the air of possessing a soul. Her 
 skin was so fine that the slightest acceleration of 
 life was betrayed in it by fugitive blushes, the sign 
 of a secret which she did not reveal. In a word, 
 it was the same candid and pure quality which, in 
 that little Breton, Mademoiselle de Qtieroualle, 
 made a profound impression on the heart of Charles 
 II. 
 
 It was her virginal complexion which, beneath 
 the coif of the little participants in a Pardon in 
 Brittany, seemed to evoke a flood of innocence, 
 which rendered you belter for hours. Better or 
 worse ? Brittany is the land where the difference 
 between men and women is the greatest, and, as 
 barbarism is never far distant in those primitive 
 countries, it sometimes happens that this feminine 
 mother-of-pearl gives men strange nervous attacks. 
 Young girls have been found assassinated without 
 having been violated. In former days, similar 
 cases of assassinations without motive were com- 
 mitted on young priests ; but it is a long time 
 since these acts of madness have been seen. 
 
 To this order of ideas must be referred a pecu- 
 liar trait in the manners of Brittany. I mean the 
 total absence of jewels and even of flowers in the 
 attire of the women. The clergy are opposed to 
 them, and certainly, so far as jewels are concerned, 
 they are quite right. 
 
 In the nudity of ancient times, the jewel had a
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 7 
 
 reason for its existence, and Greece, profiting by 
 certain errors of the Orient, dared to attack this 
 problem, the most delicate of all, of ornamenting 
 by applications upon the living flesh, that master- 
 piece of nature, the body of a really beautiful 
 woman. But in our cold climates, and with our 
 ideas of Christian modesty, the jewel has no longer 
 any reason for its existence. For my own part, I 
 always feel a sort of antipathy toward these 
 attached ornaments. And what, good God ! have 
 these pendents of savages, these tinsel rags of the 
 Bedouins, to do with the only thing that is of any 
 import with gentleness and innocence of the 
 glance ? Are virtue and candor expressed by 
 jewels ? Has any jewel ever been invented for the 
 eyes ? There is the odious henna, no doubt ; 
 but has any woman who respects herself ever em- 
 ployed it ? Frightful idea to paint in black the 
 golden balustrades of the celestial Jerusalem, to 
 soil the borders of the sacred fountain, at the 
 bottom of which we behold God and his paradise. 
 Shall I say it ? Color itself, put at the service 
 of beauty, disturbs and troubles me. Black and 
 white suffice ; better than all adornments they 
 leave room for dreams of the veiled and amorous 
 flesh. Love implies the rule of love ; it assumes 
 candor and modesty in the woman. Herein is 
 contained a certain lie, which nature has willed 
 and which certainly serves her ends. 
 
 One of the legends which popular imagination
 
 8 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 has grouped around Anne of Brittany expresses 
 well that shade of the feminine charm which has 
 fallen to the lot of our good little race. And what 
 is related of the country of Wales does not dis- 
 credit the unity of the two populations ; the char- 
 acter of Imogen in " Cymbeline " is essentially a 
 Breton character. I will go further. The charm 
 of the Englishwoman, at once so chaste and so 
 voluptuous, is in my opinion a Celtic, not an Anglo- 
 Saxon attribute. But, in order to explain this 
 point, I must set forth my ideas as to the eth- 
 nography of England, and this is not the place 
 to do so. 
 
 It is related, then, that, in one of the interviews 
 which the last and very popular sovereign of Brit- 
 tany had with Saint Anne, who could refuse her 
 nothing, the Duchess asked from her sainted 
 patroness a special gift for the ladies of her 
 province. The saint granted them chastity, and, 
 since that day, there has existed no example of a 
 Breton dame who has been unfaithful to her 
 duties. 
 
 This was, assuredly, a great point gained ; never- 
 theless, the Duchess was not content with it, and 
 asked the saint to add to it beauty. Saint Anne 
 was tolerably embarrassed, and ended by confess- 
 ing that beauty did not lie in her domain. The 
 Virgin Mary has reserved that for herself. The 
 Queen of Heaven alone disposes of this gift, 
 unique, rare, excellent above all others. Neverthe-
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 9 
 
 less, in default of beauty, Saint Anne, after re- 
 flection, granted this to her god-daughter : that 
 these same dames on whom she could bestow only 
 the gift of chastity, should accomplish with this 
 virtue that which others accomplish with their 
 beauty. 
 
 The effects of beauty obtained by the skillfully 
 managed charm of virtue this is the gift of Saint 
 Anne. According to a hymn of the Middle Ages, 
 attributed to the Abbess Herrade, such is also the 
 taste of Christ. He loves only graceful and 
 modest young girls : 
 
 Pulchras vult virginculas ; 
 Turpes pellit feminas.* 
 
 Turpes here signifies those who are ugly and 
 vulgar in their manners. How has Christianity, 
 always so moral, been thus able to condemn 
 ugliness which, judging from all appearances, is 
 not always voluntary? For a profound reason ; it 
 is that a woman who is truly good is never ugly. 
 There is always egotism in ugliness. The worthy 
 person, to whom the gift of the Virgin Mary has 
 not been accorded, can always give herself an 
 equivalent of beauty by her good-humor, her devo- 
 tion, her kind heart. Charm has no need to justify 
 itself ; its triumph is the proof of its legitimacy. 
 I had a cousin, who afterward became the best of 
 
 * He desires only fair young maidens ; he banishes wicked 
 women.
 
 10 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 men, but who in his childhood was a demon, a real 
 Berserker. My sister alone, a very gentle little 
 girl, fifteen years of age, could make him obey. 
 He broke his arm in an attempt to dislodge for her 
 a bird's nest in the roof of a shed ; my sister was 
 obliged to remain for a month by his bedside, in 
 order to make him lie quiet in his apparatus. 
 
 It is thus, I repeat, that, with a sober little air, 
 which presented a contrast to her youth, and a 
 slight expression of gentle sadness, little Querou- 
 alle, without being a perfect beauty, bewitched 
 King Charles II., who would look at no one but 
 her in all his brilliant court ; which the Protestants 
 explained by a diabolical science of feminine per- 
 versity. 
 
 Good Heavens ! The Protestants were not 
 altogether in the wrong in this case, and, if we 
 maintain that chastity is, at bottom, the acme of 
 sensuality, modesty the height of coquetry, I shall 
 not deny it. There are women who are dangerous 
 through their innocence ; it is extremely difficult to 
 distinguish the action of the devil, in such a matter, 
 from that of the good God. 
 
 The white God and the black God of the Slavs 
 are not so opposed as these good people imagine. 
 Manichaeism is, I think, the only error which I do 
 not profess ; the world is completely one ; every, 
 thing comes from a single God ; all its disso- 
 nances are merged, at a certain height, into a 
 supreme harmony, which is love,
 
 ERNEST RENAN. " 
 
 Little Emma Kosilis knew nothing of all this ; 
 she went to church very discreetly, with her prayer- 
 book ; and the fact is, that toward the age of six- 
 teen or eighteen, without her being any more aware 
 of it than she was of her blooming youth, there 
 was no room in her little soul for anyone except a 
 young man, twenty or two-and-twenty years of 
 age, whom she often saw, and whom I shall call 
 Emilien. 
 
 This affair had no beginning. It was a taking 
 possession, which was absolutely unperceived. In 
 these countries of honest morals, the relations 
 between the young people of the two sexes are far 
 freer and more prolonged than in suspicious Paris, 
 which is always inclined to believe evil. My moral 
 education was conducted thus, by several very 
 pure and very pretty female friends of my child- 
 hood ; to the present day, with good reason, all 
 sweet and kindly things appear to me under the 
 form of a wise little girl of twelve or fourteen, who 
 makes me a discreet sign. I experienced one of 
 my most vivid emotions when, forty years later, 
 one of these friends of my childhood addressed me 
 as : " My dear Ernest." 
 
 Emma had been in the habit of seeing Emilien 
 ever since she had had consciousness of herself ; 
 she dreamed rather than thought, and so it came 
 to pass that one day, without her having the 
 faintest suspicion in the world of it, Emilien came 
 to occupy the entire cavity of her little heart.
 
 12 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 In order that nothing here below may boast of 
 its own merits, the election of love is, like the 
 Divine election, purely gratuitous. It is ignorant 
 of its own motives. The young man whom Emma 
 loved was good-natured and rather weak. But 
 just this simplicity, this absence of all pretension, 
 pleased the young girl. She would not have 
 noticed a superior man, and moreover, the little 
 circle in which she lived would not have furnished 
 her with the opportunity of encountering many 
 such on her path. There was no room in her for 
 anything but that strange, unthinking instinct, 
 which gives no reasons, despises our conventions, 
 and asks absolution of God alone. 
 
 I was so vigorously stoned, a year or two ago, 
 for having spoken of love, in this good land of 
 France of love as something sacred, religious, 
 mystical, that I shall force myself to be brief on 
 this occasion. 
 
 Our country, which is indulgent toward black- 
 guardism, makes difficulties about allowing one to 
 speak, in a serious tone, of the deepest secret of 
 nature, of that distant voice of a world which de- 
 sires to be. People do not see that, by leaving 
 love in the state of nonsense, of turpitude, of 
 coarse jest, they accuse the Eternal of folly. 
 What ! The work above all others, the continuance 
 of life, is attached to an act that is ridiculous or 
 coarse 
 
 For my part, that which seems to demonstrate to
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 13 
 
 me the divine nature of love, is its spontaneity. It 
 is born like a flower of the fields ; it acts like a 
 loadstone ; the Newtonian attraction is not more 
 subtle than it. Science demonstrates that two 
 molecules, alone in the world, at whatever distance 
 we may assume them to be, would put themselves 
 in motion to meet each other. 
 
 Emma's love was of this sort, innocent because 
 it was unconscious. She had a very delicate, 
 very just sense of good and beautiful things. Now 
 a woman does not attach herself to pure abstrac- 
 tions ; she loves good when good is, for her, some- 
 one who exists and lives. Covered by the deceptive 
 mantle of an infantile security, Emma's love soon 
 became complete absorption. For whole days she 
 remained motionless, abandoned to a languorous 
 indolence, which she enjoyed in perfect quietude, 
 as one enjoys a warm breeze, without inquiring 
 whence it comes, or a ripe fruit without fearing 
 that the Creator may have concealed a poison in it. 
 
 Naturally, she said nothing of her feelings either 
 to the man whom she loved or to her family, or to 
 her companions. Therein lies her fault, if a fault 
 be insisted upon ; we shall see how she was des- 
 tined to expiate it. The society in which' she lived 
 was perfectly honest. Her discretion was so abso- 
 lute that no one knew anything of the subject 
 which absorbed her. Thus she took delight in her 
 secret for a long time, and certainly, her enjoyment 
 would have been lessened by an avowal.
 
 1 4 RECOLLECTIONS A ND LE TTERS OF 
 
 Her timid bearing rendered easy for her, with- 
 out the slightest hypocrisy, that air of indifference 
 and premeditated abstraction which is inculcated 
 in young girls. What she felt was so vague, her 
 imagination was so pure, the conversations which 
 she was in the habit of hearing had always been so 
 proper, that the idea never occurred to her that 
 there was anything culpable in what she experi- 
 enced. Her heart was upright before herself. Any 
 hesitation as to the nature of that which rendered 
 her so happy, and of which she did not know the 
 name, would have been in her eyes as sinful as a 
 blasphemy against God, against the Church, and 
 against its sacraments. 
 
 The extreme imprudence of such conduct, excus- 
 able only in a child, was soon revealed. While 
 little Emma lived only in her love, Emilien thought 
 of her not at all. He, like everyone else, con- 
 sidered her touching ; but he would never have 
 dared to tell her so. He was a mediocre and pas- 
 sive being ; he allowed his mother to arrange a 
 marriage for him ; and after all was he so much to 
 blame ? Emma was so modest that she was not to 
 be distinguished from her friends ; one would 
 have said that she sought only to hide herself. 
 
 The blow was as sudden as a clap of thunder : 
 one day while she was conversing with her com- 
 panions, in a little gathering, in the depths of a 
 garden, they discussed various things. The news, 
 fresh that day, was the marriage of Emilien with
 
 E 'RNEST RE NAN. 15 
 
 Anna M . It was spoken of as certain. Emma 
 
 heard all. Such was her command over herself 
 that no one even suspected that a dagger had 
 pierced her heart. She said nothing, rose shortly, 
 and withdrew, without allowing the slightest sign 
 of the terrible wound which she had just received 
 to be perceived. 
 
 Another piece of news circulated a few days 
 later in the company of the same young girls, as- 
 sembled in the same garden. Emma had entered 
 as lay-sister into the community of the Ursuline 
 
 Dames, in the little town of . As Emma was 
 
 very pious, this surprised no one. Her secret had 
 belonged so exclusively to herself alone that no 
 one connected the two events. The idea never oc- 
 curred to anyone, that Emilien's marriage was the 
 cause of Emma's entrance into religion. Religious 
 vocations were common among the middle classes 
 of these little towns. Emma's entrance into the 
 community of the Ursuline Dames was regarded 
 as perfectly simple, and did not provoke the faintest 
 accusation of ulterior motive. 
 
 The convent of the Ursuline Dames, moreover, 
 admitted of different degrees of-religious vocation. 
 By the side of the sisters who were bound to the 
 order by perpetual vows, there were pious persons 
 who wore a costume which recalled that of the or- 
 der, minus the sacramental veil, and. who observed 
 the same practices as the nuns, without assuming 
 any obligations. The majority of these pronounced
 
 1 6 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 their vows at the end of a few years ; but there 
 was more than one instance of lay-sisters who had 
 returned to the world after they had passed years 
 in the establishment. 
 
 It was to this class of nuns that poor Emma 
 affiliated herself. Everything was commonplace in 
 her admission, in her noviciate, in her conduct at 
 the convent. Tedium is a thing unknown to these 
 races ; they dream too much to feel bored. She 
 was a nun of the utmost regularity, pious like the 
 rest, never at fault, esteemed by her superiors. 
 Her face, pale as the white linen which surrounded 
 it, had the ordinary beatific expression common to 
 nuns. Assiduous in prayer and in the exercises of 
 piety, she soon broke herself into the religious hab- 
 its of the cloister. After the lapse of a few days, 
 the slow and monotonous rocking effect of a relig- 
 ious life had lulled her to sleep, and her ordinary 
 state became a sort of slumber filled with sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 Had she succeeded in chasing from her heart 
 the image which had invaded it completely ? By 
 no means; she had not even tried to do this. 
 The suspicion that this thought was sinful never 
 occurred to her for a moment. It was, as in the Song 
 of Solomon, a bouquet of myrrh in her bosom. 
 She would have doubted God sooner than the up- 
 rightness of the sentiment which filled her being. 
 In her, love was in the state of a dream, full of 
 sweetness, indefinitely prolonged, of a sweet music
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 17 
 
 which had but one note. There was neither height 
 nor depth in this state of profound peace. She did 
 not distinguish her love from her piety, or her 
 piety from her love. Her austerities, especially, 
 were permeated by it. She found in it an extreme 
 charm. Feeling, by instinct, that a woman must 
 either enjoy or suffer, she found a sort of voluptu- 
 ousness in mortifying her flesh. She experienced 
 a deep joy in thinking that she suffered all this for 
 the man whom she loved, and in telling herself that 
 she should never behold any other man than he. Her 
 state of vague love drew from the long psalmodies 
 of the convent a sort of powerful stimulant and 
 augmentation. 
 
 There was joined to this a sentiment which I 
 would like to call the pride of reclusion, which 
 is the support of a nun and the cause of her 
 haughtiness. Behind the dreams in which the clois- 
 tered woman takes pleasure, there lies the idea that 
 her body is a treasure so precious that bolts and 
 gratings and lofty walls are necessary to place it in 
 security. The severity of the guard adds to the 
 value of the object guarded ; a thing which is 
 watched over to this extent must be inestimable. 
 The woman has the sentiment that she pleases by 
 her slightest act ; this nearly terrifies her. It is 
 not rare to see extremely beautiful women feel an 
 aversion for going into society. The woman vowed 
 to celibacy also desires, almost always, to be se- 
 questered and veiled! She experiences a sort of
 
 18 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 pleasure in proclaiming thus loudly that she is 
 keeping to herself the happiness which she might 
 bestow. Signifying her disdain for men, and re- 
 serving herself for the caresses of an invisible and 
 jealous lover, she wishes to be sure that she will be 
 seen only by herself and God. 
 
 With these intimate delights there is mingled, in 
 discreet fashion, a confession of weakness which 
 touches all men. It pleases us that a woman should 
 distrust her frailty, that she should take precautions 
 against herself, that she should subject herself to 
 surveillance, and thus implicitly confess that, per- 
 haps, if she were not watched, she might sin. The 
 bold woman, who is sure of herself, of certain mod- 
 ern countries, is antipathetic to us. We love to feel 
 in a woman the embarrassment of her sex, that she 
 is obliged to make an effort to be virtuous, that 
 she is timid, fearful, the vigilant guardian of her 
 treasure. 
 
 With simple-minded girls, like Emma's compan- 
 ions, all this was bathed in a mystical pathos of a 
 sufficiently inoffensive nature. With her the case 
 was more complicated. Such was her complete 
 innocence, and the purity of her imagination, that 
 no scruple as to her languors ever occurred to her. 
 She was so certain of being right that she never 
 felt bound to accuse herself of it in confession. 
 Her peace was profound. The efforts usually 
 made by cloistered women to suppress the thoughts 
 which should not come to thejn, were unknown to
 
 ERNEST REN AN. \g 
 
 her. Her reclusion was absolute, no man ever 
 came to ask for her in the parlor. The ladies of 
 her family found her so detached from everything 
 that they gradually ceased to visit her. 
 
 This lasted for five years, without a trouble, 
 without a storm. Did the possibility of finding 
 Emilien again present itself, at times, to her 
 mind ? Did it sometimes occur to her that the 
 woman whom Emilien had married had very fee- 
 ble health ? Since nothing which happened in 
 the little town was unknown in the convent, she 
 was aware that Anna had two little daugh- 
 ters. Did her good heart, masking a little touch 
 of egotism, say to her : You will be their mother 
 some day ? Perhaps such thoughts did seek to 
 rise, now and then ; but they never acquired a 
 bodily existence in her mind. She was happy and 
 did not desire that her present state should come to 
 an end. She would have remained thus until her 
 death, without a regret, without bitterness ; never- 
 theless, a profound instinct kept her from pro- 
 nouncing her vows. Her superiors mentioned the 
 subject to her several times ; she took refuge in 
 arguments of humility. She was so modest, in 
 fact, that this was considered quite natural on her 
 part. 
 
 Now, this possibility which she had never clearly 
 perceived, but which, without her being aware of 
 the fact herself, had been the secret spring of her 
 unconscious life, suddenly became a reality. Anna
 
 20 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 M had a sister in the house of the Ursulines. 
 
 One day, according to usage, prayers were asked 
 for the near relative of one of the ladies of the 
 community, who lay in the death-agony. Every- 
 thing is very soon known in convents. The name 
 of the dying person was mentioned in Emma's 
 presence that evening. The two little girls, who 
 had no longer a mother, were confided to their 
 aunt the nun ; Emma could caress them. On the 
 following day, the tolling of the knell from the 
 principal church announced the death of poor 
 Anna. Then came the funeral ; Emma followed all 
 the phases of the mass by the ringing of the bell, 
 the Sanctus, the elevation of the host. A service 
 took place at the same hour in the convent. 
 Emma prayed like the others, with so much ap- 
 parent calm that the angels could not have per- 
 ceived that she was praying for a rival. 
 
 Her trouble had begun, however, and when the 
 cathedral chimes announced that the coffin had 
 been lowered into the grave, she found herself in a 
 state with which she was unacquainted. She did 
 not recover herself ; she could hardly pray ; she 
 tried to put on her hair shirt, and found it unsup- 
 portable ; the austerities which were familiar to 
 her disgusted her. She deprived herself of the 
 communion for a week, her peace was at an end, 
 her piety deeply shaken. At certain hours, she 
 believed herself to be an egoist, almost malicious. 
 There was no recourse to God ; she asked herself
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 21 
 
 if she was in a state of grace : the Church no 
 longer possessed any consolations for her ; the 
 long, tranquil meditations which had constituted 
 her delight, were interrupted by perpetual distrac- 
 tions, which she could not banish. 
 
 This was the only dangerous moment in her life. 
 There was one month when she came near going 
 to destruction. Assuredly, had not the issue been 
 that which I am about to relate, she would have 
 rebelled. She might, perhaps, have remained in 
 the convent ; but she would have been a bad nun, 
 that is to say, the very worst, and the most un- 
 happy thing in this world. Her chains, which had 
 been so sweet to her when enjoyment had been 
 impossible, and while her hope had been lost, had 
 become intolerable to her. The beloved image, 
 which had slumbered at the bottom of her heart 
 for years, now rendered her distracted, agitated 
 her mortally. 
 
 This time, she thought herself obliged to tell 
 everything to her confessor, who was the chaplain 
 of the convent. He was a man of narrow mind, 
 but very sensible. At first, he wished to wait : 
 then he saw the gravity of the evil. After all, 
 Emma had taken no vow, she had not worn the 
 costume of the order, the fillet had not pressed her 
 brow. The chaplain was kind of heart. The 
 secret of the confessional prevented his consulting 
 his bishop. He formed his opinion by his own 
 reason. Convinced that the salvation of his
 
 22 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 spiritual daughter was at stake, a thoroughly 
 paternal thought occurred to him. He had Anna's 
 daughters confided to Emma's personal care. He 
 hoped, in this manner, to furnish employment to 
 the uneasiness which had begun to take possession 
 of her and to pour out upon these orphans the 
 overfullness of her heart. In case the union of 
 Emma and Emilien should become necessary, he 
 intended to arrange matters so that it might be 
 said that everything had been done at the instance 
 of Emilien, " desirous of procuring a second mother 
 for his children." He hoped that, in this way, an 
 exposure, a scandal, they termed it, might be 
 avoided. 
 
 The father came to see his little girls, and Emma 
 led them to the parlor. The blow was terrible ; 
 she burst into tears. Emilien had changed very 
 little, he was such as she had continued to behold 
 him in her dreams during the last five years. As 
 for her, her body was completely emaciated. The 
 torrent of tears which inundated her, in spite of 
 herself, weakened her ; in an instinctive movement 
 of her eyes, thus bathed in tears, Emilien read her 
 love. 
 
 This man, of an ordinary mind, but really good, 
 was then able to understand it all. A flash of 
 lightning traversed his mind, he combined matters 
 instantaneously. As he had a very tender heart, 
 he was deeply touched. The sight of his little 
 girls, whom he loved greatly, in the arms of this
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 23 
 
 excellent woman, moved him to the very depths of 
 his being. A respectful love took possession of 
 him. The pious memory of Anna which he pre- 
 served was merged into this new sentiment ; he 
 had never read a romance, he was a stranger to 
 all literature, the unprecedented favor which 
 Heaven had sent to him did not inspire him for a 
 moment with fatuity. 
 
 Some months later Emma and Emilien were 
 united in marriage. That which no one had ever 
 seen, everyone beheld. It was the entire country 
 which married them. Emma was much beloved 
 for her goodness. Public opinion, ordinarily un- 
 favorable to nuns who leave their convent, was 
 very indulgent to her. By means of little artifices 
 of coiffure, which were not lacking in grace, they 
 concealed her hair, which had fallen under the 
 scissors of the convent ; her bosom, compressed 
 by austerities, dilated ; she resumed her four-and- 
 twenty years. People were enchanted to see her 
 once more ; they had thought her buried forever. 
 
 My sister considered that the joy experienced 
 by this heroine of faithful love was the greatest 
 that ever the heart of woman felt. Her passion, 
 silent for the space of five years, and doubled by 
 suffering, had become a part of her being. The 
 rest of her life, there was never the least dim- 
 inution in her love, that is to say, in her happi- 
 ness. The state in which she had been during the 
 five years that she had passed in the convent, and
 
 24 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 which was so violently disturbed by the knell an- 
 nouncing the death of her rival, lasted the whole 
 time, without a single cloud. 
 
 Her husband, sustained by so marvelous a 
 proof of fidelity, was constantly under the impres- 
 sion of a tender and passionate sentiment. The 
 law of their union was that which was on the wed- 
 ding-ring of Saint Louis : 
 
 " Outside this ring can there be love ? " 
 
 Emilien.in spite of his mediocrity, was conscious 
 of the incomparable treasure which Heaven had 
 bestowed upon him. His love became a. sort of 
 religious worship. The trial had been unique, 
 superhuman. This iron resolution : " No one 
 shall see me except he," proved by the most incon- 
 trovertible facts, though far surpassing the capac- 
 ity of his own nature, astonished him, conquered 
 him, inspired him with a sort of fear, like some- 
 thing mysterious. 
 
 With her, that which dominated all else was the 
 sentiment of an enormous triumph. " I have con- 
 quered," was the thought which ruled her life. 
 The memory of the Ursuline convent always re- 
 mained dear to her. She returned thither every 
 year, to spend a few days. Her piety was not 
 founded on reasoning, and was, therefore, not very 
 aggressive. She wished to preserve her con- 
 ventual costume in a wardrobe. In her bedroom, 
 her nun's scourge was suspended on a nail ; she 
 often reminded her husband of what she had suf-
 
 ER.VEST RENAN. 25 
 
 fered for him, and how, for five years, she had 
 combated her flesh to preserve her love ; with his 
 permission, she wore her haircloth garment on cer- 
 tain days. Thus she enjoyed, without a moment's 
 intermittance, the most perfect felicity that can be 
 imagined. She had risked much. All the chances 
 had been that the cloister would wear her out, that 
 Anna would survive her. That had not stopped 
 her. The voluptuousness, which had been re- 
 pressed for five years, flowed freely. For twenty- 
 five years she floated on a Pacific Ocean of 
 happiness and love. 
 
 They had eight children, from whom they never 
 separated the two daughters of poor Anna. They 
 reared them well ; their sons were very honest 
 fellows. As neither of them had any intellectual 
 cleverness, not the slightest literary subtlety, not 
 the slightest mental reservation ever attacked their 
 sincerity. People never read anything, happily, 
 in these remote districts ; the literary malady, that 
 moral phylloxera of our day, has not penetrated 
 thither. Love was all the time like a powerful dose 
 of idealistic morphine injected beneath their flesh. 
 
 They lived an extremely retired life, in the 
 depths of a somber manor, situated in a valley 
 near the sea, in the middle of a dense forest of 
 beeches. These manors, if one confine one's self 
 to the exterior, have the air of sepulchers ; one 
 would pronounce them the strongholds of despair. 
 Beware ! inside they are full of sweet familiarities,
 
 26 RECOLLECTIOXS AXD LETTERS OF 
 
 of amiable privacies. The little gardens, cut by 
 walls which surround them, are the image of the 
 intimate life that is led there. The pond which 
 feeds the feudal mill causes a certain shudder, at 
 first ; then you acquire a love for the intense ver- 
 dure of its osier beds, its surface concealed beneath 
 water-lilies. 
 
 It was in one of these nests of verdure, closed in 
 on every side, and bathed in shade, that Emma 
 and Emilien passed their life. At the end of a 
 few years, people forgot their history. Hardly 
 anyone knew them. Great love loves solitude ; 
 it needs no one. Emma's life in this desert was 
 that of paradise, an infinite enjoyment, without 
 oscillation or slackening. People talk of the 
 storms of love. What childishness ! Love has its 
 inequalities : but voluptuousness has no storms. 
 Emma's happiness, after her victory, was like 
 the high seas, without ebb or flood, whereon she 
 floated wrapped in a slumber. Death itself hardly 
 existed for her. Life left her because the hour 
 had come to finish it. She died at the age of fifty, 
 without any malady. These great and durable 
 joys vanish without causing any bitterness. To 
 St. Augustine is attributed this saying as to the 
 happiness of the elect : Quod habent desiderant 
 " They desire that which they have." It is very 
 well said ; but we must remember that this acme 
 of bliss is conquered only by an excess of heroic 
 will, exercised for a very long time.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 27 
 
 My sister, in narrating to me this story, dis- 
 covered in it a perfect example of love, as she 
 understood it. She esteemed Emilien the happiest 
 of men, he for whose sake an excellent woman had 
 condemned herself to a life of austerity, thus giv- 
 ing him the absolute guarantee of her exclusive 
 love. In the space of five years, she had never be- 
 held a single man. She had accepted loyally the 
 chances of an eternal seclusion. As in all battles, 
 life was at stake here. There is no recompense 
 except for those who dare. Happiness is like 
 glory ; in order to win it one must play for large 
 stakes. 
 
 One day I ventured to remark to my sister that 
 this was a great deal of devotion to bestow on a 
 mediocre man. " Oh ! what matters it ? " she 
 replied. " He certainly did not merit so much 
 happiness ; but who does merit the happiness that 
 he has ? These are the false ideas of your Parisian 
 literary men, who imagine that great men alone 
 are worthy of love. What childishness ! You 
 will perceive the absurdity of all that one of these 
 days. Ah ! the heroes who have saved their 
 country, I can conceive of it for them ; but the 
 daubers of canvas, the smudgers of paper, what is 
 there in that for the heart? What are your puerile 
 literary celebrities for love ? " She often recurred 
 to this point. She was much opposed to the 
 foolish admiration of fame, which is one of the 
 absurdities of our time, and thought it ridiculous
 
 28 RECOLLECTIONS A.\D LETTERS OF 
 
 that a woman should set any store by reputation, 
 for her husband. She, who was so little given to 
 mockery, rallied wittily those women who seek the 
 men who pretend to superiority. She would have 
 none of those husbands who belong to everybody. 
 She thought that the woman who marries a cele- 
 brated man is only half a wife, the public entering 
 more or less into their union as a third party. It 
 is certain that the dilectus meus milii et ego illi my 
 beloved is mine and I am his of the Song of Solo- 
 mon, would have had no meaning if the shepherd 
 of Sulem had been a well-known personage, 
 delivered over to be pastured on by the public, and 
 interviewed every morning by journalists. 
 
 How I should like to have someone write thus 
 a " Morality in Action " of virtuous love, where 
 should be recounted, in simple style, heroic in- 
 stances, like that of Emma ! The " Morality in 
 Action" was the book which had the most influ- 
 ence over me in my childhood, after "Telemaque," 
 however. They say that these sorts of books 
 are out of fashion now ; so much the worse for 
 fashion. I imagine that the great success of the 
 century would be a book which should depict for 
 us men such as they ought to be ; we have but too 
 many occasions to see them as they are. 
 
 Certainly, a distinction must be made between 
 what we propose to imitate and what we propose 
 to admire. The examples for imitation should 
 always have something mediocre and plebeian
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 29 
 
 about them, since practice is plebeian. But in 
 order to obtain from men their simple duty, they 
 must be shown the example of those who exceed 
 it. Morals are maintained by heroes. Feminine 
 virtue is one of the providential elements in the 
 edifice of the world. The woman has charge of 
 good. The true does not concern her in the least, 
 but the proof of morals lies much more in the eyes 
 of the honest young girl than in the reasoning of 
 a metaphysician. 
 
 This is what always impels me, in my moments 
 of leisure, to meditate upon the most sacred of the 
 acts of life ; this is what makes me find so much 
 pleasure in those grand examples of noble love, 
 where love and duty are opposed one to the other, 
 and where they grow reciprocally. The profana- 
 tion which is made of love in the superficial litera- 
 ture of Paris is the disgrace of our times. That is 
 the crime against the Holy Spirit, for which, ac- 
 cording to the Gospel, there is no forgiveness. The 
 sacred wafer is dragged through the mud, the 
 great educating force of the human race is misun- 
 derstood. Love does not possess its full value, 
 except under the restrictions of duty. There is no 
 part of life which imposes more obligations, nor 
 which is subjected to more complicated rules. 
 
 Restricted ideas must correspond to restricted 
 duties. The faith of woman is a virtue ; it must be 
 respected, like all other feminine virtues. People 
 will be mistaken if thev think that we desire to
 
 30 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 lead women to our philosophical opinions. Often, 
 on the contrary, we are very glad that they do not 
 listen to us. We love their decided intention not 
 to hear what will enfeeble their heroic resolution. 
 It is sufficient, if we may suppose that, by a little 
 dissimulation, they agree with us at bottom. 
 
 Woman often pleases us precisely because she 
 resists us ; we are grateful to her for her refusal. 
 The woman who resembles us is antipathetic to us. 
 What we seek in the other sex is the contrary 
 of ourselves. Weakness, false reasoning^ narrow 
 ideas, ignorance, superstition, shock us in a man, 
 and often cause us to smile in a woman. We love 
 the sign of the cross executed with a graceful fem- 
 inine gesture. It does not displease us to see our 
 virile works insulted, misunderstood by women ; 
 their indignation enchants us, for we descry the 
 delicate sentiment where their scorn has its origin, 
 and that troubles us but little, since, through 
 science, we are sure of being in the right. 
 
 I envy my eminent colleague, Mr. Brown- 
 Sequard, for what happened to him at one of his 
 learned lessons. An anti-vivisectionist lady, placed 
 near him, gave him a blow with her umbrella. 
 Telum imbelle ! an unwarlike weapon. This excel- 
 lent person certainly made a mistake ; vivisection, 
 with the humane cares by which it is surrounded, 
 representing the decillionth part of that which ani- 
 mals suffer, is a very inoffensive thing, but errors of 
 the heart please us in women. The wrath which
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 31 
 
 our legitimate liberties cause them proves that to 
 which we cling the most strongly in them ; their 
 virtue an essential condition of their charm and 
 of the absolute dissonance which we desire be- 
 tween them and us. We love feminine absurdity, 
 while still not wishing that it should govern the 
 world and make the law too much therein. 
 
 However, God's will be done in everything ! 
 The world is good as it is ; I should be desperately 
 sorry to have contributed in any way to diminish 
 piety in women. Pietas, in its finest Latin sense, 
 implying feebleness and tenderness, is the excellent 
 gift that has been conferred upon them. During 
 my last journey to Brittany, I was happy to see 
 that the young girls were as pretty, as modest, as 
 well-brought up as they were fifty years ago. My 
 sole desire is that it may continue so. I should be 
 consoled if I could know, after my death, that 
 women are still as pretty, and that love is still as 
 sweet as in the past. 
 
 In order to save the possibility of a future be- 
 yond the grave, many lofty minds dream of a series 
 of new births, with profound modifications of our 
 being. This order of ideas is not that in which I 
 take pleasure ; metempsychosis is the idea which 
 has always had the fewest attractions for me. 
 Nevertheless, if anything in the nature of these 
 dreams were conceivable, I should request, as the 
 recompense for my head work, to be born again a 
 woman, in order that I might study the two fash-
 
 32 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 ions of living which the Creator has instituted, so 
 that I might comprehend the two poetries of the 
 thing. I really have reasoned and combined a 
 good deal in that manner. I should like, in an- 
 other world, to speak to the feminine element, with 
 the voice of a woman, to think as a woman, to love 
 as a woman, to pray as a woman, to see how 
 women reason. From that world, I desire to as- 
 sure you, dear sisters, that I have never cherished 
 for you a single evil sentiment, that your piety has 
 even frequently been one of the causes of my in- 
 ward joy. And beholding it so assured, I have 
 said to myself that my ideas, in so far as they 
 might be dangerous, would speedily find their coun- 
 terpoise, and that, consequently, I can freely accord 
 them their flight. 
 
 SUPPLEMENT TO PAGE I 19 OF "SOUVENIRS 
 
 D'ENFANCE." 
 
 THE approach of old age having led me, several 
 years ago, to choose a sojourn for the summer in 
 the vicinity of the spot where my childhood was 
 passed, I desired to behold once more the cemetery 
 
 of where, according to certain inductions, I 
 
 knew that little Noe"mi, the friend of my youth, 
 must be buried. Alas ! I did not find her name 
 there. A gravestone had been, evidently, too costly 
 a luxury for her ; she had only a wooden cross.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 33 
 
 Now, a wooden cross speedily falls to pieces : the 
 transverse strip which bears the name of the de- 
 ceased becomes loosened first, and the dead, whose 
 memory is preserved only by this fragile sign, soon 
 have no further existence, except in the memory of 
 God. 
 
 That memory, being the very reality of things, is 
 truly the only one which counts. The memory of 
 men is not only brief but it is inexactness itself. 
 I have the honor to be a member of the commis- 
 sion on the Literary History of France, at the 
 Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. If 
 people only knew the expungement of errors which 
 we effect at each of our sessions, everyone would 
 become incredulous as to what is said and what 
 is related. The Last Judgment, supposing that 
 the Eternal gives an opportunity for the interro- 
 gation of witnesses, will be a tissue of iniquities. A 
 certain incident opened my eyes to this incurable 
 weakness of human opinions, on one frightful day. 
 
 Having asked some information from a person 
 whom I knew to be well posted as to my little com- 
 panion, this was the reply which I received : " Yes, 
 she was very pretty, but she turned out badly. Do^ 
 not look for her here. She followed such and such 
 a person ... he seduced her, then abandoned her. 
 She came to her end on the pavements of Paris." 
 The person whom I interrogated added various 
 very precise circumstances, which seemed to leave 
 no doubt as to the truth of her assertions..
 
 34 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The horror of a priest who should behold his 
 holy sacrament fall into the mud would be nothing 
 compared to the feeling which I experienced at that 
 moment. The thought that my little friend, who 
 had opened to me the paradise of the ideal, when 
 I was twelve years of age, could have been defiled 
 to that extent, filled me with indignation. That 
 which my mother had related to me concerning 
 her pious death still rang in my ears. I made no 
 reply to my interlocutor ; but I seated myself 
 under an aged beech, at the corner of the cemetery 
 facing the sea ; I gathered my memories together ; 
 soon the truth appeared to me, sovereign, evident, 
 with no admixture of conjecture. By dint of 
 placing side by side certain particulars of the con- 
 versation which had just taken place, I beheld a 
 misunderstanding, plain as the daylight, rise before 
 me. 
 
 Noemi had, in fact, a little friend who often 
 played with us and who resembled her by her 
 beauty a beauty which came to her from the devil 
 in as direct a line as No^mi's came to her from 
 God. I shall call her Nera. Although the daugh- 
 ter of a very chaste mother, Nera had, even in her 
 childhood, the manners of a loose woman. She 
 lost her mother early ; my grandmother took 
 charge of her ; but, wholly absorbed in her devo- 
 tion, she was extremely weak where Nera was con- 
 cerned. She did not perceive her bad conduct, 
 and, when my sister Henriette went to pass a few
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 35 
 
 weeks with her grandmother, of whom she was very 
 fond, she felt a constant anguish of heart. Nera 
 rendered her unhappy, mocked at her seriousness, 
 and gave her to understand that, being less pretty 
 than herself, she was fit only to serve her. My 
 sister, who was excessively delicate, suffered and 
 said nothing. One evening, on her return from 
 church, in the depths of a dark corridor which led 
 to the apartment occupied by my grandmother,- she 
 received a kiss which was not intended for her, and 
 shrieked loudly. At last poor Nera turned out in 
 the saddest possible way. One day, Henriette and 
 I received a visit from her, in the Rue Val-de- 
 Grace. Although greatly abased, she had an air 
 of hatred. Henriette forgot her repugnance, and 
 did all that was possible to save her. But her 
 kindness only irritated the unhappy girl. Behind 
 the benefactress she perceived the little girl whose 
 virtue she had teased. To owe everything to her 
 laughing-stock of former days seemed to her 
 worse than hunger. After a while she changed 
 her address, and we completely lost sight of her. 
 
 For indubitable reasons, which left no room for 
 hesitation, I finally perceived that a horrible con- 
 fusion had been established, and that, in the minds 
 of the three or four persons who may still have 
 some lights on this past, the memory of Nera has 
 been substituted for that of Noemi. A blunder 
 has charged a virtuous person with the record of a 
 fallen woman. To tell the truth, this is of no great
 
 36 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 consequence : in a few years the three or four per- 
 sons who remember Noemi, and I along with them, 
 will have disappeared, and all this will be buried in 
 oblivion, that hideous monster which daily devours 
 O Heavens, many another error ! 
 
 But I make a point of protesting, out of pure 
 love for the truth. 
 
 I swear before God, in the name of my firmest 
 and most precise recollections, in the name of facts 
 and reasons which furnish me with absolute cer- 
 titude, that an error has been committed, that my 
 mother's version is the true one, that my little 
 friend died solely because nature committed a mis- 
 take, having made her at once beautiful, poor, and 
 discreet. As I have said, she died of virtue. Peo- 
 ple saw her go to church to say her prayers ; but 
 all ended there. Now it lay in her race to be a 
 faithful wife and an excellent mother, or to die. 
 It was Nera who lent an ear to bad counsels and 
 followed the path of folly. I adjure the Eternal to 
 be on his guard against this confusion, if it should 
 attempt to pass into the great book which, it is said, 
 will be produced on the Day of Judgment. I will 
 rise, if need be, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, to pro- 
 test -against such a monstrosity. I wish that my 
 little companion should be in heaven. It is unnec- 
 essary to say, of course, that I shall offer no op- 
 position if the Eternal, in his infinite indulgence, 
 sees fit to pardon poor Nera.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 37 
 
 THE DOUBLE PRAYER. 
 
 ONE of the finest religious spectacles which can 
 be contemplated in our day, is that which the an- 
 cient cathedral of Quimper presents at nightfall. 
 When the shadows have filled the side aisles of the 
 vast edifice, the faithful of both sexes join each 
 other in the nave, and chant the evening prayer in 
 the Breton tongue, to a simple and touching rhythm. 
 The cathedral is lighted only by two or three lamps ; 
 on one side of the nave are the men, standing, on 
 the other the kneeling women form a motionless 
 sea of white coifs. The two halves sing alternately, 
 and the phrase begun by one of the choirs is com- 
 pleted by the other. 
 
 That which they sing is very beautiful ; when I 
 heard it, it seemed to me that, with a few small 
 transpositions, it might be accommodated to all 
 states of humanity. Above all, it made me dream 
 of a prayer which, by means of slight variations, 
 might suit men and women equally. 
 
 Humanity, in effect, by its division into two sexes, 
 is a choir, where the two sides respond. An attempt 
 to unite the prayers of the men and the women was 
 one of the most successful undertakings of budding 
 Christianity. The Middle Ages also excelled in 
 this sometimes ; witness that English abbey, of 
 which my learned brother M. Haureau has spoken.* 
 
 * Histoire " Litteraire de la France," t. xxvii, p. 32.
 
 38 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The abbey was double, that is to say, composed 
 of a convent for men and a convent for women, who 
 united in the same church for the canonical hours. 
 A wall divided the choir throughout the entire 
 length, and was sufficiently high to prevent the 
 monks and nuns from seeing each other, but not 
 sufficiently so as to prevent their voices from ming- 
 ling. M tints corpora non voces disjungit The wall 
 separated their bodies, not their voices. The 
 song which rises from humanity to the Eternal, to 
 be complete, should be thus double. 
 
 The world will be saved only when men and 
 women shall pray together the same prayer, with 
 the difference of tones which befits them. 
 
 Distinct on the level of the earth, the prayers 
 should mingle at a certain altitude before mount- 
 ing together to Heaven. Thus the discordant 
 sounds of earth, at a certain height, are merged 
 into perfect accord. I am astonished that no 
 theologian should have maintained that the prayers 
 of men and the prayers of women are of a different 
 quality. The two incenses, borne by the angels be- 
 fore the throne of the Eternal, would compose, as 
 they burned, the perfect incense. 
 
 This is what I believed that I heard in the 
 chants of the cathedral of Quimper, all sectarian 
 dissent, and all attachment to a particular dogma, 
 being set aside :
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 
 
 39 
 
 CHORUS OF MEN. 
 
 My God, I believe 
 firmly in Thy power 
 which fills the world, 
 draws life from inert 
 masses, force from 
 fragile tissues, genius 
 from a brain which will 
 be dust to-morrow. We 
 adore Thee above all in 
 our breast. We never 
 faint, and when our 
 breath begins to weaken, 
 we feel Thy presence by 
 the powerful return of 
 strength which rises to 
 our hearts. 
 
 The work of genius is 
 Thy work. The labor is 
 ours. Long live labor 
 when we toil for the uni- 
 verse and for humanity ! 
 It pleases us to be the 
 victims of a fine work, 
 which Thou wilt still 
 further perfect. As- 
 suredly, Thou cloest 
 something, and Thou 
 doest it through us. 
 We are sure that the la- 
 borer for humanity will 
 one day receive his re- 
 compense. 
 
 Our arms have be- 
 come heavy with the heat 
 of the day. Why are the 
 
 CHORUS OF WOMEN. 
 
 My God, I believe 
 firmly in Thy goodness, 
 which causes our heart 
 to beat, overflows in our 
 milk, fills our breasts, 
 nourishes our little ones, 
 causes the tranquil lan- 
 guor of our eyes, feeds 
 our tenderness, sustains 
 our piety. We are sure 
 that Thy spirit is in us, 
 when our breasts swell ; 
 the palpitation of our 
 bosoms is Thy voice. 
 
 Praised be Thy uni- 
 verse! It is good, lumi- 
 nous, and great. Thou 
 hast willed that Thy 
 justice should be veiled 
 like us. Be praised. 
 Justice is more difficult 
 to realize than goodness, 
 we feel it. On this 
 point we resign ourselves 
 to wait. We give Thee 
 centuries to perfect Thy 
 work. Count on us. 
 
 Our maternal cares 
 have been heavy to-day. 
 Grant us strength to be
 
 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 burdens for us, the en- 
 enjoyments for others ? 
 We have committed no 
 sin ; and we dare not 
 say that Thy power is 
 limited. If there was 
 before Thee a god of 
 evil, Thou wouldst have 
 annihilated him long 
 ago. 
 
 Grant us the strength 
 to conquer our wrath. 
 When we abandon our- 
 selves to our frivolous 
 thoughts, we are irritated 
 at the happiness of the 
 wicked, at the prosperity 
 of the unjust. In Thy 
 light all is explained to 
 us. The liberty of be- 
 ings demands that Thou 
 shouldst abandon them 
 to their inequality. Oh, 
 how dear is the cost 
 of liberty. Blessed be 
 Thou, nevertheless, for 
 having given it to us. 
 
 Console us poor 
 victims ; a God is made 
 of our tears. The 
 wicked are necessary. 
 Our poverty is the proof 
 
 resigned. Thou lovest 
 us, yea, Thou lovest us ; 
 for Thou hast need of us. 
 Thy aim is life. We are 
 the instruments in Thy 
 hand, for the most 
 beautiful of Thy works. 
 Wilt Thou not have pity 
 one day upon Thy poor 
 toiler in bringing forth 
 life? 
 
 Our trials are some- 
 times severe. Long are 
 our fevers when one of 
 Thy little creatures is 
 suspended in our bosom, 
 by long threads of silk. 
 The recompense of our 
 virtue is poverty. Our 
 repose is the tomb. Our 
 milk is for little chil- 
 dren decked out like 
 idols, who are not our 
 own. Our heart swells 
 with indignation at 
 times ; but Thou calm- 
 est us ; Thou art the 
 only consoler. Peace, 
 happiness, repose, will 
 never exist, save at Thy 
 feet. 
 
 Yea, an hour passed 
 with Thee gives us 
 peace. Here Thou 
 communicatest to us 
 Thy secrets. Thou
 
 EXNEST REN AN. 
 
 that we have never done 
 any evil. The wicked 
 man cannot be an hour 
 alone with himself. Our 
 Father who art in 
 heaven,we are with Thee 
 every hour, for Thou art 
 in our heart above all. 
 
 The triumph of evil 
 shall never shake us. 
 We will always admit 
 duties which reach unto 
 death. Oh, great coun- 
 try of souls, Thou hast a 
 right to all sacrifices. 
 Yes, death, if it presents 
 itself in Thy name, will 
 be as gladly welcomed by 
 us as life. When one 
 knows Thee, an hour of 
 life is a blessing. Every 
 creature who is conscious 
 of its own existence and 
 of Thy existence should 
 return thanks and die 
 blessing Thee. 
 
 The courage which 
 was in the heart of our 
 fathers is in our heart. 
 It is the coward who 
 does not believe in Thee. 
 When one has lived, one 
 lives always ; an eternal 
 
 solacest us, Thou 
 makest us proud of our 
 poverty. Surely, the 
 wicked man is punished, 
 for he cannot converse 
 with Thee. Thanks for 
 the lot that has been 
 assigned to us. Thou 
 has willed the world the 
 world is made of our 
 tears. 
 
 Yea, O God, we will 
 be faithful. Do what 
 Thou wilt, we will never 
 doubt Thee. We defy 
 Thee, beloved God ! It 
 shall be a battle between 
 us ! Thou shalt not 
 conquer. Demand, de- 
 mand ever, we will 
 always give. Our heart 
 is ready. Strike, make 
 Thy hand heavier yet ; 
 it shall always be gentle 
 to us. 
 
 Come, abuse our 
 patience, try of what we 
 are capable. We will 
 endure every test. Thou 
 hast need of our devo- 
 tion, we know it. Thou 
 canst not keep Thy uni-
 
 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 mark has been traced in 
 the infinite. Whether 
 this furrow be long or 
 short, what is it in com- 
 parison with Thy eter- 
 nity ? Thou remem- 
 berest us ; hence we are 
 immortal. 
 
 The goal attained wilt 
 Thou restore life to 
 those who have contrib- 
 uted to the victory of 
 the good and the true ? 
 Thou alone knowest : 
 we must not know it. 
 Is it not enough that we 
 should live in Thy mem- 
 
 ory 
 
 Assuredly, we 
 
 would wish to learn the 
 issue of the battle which 
 we are fighting with 
 Thee. Be the conqueror, 
 O God ! that is the es- 
 sential point. We shall 
 triumph in Thee. 
 
 Thy rule has been to 
 create reason by ob- 
 scure aspirations for ex- 
 ist(5nce ? to create giants 
 
 verse in motion without 
 us. Behold Thy poor 
 handmaidens on their 
 knees. Continue to de- 
 mand from us much, as 
 much as thoii wilt. It 
 is so sweet to be a 
 victim ! Thanks, O 
 Heaven, for our weak- 
 ness ! Thanks, for the 
 confidence Thou hast in 
 our powers of suffering ! 
 
 As Thou givest us 
 life, so we love Thee. 
 Yes, we should like to 
 live, to be beautiful for- 
 ever. O Father, par- 
 don the blindness of 
 Thy poor handmaidens. 
 Thy gifts are so excel- 
 lent that we would wish 
 them to be eternal. 
 Foolish creatures that 
 we are. Let us reflect 
 on what we are asking : 
 eyes which preserve 
 their charm indefinitely, 
 hair which never turns 
 white, lips fresh through 
 a thousand years. O 
 Father, pardon our 
 childish egotism ! 
 
 The beauty which 
 Thou givest us at cer- 
 tain hours, and during a 
 few years, is a fragile
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 
 
 43 
 
 with decillions of mi- 
 crobes, to make some- 
 thing coherent of gnats. 
 Thy means are humble ; 
 Thy results attain to the 
 infinite. The earth 
 weighed, the heavens 
 measured, the atom de- 
 scribed, what marvels. 
 When the plant-louse 
 has finished its work, 
 dost Thou preserve it 
 for eternity ? It would 
 be a great honor to Thee 
 to show it. It is more 
 probable that it goes to 
 take its place among the 
 myriads of its congeners 
 which pave the infinite. 
 We are making, stitch 
 by stitch, a tapestry of 
 which we do not see the 
 pattern. Let us accept 
 the salary of good work- 
 men and spend it in 
 peace. 
 
 We thank Thee for 
 the life that has been 
 given us, and we do not 
 fear death, since we are 
 delivered from the 
 frightful thought that 
 after having SQ tried 
 
 thing. Truly, we can- 
 not regret it. That 
 which passes away is 
 not, for that reason, friv- 
 olous. What difference 
 will there be a century 
 hence, between those 
 who are beautiful to-day, 
 and those who have been 
 beautiful ? Others will 
 then be beautiful, and 
 they will pass in their 
 turn. Of what has the 
 flower to complain? 
 Thou alone art always 
 the same, and Thy years 
 know no decline. 
 
 Subordinated to Thy 
 ends, we shall always be 
 good, docile, and sub- 
 missive. We will love 
 men and we will serve 
 them. We will banish 
 from their minds sad 
 thoughts, at need, we 
 will talk nonsense to 
 them. 
 
 Kneeling before Thy 
 goodness, we shall al- 
 ways be Thy obedient 
 daughters. What Thy 
 designs exact, we will 
 accomplish, with a hum- 
 ble heart, We abdicate
 
 44 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 us in life, Thou wilt 
 pass Thy eternity in tor- 
 turing us. The fu- 
 ture will behold better 
 days than ours ; as, 
 in our age, we have 
 been more favored than 
 our fathers were. But 
 each one of us is in- 
 separable from the state 
 of the universe, at the 
 moment when he made 
 his appearance. Happy 
 is he, who, in the final 
 review, shall find him- 
 self on the side of 
 those who have fought 
 for the true and the 
 good ! 
 
 forever every virile 
 thought. Knowing that 
 that which pleases in us 
 is Thyself, our only 
 thought shall be to 
 please Thee. We will 
 cultivate our beauty, 
 which exists by Thy 
 will ; and, associating it 
 indissolubly with the 
 idea of virtue, we will 
 assure the triumph of 
 good by the charm 
 which is exhaled from 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURATION 
 OF THE STATUE OF BRIZEUX AT LORI- 
 ENT, SEPTEMBER 9, 1 888. 
 
 YOUR festival is really charming, gentlemen. 
 You have had a happy inspiration. You have de- 
 sired that one of your most dainty poets should not 
 be left without a memorial in his native town. A 
 simple, elegant monument, in the best taste, will re- 
 call to you, every day, this tender soul, this excellent 
 man, who was born and grew up among you, and 
 who, better than anyone else, has revealed to the
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 45 
 
 world the dearest thoughts, the most secret re- 
 cesses of the conscience of your race, the deepest 
 secrets of your manner of feeling. His life, which 
 was modest and poorly recompensed, certainly had 
 a right to this reparation. Brittany was behind- 
 hand with Brizeux. Thanks to you, this appear- 
 ance of ingratitude is effaced. He who said : 
 " And I have not even an assured retreat," now 
 has his pedestal of granite, whence he invites us to 
 contemplate with him the sea, the sky, the infinite ; 
 the mysteries of the soul, which are never to be 
 exhausted. 
 
 It has been said that Brizeux discovered 
 Brittany. That is saying too much, perhaps. 
 But he certainly did discover one charming thing, 
 among others M. Le Braz expressed it finely 
 <)he other day, in his lecture at Lannion he dis- 
 covered Breton love love, discreet, tender, pro- 
 found, faithful, with its faint tinge of mysticism. 
 Two children who seek to be for hours together 
 without exchanging a word ; a pretty, rosy face, 
 very modest, under a white coif, nothing more, 
 that suffices ! Adorable simplicity of means ! 
 Oh ! how far removed we are with him from 
 that twaddle, from those perverse ingredients 
 which certain schools think themselves obliged to 
 mix with the divine ambrosia of love ! No jewels, 
 no adornments ; hardly flowers ; color itself ren- 
 dered useless, white and black sufficing to set 
 off the freshness of a virginal complexion.
 
 46 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Shall I say it, in eulogy of this excellent artist ? 
 He hardly needs beauty. Candor and innocence 
 are enough. 
 
 " I have seen Marie," said a friend of Brizeux, 
 a friend of his earliest years ; " she was not pre- 
 cisely pretty ; but there was a singular grace about 
 her." Eh! What more is required ? The effects 
 of beauty obtained by charm, that is the triumph 
 of Breton aesthetics, that is the art of Brizeux : an 
 exquisite art, always healthy, always noble, which 
 was never troubled in its limpidity by any literary 
 malady, by any of those ugly stains which soil the 
 purest works of our day. 
 
 His poetry was simple because it was true. He 
 loved life, with that which rendered it supportable, 
 the taste for good under all forms. He was not 
 of those who boast of having slain sleep. In 
 order to sleep, he had no need of those narcotics 
 which enervate more than sleeplessness. In order 
 to sleep, he needed only the shadow of an oak 
 tree on that land " where one can live and die 
 alone." He had his doubts, sometimes ; his 
 papers, scrutinized after his death by discreet 
 friends, bear witness to this ; he condemned the 
 sheets which contained them to remain unpub- 
 lished. This touching verse is very like him : 
 
 All shall hear my voice, none shall behold my tears. 
 
 Poetry and love, those voices from another 
 world, never abandoned him. Others culled the
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 47 
 
 flowers of evil ; he loved only the flowers of good, 
 that which elevates, that which consoles this poor 
 humanity, but too much inclined to calumniate it- 
 self. His ideal is a temple open to all, and from 
 which shall be excluded only " the coward and the 
 wicked man." 
 
 This faith in good preserved him from the great 
 modern errors, nihilism and pessimism. These 
 are not precisely the maladies of our race. The 
 portion of robust faith which is our heritage, even 
 reduced to clouds, sustains us. We have ex- 
 hausted nothing ; for we never drain the cup to its 
 dregs. That is why we are fresh for life when so 
 many others are weary of living. We are not 
 obliged to convert ourselves in order to pass to 
 modern ideas. We transfer to them our religious 
 sincerity, our fidelity, and, above all, that of which 
 this century stands most in need, our good sense, 
 our honesty. 
 
 When one is sure of being in the right, one is 
 gentle toward injustice. Times were very, very 
 hard for Brizeux. The provincial items were not 
 accorded, in his day, so large a freedom of the city 
 as at present, in the general literature of France. 
 Timid, like all Bretons, Brizeux sought to inaugu- 
 rate something which had not yet a place in the 
 official sunshine. He was little understood. He 
 desired to belong to the Academy, and the Acade- 
 my committed the error of not electing him. He 
 always remained poor ; but he sang to the very
 
 48 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 end. The confidant of his last hours, M. Saint- 
 Rene' Taillandier, has related how he died with the 
 assurance of a great heart, content with his work, 
 and proclaiming loudly his aversion for phara- 
 saisms, for all hypocrisies. 
 
 You have, indeed, done well, gentlemen, to 
 crown with public honors this life which was so dis- 
 interested, so lofty, so pure! This beautiful place, 
 filled with the memory of Brizeux, will be for 
 our city a place of meditation, a spot wherein to 
 dream the best thing in the world an dfesis 
 in the harsh desert of modern life. The positive 
 cares of our times render poetry only the more 
 necessary. It is, with religion included as a 
 matter of course, the balm which softens and con- 
 soles, the voice which says within us : Sursum 
 corda ! Lift up your hearts ! Here it will 
 have a place that is, in a manner, consecrated. A 
 visit to this pretty square will be the goal of pil- 
 grimages, whither people will come to seek repose 
 in the heat of the day. The statue of Brizeux will 
 be for you a sanctuary, a signal of recall to the 
 things of the heart and of the spirit. You will 
 love this place, and every time that you pass be- 
 fore this noble image, you will think of the poet 
 who has put your soul into his verses, you will 
 thank the excellent sculptor who has given you 
 such a perfect image of Brizeux.
 
 ERNEST REXAN. 49 
 
 LOVE AND RELIGION. 
 
 [Letter to M. Perivier, editor of The Literary Supplement of 
 " Figaro."] 
 
 PERROS-GUIREC, August 4, 1888. 
 
 Dear Sir : You insist on having my opinion 
 upon the charming competition which you have 
 thrown open to your lady readers on this question : 
 "Which book has spoken most delicately and most 
 eloquently of love ? " You inform me that a great 
 number of your subscribers seem to have agreed to 
 reply : " The Bible, the Gospels, the Imitation," 
 and you ask me what I think of this combination. 
 Scoffers will, perhaps, perceive in it a refinement 
 of hypocrisy, as though your correspondents had 
 wished to prove thereby that they read no other 
 books. This objection would have but little effect 
 on me ; for I confess that I love the women whose 
 mass-book constitutes their whole literature, pro- 
 vicled that, in addition, they be good or beautiful ; 
 but let us leave epigrams out of the discussion ; I 
 will examine the question, since you desire it, with 
 all the impartiality of a conscientious juror. 
 
 I think that the clever readers who have replied 
 thus to your question have replied well. In their 
 determination to cite only religious books, there 
 lies a great truth it is the fundamental identity of 
 religion and love. Yes, the Bible and the Gospels, 
 wonderful books in so many respects, are particularly
 
 5 RECOLLECTIONS AND LEISTERS OF 
 
 remarkable from the manner in which the relations 
 of the sexes are handled in them. The life of the 
 great evangelical charmer is, at every step, a box 
 on the ear administered to pharisees, either of the 
 libertine camp or the rigorist camp. The role of 
 Mary of Magdala, in the formation of the belief in 
 the resurrection, is the acme and really the miracle 
 of love. 
 
 In that great compilation which is called the 
 Bible, we make distinctions which your charming 
 subscribers are quite right in ignoring. The deli- 
 cious idyls, which will always maintain the Bible in 
 an incomparable rank among books, are found in 
 those portions of the ancient recitals which proceed 
 from a certain narrator, who is almost always easily 
 to be recognized. He is the author of the beau- 
 tiful pages in Genesis, wherein is depicted the 
 grandiose Jehovah who creates the world, then re- 
 pents ; who perceives plainly that the sole means to 
 reform humanity is to destroy it, and who, never- 
 theless, after his failure in the matter of the 
 Deluge, resolves to allow it to follow its own course 
 in the future. This pessimist of genius, the inven- 
 tor of original sin, is especially admirable in every, 
 thing .which concerns woman's part in human af- 
 fairs. When he attacks this subject, he is profound, 
 tender, mysterious. His terrible giant of a Je- 
 hovah occupies himself with marriages, interests 
 himself in lovers. It is to this philosopher, gloomy 
 as Schopenhauer or M. Hartmann, that we are
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 5! 
 
 indebted for the patriarchal idyls of Isaac and 
 Rebecca, of Jacob and Rachel. It is he who 
 shows us, in the dim distance, the sons of God 
 perceiving that the daughters of men were fair, and 
 quite at the beginning of things, it is he who re- 
 lates to us how the woman was drawn from the 
 side of the man the most beautiful myth which 
 exists in any religion ; the primitive nudity, at which 
 the inhabitants of Eden did not blush ; the modesty 
 which is born with sin, the broad leaves of the 
 Indian fig tree serving to veil their first shame ; 
 then that garment of skins in which Jehovah, a 
 costumer of the Michael Angelo pattern, clothes the 
 exiles with his own hands. 
 
 The book of Ruth is of the same school. No 
 one is so tender as the austere man. All these old 
 fables are marvels of grandeur, of sober and firm 
 design, without any of those literary reticences which 
 spoil everything. For my part, I cannot read it 
 without tears. And certainly, I am also very fond 
 of that touching anonymous person, that old monk 
 arrived at the perfection of wisdom, who wrote in 
 the "Imitation" the perfect rule of love: Ama 
 nesciri Love to be ignorant. 
 
 If I had taken part in your competition, de- 
 scending to more human regions without emerging 
 from mysticism, I might, perhaps, have added to 
 these almost divine books, several grand works of 
 Christian genius ; for example, the "Confessions of 
 Saint Augustine," the " Introduction to the Life of
 
 52 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Devotion," of St. Francois cle Sales. What 
 enchanting books ! Especially the " Introduction ! " 
 I have it not at hand here. But I recall the chap- 
 ter on the love of wedded pairs as one of the most 
 charming pages in existence. The holy bishop 
 has a peculiar system for conjugal love ; he thinks 
 that, marriage being in itself a heavy, disagreeable 
 thing, filled with duties in short a purgatory 
 the Eternal in his infinite goodness has added to 
 it a special sweetness, which one may enjoy with 
 all quietness of conscience, since it is the com- 
 pensation for a chain which is otherwise extremely 
 unpleasant. 
 
 Thus Abimelech, King of Gerar, receiving 
 in his states Isaac and Rebecca, " the chastest 
 married pair in all the Old Testament," who gave 
 themselves out as brother and sister, speedil" 
 recognized the fact that they were something quite 
 different. As he walked in the evening through 
 the streets of Gerar, he divined the truth, from the 
 manner in which they smiled at each other. The 
 commentary of Francois de Sales on this narrative 
 is a masterpiece of delicacy and worldly irony, 
 relieved by extreme goodness. Nevertheless, is 
 the reasoning of the sainted bishop very conclu- 
 sive, and is the compensatory plan of the Eternal 
 as evident as he thinks ? We may certainly dis- 
 pute this. For, in short, if pleasure had not been 
 devised by God to render marriage endurable, we 
 must conclude that it does not exist outside of
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 53 
 
 marriage. Now, the holy bishop does not dare go 
 so far as that, and it appears, from this point on, 
 that his theory as to the secret designs which God 
 may have had when he invented love, is weak at 
 the very foundation. 
 
 There is also, perhaps, something defective 
 through irony, in the manner in which Francois de 
 Sales, in this same chapter, desires that one should 
 treat old married people. According to him they 
 must be regarded as ripe fruits. If they possess 
 no defect, no spot which arouses a fear lest they 
 may spoil, one may preserve them all winter ; and 
 to that end, the best means is to bind them up in 
 the very leaves which clustered about them in their 
 freshness. These leaves constitute a little environ- 
 ment for them ; a society, habits, wherein they 
 believe that they still live. But if they have some 
 blemish, some principle of corruption, they are fit 
 only to be made into preserve. The preserve, 
 naturally, is devotion, which preserves them and 
 furnishes them with sugar which they would not, 
 perhaps, any longer retain otherwise. 
 
 I give this recipe of the good Bishop of Annecy 
 for what it is worth. It is not for the sake of that 
 page that I would have presented it to the com- 
 petition. But it is certain, that the tone which he 
 maintains with his Philothea is that of an exquisite 
 man. He was very fond of women, and put them 
 to marvelous profit, because he always imposed 
 upon himself the absolute rule of his profession.
 
 54 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 He admits the possibility of tender collaboration 
 and of very intimate relations between man and 
 woman, to the advantage of a work beloved in 
 common. This is one of the secrets of the Church 
 of Jesus, and therein lies the explanation of the 
 sentiment which women, in certain countries, often 
 cherish for priests. They find them superior to 
 their husbands, and, as the sarcedotal vow in- 
 spires them with a sort of security, they give them- 
 selves up, without qualms, to a sentiment \\hich 
 they would combat under any other circumstances. 
 
 Award then, without hesitation, the prize to those 
 of your competitors who have voted for the sacred 
 boofcr They have perfectly understood, in the 
 first place, that the good manner of speaking of 
 love is to place the essence and perfume of it 
 everywhere, not to talk of it directly and in a 
 doctrinal tone ; next, that the mystics, or, in other 
 words, those who have made the least misuse of 
 love are those who can speak of it the best. 
 
 Give as prize to these grave readers a copy of 
 the " Introduction to the Life of Devotion," in the 
 edition of M. de Sacy, published by Techener, with 
 Jansenist binding. What an enviable privilege is 
 that of these ancient books, which have the right 
 to be read in church by pious women, at the 
 moment when, with eyes down-dropped, without 
 distractions, they hold all their thoughts concen- 
 trated before God, having nothing in their hearts 
 save what is tender, amiable, and good ! I often
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 55 
 
 wish to live in the few phrases over which those 
 for whom the ancient missal does not suffice run 
 their eyes. Alas ! I know not whether that will be 
 granted me ! 
 
 Now it is understood, that if you have received 
 more worldly, more gay, more truthful solutions 
 perhaps, you must not deprive them of their 
 recompense either. In this case, give prizes cor- 
 responding to the eternal duplicity which forms 
 the bottom of human nature, and everyone will be 
 satisfied ; which is the essential point. 
 
 Believe in my sentiments of the most affectionate 
 devotion. 
 
 THE CELTIC DINNER. 
 
 THE Celtic dinner was, at first, a reunion of poor 
 Bretons, nearly all of whom made verses, and as- 
 sembled to read them to each other once a month, 
 at the nearest possible spot to the railway station 
 where one alights on arriving in Brittany. Its 
 founder is M. Quellien, a poet himself and the au- 
 thor of Breton novels, full of charm. The price of 
 the dinner was fixed in the beginning, and still re- 
 mains, at five francs. Its sobriety has remained 
 the same ; but, thanks to an obliging ethnography, 
 the limits of the Celtic race are the limits of the 
 world itself ; all races receive hearty welcome 
 at our little circle. I have seen there Hindoos,
 
 56 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Lithuanians, Hungarians, and even negroes. At 
 desert, cider takes the place of champagne ; poe- 
 try overflows in the most widely differing languages; 
 the low Breton sung by Quellien forces applause 
 from even those who do not understand the first 
 word of it. 
 
 Quellien prolonged my life by ten years when, 
 about 1880, he invited me to these reunions full of 
 gayety and cordiality. There I find again all my 
 old memories ; I feel rejuvenated by fifty years. 
 
 I talk a great deal there, and, as I like to talk 
 at dinners without counting or preparing my 
 words, I emerge from them as from a trip to 
 Brittany, gay relatively speaking ardent for my 
 work, attached once more to life. 
 
 Although the most absolute discretion is the rule 
 of the Celtic dinner, Quellien knows some journals. 
 He knows that the public are amused with very 
 small matters, provided that they concern persons 
 whose names are familiar, and that what is said of 
 them is not very serious. 
 
 The friendship of those who listen to me causes 
 them, moreover, to find pleasure in recalling dis- 
 connected remarks, which possessed no other in- 
 terest than the freedom with which they were 
 uttered. Sometimes the newspapers have con- 
 tained extracts of them on the following morning. 
 
 Twice or thrice it has happened to me, while 
 perusing these good-natured accounts, to find that, 
 thanks to the -editors, who put a little coherence
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 57 
 
 into them, some of my remarks contained a toler- 
 ably pronounced Breton flavor. My dear Calmann 
 having recommended me to compose this volume 
 of nothing which was not Breton, I give here two 
 or three scraps of this nature. They refer to the 
 two or three solemn occasions of the Celtic dinner, 
 which are the first meeting in November, the 
 King's (the Epiphany) dinner in January, and that 
 which Quellien calls the " Pardon of the Bretons," 
 at the April reunion. 
 
 On the feast of the Epiphany of 1889, the fol- 
 lowing is attributed to me : 
 
 " You know what a horror I have of speeches, 
 especially of speeches at table and yet, 1 
 cannot help saying something in honor of the 
 Three Kings. Yes, I cherish a particular 
 devotion for them. In those days they were 
 good old days ! the wise men were kings, 
 the kings were wise men ! And what beautiful 
 attributes they had ! One bore incense, another 
 bore myrrh. And the third prompt me, Coppee ! 
 
 " Ah, yes ! the third bore gold. A good 
 thing also ! Ah ! they were very chimerical 
 kings, and if they were to arrive in Paris, and offer 
 themselves to universal suffrage oh! certainly, we 
 should vote for them, eternal children that we are, 
 obstinate partisans of the chimerical. Would we 
 not, Quellien? But what a fine fiasco we should 
 make too ! Oh ! a complete fiasco ! These poor 
 Magi kings ! how they would be beaten ! Evi- 
 dently universal suffrage is a fine thing. But I 
 think that the Magi kings would have done better
 
 58 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 to present themselves in Brittany. There, perhaps, 
 in short for they were, after all, real idealists, 
 quitting their country to follow a star ! there 
 they would have been received with honors ; they 
 would have been cheered. I have no doubt about 
 the matter ; they would have been unanimously 
 nominated sovereigns of this kingdom of which we 
 form a part, of which we are the faithful subjects, 
 the kingdom of the eternal chimera ! Therefore 
 I wish to propose a toast, in this excellent cider, to 
 the health of the Magi kings to the health of 
 Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar." 
 
 At the moment when M. Renan raises his glass, 
 cries are heard from all quarters : 
 
 "Who is the king?" 
 
 M. Renan cutting the cake which stands before 
 him : 
 
 " Can it be I, by any chance ? Oh, good Heav- 
 ens ! I perceive, a trifle too late, that, in drinking 
 the health of Balthazar, I have drunk my own 
 health. Gentlemen, I am really touched. Here I 
 am king ! I have for insignia a bean. What 
 a delicious kingdom is that of the bean ! Perhaps 
 it is chance which has favored me. But I prefer 
 to be king under the sign of the bean, rather than 
 to be chosen by universal suffrage. Let us drink 
 then to the bean, to the Magi kings, to the realm 
 of faerie, to the forest of Broceliande ! " 
 
 In 1891 I repeated myself somewhat ; for it 
 would appear that this is what I said : 
 
 " How shall one contrive to speak of the Magi 
 after our friend Bocuhor, in his enchanting ' Noel,'
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 59 
 
 of the other day ? What an exquisite little work, 
 what a charming evening he has given me ! 
 What good sentiments he attributed to his royal 
 personages ! I know not whether those worthy 
 sovereigns possessed so advanced a theology. 
 But what does it matter? They were certainly 
 persons of spirit. 
 
 The legend does not state that they came to 
 Brittany. It is a pity they came to Treves ; the 
 fact is certain, since their inn is still to be seen 
 there the inn in which they stayed evidently, 
 it was the best in town. Travelers of such 
 importance ! 
 
 But, if we are not certain that they came to Brit- 
 tany, it is, at least, excessively probable, is it 
 not, my dear Quellien ? Make some researches 
 on this point ; you will discover something. And 
 if they did go thither, they must have been ex- 
 tremely pleased. They found there so many good 
 things, a sweet country, good people and good 
 cider. 
 
 They are certainly our patrons. We idealists, 
 detached from the things of earth, follow a star, 
 like the Magi, without knowing in the least 
 whither it will conduct us ! 
 
 How good was that which they did they 
 abandoned their subjects, and, after all, we do 
 not see that the subjects grumbled over it. 
 Constitutional rule sometimes makes progress 
 through the absence, the madness, or the minority 
 of sovereigns. 
 
 Yes, we are a little like those Magi of the Orient. 
 We are the traveling companions of the stars ! 
 That which they followed, not knowing whither it 
 would conduct them, led them to a manger, where, 
 upon the straw, they found that which they sought.
 
 60 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The stars which we follow resemble the star of 
 the Magi ; they lead us upon the straw. We 
 succeed in everything, gentlemen, but I believe 
 that we shall never succeed in becoming rich. 
 That is not our profession. We shall always leave 
 to others the burdensome care of being wealthy. 
 That does not concern us. Vidimus stdlam ejus j 
 venimus adorare cum We have seen his star ; we 
 come to adore him. I sometimes feel a great 
 curiosity to know what took place in the kingdoms 
 of these good monarchs, during their journey 
 in quest of the true God. I ought to have asked 
 my colleague M. de Vogue. You know that the 
 Vogues descend from the Magi kings, or, at least 
 from the one named Melchior, and that is why 
 the eldest of the family bears the baptismal name 
 of Melchior, in memory of their glorious ancestor. 
 My colleague de Vogue must have among his 
 family documents some very interesting informa- 
 tion concerning him. It is the same in Savoy, 
 where the Costa de Beauregard, if I am not mis- 
 taken, believe that they descend from the good 
 thief, and hence the eldest of the family is always 
 named Bonlarron good thief ! Ah ! that is a 
 
 saint of fine authenticity Jesus said to him 
 
 on the cross : ' To-day thou shall be with me in 
 paradise ! ' There are few canonizations so regu- 
 lar as that. 
 
 It is always Latin and history that the cures 
 know. If I had been a country priest, as it was, 
 evidently, my vocation to be what a charming 
 profession ! How much good one can do, and 
 how happy one can be ! I would have pronounced 
 a panegyric every year on the Magi kings. Not 
 being a country priest, finding myself called to
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 6 1 
 
 other exercises, I return to my beaten path with 
 you ; I become parish priest once more." 
 
 The Pardon of 1889 was particularly brilliant 
 and animated. Quellien sparkled. 
 
 " You have spoken like an oracle, my dear Quel- 
 lien, and you must be very greatly satisfied and 
 proud to have such a fine Celtic dinner this even- 
 ing ; a dinner such as you have never seen before. 
 
 M. Quellien. Oh ! Yes, I have ! At Tre- 
 guier ! 
 
 M. Renan. Yes, at Treguier only, if you please. 
 Well ! I assure you, gentlemen, that this festival 
 fills me with joy. My friend Quellien has just 
 reminded you, in the most perfect way, of what a 
 Pardon is. One could find a great deal of pleas- 
 ure in it, even if one did not belong to the parish. 
 There were dances, drinking ; one heard sermons ; 
 one gained indulgences. Indulgences ! . . . . 
 Oh, what a good thing ! Who among us does 
 not need them ? It was a very good thing ; forty 
 days, a hundred days of indulgence, to be won ! 
 It is true that forty days of indulgence, when one 
 has thousands of days of purgatory in perspective, 
 are very little. But, on the other hand, I always 
 figure this purgatory to myself as something 
 charming. It must be an excessively agreeable 
 sojourn ; one always finds excellent company 
 there ; for, is it not true, that it is not the people 
 who are the most agreeable to know, who go 
 straight to paradise ? I imagine that we shall find 
 there discreet, little, somber alleys, where charming 
 interviews will be unfolded, perhaps the continua- 
 tions of delicious romances begun on earth.
 
 62 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 This Quellien is, really, an organizer of the first 
 rank. [Addressing Prince Roland Bonaparte:] 
 Permit me, Prince, to tell you a little of his eth- 
 nography ; it is truly marvelous. He is convinced 
 that the Celtic race is the center, the pivot of the 
 entire world; but the question is as to how he 
 understands the matter. According to his manner 
 of looking at it, the limits of the Celtic country 
 are the limits of the world. All the world is Celt, 
 and thus it is that we meet at this dinner a com- 
 pany that is excellent and varied in the most 
 delightful manner. 
 
 But to return to the Pardons, I often picture to 
 myself those of Brittany in the olden time. At 
 Saint Yves, for example, near Treguier, I remem- 
 ber that pulpit backed up against the wall of the 
 church in the Middle Ages, you know, they 
 preached in the open air. The pulpit was reached 
 by a ladder : no other communication existed, 
 either on the interior or exterior no staircase. 
 The preacher climbed over the balustrade and 
 spoke. On the whole, that which was preached 
 was tolerably within my own sympathies ; they 
 preached the pardon of injuries, reconciliation 
 this, by the way, was a very good thing, and I feel 
 grateful to my dear Saint Yves for having inspired 
 from his tomb so good a doctrine. I have related 
 elsewhere how he was my guardian. At the death 
 of my father, my mother, perceiving the desperate 
 state of my affairs, took me by the hand, led me to 
 his chapel, and confided me to the care of this 
 excellent man of the law. I cannot say that the 
 holy man proved himself a great man of business, 
 so far as I am concerned ; I am none the less 
 grateful to him. A few days ago I read the docu- 
 ments which M. de La Borderie has published on
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 63 
 
 his biography. Some of them made an impression 
 on me. There we behold the man as though he 
 had- lived only twenty years ago ; his costume, his 
 ways, his habits of action ; in everything he was 
 one of the men who has done the most honor to 
 Brittany. His reputation was spread over the 
 whole world. A low-Breton who makes the vast 
 world speak of him certainly deserves some credit 
 for that. In order to find a holy lawyer, people 
 have been forced to come in search of him even to 
 Lower Brittany ; it is because there were not many 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Heavens ! How I should like to preach a lay 
 sermon from the summit of that pulpit of Saint 
 Yves, or from any other. I should have liked to 
 preach ! However, 1 am a priest miscarried ! am 
 I not, and the civil dress does not suit me at all. 
 [Laughter.] I should have liked to preach at a 
 Pardon in Brittany, and what I should have liked 
 to preach is a little pacification. Men are too 
 much divided ; that saddens me. In my child- 
 hood I did not see that ; there were great differ- 
 ences of opinion, there was no division to the 
 death, as there is to-day. My father and my 
 grandfather were great patriots ; they took part in 
 the revolution. In 1815 the situation became very 
 difficult for my father. The counter-signature of 
 a Chevalier of Saint Louis was necessary on every 
 occasion. The principal Legitimist of the locality 
 came and said to him : ' M. Renan, when you 
 require a signature, I do not wish you to ask for 
 it from anyone but me.' Not a shadow of hatred 
 between the men who had almost discharged shots 
 at each other the day before. 
 
 This began to undergo a change in 1830. Thus 
 it was that the mass which was said for the festi-
 
 64 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 val day of the King, Louis Philippe Philippe's 
 mass as it was called became a great cause of 
 divisions. My mother related to me how, one day, 
 she went to this mass it was on a Sunday. On 
 
 her way thither, she encountered Madame D , a 
 
 very respectable person, who lived along side of 
 us an old Legitimist, of course who said to her : 
 ' What, Madame Renan, are you going to Phi- 
 lippe's mass ! ' And my mother answered her : 
 
 'Good Heavens! Madame D , I am going to 
 
 mass, but if it causes you pain, I will not go.' 
 
 It is not like that now ; people are at swords' 
 points. We who dwell in Paris do not see it. 
 Everything with us is confined to very petty 
 schisms, to schismatic dinners, which signify 
 nothing ; is not one free to dine in one's own 
 fashion ? But, in the country, it is much more 
 serious. People scrutinize each other and press 
 each other very close. I repeat, let us endeavor 
 to understand each other; human affairs are not 
 worth the trouble, while rending each other asunder 
 over them, of rendering existence disagreeable on 
 account of them. 
 
 This is the little lay sermon which I should have 
 liked to preach had it been possible for me to 
 speak in a pulpit, which is forbidden to me. 
 
 Well, let us thank our dear Quellien for his 
 initiative, and let us all drink, if you please, to the 
 prosperity of this dinner; not, as Quellien said, to 
 his Pardon of 1909, but, within sensible and modest 
 limits, to its cordiality, to its gayety. May Saint Yves 
 guard us against quarrels and discords. Amen." 
 
 At the session, when we reassembled in Novem- 
 ber, the gentlemen ask me in general how I have 
 spent my holiday at Perros.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 65 
 
 " I have seen once more my little old friends : 
 flowers which I have never seen except in Brittany, 
 birds upon which I founded a complete mythology 
 in my childhood. Never do I hear without a shiver 
 'the bird which saws its heart.' It has a strong 
 hiccough, which recalls the sound of a saw drawn 
 down from above. It troubles me ; I imagined in- 
 side of him a little diamond saw, with steel teeth, 
 prodigiously fine, with which he made an incision 
 in his heart to keep from suffocating. 
 
 The young girls seem to me as pretty and ingen- 
 uous as ever ; evidently our doctrines have not 
 reached them. They have the same air of gay, 
 resigned credulity. We live all our life on the 
 memory of the heads of young girls which we have 
 seen from sixteen to eighteen years of age. I have 
 seen once more several of the little friends who 
 played with me when I was a child, and who ap- 
 peared to me, for the first time, to personify duty, 
 charm, virtue. They are no longer my little friends. 
 Poor Manon, my little nurse, who was five or six 
 years older than I, died last year. She belonged to 
 a family of poor Legitimists. We used to have 
 grand political discussions ; she maintained that 
 Louis Philippe was not really king. She died happy 
 in the hospital, where I went to see her, for I gave 
 the wherewithal to make for her, after her death, 
 what is called a chapel ; that is to say, a funeral ex- 
 hibition at the gate of the hospital, where relatives 
 and friends come to bid you farewell. A more ser- 
 ious nurse was Marie L , whom I found again 
 
 this year. She is a hospital nurse, under the name 
 of Sister Marie-Agathe. She must be more than 
 eighty years of age. I was six years old ; I 
 thought her very pretty. 
 
 I conferred this distinction upon her at a very
 
 66 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 early age. The day after our instalment at Lan- 
 nion I was seven years old I was dispatched on 
 an errand to an aunt, who was very kind to us, 
 where we had two cousins, who soon became great 
 friends with my sister Henriette. I did my errand 
 all wrong ; I had forgotten everything. ' Come, 
 whom did you see? Adele? Alexandrine?' I 
 did not yet know how to distinguish my cousins 
 by name. I replied : ' The pretty one.' That 
 
 evening my aunt told the tale to my Aunt T ; 
 
 they laughed a great deal ; the one who was not 
 pretty, but who was the best girl in the world, 
 * made war ' on me during the whole evening. 
 
 In this connection let me tell you that, a few 
 months ago, I had a lively impression of the pleasure 
 which I used to feel with my young girl companions 
 sixty years ago. It was in my quarters at the Col- 
 lege de France. One day Yves, my servant-man, 
 came and announced that an old lady and a young 
 girl requested to speak with me. I gave orders 
 that they should be shown in. The young one 
 entered alone, and seated herself with charming 
 grace and ease. She was a child of twelve or 
 thirteen, her face fresh and rosy, Surrounded by an 
 aureole of white curls, with an expression of ex- 
 treme candor. I thought I beheld an apparition, 
 as though one of the little Bretons of my sixteenth 
 year had been resuscitated before me ; I thought 
 of the one whom I had loved the most : Sic oculos, 
 sic ilia tnanus, sic ora ferebat These were her 
 eyes, this was her hand, thus spoke her mouth. 
 
 My little visitor opened the conversation at 
 once. 'Sir,' she said to me, 'will you accept 
 something from me ? ' ' Yes, certainly, mademoi- 
 selle.' She opened a very tiny card-case, and took 
 from it a small medal, which she handed to me.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 67 
 
 As I thanked her. she said, without literary affecta- 
 tion, that I had written a great many beautiful 
 things, that people had quoted to her some of my 
 thoughts which had given her pleasure. Not a 
 word about religion. Oh, profound cleverness of 
 the dove ! She knew that the first word of propa- 
 ganda would have awakened in me the hardened 
 protester, and that once entangled in those arid 
 wastes, one can no longer escape from them. She 
 remained on the ground of which she was the mis- 
 tress, and allowed me to parade before her 1 know 
 not what incoherent phrase about the distinction 
 between the gift in itself and the sentiment which 
 had prompted the offering of it. On leaving, she 
 offered me her little hand, and permitted me to 
 press it. I conducted her to the anteroom, where 
 I found seated a sort of elderly nun, who had ac- 
 companied her. From the contented smile of the 
 young girl, the duenna understood that I had 
 accepted. I overheard the two women conversing 
 very affectionately about me as they descended the 
 staircase. 
 
 I ask your pardon for thus diving with you into 
 my memories, but life, at my age, is made up of 
 souvenirs ; it is also made of good moments like 
 this. You really rejuvenate me when you appear 
 so glad to have me at your table that it would be 
 very ungracious of me, next year, not to be in this 
 world, in order to be present at such a gathering." 
 
 Quellien has many other notes ; I leave them to 
 him ; he will narrate all when I am dead. He will 
 do well, nevertheless, to limit himself, and not to 
 fall into the provincial error of assuming that every- 
 one must take pleasure in that which the memories
 
 68 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 of our childhood tinge for us with deceptive hues. 
 A certain history of a parish priest in Brittany 
 strikes me as full of philosophy. One day, during 
 the sermon, everyone burst into tears. A stout 
 fellow, who was leaning against the base of a pillar, 
 remained utterly indifferent. " And you, why do 
 you not weep?" he was asked. " I ?" he replied, 
 " I am not of this parish." 
 
 THE GAULS IN BRITTANY. 
 
 DURING the last days of August, 1889, the Ar- 
 chaeological Society of Wales, while visiting Brit- 
 tany, made a brief halt at my solitude of Ros- 
 mapamon. In introducing them to me, my friend, 
 Mr. John Rhys, professor of Celtic at Oxford Uni- 
 versity, was so good as to utter a few words which 
 touched me to the heart. J replied as follows : 
 
 " I ought to thank you in Breton, gentlemen and 
 ladies. But it is now fourteen hundred years since 
 we separated ; our dialects have had time to 
 diverge widely ; we might find some difficulty in 
 
 understanding each other. And in English 
 
 That is one of my disgraces. In my day, we were 
 taught only Latin. I read English, but I under- 
 stand it ill when I hear it, and I do not speak it. 
 It is a little the fault of my wife, who has acted as 
 my interpreter on the numerous occasions when I 
 have had need of your beautiful language. 
 
 You come from Lannion, the natal town of my
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 69 
 
 mother. I will relate to you a memory about that 
 little city, which was told me by your great poet 
 Tennyson. During an excursion to Brittany, he 
 passed a night at Lannion. On preparing to de- 
 part, he asked his landlady for his bill, and she 
 replied: 'Oh, nothing, sir. You have sung our 
 King Arthur ! ' Our community of race is one of 
 the historical facts upon which I am fondest of 
 meditating. I have often said to myself, that if 
 the storms which traverse our poor land of France 
 in this century should force me to seek an asylum in 
 England it is not probable ; I am old, and then, 
 this dear country is tenacious of life ; one must 
 not get excited over every crisis which it tra- 
 verses I should appeal, if only for the sake 
 of amusing the public a little, to the old law of 
 Edward the Confessor : Britones, Armorici, quum 
 venerint in regno isto suscipi debent et in regno 
 protegi sicut probi cives de corpore regni hujus ; 
 exierunt quondam de sanguine Britonum regni 
 hujus. [Britons and Armoricans, when they come 
 to this kingdom, must be received and protected 
 like honorable citizens of the body of this king- 
 dom ; for they spring from the blood of the 
 Britons of this kingdom.] People remembered 
 the history of the olden days then. Moreover, we 
 have not changed much. We belong to an obsti- 
 nate race which is always behind the times. 
 Even when, in appearance, we pass from black to 
 white, we remain the same at bottom. Our old 
 saints were very headstrong. Those good old 
 saints of Brittany, all of Gaelic or Irish origin, are 
 my great devotion. I do not care much for the 
 modern saints, I confess ; they are too intolerant. 
 Alas, veritable saints are becoming scarcer every 
 clay ! The modern clergy does not love them ;
 
 ?o RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 they say mass once a year in their chapel, but they 
 are not sorry when the chapel and the legend dis- 
 appear. The clergy has an instinctive feeling 
 that these saints of another day were a bit hereti- 
 cal and schismatic ; in any case, they have never 
 been canonized by the Pope. This is what oc- 
 curred, not very far from this spot, a few years 
 ago, I am told. There was a little chapel dedi- 
 cated to Saint Betizec. I think that is the ancient 
 name Budoc. His stone statue had become nearly 
 shapeless ; the parish priest took up a collection to 
 restore it. This produced about forty francs, with 
 which the cure purchased from the image-dealers 
 of the Rue Saint-Sulpice, a Virgin of Lourdes, 
 which, he cleverly substituted for the decrepit 
 statue. This is the manner in which a saint is 
 suppressed and replaced by the effigy of a melan- 
 choly modern miracle. In heaven we know Saint 
 Beuzec is safe from attack. But on earth, what 
 dangers are incurred by these old patriarchs of our 
 race. A few good women still know their legends, 
 which the parish priest feigns to be ignorant of ; 
 they must be collected as speedily as possible. 
 
 The resemblances are great between us. The 
 differences, on the contrary, seem to me very 
 small. You are Protestants ; we are Catholics. 
 Oh, that is a difference of merely secondary 
 rank ! Are not Protestants and Catholics the same 
 before God, if they practice their religion from the 
 heart ? I am in the habit of saying that, in virtue 
 of many analogies, the Breton populations of 
 France should have become Protestants like those 
 of England. The religious sentiment in these 
 peoples is very profound, very individual, very 
 much detached from forms and books. Renee of 
 France, the daughter of Anne of Brittany, was
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 71 
 
 Calvin's firmest supporter. The power of Rome in 
 these localities has been created by the French 
 concordats, the result of which has been that, for 
 centuries, there has hardly been a single Bishop in 
 Breton territory who could speak Breton. 
 
 You are good English subjects, we are good 
 French subjects : two fine traditions of civilization. 
 .... A lofty duty is incumbent upon both of us. 
 It is to maintain friendly relations between the 
 great nations who share us between them, and 
 whose common action, whose rivalry, if you like, is 
 so necessary to the good of civilization. It is so 
 stupid to hate each other. By working for peace, 
 we shall, in reality, be working at a Celtic labor. 
 
 Did time permit, I would tell you my ideas as to 
 the ethnography of France and the United King- 
 dom. My opinion is that the proportion of Celtic 
 and Germanic elements is very nearly the same in 
 both. The Anglo-Saxons did not carry their 
 women with them any more than the Franks did. 
 The triumph of the Anglo-Saxon tongue arises 
 from the fact that, with you, Latin did not kill out 
 the Celtic dialects as it did on this side of the 
 Strait. Anglo-Saxon was extinguished by Anglo- 
 Roman, as the Frank language died out before the 
 
 Gallo-Roman But I have already detained 
 
 you too long with my loquacity. You are in haste 
 to go and pay your devotion to Notre-Dame de la 
 Clatre, and to Saint Guirec. I will go with you."
 
 72 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 CAN ONE WORK IN THE COUNTRY ? A 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE SORBONNE 
 AT A GENERAL SESSION OF THE CON- 
 GRESS OF THE LEARNED SOCIETIES, 
 JUNE 15, 1889. 
 
 MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE. 
 
 Gentlemen : When an amiable message from 
 Monsieur the Minister of Public Instruction pro- 
 posed to me, a month ago, the honor of taking part 
 in this solemn assembly, I was so much touched 
 by the pleasure that I should have in conversing 
 with you for a few moments, that I forgot the wise 
 resolution which I adopted several years ago, never 
 to speak again in this vast amphitheater made for 
 voices younger and more sure of themselves than 
 mine. Nevertheless, the temptation was very great. 
 An audience like yours, the result of an enlightened 
 selection, seems to me a piece of rare good fortune ; 
 your reunion appears to me the living proof of a 
 thought which is Jiabitual with me, or, to express it 
 more exactly, like a decisive argument in favor of 
 a protest which always escapes from my lips when 
 I hear the deplorably erroneous opinion announced 
 that one can work only in Paris. On a day like 
 this such an assertion is, assuredly, nonsense. In 
 the presence of such lofty recompenses and of this 
 mass of works to which the most competent judges
 
 ERNEST REXAN-. 73 
 
 render homage ; after listening to your infinitely 
 learned discourses on the infinitely varied objects 
 which occupy the human mind, the learned fe- 
 cundity of the country requires no demonstration. 
 It is none the less true that the contrary opinion 
 leads many minds astray, thwarts many careers. I 
 should like, in your company, to seek the origin, 
 the causes of this, and, if possible, to point out 
 some remedies by means of which certain real 
 inconveniences may be lessened. 
 
 The idea that one cannot work in the country is 
 less than one hundred years old. A hundred 
 years ago Buffon had just died ; the great out- 
 lines of " Natural History " had been discovered at 
 Montbard. A little earlier, Montesquieu had dis- 
 covered the most profound laws of political history 
 at Bordeaux. Not only did men work in the prov- 
 inces in those days, but they produced masterpieces 
 there. The concentration of intellectual matters 
 in Paris begins during the first years of the nine- 
 teenth century. Around this marvelous center of 
 light and intellect, a zone of shadow could not fail 
 to form, by the law of contrasts. A powerful drain- 
 age of the intellectual forces of France was in 
 operation. The Constitution of the year III had 
 settled that there was to be a National Institute 
 for the whole of the Republic a national institute 
 charged with collecting discoveries, and perfecting 
 arts and sciences. A few weeks later, the Conven- 
 tion decreed : " The National Institute of Arts
 
 74 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 and Sciences belongs to the whole Republic : it 
 is fixed at Paris." 
 
 It is clear that this decision did not arouse a 
 single objection when it was passed. In its first 
 organization, the Institute was composed of a cer- 
 tain number of members residing in Paris and a 
 like number of associate members residing in the 
 different parts of the Republic. At the end of a 
 few years, the impossibility of recruiting the pro- 
 vincial contingent in a suitable manner was recog- 
 nized ; residence in Paris was indispensable. The 
 irresistible law was fulfilled. A maxim which is 
 upheld in practice, even by those who condemn it 
 in theory, could not fail to have deep roots. The 
 exaggerated tendency to Parisian centralization 
 must have had causes, in some direction, in its 
 day. 
 
 Its cause, in fact, lay in a very real necessity, in 
 a momentary state of science which decreed that, 
 for a certain period, creative efforts should be 
 concentrated at a special point. The budget of 
 science was slender in those days ; its implements 
 were restricted in number ; the means of research 
 were singularly limited, could not be separated 
 into small bits without damage. The masters 
 were, also, very few. When Laplace monopolized 
 the problem of the mechanism of the universe ; 
 when Berthollet concentrated in his laboratory 
 the efforts of a newly born chemistry ; when the 
 battle of natural history was carried on
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 75 
 
 sively around Cuvier and his emulators ; when 
 Oriental studies were dependent upon Silvestre 
 de Sacy, the multiplicity of schools was useless. 
 It might even have proved fatal. Creation in sci- 
 entific, literary, and artistic directions 'generally 
 takes place at well-defined points, hence the 
 creative age necessarily tends to unity. The spot 
 where Galileo worked monopolized astronomy, 
 as a matter of course. When Descartes and New- 
 ton held in their brains the loftiest thought of their 
 time, they were also terrible centralizers. 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that the brilliant and 
 fruitful period which France has been traversing 
 for the last sixty years should have exacted a 
 center of blossoming, a sort of nest, powerfully 
 overheated and wisely arranged for the incubation 
 of the many germs which have become, at the 
 present moment, distinct worlds. The origin of 
 each science almost always carries us back to a 
 very restricted school to an egg, if I may so ex- 
 press myself containing the principle of evolution 
 and the nourishment of the new-born infant. 
 
 In order to make the chart of the heavens, an 
 observatory was necessary. The work of renova- 
 ting the ancient texts was possible only in the 
 neighborhood of a vast library of manuscripts. 
 Abel Remusat could not have created the science 
 of Chinese in a city where there was no collection 
 of Chinese books. 
 
 But the state of affairs is now quite different.
 
 76 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The maturity to which a great many sciences have 
 attained permits of excellent work outside of the 
 centers where the creation was first made. Books 
 and scientific collections are now so numerous that 
 one is allowed to arrive, through reading, at orig- 
 inal combinations. Leaving out of the question 
 local history, which is so interesting, at least one 
 half of scientific research can be effected by work 
 in the study. In many branches of sciences in the 
 majo'ity of Oriental studies, for example the con- 
 sulta' ion of old books, anterior to the introduction 
 of modern methods, has only a secondary impor- 
 tance By means of decidedly limited sacrifices, a 
 sagacious investigator can, on a mass of problems 
 of the first magnitude, assemble about him all the 
 elements for entirely new critical researches. It is 
 even very remarkable that it is the youngest sci- 
 ences which require the least apparatus, and which 
 can best be cultivated in cities which are not rich 
 in repositories of ancient books. Take compara- 
 tive philology, for example. By an initial expen- 
 diture of a few thousand francs, and a subscription 
 to three or four special publications, one may pos- 
 sess the tools necessary for those long and patient 
 comparisons for which the tranquillity of mind that 
 one enjoys in the country offers particularly favor- 
 able conditions. 
 
 A very great number of branches of study might 
 be thus pursued in an entirely private manner, and 
 in the most retired localities. The finest example
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 77 
 
 in this line has been furnished by the illustrious 
 Borghesi, who deliberately selected San Marino, 
 and made it the center of his studies in Latin epig- 
 raphy. He preferred a free village, where no 
 one would concern themselves about him, further 
 than to salute him respectfully, to papal Rome, 
 where people would have busied themselves very 
 much with him, but merely to hinder him. 
 
 I can say as much of general philosophical 
 ideas. Darwin never wished to leave the village 
 where a sort of chance had established him. 
 Leaving to Paris the great rarities, the limited 
 specialties, the researches which require powerful 
 outfits of tools, the country might also thus under- 
 take with profit a mass of labors which have 
 hitherto been reserved for scientific capitals, and 
 which are now possible everywhere. Let each 
 branch of science have its reviews if I were 
 permitted to express a wish, by the bye, I should 
 ask that they be not too greatly multiplied its 
 periodical publications, which keep readers in- 
 formed of what is being done in each workshop of 
 researches ; let the libraries of towns and faculties 
 contain collections which it is difficult for private 
 persons to possess ; let each individual take as 
 great care of his library as of a part of himself, 
 and the difference between Paris and the country, 
 so far as work is concerned, will no longer exist, 
 and at the next revision of the regulations of the 
 Institute the article which exacts residence in
 
 7 8 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Paris may be suppressed without the slightest 
 inconvenience. 
 
 Even in that which touches work requiring 
 vast collections of ancient books work for which 
 Paris assuredly possesses immense advantages the 
 country is not always aware of the resources 
 which it possesses. A few days after I had passed 
 my examination for a fellowship in philosophy 
 in 1848, I received my appointment as professor 
 in the Lyceum of Vendome ; this vexed me some- 
 what, bscause I had begun my thesis on Averroes 
 and Averroism ; M. Cousin and M. Le Clerc were 
 so kind as to take an interest in the matter. I 
 applied to M. Cousin, who replied to me in a brief 
 note which ran nearly as follows : " If it is a ques- 
 tion of certifying to the administration, my dear 
 Renan, that Vendome is the worst place in the 
 world that could have been chosen for treating of 
 Averroes, I will state to it that incontestable truth." 
 I know not whether Vendome is, in point of fact, 
 rich in old books of philosophy. But I must say 
 that I made one portion of my thesis in those 
 parts. Having gone to pass a few months at 
 Saint Malo, a city which is not much more learned 
 than Vendome, I found there a library formed on 
 the basis of ancient stores from convents, where 
 slumbered beneath a thick layer of dust the whole 
 range of scholastic writers ; the editions of Aris- 
 totle with Averroes' commentaries, printed at 
 Venice, the indexes of Zimara, a good share of the
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 79 
 
 glosses of the Paduan masters. Ah ! certainly, 
 they had not been read for a long time ! Had 
 they ever been read, indeed ? . . . . Be that as it 
 may, it was among these dusty volumes that I 
 composed many chapters of my history of Aver- 
 roi'sm. I carried away the conviction that if one 
 knows how to make a thorough search one will 
 find in the country infinitely more numerous ele- 
 ments than it is believed for historical works of 
 general interest. 
 
 And how much more valuable for such works 
 are the peaceful conditions of country life than the 
 narrow, troubled, unstable, precarious conditions 
 of life in Paris ! One of the necessities of erudi- 
 tion is a vast commodious house, where one has 
 neither moving nor disturbance to fear. The phil- 
 ological sciences, like the physical sciences, need 
 laboratories furnished with numerous tables to 
 prevent the different works becoming entangled, 
 and which lend themselves to those personal 
 arrangements of the library that are the half of 
 scientific labor. Moreover, love of the truth ren- 
 ders a man solitary ; the country has solitude, re- 
 pose, liberty. 
 
 I will add to this the attractions and the smile of 
 nature. These austere labors require joy of spirit, 
 leisure, full possession of one's self. A pretty 
 house in the suburbs of a large city ; a long work- 
 room, furnished with books, hung on the outside 
 with a tapestry of Bengal roses ; a garden with
 
 8o RECOLLECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 straight alleys, where one can divert one's thoughts 
 for a moment with one's flowers from the conver- 
 sation of one's books; none of these things are 
 without their use for that health of the soul which 
 is necessary to intellectual work. Unless you are 
 a millionaire, then which is rare among us try 
 to have all this in Paris, on a fourth floor, in com- 
 monplace houses constructed by architects who 
 have never once put to themselves the hypothesis 
 of a literary lodger ! Our libraries, where we are 
 so fond of promenading among the variety of our 
 thoughts and our books, are black cabinets, attics 
 where the books are heaped up without producing 
 the least light. Paris has the College of France ; 
 that is sufficient to attach me to her. But cer- 
 tainly, if the College of France were, like an abbey 
 of the days of Saint Bernard, buried in the depths 
 of woods, with long avenues of poplars, oak 
 groves, brooks, rocks, with a cloister where one 
 might walk in rainy weather, long lines of useless 
 rooms, where new inscriptions, molds, new prints, 
 were placed on long tables as they came, one 
 might await death there more sweetly, and the 
 scientific production of the establishment would be 
 superior to what it is at present ; for solitude is a 
 good source of inspiration, and work is of value 
 in proportion to the calmness with which it is 
 executed. 
 
 We should exaggerate our theme, we should 
 even distort it, were we to maintain that the ad-
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 81 
 
 vantages for scientific culture are everywhere the 
 same. All cities cannot have an Institute, a Col- 
 lege of France, an observatory, a museum, a 
 .School of Charts. Every faculty of letters cannot 
 have a professorship of Arabic, of Egyptology, of 
 Assyriology. There is, moreover, a certain sort 
 of general stimulation, and, if I may venture to 
 say so, of initiative of which Paris will preserve 
 the secret for a long time to come. The seal of 
 the highest culture can be acquired only at Paris. 
 But, the sacrament once received, one may retain 
 the efficacy and the perfume of it for a long while. 
 The zealous Mussulman, who goes to the holy 
 cities, does not impose upon himself the obligation 
 to live there ; he bears about with him everywhere 
 the sacred fire which he has acquired there, the 
 confirmation which he has received there, the 
 spirit which has been communicated to him there. 
 Paris, in the Middle Ages, was the center of intel- 
 lectual education for the whole world people 
 formed themselves there, but did not remain 
 there. Each man, after having studied, or even 
 taught there, returned to his own country and 
 developed, after his own fashion, the germ with 
 which he had been inoculated. 
 
 Continue, then, gentlemen, your excellent work ; 
 continue to enjoy your happiness, which, possibly, 
 like Virgil's laborer, you do not appreciate as it 
 deserves. The happiness of life is labor accepted 
 freely as a duty. This is a fine saying in Eccle-
 
 82 RECOLLECTIONS AA T D LETTERS OF 
 
 siastes : Loetari in opere suo Rejoice in your 
 work. As a professor of the Hebrew language, I 
 am obliged to state that the shade of meaning in 
 the original is not precisely this. The author, in 
 this place, desires to speak of the legitimate pleas- 
 ure which one feels in leading a merry life with 
 the fortune which one has legitimately acquired by 
 one's toil. But, in these ancient texts, the transla- 
 tion is frequently better than the original. Lcetari 
 in opere suo! The deep satisfaction which scientific 
 work brings, arises from the assurance that one is 
 toiling at an eternal work, of which the object, at 
 least, is eternal ; at a work which all enlightened 
 nations are pursuing by the same methods, and 
 from which they are obtaining results which can be 
 compared between them. 
 
 I am not one of those persons, gentlemen, who 
 think that the cultivation of the mind ought to be 
 adapted to the region. The human mind knows 
 no region. The true method has nothing local or 
 provincial about it. There is but one chemistry, 
 but one science of physics, but one physiology ; 
 there is, also, but one philology, but one science of 
 criticism. All that is mere literary taste, charm, 
 poetry, amusement, religious sensations, memories 
 of childhood and of youth, may clothe itself in 
 local form ; but science is one, like the human 
 mind, like the truth. The sick man, the most im- 
 partial of men, because he desires but one thing, 
 namely, that he may be cured, would never apply
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 83 
 
 to regional medicine, if such a thing existed ; he 
 will always be for the medicine without an epithet, 
 the genuine one. 
 
 The highest intellectual product of each province 
 should have no provincial stamp. All one's life, 
 one loves to recall the song in the popular dialect 
 which has amused one in one's childhood ; but no 
 one will ever make science, philosophy, or political 
 economy in dialect. Science, in the scientific or- 
 der, should not consist in dividing the human mind 
 by provinces ; it should consist in suppressing the 
 distinction between the capital and the provinces, 
 in making of all intellectual France a single army, 
 toiling with one common effort for the advantage 
 of science, reason, and civilization. 
 
 SPEECH AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE FELIBRES, 
 AT SCEAUX, JUNE 21, 189!. 
 
 You filled my heart with joy, gentlemen, when 
 you came, a few days ago, to seek me in the arm- 
 chair to which old age has confined me, to associate 
 me with your festival. I am very fond of finding 
 myself with people who still understand how to 
 amuse themselves. It is rare, and it is such a good 
 thing. After much reflection upon the infinite 
 which surrounds us, I have come to the conclusion 
 that the clearest thing of all is that we shall never 
 know much. But an infinite goodness permeates
 
 04 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 life, and I am persuaded that the moments which 
 man devotes to joy must be counted among those 
 in which he answers best to the views of the 
 Eternal. 
 
 Florian, your patron, and his great master Vol- 
 taire, were decidedly of this opinion, and that is 
 why all this pomp of festivity enchants me, gentle- 
 men. You have comprehended that that which re- 
 joices the heart of man, while it makes it better, is 
 inseparable from that which recalls to him his child- 
 hood and the land where he has first been happy. 
 Every man's merit is in proportion to the joys 
 which he has tasted at his entrance into life, and 
 to the quantity of goodness which he has found 
 round about him. The language in which we have 
 uttered our first, stammering words, the song in 
 local dialect which we have heard sung at the age 
 of fifteen, a thousand details dear to the heart, 
 which recall to us our beginnings, our humble but 
 honest origin, make of our natal land a sort of 
 mother toward whose bosom we always turn. 
 Memory is, for every man, a part of his moral 
 being ; woe to him who has no memories ! 
 
 Hence you are doing something eminently good, 
 healthy, and salutary, gentlemen, in grouping your- 
 selves round this flag of your native land, which is 
 loved for the most widely different reasons, but 
 which symbolizes nothing but what is pacific and 
 pure. The Breton loves his Brittany, where he has 
 been poor, precisely because he has been poor.
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 85 
 
 The Norman loves his rich and luxuriant Nor- 
 mandy, because it possesses all the gifts of earth 
 and sky ; the Alsatian loves his Alsace, because 
 it suffers and you, gentlemen, love this radiant 
 land, antique in its genius, always young through 
 its generous ideas, rich in all glories, which has, on 
 so many occasions, given to the greatest thoughts 
 of the French fatherland a sonorous expression 
 that the whole world has heard. 
 
 It is a natural consequence of the noble and dis- 
 interested sentiment with which you are inspired, 
 gentlemen, that you have desired to associate me, 
 a native of Lower Brittany, with a festival intended 
 to commemorate, amid our rather gloomy country, 
 your ardors of the South, your Provengal splen- 
 dors. You think that, at the present day, it is not 
 a question of contracting but of enlarging the 
 circle. In loving my Brittany and joining my com- 
 patriots, who are dear to me, several times during 
 the year, I do that which you are doing now, 
 gentlemen. We are engaged in the same work : 
 in preserving for the heart its deepest delights, in 
 preventing man from uprooting himself completely 
 from the soil whereon he was born, in saving what 
 simple joys of the soul still remain in the midst of 
 a life that the complicated cares of modern society 
 have somewhat robbed of their colors. 
 
 My friend M. Quellien, the founder of the Celtic 
 Dinner, has ideas on this subject which are the 
 inspiration of downright genius. Quellien pos-
 
 86 RECOLLECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 sesses an ethnography which belongs to himself 
 alone. Everybody is a Celt, in his eyes. I have 
 seen at his dinner Lithuanians, Hungarians, Poles, 
 Negroes. In the month of April there is a Pardon, 
 after the fashion of Brittany, where everyone can 
 be a Breton once a year. You, also, desire that 
 everyone should be a native of the South once a 
 year. Thanks for having given me this delightful 
 day by your invitation. 
 
 Science, abstract thought in search of the truth, 
 have no provinces, nor even any country. But 
 poetry, song, prayer, contentment, sadness, are in- 
 dissolubly bound up with the language of our 
 childhood. Life has many degrees ; the life of the 
 whole takes nothing from the intensity of the life 
 of the constituent elements. The bond which at- 
 taches us to France, to humanity, does not diminish 
 the strength and the sweetness of our individual 
 and local sentiments. The conscience of the 
 whole is not the extinction of the conscience of 
 the parts ; it is the result of it, the complete blos- 
 soming of it. 
 
 It is through the very depths of our French 
 unity that we sympathize, that we understand each 
 other. The same arteries have nourished us be- 
 fore our birth ; we loved each other when we 
 came into the world. I remember well that, long 
 before I left Brittany, I thought of Provence, my 
 imagination dreamed of your "Gai Savoir" and of 
 your Isles of Gold. My mother had an old book
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 87 
 
 which she called " The Canticles of Marseilles." 
 She was very fond of it ; I have it still ; it contains 
 charming things. 
 
 I was twenty. five years of age when I traversed, 
 for the first time, that country which I had known, 
 hitherto, only through books. Heavens ! What a 
 revelation for me ! I had never beheld any moun- 
 tains. On the morning when I awoke in the 
 midst of the mountains of Forez, the dentelated 
 horizon filled me with amazement. Lyons became 
 from that moment one of the cities which I love the 
 most. I descended the Rhone in one day, from 
 Lyons to Avigno-n. What enchantment ! In the 
 morning, at four o'clock, the dense fogs of the 
 quays of Perrache ; atVienne, the beginning of the 
 day ; at Valence, a new heaven, the real threshold 
 of the South ; at Avignon, a luminous evening. 
 It was the 5th of October, 1849. I was so charmed 
 with it that, eight years later, I wished to take 
 the same voyage with my wife. I was obliged to 
 have recourse to obstinacy. At Lyons, they in- 
 sisted that the boats no longer ran. We discovered 
 one, nevertheless, which still transported the 
 coarsest kinds of merchandise. It consented to 
 take us ; the discomfort surpassed everything that 
 can be imagined, but we were in ecstasies. 
 
 Since then your Provence has become the land 
 of my preference when I wish to make a mental 
 journey into the past. Aries, Montmajour, Saint 
 Gilles, Orange, form part of my frames of imagina-
 
 88 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 tion for antiquity and the Middle Ages. Your 
 poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is 
 one of the most beautiful classic apparitions with 
 which I am acquainted. Greece is far away, but 
 we have on our own soil a Greece as good as 
 Attica and the Peloponessus that admirable shore 
 which extends from the mouth of the Rhone to 
 Vintimille, Marseilles in particular ; which bears 
 such a strong resemblance to the shores of Hellas 
 that the mariners of Phocaea were deceived by it and 
 thought themselves at home. 
 
 Have I renounced the intention of making 
 yet one more visit to those enchanted lands ? 
 It would pain me to confess as much even to 
 myself. No ; I shall behold your beautiful coun- 
 try once more. I have never been to Aigues- 
 Mortes, to Saint Remi, to Bau, to the source of the 
 Vaucluse. And then, I wish to embrace Mistral 
 in his own home ; I shall go to Maillane. Each 
 year, I pass three months on the seacoast, in the 
 depths of my dear Brittany. Oh ! it is a great joy 
 to me. I find there a multitude of little, old ac- 
 quaintances, birds, flowers, young girls, exactly 
 like those who pleased me in days gone by with 
 their little air of discretion and modesty. But the 
 sun ? . . . . Ah ! it is rare in those parts, and 
 rather pale. The mists are delightful, but the sun 
 is life. I shall go and ask you for it. If I were 
 rich enough to have two country houses under the 
 open sky, it is among you that I would have a
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 89 
 
 winter retreat. I do not dream of such an excess 
 of luxury ; but you shall search out for me, at 
 some point of your Greek shore, a very tranquil, 
 very sunny nook, with two or three parasol pines 
 where I may go, from time to time, to seek a little 
 lubricating medium for my impoverished muscles, 
 and my unsoldered joints. 
 
 I feel a scruple at retarding too greatly, by a 
 long speech, your patriotic exercises and your. 
 pleasures. I am in haste to witness those exqui- 
 site diversions. I feel in a hurry to assist at your 
 " Court of Love," which makes me dream. What 
 can it be? And your farandole? And the 
 tarasque? I do not wish to lose anything, even if I 
 must reach Paris at an unseasonable honr. 
 
 By your gayety, your dash, your true and just 
 sentiment of life, you furnish an admirable correct- 
 ive to our maladies of the North that pessimism, 
 harshness, avidity for self-torture, that subtlety 
 which prompts people who are still young to ask 
 themselves if love is sweet, if science is true, if 
 roses are beautiful ! You know how to laugh and to 
 sing ; you sing equally well in two languages. Let 
 us then, my dear friends, bless the day which made 
 us brothers, in spite of the evil chances of history. 
 That was a good day. 
 
 It is understood that, henceforth, the Bretons 
 are to be welcome among the Felibres, and the 
 Felibres among the Bretons. The kingdom of 
 Is is the brother of the kingdom of Aries, and
 
 9 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 there is, also, a domain that is common to both of 
 us, the realm of faerie the only good one which 
 exists on earth. There King Arthur has been de- 
 tained for more than a thousand years, by bonds 
 of flowers. The four white unicorns who bore him 
 away stand harnessed ; at a sign, they will carry 
 you away. 
 
 Long live the South, gentlemen ; the South which 
 .at all epochs has furnished so capital a share to 
 the selection of French genius ! Long live that poor 
 Brittany which you have summoned to your festival ! 
 And then, long live Paris, the only city in the world 
 where what is going on to-day is possible : Paris, 
 the city in common of the panegyrists, where the 
 Breton holds his Pardons, the Southerner his 
 Felibriges ; where each one expresses the poetry of 
 his natal land, sings its local glories, regrets his 
 village, curses centralization at his ease ; Paris, 
 where each province lives and flourishes more ac- 
 tively sometimes than at home; where the most 
 varied sentiments are all translated into good 
 French ; a very delectable tongue, when it is ma- 
 nipulated by artists like yours, gentleman. 
 
 Long live our dear French land, mother of these 
 diversities, all amiable, all excellent in their own 
 way ! Your association holds the first rank, 
 among so many other manifestations of con- 
 sciences, which have vanished, in appearance, but 
 which come to life again in this century of the 
 resurrection of the dead. It owes its rank to your
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 91 
 
 sagacity, to your breadth of mind. It is this 
 particular gift of accessibility, of openness, of cour- 
 tesy, to which 1 am indebted for the favor which 
 you have done me, and which will be reckoned 
 among my most cherished memories. I am old ; I 
 have reached the time of life when one must think 
 of furnishing one's head with thoughts which will 
 occupy him during life eternal. It will be long ! I 
 think that it is the latest images which will be 
 the most tenacious and will fill our immortal soul 
 during the endless centuries to come. Well ! At 
 this moment, I have charming images before my 
 eyes ; I will guard them jealously ; I will place 
 your Felibrige, your Troubadours festival, of 1891 
 among the things of which I shall think during all 
 eternity. 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE "JOURNAL DES DEBATS." 
 
 I WAS brought into relations with the editors of 
 the Journal des Debats in April or May, 1853. The 
 occasion of it was as follows. The new edi- 
 tion of the Arabic commentary of the great 
 Orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy, on the " Sessions of 
 Hairi," had just appeared, through the courtesy of 
 Messrs. Reinaud and Derenbourg. M. Ustazade* 
 
 * Silvestre de Sacy, being a Jansenist and an Orientalist, 
 had read the " Acts of the Eastern Martyrs," among which 
 Saint Ustazade is one of the most celebrated. He gave this
 
 92 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Silvestre de Sacy, son of the illustrious savant, 
 bad been director of the Journal for several years ; 
 he requested M. Reinaud to designate to him 
 some one among his pupils who could give an 
 account, in the Journal, of his father's masterly 
 work. - M. Reinaud was so kind as to think of me. 
 I went to present my article to M. Ustazade,* who 
 was pleased with it. He noticed a certain choice- 
 ness of language, and he was so kind as to engage 
 me to treat, in the Journal, those subjects which 
 came within the limits of my studies, or which sug- 
 gested to me some thought. 
 
 It seems that the religious opinions of M. 
 de Sacy should have formed an obstacle to all sym- 
 pathy between him and me. There was nothing of 
 the sort, however ; M. de Sacy soon saw clearly, 
 that in abandoning positive religious beliefs, I had 
 retained all which was not stamped, in my eyes, 
 with the seal of absolute decay. He divined the 
 living trunk and roots, behind the withered 
 branches. The religion of M. de Sacy, on his side, 
 was far more the perfume which lingers behind a 
 vanished belief than a firm adhesion to definite 
 dogmas. He perceived my sincerity. We pos- 
 sessed in common that taste for serious things, 
 
 name to his eldest son, no doubt with some latent thought of 
 the worship which the Jansenists were fond of devoting to un- 
 known saints. 
 
 * It was by this name that M. de Sacy was always designated 
 in the private circles of his Journal.
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 93 
 
 which we had acquired, he in his Jansenist family, I 
 in the Seminary of Saint Sulpice. The best trans- 
 lations of the seventeenth century, reduced to peace, 
 met and exchanged the kiss of reconciliation in 
 us. 
 
 M. de Sacy had, in fact, preserved the bonds 
 which united him to his father's old sect ; rather the 
 bonds of the heart than those of the formulas. He 
 was a respectful but independent Catholic. He 
 saw, very plainly, the difficulties in the way of be- 
 lief ; he did not, in the least, seek to avoid seeing 
 them. He did not stop there, but he considered 
 it very good for people to stop there. He did 
 not like apologists, he detested the hypocrites of 
 orthodoxy. The intermediate deists, after the 
 fashion of M. Cousin, satisfied him no better. He 
 often said to me that the God of M. Saisset was 
 the one whom he understood the least. The sects 
 which are approaching their end almost all arrive 
 at this dogmatic latitude. The moral education 
 of believing generations remains ; the letter of the 
 creeds melts away, and leaves behind it only the 
 solid faith in duty which results, by a sort of hered- 
 ity, from sectarian discipline long continued. 
 
 Jansenism, to tell the truth, has been much more 
 of a school of virtue than a school of theology. 
 The heresy of Jansenius, if there ever was any 
 heresy, had reached the point of designating 
 nothing more than the manners of a grave, stu- 
 dious bourgeoisie, which was but little worldly in
 
 94 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 its habits, and tolerably analogous to the ancient 
 society of Calvin, but less pedantic and less stiff. 
 M. Ustazade told me that one of the clauses in his 
 mother's marriage contract claimed that her hus- 
 band could never force her to wear bonnets. M. 
 Silvestre de Sacy's rare merit caused them to 
 prophesy that he would attain a very lofty social 
 rank ; ancient customs were taking their precau- 
 tions against all possible chances of fortune. M. 
 Ustazade retained these habits of exquisite sim- 
 plicity. In accordance with an improper custom, 
 which is almost universal, he might have borne the 
 title of nobility which Napoleon I. had conferred 
 on his father. He never did. A delicious sim- 
 plicity of manners and language was the true title 
 of nobility which he possessed from his plebeian 
 and Parisian origin. He had a sort of aversion for 
 anything that might have given him the appearance 
 of a man of the world. He did not like to go to 
 watering-places for his health ; he said that those 
 cures were reserved for princes, for the nobility, 
 and that the bourgeoisie ought to content itself 
 with old fashioned medicines the best, perhaps 
 with cauteries, purging, and bleeding. 
 
 I often spoke to him about the gravity of the 
 gentlemen at Saint Sulpice, and, forgetting utterly 
 that Saint Sulpice had treated the Jansenists very 
 badly in former days, he was delighted at what I 
 told him concerning this prolongation of ancient 
 customs. He transmitted to me, on his side, recol-
 
 ERNEST REXAN. 95 
 
 lections of the life of which he had been a witness. 
 M. de Sacy, the elder, had been an excellent man, 
 beneath his cold, reserved exterior. His son con- 
 firmed what I had already learned from M. 
 Reinaud, that, all his life, he had taken pleasure in 
 the society of young women who united a delicate 
 wit to the sensibility of their age. The austere 
 savant rarely went out in the evening. M. Usta- 
 zade loved to recall those long evenings in the 
 family circle. M. de Sacy, the elder, busied himself 
 with Arabic, or reviewed the accounts of the 
 benevolent society of his quarter, by the aid of the 
 compartments in a sort of checker-board, while his 
 daughters, his sisters, and his aunts copied printed 
 books. That was one way of passing the evening 
 in this Jansenist society. The senses and* the im- 
 agination were thus suitably occupied ; moreover, 
 they served the interests of the sect by dissemi- 
 nating copies of books the circulation of which was 
 impeded by the authorities. M. Ustazade retained 
 a lively taste for reading all his life, in consequence. 
 "A good old book," as he said, consoled him for 
 everything. One of our colleagues having become 
 rich, by I know not what chance, could hit upon 
 but one way of proving his gratitude to him : it 
 was, to pay court to his library. He gave him 
 Fenelon splendidly bound, so splendidly bound 
 that M. de Sacy took me into his confidence in 
 regard to it. When he wished to re-read the 
 " Letter on the Works of the Academy " or the
 
 g6 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 " Treatise on the Education of Girls," he borrowed 
 the copy belonging to the Mazarin Library, of 
 which he was the curator, in order to leave the 
 
 copy which Monsieur B had given him in its 
 
 pristine hue, in its absolute virginity. 
 
 M. Ustazade revised my articles with the great- 
 est care. I read them to him, and he made com- 
 ments on their style, which have been the best 
 lesson in style that I have ever had. As I read, I 
 raised my eyes furtively at certain passages to see 
 if they passed without difficulty. I always yielded 
 when the religious or literary law of this excellent 
 master was transgressed. In the matter of a cer- 
 tain passage which I had written about the devil, 
 he was inflexible, and insisted that in the present 
 state of our religious legislation the devil is entitled 
 to consideration. He withdrew his objection every 
 time that I proved to him that what I had said con- 
 tained nothing derogatory to the liberty of person. 
 I must confess that, with my theologian's subtlety, 
 I invented turns which deluded him. I some- 
 times smiled at the heresies which I made him 
 countersign. In literature, he was a pure classic; 
 he considered Lucretius a bad poet ; he could not 
 bear to have the texts to which he was accustomed 
 altered, even to improve them ; and he admitted to 
 me that when a history like Roman history has 
 given rise to very well turned phrases, that history 
 ought to be fixed, once for all, against the attacks 
 of criticism.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 97 
 
 We could not come to an understanding on this 
 point ; but he knew French so admirably ! He 
 had such an exact sense of. the bearing of each 
 word ! He corrected so well the juvenile inexpe- 
 riences of my manner of writing ! I came to make 
 a practice of leaving, in my first copy, a great many 
 points upon which I had my doubts, being fully 
 resolved to cut them out at the first sign of discon- 
 tent on his part. 
 
 The Journal des Debats was a real religion to M. 
 Ustazade, and he neglected no means to inculcate 
 this upon me. It is to him that I owe the idea, which 
 took deep root in me, that one must never leave 
 the Journal des Debats for any reason on earth. 
 He related terrible stories in this connection. He 
 enumerated to me those persons who, in conse- 
 quence of some aberration, had abandoned the 
 journal, and proved to me that all of them had 
 come to a bad end. One had fallen into financial 
 errors ; another into social errors ; a third into a 
 dangerous opposition ; then all, from error to 
 error, had fallen into demagogy, and from dema- 
 gogy into misery, which is really death and the 
 cessation of life. 
 
 These examples made a great impression on me, 
 and from that time forth one of the fundamental 
 principles of my life has been one never leaves 
 the Journal des Debats. Arrived now at the end 
 of my life, I recognize how entirely right he was, 
 and I am anxious to transmit this good doctrine to
 
 9$ RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 those who shall come after me. The friendship 
 which I find in this excellent establishment is one 
 of the joys of my old'age one of the consolations 
 of my declining years. 
 
 I am indebted to M. de Sacy also for several of 
 the moral precepts which I have always followed. 
 In particular, I owe to him the rule never to reply 
 to journalistic attacks, not even when they contain 
 the greatest atrocities. On this point he agreed 
 with the opinion of M. Guizot, that no calumny 
 reaches its mark because he disdained them all. 
 To the various cases when exception should pos- 
 sibly be made, which I suggested to him, he 
 replied : " Never, never, never." I think that I 
 have conscientiously followed the advice of my old 
 master on this point, as well as on many others. 
 One journal published, in facsimile, a pretended 
 autograph of mine, of a nature really to overwhelm 
 me with ridicule had it been authentic. I said 
 nothing, and I did not perceive that it had done me 
 any harm. In the same manner I opposed silence 
 only to the accounts of conversations which would 
 have lasted a week, and which contained not a 
 word of truth ; to recitals of dinners and breakfasts 
 furnished by some person who had never received 
 so much as a glass of water in my house. I per- 
 mitted them to print,' without complaint, that I had 
 received a million from M. de Rothschild for 
 writing my " Life of Jesus." I hereby announce in 
 advance that I shall not object when they publish
 
 ERNEST RENAtf. 99 
 
 the facsimile of the receipt. M. de Sacy will be 
 satisfied with me, as he observes me from the 
 height of heaven. Those who require, for the 
 apology of their dogma, to make me out a very 
 black being, will always find means to furnish 
 themselves with arguments. " You will not be 
 believed, fair sirs." I am persuaded that the en- 
 lightened* men of the future will see the truth 
 clearly, so far as I am concerned, in despite of all 
 calumnies. And moreover, how indifferent one 
 will become to all the errors of literary history in 
 the bosom of the Eternal Father ! 
 
 M. de Sacy's counsel was truth itself then. Is 
 it so to-day ? The rule which my venerable master 
 preached to me was excellent at ail epoch when 
 there existed an enlightened society which formed 
 its opinions in a rational manner. It would be 
 dangerous in a democracy. The masses, in fact, 
 are naturally credulous; their first impulse is to 
 accept what is told them. Methodical doubt is 
 what they comprehend the least. Habituated to 
 rough ways, they believe that the insult which is 
 
 * I say enlightened, because the following course of reason- 
 ing will, on the other hand, appear very solid to mediocre 
 minds. " It is stated by good authors," they will say, " that 
 Renan received a million. His partisans insist that he re- 
 ceived nothing at all. The truth probably lies between these 
 two extremes. Let us be moderate ; he received several hun- 
 dred thousand francs." Decidedly, let us strive to maintain in 
 the drama of the world the final epilogue of the valley of 
 Jehoshaphat.
 
 100 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 not replied to is, by that very fact, accepted ; for 
 them, some effect is always produced by it. It 
 sometimes occurs to me that, at the present moment, 
 M. de Sacy would change his opinion. Must re- 
 porters, for example, be permitted to attribute to 
 you things a thousand miles removed from what 
 you really think ? The question is a delicate one ; 
 in fact, if you announce that you will make no 
 reply, they will make you speak, all the same, after 
 their own fashion. M. de Sacy might say that, 
 from the point of view of eternity, all this amounts 
 to very little ! 
 
 The sentiment with which these intimate rela- 
 tions inspired us for each other became a veritable 
 friendship. M. de Sacy always defended me, and 
 was the principal instigator of my entrance to the 
 French Academy. The little speech which he 
 made to the company, to set forth what he consid- 
 ered to be my claims, was so lively, so frank, so 
 natural in style, that many of our colleagues fre- 
 quently repeat it to me, and know it by heart. 
 " M. Renan," he said, " is a heretic on certain 
 points ; I do not deny that. But I should like to 
 know who among us is not a bit of a heretic. 
 You, M. de Montalembert, do you know that if I 
 were inquisitor, I should not be obliged to seek 
 very far to find sufficient grounds for burning 
 you ? M. de Broglie, is your faith in the supernat- 
 ural perfectly in accord with orthodoxy ? M. de 
 Falloux, are you a very docile lamb in the fold ? "
 
 ERKEST RENAN. 101 
 
 And he concluded with these words : " Let us all 
 pardon each other, reciprocally, for our heresies." 
 I will add here a story which I should not have 
 recalled, had not the Princess Mathilde delighted 
 to relate it. One day, on going to see him in his 
 little house of Eau-bonne, she thought she saw him 
 conceal under the table a book which he was read- 
 ing. Knowing the princess's liberal spirit, and 
 perceiving that her eyes followed the book with a 
 certain curiosity, he showed it to her. It was the 
 " Life of Jesus." " Pardon me, princess," he said, 
 " I thought it was Madame de Sacy who was enter- 
 ing." He confessed that he loved this book, but 
 that he only read it on the sly for fear of being 
 scolded. 
 
 The sudden death which removed M. Artnand 
 Berlin, shortly after my connection with the Jour- 
 nal began, leaves me but few memories of him. I 
 only saw him once, in his apartment in the Rue de 
 L'Universite". He repeated to me what the elder 
 M. Berlin was in the habit of saying to beginners 
 on the journal : " Write for five hundred people, 
 we will take care of the rest." A noble journal, 
 analagous in the press to that which the French 
 Academy is in literature ; a journal in which highly 
 esteemed men could write, and collaboration in 
 which was an honor ; such was the programme 
 which these eminent men laid out, and which they 
 realized, by dint of tact, of knowledge of men, ot 
 perseverance and of skill.
 
 102 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 M. Edouard Berlin had one of the most com- 
 plete and just minds that I have ever known. If I 
 do not speak at more length concerning him, it is 
 because the task has been fulfilled by the man 
 whom he loved the most, M. Taine. His intelli- 
 gence was rare, his culture of the very highest. 
 He sometimes ridiculed a little that taste for an- 
 tiquity in everything which M. de Sacy cherished ; 
 he smiled at his Jansenism, his classicism. M. 
 de Sacy was sensitive to these petty miseries ; he 
 confided this to me, almost with tears. M. 
 Edouard certainly took a broader view of things 
 than M. de Sacy. He knew the history of Italian 
 art like a scholar. His knowledge of Christian lit- 
 erature was surprising. Among laymen, he was 
 the best versed in questions of criticism and con- 
 troversy that I have ever seen. His incredulity 
 was cleverly reasoned out. His skepticism in pol- 
 itics was the result of a perfect course of reason- 
 ing. . During the siege he was admirable. No illu- 
 sion approached him. In spite of his failing 
 health, he came to the Journal office every day. 
 He listened kindly to the most absurd news ; then, 
 leaning toward me, he said : " I don't believe a 
 word of it." His philosophy was curious in search 
 of the true, amiable, and resigned. 
 
 Times were very hard indeed for the press, un- 
 der the Second Empire. One was obliged to be 
 one's own censor ; one endured anguish every 
 day. It was then that a considerable change was
 
 EJRXEST A'/-.Y.-4JV. 103 
 
 effected in the journal. Politics were so little 
 open to free discussion that the life they should 
 have had passed into the literary and moral arti- 
 cles. Intelligent readers looked on the third page 
 for that which the first could not say. The miscel- 
 laneous items assumed an importance which they 
 had never hitherto enjoyed. Down to that epoch, 
 the items had been anonymous ; they expressed 
 the opinion of the journal as a whole. The author 
 did not revise the proofs of them. On reading 
 them over (it was M. de Sacy who told me this) he 
 often experienced strange surprises. Beginning 
 with the first years after the coup d'etat, all was 
 changed. The miscellaneous items became filled 
 with double meanings, one felt in them the per- 
 sonal responsibility, the original air of the author. 
 The form of them became much more polished ; 
 sometimes it was even too much so perhaps ; the 
 criticism of books suffered from it. The public 
 perused these little scraps attentively, seeking be- 
 tween the lines that which the author had not been 
 able to say openly. Thus, under the semblance of 
 literature, many things which were then forbidden 
 were discussed ; the loftiest principles of liberal 
 politics were advocated by insinuation. 
 
 When people possess liberty, and, especially, 
 when they begin to abuse it, the services of those 
 who have conquered it for them are speedily for- 
 gotten. Those who had confessed the faith under 
 Diocletian found, under Constantine, that they
 
 104 RECOLLECTIOXS AXD LETTERS OF 
 
 were rather neglected. If our dear Prevost- 
 Paradol were still alive, I think he would find 
 himself the victim of a similar injustice. The 
 talent, the passion, the skill which he dis- 
 played in the combat were something extraordi- 
 nary. His facility bordered on the miraculous. 
 Those exquisite articles were written at the last 
 moment, without a single erasure ; the foreman 
 clipped up the lines as fast as they were written, 
 and Prevost did not see them again. So coura- 
 geous, so loyal as he was withal ; his pretended 
 conversion to the Empire was not in the least the 
 interested caprice that it was asserted to be. His 
 death had no significance, either political or moral ; 
 it was a material accident, brought about by the 
 intense heat of Washington and by the surprise 
 which the American regimen of iced alcoholic 
 drinks occasioned him. I thought a great deal of 
 him, and he thought a great deal of me ; only the 
 world loved him better still, and M. Thiers was like 
 a shutter which cut off half the sky from him. An 
 excellent judge will tell better than I can what this 
 rare man was like, and what he would have been 
 had it been granted him to see the years which 
 followed 1870. 
 
 That is, also, a great injustice which attaches to 
 the firm and loyal Laboulaye. He would have 
 liked to be Minister and member of the French 
 Academy ; he would have made an excellent Min- 
 ister, and he possessed more claims to the Academy
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 105 
 
 than half of those who belong to it. He consoled 
 himself by realizing in his life, by dint of a sus- 
 tained effort, the ideal of an honest man. I do not 
 think that anyone has understood and practiced 
 better than Laboulaye the rule of the perfect lib- 
 eral. If he ever sinned, it was by too much love 
 for liberty ! Oh, what a fine fault, and how sin- 
 cerely I pay my compliments to those who have 
 never committed any other faults than this ! 
 
 Liberalism was the religion of that excellent 
 generation. Their principles were so fixed that, 
 on the day after the catastrophe which seemed to 
 put them in the wrong, they remained exactly what 
 they had been on the day preceding the catas- 
 trophe. " I make my sincere confession," said M. 
 de Sacy. " I have not changed. Far from having 
 been shaken in my convictions, reflection, age, and 
 experience have only confirmed me in them. I 
 believe in right and justice, as I believed in them 
 in my ingenuous youth. This principle of liberty, 
 which the times and circumstances have adjourned 
 in politics, I am happy to recover in letters, in 
 philosophy, in all that belongs to the domain of 
 conscience and pure thought. That is what we 
 try to do in the Journal des Debats. With differ- 
 ences of shades of taste, and of varied opinions, it 
 is the spirit which unites us all." 
 
 M. Cuvillier-Fleury might have said that quite as 
 well as M. de Sacy. His liberalism never suffered 
 any eclipse ; no reaction attacked him. He loved
 
 106 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 ardently that which he believed to be true. His 
 conversation was animated, he took great pains 
 with it, for it was one way of accentuating the con- 
 viction which he bore in his heart. Oh ! what a 
 good house the Debuts was then, and what a 
 memory we have preserved of those amiable jousts 
 of words, in which M. de Sacy. and M. Cuvillier- 
 Fleury vied with each other in wit, dash, and 
 amiability ! At the Academy the tourney began 
 again, inoffensively ; both, in fact, were breaking a 
 lance for the same idea ; everything which was 
 good, noble, generous, caused their hearts to 
 vibrate. 
 
 Their patriotism was as pure as the feelings of a 
 child. Above all they saw France ; they believed 
 in her, they adored her. Poor France, it is impos- 
 sible that she should perish ; she has been too 
 much loved ! 
 
 What would happen if I were to recall here M. 
 Saint-Marc Girardin, Hippolyte Rigault, Jules 
 Janin, Michel Chevalier, Alboury, Philarete Chasles, 
 whose portrait will be given elsewhere, by the bye, 
 and those valiant colleagues, still living, of whom 
 the law of this memorial forbids us to speak ? M. 
 Saint-Marc Girardin was a man of great political 
 sense. His speech, strong and assured, was 
 heightened by a lively and piquant wit ; he intimi- 
 dated me a little, as university men in general do. 
 They talk too well. One of my manias is to make 
 Incorrect phrases deliberately, where the accent of
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 107 
 
 thought bears directly on the incorrectness, which 
 renders it prominent. Being accustomed to repri- 
 mand it in their scholars, professors do not un- 
 derstand this apprehension of talking like a book, 
 and consider my conversation overladen and heaped 
 up. This dear Hippolyte Rigault was a little of 
 that opinion, I imagine. He was a man of rare 
 merit. His premature death caused us profound 
 sadness. Oral exhibition was so necessary to him 
 that he died when it was prohibited to him. 
 Through the fault of an unintelligent administra- 
 tion of Public Instruction, the serious press and 
 higher tuition were deprived of a man of great 
 talent. 
 
 Others will explain better than I can the dazzling 
 facility of Jules Janin. I admired his sparkling 
 fancy ! Nevertheless, I know not why, his brilliant 
 atoms never cohered in a durable manner, while a 
 sympathy, mingled with a sort of pity, speedily 
 attached me to Philarete Chasles, that extremely 
 original spirit, that sower of new ideas, who 
 certainly deserved to be pardoned for a few slight 
 irregularities. People were severe on petty defects ; 
 they did not perceive grand qualities. The extreme 
 ardor which M. Michel Chevalier brought to bear 
 on social questions made people forget, on the other 
 hand, all political dissensions. During the first 
 half of the Empire, his Saint-Simonian optimism 
 often subjected the nerves of poor Prevost-Paradol 
 to harsh trials. One day he entered beaming; his
 
 lo8 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 first words were :" I have conquered liberty " 
 
 We were full of anticipations ; we demanded ex- 
 planations. It was a question of the liberty of the 
 slaughter-house But he really loved prog- 
 ress ; everyone admitted that he possessed great 
 valor and warmth of heart. 
 
 Thus upholding each other, we traversed gayly 
 those melancholy years which elapsed between the 
 coup c6tat and the year 1860, or thereabouts. A 
 better influence then began to come into play. 
 Governments, in general, improve with age ; un- 
 fortunately, they are not allowed sufficient time. 
 The second half of the Empire was far less bad 
 than the first. The new government had recom- 
 pensed its accomplices and paid its expenses of 
 setting up. It was now permissible for it to think 
 of the public welfare. The personal character of 
 Napoleon III., the very open mind of Prince Napo- 
 leon, and of the Princess Mathilde, made them- 
 selves felt better than at the epoch when the 
 Empire was enduring with difficulty the tutelage 
 of its first patrons. One could speak of a liberal 
 Empire as of a hope ; a feeble hope, it is true, but 
 still preferable to so many other chimerical or fatal 
 hypotheses. The liberal Empire committed one 
 unpardonable sin war ; after all, however, it proba- 
 bly granted the greatest amount of liberty that it 
 is permitted to realize in France without provok- 
 ing excesses ; God, that is to say history, will 
 have mercy upon it. The liberal Empire suffered
 
 EXA 7 EST RENAN, 109 
 
 shipwreck just as all governments in France, for 
 the last hundred years, have suffered shipwreck. 
 But, in a shipwreck, one does not disdain the 
 chicken-coop which presents itself within reach of 
 one's hand. One clutches hold of what one can : 
 the hour of rescue is not the moment to exhibit 
 squeamtshness. This is how it happened that 
 many of us accepted, in perfect honesty, the latter 
 years of that Empire which they did not love, and 
 applied themselves to the difficult task of improv- 
 ing it. The principle of the Journal des Debats 
 is to attach itself to the possible, and to prefer 
 modest chances to adventurous investments. We 
 accepted the liberal Empire on the same princi- 
 ple which has compelled us to accept so many 
 other things which we did not like, but which 
 forced themselves upon us, through a fear of worse. 
 We did well ; I thought so, at least, and to-day I 
 think so more than ever. In 1860 I consented to 
 take part in scientific work, which they were trying 
 to restore. In 1869 I made an independent elect- 
 oral campaign, in the department of Seine-et- 
 Marne, which would have proved successful, had 
 it not been for M. Rouher and my own honesty. 
 
 The fault which we were led to commit in this 
 instance, if fault there was, it is probable that we 
 shall repeat many times still. Every time that we 
 behold the dawn of liberty appear we shall salute 
 it. Every effort which presents itself as possessing 
 a chance of conciliating the opposing demands of
 
 no RECOLJ.ECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 politics, we shall support. Whose fault is it if all 
 this ends only in disappointments ? The century's, 
 not ours. The really constitutional government is 
 not improvised ; nations arrive at it when they 
 have earned it. Had we a very strong confidence 
 in the liberal Empire ? Did we hope that the 
 personal power would become by means of a visi- 
 ble transformation, effected before our very eyes 
 that constitutional royalty, the most perfect of 
 governments, in which a nation enters into a 
 century-long compact with one family, and may, 
 at certain hours, concentrate itself in one brain ? 
 Oh, no, certainly not ; we hoped little ; govern- 
 ments sprung from adventures are strong in the 
 evil which they do ; when they begin to do good, 
 they are weak ; but success was not impossible, 
 after all. That which, on the contrary, presented 
 itself as wholly improbable, was authority proceed- 
 ing from universal suffrage, respect created by riot, 
 order emerging from anarchy. 
 
 Have the events which followed been of a nature 
 to make us repent of having, in 1868 and 1869, 
 gone to meet a defeat which was half foreseen ? 
 We ask that people shall have the kindness to wait 
 twenty years before blaming us. If, between this 
 day and that, a constitutional government shall 
 have succeeded in founding itself, without running 
 off the rails of legality, we will confess that we 
 should have shown ourselves more difficult to 
 please toward the close of the Second Empire.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. lit 
 
 In the contrary case, we must be pardoned for 
 having believed that coups d'ttat and revolutions 
 are the worst expedients of politics ; that one must 
 make the most of what one has, even when what 
 one has is rather defective. 
 
 LETTER TO M. BERTHELOT, MINISTER. 
 
 PARIS, December 31, 1886. 
 
 My Dear Friend : I wish to pass the last hours 
 of this year with you. While you are enduring the 
 review of official congratulations, I desire to return 
 to the dreams which we formed forty years ago, 
 when we knew each other in a little boarding- 
 house of the Faubourg Saint Jacques, when you 
 were eighteen years of age, and I was twenty-two. 
 
 Certainly, if you had been Minister then, we 
 should have reformed the world. It would not 
 have lasted, probably. We have learned, as we 
 grew older, that the patriarch Jacob was a genu- 
 inely wise man in thinking that the pace of the 
 last little lamb which has just been born should 
 regulate the march of the whole flock. 
 
 Many things, in fact, change in the course of 
 forty years, and yet, at the bottom, man and hu- 
 manity change very little. I remember that, dur- 
 ing the hour which we passed together, we read, 
 one day, the story of that hermit of the Thebaid, 
 who had retired into the desert in his youth, and
 
 1 1 2 RECOLLECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 passed years there without setting eyes on a hu- 
 man being. In his old age, on receiving a visit 
 from a monk who came from the valley of the 
 Nile, he was seized with an impulse of curiosity : 
 " Tell me," he said to his fellow-recluse, " if men 
 are still the same. Do they still seek to acquire 
 property? Do they still invent calumnies against 
 each other ? Do they build houses as though they 
 were to live two hundred years? Do they still 
 marry ? " The visitor replied that few things were 
 changed ; and the hermit marveled that man was 
 so incurably the dupe of universal vanity. 
 
 We think that a capital element for the posses- 
 sion of the true philosophy of life was lacking in 
 those recluses of the desert that is, knowledge of 
 the world. It seems to us of the utmost impor- 
 tance that one should know that the earth is a ball, 
 about three thousand leagues in diameter, that the 
 sun is thirty-eight million leagues from the earth, 
 and that it is one million four hundred thousand 
 times larger than the earth, and a thousand other 
 pieces of information which form part of element- 
 ary instruction. And, nevertheless, the recluse 
 was right, in his own way. The gravest incidents 
 in human affairs have no more importance, when 
 one places one's self at the point of view of the solar 
 system, than the movements in a wasp's nest, or 
 the hurrying to and fro that goes on in an ant-hill. 
 When one places one's self at the point of view of 
 the solar system, our revolutions possess hardly
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 113 
 
 the amplitude of the movements of atoms. From 
 the point of view of Sirius, they have still less. 
 From the point of view of the infinite, they have 
 none at all. This is the only point of view from 
 which one can judge well of things in their verity. 
 In my " Souvenirs d'Enfance " I have quoted the 
 saying of the old Superior of Saint Sulpice, M. 
 Duclos, to whom a seminary pupil, in the troubled 
 years which followed 1830, was relating, with 
 terror, the doings in I know not what stormy ses- 
 sion of the Chamber of Deputies. The young 
 man was particularly struck by a speech of M. 
 Mauguin, which seemed to him the prelude to the 
 end of the world. Those bold, irritating Deputies 
 of the Opposition produced on these peaceful 
 ascetics the effect of downright demons. " One 
 sees plainly, my friend," replied M. Duclos tran- 
 quilly, " that those men say no prayers." In fact, 
 I cannot very well imagine M. Clemenceau saying 
 his prayers ; M. Laguerre, who is so young, so 
 
 dreamy, so charming, perhaps The prayer of 
 
 M. Rochefort seems to me to belong to the sort 
 which the fathers of spiritual life term ejaculatory; 
 that stern fighter is not yet quite undeceived as to 
 the reality of things. M. Tony Re"villon also does 
 not strike me as having arrived at the Bud- 
 dhistic soutra of the concatenation of effects, and 
 of the complete inanity of appearances. But one 
 must hot take fright too hastily. M. Mauguin's 
 speech did not make the world crumble to pieces.
 
 114 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The world dies hard. It is a toy with which one 
 can play for a long time without breaking it. 
 
 Our dear director of the De'bats, in memory of 
 the pretty New Year's gifts which M. Laboulaye 
 used to make to the subscribers of the Journal, 
 asked me last year for a dream which should 
 please everybody, not a very solid dream, perhaps; 
 good at the most for New Year's day. It was not 
 an easy task. The present time is hardly that for 
 dreams. The sky is gloomy ; the Eternal some- 
 times has the air of being disgusted with his crea- 
 tion, of finding it tiresome and a failure. That it 
 certainly is not. I find it, as I grow old, more as- 
 tonishing than ever. But it is certain that men 
 are too much divided. That which enchants some 
 throws others into consternation. I believe that 
 we shall never behold our fellow-men agreed again 
 on any subject whatever. In order to bring them 
 into accord, one must deceive them ; and neither 
 you nor I, my dear friend, will undertake that 
 task. 
 
 Last year, in order to obtain from heaven the 
 credit of a smile, I applied to the angel Gabriel, 
 and thought myself authorized to impart to the 
 readers of the Journal des Debats, in his name, that 
 a change in the government of this world was im- 
 pending. The disappointment was so great that I 
 have declined to interrogate the celestial messenger 
 this year. You are Minister ; that is an event upon 
 which I congratulate the Eternal openly. With this
 
 ERNEST REN AN. ng 
 
 exception, it is not possible to be more completely 
 mistaken than I was in my predictions. I had an- 
 nounced great things and new things ; I had said 
 that the unexpected must be expected, and, in 
 point of fact, the state of the world on this 3151 
 of December differs as little from the state of 
 the world on the ist of last January as one puddle 
 differs from another puddle, or one drop of water 
 from another drop of water. The grand resolution 
 which I had assumed that the Eternal would im- 
 pose upon his functionaries to be just, exact, at- 
 tentive, has had no results. A frightful negligence 
 seems to reign forever in the offices where the fate 
 of the world is regulated. The celestial policy 
 which was announced as about to become very 
 definite, has been more obscure, more circumspect 
 than ever. This is wise, no doubt ; but hereafter 
 I shall not meddle with prophecies ! Great 
 heavens ! how did the ancient prophets manage 
 rtever to make a mistake ? 
 
 In default of the secrets of the angel Gabriel, I 
 have thought of asking counsel from the gods of 
 India. They are very good gods, whom one adores 
 by dreaming, and who occasionally give us admi- 
 rable lessons in the art of being all things to all 
 men. The life of Krishna, in particular, is full of 
 good examples which if one could imitate them, 
 would restore to this century that which it no longer 
 possesses joy, sympathy, concord. 
 
 When Krishna arrived, beaming with youth and
 
 Il6 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 beauty, in the meadows of Bradj, all the shepherd- 
 esses fell madly in love with him. Krishna, being 
 amiability in person, wished to satisfy all of them. 
 As a god, he possessed the gift of miracles, and 
 of the most astounding of miracles, the multipli- 
 cation of himself. Thanks to this supernatural 
 gift, he divided himself into as many Krishnas as 
 there were shepherdesses. He danced with all; all 
 were convinced, at least, that he had danced with 
 them. From that moment forth, they believed 
 themselves to be privileged persons. They pre- 
 served all their life the precious memory of the 
 divine passage, like a seal of divinity, which con- 
 secrated them priestesses of a superhuman ideal. 
 The admirable point about this miracle of 
 Krishna was this : nothing more simple than that 
 all the shepherdesses should have been persuaded 
 that they had danced with Krishna. That favor 
 would have possessed but a mediocre value in 
 their eyes ; for woman does not prize a gift which 
 she shares with others. But, through a sentiment 
 of infinite delicacy, such as a god may feel, Krishna 
 made each one of the shepherdesses think that he 
 had danced with her alone. Love is egotistical ; it 
 is easily deceived. The beloved being guards his 
 secret for himself ; he wishes to believe that he 
 alone is loved. Each of the shepherdesses took to 
 contemplating her treasure. Secretum meum ttii/ii 
 My secret belongs to me. She believed that she 
 had had no co-sharer in the ideal, that the
 
 ERNEST REN AN. n? 
 
 great god, at the moment of his amorous 
 manifestation, had existed only for her. Oh ! how 
 pure, pious, and discreet did this thought render 
 them ! They were saints. Believing that they 
 alone had possessed the saint, they remained, all 
 their life, completely satisfied, and lived solely on 
 the contemplation of the god whom they had 
 clasped in their arms to the exclusion of every 
 other. 
 
 Krishna was not the only one to practice this 
 miracle of goodness. Buddha, also, understood 
 on occasion to give himself to all, and to make all 
 believe that he had belonged to each individual 
 only. 
 
 When Buddha came into the world, ten thou- 
 sand of the handsomest women in India came to 
 offer themselves to serve as his nurses. He 
 perceived the grief of those who would be rejected, 
 and perhaps the evil sentiment of jealousy which 
 they would experience. He multiplied himself into 
 ten thousand little Buddhas. Each woman held 
 him in her arms, nourished him with her milk, 
 covered him with kisses, and most miraculous of 
 all ! believed that she alone had nursed him and 
 embraced him. Buddhism was the exclusive work 
 of each and everyone of them ; it was their milk 
 which had formed the divine body. 
 
 Buddha repeated the same prodigy several 
 times. One day, as he was traversing a burning 
 plain, millions of devas and genii flew to spread a
 
 Il8 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 parasol over his head. The saint multiplied him- 
 self into as many Buddhas as there were parasols, 
 in order that all might have the satisfaction of be- 
 lieving that their good will had been accepted. 
 
 It is said, also, that when he found himself on the 
 bank of an impassable river, kindly beings built him, 
 instantly, numerous bridges. The Saint multiplied 
 himself according to the number of bridges, and 
 each one of those who had made them believed 
 that the god had passed over his, to the exclusion 
 of the others ; and all were happy ; there were no 
 jealous persons. 
 
 Those ancient gods understood better than it is 
 understood nowadays, how to extract from human 
 nature all the enthusiasm and devotion which it 
 contains. They understood how to spoil people. 
 Each person could believe that the world existed 
 only for him ; and everybody else around him 
 believed the same thing. Has not Christianity also 
 its multiplication of the divine ? 
 
 Sumil mi us, sumuntmille, 
 Quantum isti, tantum ille; 
 Nee sumptus consumitur* 
 
 These, my dear friend, are tales that I fancy you 
 can relate to your colleagues, in some interval of 
 repose between the sessions of the Council. I have 
 often thought, in fact, that they have a certain polit- 
 
 * One eats, a thousand eat, it is in proportion to the people ; 
 yet the food is not consumed referring to the sacred elements, 
 in the mass.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 119 
 
 ical bearing. Krishna dancing with all the shep- 
 herdesses, and each shepherdess imagining that he 
 thought only of her is that not a masterpiece of 
 policy to propose as a model to those who govern 
 men? Men wish to think that everything is done 
 for them and by them. Each one is quite willing to 
 sacrifice himself to the ideal, but on condition of hav- 
 ing made the ideal himself. The great cleverness 
 of the chief of the situation consists in dancing 
 with all, and in making all believe that he has 
 danced with each one alone, does it not ? And, in 
 crises, is it not important to allow those who pre- 
 sent themselves as saviors to suppose that one has 
 effected one's retreat by passing over the bridge 
 which they have erected ? 
 
 The miracle of the multiplication of one's self is 
 reserved for the gods. But, for inferior natures, 
 which are very numerous, and who care very little 
 for the mystic body of Krishna, there is a god who is 
 infinitely divisible, and who is never consumed. It 
 is the budget. Each person wishes to have his 
 share of its favors, with the assurance that it will 
 never be consumed. 
 
 Sunlit unus, sumunt mille, 
 Nee sumptus consumitur. 
 
 The master-stroke would be, possibly, to have 
 all the Deputies members of the commission on the 
 budget, and that each one should imagine that he 
 
 had made the budget himself Would it be 
 
 possible to bring that about? ....
 
 120 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 For us, adorers in spirit, always occupied, in 
 accordance with the Brahmanic formula, in "con- 
 centrating our mind on Krishna," the Hindoo 
 miracle retains all its truth. The ideal loses 
 nothing by division ; it is contained entire in each 
 of its parts. We live on particles of Krishna, 
 which we assimilate according to our genius. The 
 ideal, for all people, is separated into as many 
 morsels as there are tastes, modified according to 
 the character of each. Each creates his own 
 divine dancer. There is, in fact, a refinement 
 which I would introduce into the legend of 
 Krishna, if I should ever attempt to make of it a 
 drama, or, to express it more accurately, a philo- 
 sophical ballet. At the same time that all the 
 shepherdesses believe that they have danced with 
 Krishna, it would turn out that, in reality, they 
 have danced with different Krishnas. Each one 
 would have made her Krishna after her own 
 fashion, and when they came to describe their 
 celestial lover to each other, it would appear that 
 their dreams bore no resemblance whatever to each 
 other, and nevertheless it would always be Krishna. 
 
 This is the problem which must be solved on 
 New Year's Day, at least : to provide everyone 
 with a dream, in which each one shall find his 
 Krishna ; to fabricate for all a little god, which 
 each one shall caress in spirit. For one, this will 
 be the most perfect of republics ; for another, the 
 most perfect of monarchies. Assuredly, the policy
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 121 
 
 some day will be to give to every man the prince 
 whom he loves, the woman of whom he dreams, 
 the faith which he desires. Do not you think, 
 nevertheless, that it would be good if this New 
 Year's policy could be encroached on a little the 
 rest of the twelve months ? 
 
 In a year, if I live, if you are Minister, and if the 
 world lasts, I will resume this mediation with you. 
 The good side of our philosophy is that it pre- 
 pares one well for eternity. Those who are 
 acquainted with you know how little you care for 
 everything which does not concern your country 
 and the truth. For my own part, I gladly accept 
 the premonitions of a speedy end, provided that it 
 be fine. The most important work of each one of 
 us is his death ; we execute this masterpiece, in 
 the midst of gehennas, and with the quarter of our 
 means. If I die within the year, I beg persons of 
 good taste, who are still numerous, not to believe 
 many of the things that will be said about me. I 
 have not been perfect ; but my life has always had 
 an objective, disinterested aim. I ha,ve been a 
 very virtuous man ; to that fact I owe the charm 
 of my old age, and a certain freshness of imagina- 
 tion, which makes me take more and more pleasure 
 in godly creatures. 
 
 How ungrateful I should be, did I complain of 
 my lot ! For four-and-sixty years, I shall have 
 contemplated the most wonderful of spectacles, the 
 universe. It is less long than the ancient paradise,
 
 122 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 but much more amusing. I have contemplated 
 this spectacle from a tolerably good seat, with 
 elbow-rests and footstools to my taste. I have 
 seen the world at one of the most interesting 
 moments of its development. The point at which 
 I have been placed, to enjoy this astonishing dis- 
 play of fireworks, has been excellent. 
 
 The planet Earth is unrivaled as a spot from 
 which to enjoy the universe. It is small ; but it 
 produces alert and subtle minds. It has had 
 Galileo, Newton, Laplace. The atmosphere which 
 surrounds it is perfectly clear. We are sure that, 
 between us and the most distant stars, there is no 
 opaque body, no screen. Truly, no one in the 
 universe is to be pitied, save those people who 
 inhabit planets where the atmosphere is simply 
 translucid, which does not deprive them of light, 
 but which does deprive them of the view of in- 
 finity. Ah ! those poor inhabitants of Venus ! . . . 
 I understand well how they must rebel ! How 
 that milky atmosphere in which they live must 
 limit their horizon ! How thoroughly they must 
 believe that the world was made for them ! What 
 narrow-minded people they must be ! But the 
 inhabitants of the Earth ! The infinite is open to 
 them. How can one grow weary with that ? And 
 then, what games ! what festivals ! I am persuaded 
 that the beings whom the breath of God has caused 
 to blossom out on the planet Earth, are the privi- 
 leged of the universe.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 123 
 
 For my own part, I am content. I have believed, 
 in my day, that 1 had danced with Krishna an 
 illusion perhaps! I have built bridges for gods 
 in distress ; I have held the parasol over the head 
 of Buddha. Long life to the Eternal ! the light 
 is good. Farewell, my friend, until next year, if it 
 pleases God. 
 
 A WORD ON THE EXPOSITION. LETTER TO 
 M. JULES LEMAITRE. 
 
 PARIS, May 9, 1889. 
 
 Dear Friend : Certainly I should have been 
 glad to respond to the invitation contained in your 
 note of day before yesterday morning. But what 
 Christ said is true of me : Spiritus quidem promptus 
 est; caro vero infirma The spirit, indeed, is willing, 
 but the flesh is weak. A recurrence of my habitual 
 ailments has prevented me, so far, from seeing that 
 dear Exposition, which I bless, since it seems to 
 introduce into human affairs a little joy, oblivion, 
 cordiality, and sympathy. I viewed the prepara- 
 tions for it, a few weeks ago, from the heights of 
 the Trocadero ; it produced upon me the effect of 
 the Villa Adriana, of one of those festivals of the 
 time of Adrian, which were brilliant, a trifle com- 
 posite, eclectic to excess, but which we love like 
 the last smiles of a dying world. Even supposing 
 that the Fxposition of 1889 should be the last
 
 124 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 occasion which men will have to assemble for the 
 purpose of giving themselves up to gayety and to 
 amuse themselves with follies, this melancholy 
 thought is not of a nature to render it less poetical 
 and less suggestive to us. 
 
 And then, after all, who knows the future ? You 
 suppose me to be more pessimistic than I am. 
 Yes, I am alarmed at beholding so grandiose a 
 tradition as that of French royalty handed over to 
 a sovereign so narrow-minded, so giddy, so acces- 
 sible to calumny, so easily surprised, as the people 
 represented by universal suffrage. I do not deny 
 that the present moment has its advantages and 
 its sweetness. Liberty is greater than it ever has 
 been before in our country, perhaps than in any 
 country in the world. The exaggerated criticisms 
 which are addressed to the present form of govern- 
 ment proceed from minds who do not know the 
 past, and who have no idea of what that future, 
 which they conjure, would bring. Provided only 
 that it may last ! . . . . That is the only reserve 
 that we make in our contentment. If it were a 
 question merely of our own fragile persons, we 
 should have the right to be improvident, adven- 
 turous, daring. But it is a question of France, of 
 her existence, of her destiny. On the back of that 
 page of the Temps, where I saw these consoling 
 descriptions of the festivals, that fine speech of 
 M. Carnot, I read, under the heading "Saint- 
 Ouen" :
 
 ERNEST REN AX. 125 
 
 Monsieur General Boulanger 1043 Elected. 
 
 Naquet, Boulangist 981 Elected. 
 
 " Laguerre, Boulangist 981 Elected. 
 
 " Deroulede, Boulangist 979 Elected. 
 
 Several persons to whom I have remarked upon 
 it have told me that Saint-Ouen is not a very en- 
 lightened locality. That is possible ; but I fear 
 that there are, in France, a multitude of cantons 
 which, in politics at least, are not much more en- 
 lightened than Saint-Ouen. 
 
 That is why I cannot help, at times, perceiving 
 between the rays of this beautiful setting sun a 
 gloomy cloud, fringed with gold, whence there 
 might easily emerge a Roc which would carry off 
 everything. Let us continue to place our hope in 
 reason, and believe in my sincere friendship. 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTENARY OF POMPEII. 
 
 LETTER TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE 
 "JOURNAL DES DEBATS." 
 
 SORRENTO, September 26, 1879. 
 Sir and Dear Director : You desire me to relate, 
 in a few words, what the Commission of Italian An- 
 tiquities has done to commemorate the hundredth 
 anniversary of an event lugubrious in itself, but 
 which has had, for science, consequences without 
 an equal. The Italian commission had too much
 
 126 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 taste to celebrate as a festival a catastrophe which 
 cost the lives of hundreds of persons as intelligent, 
 as civilized as ourselves ; what it wished was a sci- 
 entific assembly, a memorial addressed to the past, 
 a pilgrimage for those who love antiquity. It has 
 been perfectly successful ; the solemnity to which 
 we were invited was cold and wearisome for the 
 loungers who came to seek a diversion on the ashes 
 of the dead ; in the eyes of cultivated people, it 
 was managed with infinite good sense and tact. 
 
 In the autumn of the year 79 occurred one of the 
 most extraordinary events in the history of the 
 globe. An old volcano, entirely extinct, covered 
 with thickets and wild vines, and whose crater had 
 served as a refuge for the desperate soldiers of 
 Spartacus, burst forth with an energy of which we 
 possess no example in historic times, buried four 
 or five cities at its feet, and created that powerful 
 center of eruptive activity which lasts even in our 
 day, and seems to have come and planted itself 
 in the suburbs of a great city in order to allow 
 itself to be studied at ease. Chance has decreed 
 that we should owe the description of the phenom- 
 enon to the pen of the best writer of that epoch : 
 
 " It was on the ninth of the calends of September 
 [?], toward the seventh hour ; my uncle com- 
 manded the fleet at Misenum, when my grand- 
 mother came and announced to me that a cloud of 
 unwonted size and form was rising on the horizon. 
 At the first moment, it was impossible for us to tell
 
 ERNEST J?EJVAA\ 127 
 
 from what mountain it proceeded ; later on, we 
 learned that it was from Vesuvius. In order to 
 describe the form and appearance of the cloud, I 
 see but one comparison ; it is that of a gigantic 
 pine tree spreading out into branches at the ex- 
 tremity of an inordinately long trunk. In fact, 
 carried by the force of the original projection, the 
 uplifted matter mounted perpendicularly at first ; 
 then, as the current which sustained it vanished, 
 little by little, weight resumed its rights, and the 
 whole flattened out into a mass that was sometimes 
 whitish, sometimes somber and spotted with black. 
 The horrible cyclone, rent by the sinuous furrows 
 and the vibrating flashes of the lightning, as though 
 it bore in its flames an igneous life, opened and 
 presented to view in its interior all the fantastic 
 play of a tempest of fire ; there were lightnings, 
 but lightnings greater than had ever been beheld 
 before. Soon the cloud descended, covered the 
 sea, enveloped Capri, hid it completely, and con- 
 cealed from sight the jutting point of Misenum. 
 Next the ashes came, rare at first, then like a tor- 
 rent invading the earth. The obscurity was com- 
 parable, I will not say to that of the darkest night, 
 but to which one feels in a. closed place, when the 
 light is suddenly extinguished. On all sides were 
 heard roars, the cries of people calling to each 
 other, and seeking to recognize each other by their 
 voices. Some, through fear of death, invoked 
 death ; many raised their hands to the gods ;
 
 128 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 others said that there were no longer any gods, 
 and saw in what was happening the realization of 
 the prophecies which predict for the earth an eter- 
 nal night as its latter end. ' Misenum has crum- 
 bled away,' said some ; ' it is on fire,' said others. 
 All this was false, but people believed it. A faint 
 gleam appearing, they did not take it as a sign 
 that the light was returning, but as an indication 
 of the arrival of fire. The fire did not approach 
 us, in reality ; the darkness descended once more ; 
 the ashes fell again, dense and heavy. We were 
 obliged to rise every moment and shake it off ; 
 otherwise, we should speedily have been covered 
 and crushed by its weight. Little by little the 
 darkness lightened ; the sun appeared, pale as on 
 a day of eclipse. Troubled clouds floated before 
 our eyes. The world seemed to have changed its 
 face ; the land was clothed in a thick layer of 
 ashes, which covered everything, like snow." 
 
 Everyone knows how the antique land, thus 
 buried, has been for the last hundred and fifty 
 years a mine of priceless discoveries for archae- 
 ology. This matter of cities placed in reserve, 
 after a manner, by a natural occurrence, for the 
 use of future archaeologists, seems to me almost 
 unique in the .world, and I know of nothing, except 
 Velliea, near Placentia, interred by the fall of a 
 mountain, which can be compared to the cities at 
 the foot of Vesuvius. The frightful catastrophe, 
 which took place eighteen hundred years ago, has,
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 129 
 
 consequently, been a bit of unparalleled good for- 
 tune for the study of antiquity, especially since a 
 really methodical management has been applied to 
 the excavations. The first researches were more 
 prejudicial than useful to the city itself, being un- 
 dertaken solely with a view to enriching museums. 
 They destroyed in order to find ; they covered up 
 the fragments which were not transportable ; they 
 dug here and there, without continuity, according as 
 they fancied they caught a glimpse of indications 
 of good finds. The glory of having introduced 
 method belongs to M. Fiorelli, who was the first to 
 think that the most curious thing resulting from 
 the excavations at Pompeii was Pompeii itself. In 
 the place of holes and subterranean galleries dug 
 at haphazard, isolated parcels were cleared ; the 
 most ingenious precautions were employed to assure 
 the preservation of monuments upon their original 
 site. The result of these fine researches was an 
 ancient city, under the open sky, where one can 
 walk, where one finds fresh, as if of yesterday, the 
 impression of the voluptuous existence led by the 
 Romans who loved the " Greek life," during the 
 first century of our era. 
 
 Sorrento is a spot of such perfect repose that I 
 hesitated, at first, to quit it, to pass a hot day, at 
 the close of summer, under the blazing sun, in the 
 middle of a crowd and dust. From my win- 
 dows, I have before my eyes the great actor in the 
 drama of 79, Vesuvius, which does not seem to
 
 13 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 have exhaled his wrath seriously since then ; I see 
 Pompeii and the green stretches of the Sarno ; I 
 see the little Isle of Hercules in front of the 
 ancient port of Pompeii, an incontrovertible sign 
 of Phoenician counting-houses in these parts. 
 Hence I thought of celebrating, from my chamber, 
 by reading Pliny's two letters, the strange event 
 of the year 79 ; then ideas of a more active 
 philosophy carried the day ; my young friend, 
 Maurice Paleologus, undertook all the arrange- 
 ments, and we set out, at seven o'clock in the 
 morning, to join the reunion of enlightened men 
 who had assembled on that day upon the ruins of 
 the demolished city. 
 
 I had come to Sorrento by sea, a few days 
 before, and I had not yet enjoyed the incompara- 
 ble sight presented by the road which unites that 
 town to Castellamare. I have been accustomed to 
 say, hitherto, that, in the zone of our planet very 
 limited, alas ! which I have traversed, the route 
 from Vietri to Amalfi is the most beautiful thing I 
 know. Well ! now I hesitate. The sight of the 
 point of Meta, that of Vico, are equal to the most 
 admirable thing that can be imagined in the shape 
 of smiling, amiable nature, completed, finished by 
 man, in proportion with himself. The well dis- 
 tributed waters of the Sarno have given to the 
 plain which separates the pile of Sorrento from 
 Vesuvius a fertility which justifies what the 
 ancients have told us of the beautiful vegetation in
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 131 
 
 the neighborhood of Pompeii. Many learned men 
 have believed that this plain is a conquest which 
 the eruption of 79, by a sort of compensation, 
 presented to the ancient shore. But M. Ruggiero 
 has peremptorily refuted this hypothesis; he has 
 demonstrated that the aggrandizements of the con- 
 tinent have been very inconsiderable, in this di- 
 rection, and have nothing to do with the eruption 
 of 79. 
 
 We arrived about ten o'clock, when the authori- 
 ties were taking their seats. There I found Min- 
 ervini, Fiorelli, those brilliant continuers of the 
 great archaeological school of Naples, and with 
 them, Bernabei, Salinas, de Petra, those active 
 disciples, who are reaping their inheritance so well. 
 The programme of the celebration was composed 
 of three parts : first, a speech by M. Ruggiero, 
 who has so worthily replaced M. Fiorelli in the 
 management of the excavations ; next, a visit to 
 the monuments ; then an excavation executed 
 before the eyes of the public on ground prepared 
 for it. We directed our steps to the basilica where 
 M. Ruggiero was to deliver his speech, and took 
 seats in the inclosure. It was decorated with 
 extreme simplicity ; not a flag, no band of music, 
 not even a bust of Pliny ! I confess that I rather 
 regretted the absence of this last. The martyrs of 
 science should be honored. 
 
 M. Ruggiero had begun the history of the 
 strange phenomenon, the centenary of which had
 
 1 3 2 RECOLLECTIONS A ND LE 7 TERS OF 
 
 brought us together, without affected phrases, 
 without declamation, when an incident which was 
 not set down on the programme caused a momen- 
 tary smile. The gates of Pompeii had been so 
 liberally thrown open that day, that no one could* 
 answer for the good sense of all the persons pres- 
 ent. A crazy man found means to climb a column 
 and there begin a declamation, which overwhelmed 
 M. Ruggiero's voice for a moment. Universal 
 suffrage did not exhibit itself in an entirely favora- 
 ble light on this occasion ; the madman's speech 
 was received with tolerably vigorous applause. I 
 cannot say whether the applause was well bestowed. 
 His discourse has not been printed, like that of 
 M. Ruggiero. Here is a trace of inequality, which 
 I point out to high-flown levelers as abusive. Ine- 
 quality in the eye of the press still exists, perhaps 
 it will be reduced to order one of these days ; in 
 any case, privilege carried the day on this occa- 
 sion ; for, at the end of a few minutes M. Rug- 
 giero had the field entirely to himself. 
 
 While order was being gradually restored, and 
 we were exchanging various comments among our- 
 selves as to the political and social bearing of this 
 incident, I heard a genuine siren's voice behind 
 me ; it was that of M. Palizzi, director of the school 
 of Fine Arts at Naples, a charming man as well 
 as an excellent artist, with whom I had made 
 most agreeable excursions in the environs of 
 Ischia. With him I found five or six friends who
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 133 
 
 had been my companions on those excursions, and 
 whose conversations had still further embellished 
 those beautiful places, were that possible. " We 
 cannot hear very well," said Palizzi, "and then the 
 madman will begin again. Those people are 
 never discouraged. Come with us." At the same 
 time, he shows me a key, which I took, at first, for 
 an ancient object recently discovered. 
 
 " This key is modern," he said to me ; " but it 
 will open the only house in Pompeii which has a 
 lock, and that is no small advantage among these 
 8000 persons. It is an antique house, which has 
 been supplied with a roof and a door for the artist 
 of merit who is present at the excavations and 
 takes a rapid sketch of all the paintings which are 
 discovered, with the true colors of the first mo- 
 ments." " An excellent precaution," I said to 
 him. " How many Egyptian discoveries pass from 
 existence the day after their being brought to 
 light, and perish forever ! " " Yes, come," he 
 said. " We will first go and pay our respects to 
 the poor people who died eighteen hundred years 
 ago ; then we will go to rest and breakfast in the 
 house of the painter. Come ; Ruggiero's speech 
 is printed ; you shall read it this evening with a 
 tranquil brain, and the madman will no longer be 
 there." 
 
 I yielded to this very amiable invitation ; the 
 truth is that M. Palizzi furnished me with one of 
 the most striking sights that I have ever beheld.
 
 134 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The whole crowd was massed around the basilica, 
 and produced by its vivid colors, among those walls 
 of ashen hues, a strange contrast. The remainder 
 of the city was deserted and presented that aspect 
 of melancholy which is so peculiar to Pompeii on 
 ordinary occasions. We visited in particular that 
 street of Tombs, one of the most poetical places in 
 the world ; we sat down on those hospitable seats 
 which the dead offers to the living as though to 
 counsel him to repose oh! what good counsel 
 the dead give ! We were on our way to salute 
 the spot, at the gate of the city, where was found 
 the soldier, victim to his duty, when one of our 
 companions stopped us abruptly: "Everything is 
 changed," he said ; " that little nook is no longer, 
 as has been thought, a sentry-box ; people have 
 been greatly in the wrong in insisting upon seeing, 
 in the body which was found there, the remains of 
 a sentinel who perished at his post, accepting the 
 evident danger of being suffocated rather than flee. 
 .This man did not deserve the honors which have 
 been paid to him ; perhaps he was a thief." This 
 made us thoughtful. What ! Even after death, a 
 hero of duty can be confounded with a thief, ac- 
 cording to the caprices of archaeology ! the body 
 of a thief can usurp, for years, in consequence of 
 the error of antiquarians, the honors due to heroes ! 
 How very necessary is a Last Judgment to revise 
 all this ! But even in that, what errors are pos- 
 sible ! What precautions will be required ! This
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 135 
 
 reminds me of the unhappy wretch who was taken 
 for Biliioray, on the 25th of May, 1871, and shot 
 'near the Invalides ; then the real Biliioray was 
 merely condemned to deportation. Ah ! the jus- 
 tice of this world ! We beheld once more that 
 strange museum, formed of the plaster casts of the 
 human bodies found in the ashes ! The flesh hav- 
 ing been consumed, molds and good channels 
 were left, into which plaster could be poured, so 
 that the rigorously exact cast of the unfortunate 
 Pompeians, as they expired, was obtained. Noth- 
 ing could be more striking. The young girl who 
 presses her bosom against the earth, as though to 
 embrace it, with her arms folded, presents the pur- 
 est forms and the most touching attitude. A dog, 
 a fine greyhound, writhes, with head held between 
 his legs ; he was fastened at the door of a house ; 
 as the inundation of volcanic cinders rose, he rose 
 also, but his cord soon stopped him. M. Ruggiero 
 has brought to the study of these difficult Pom- 
 peian questions, admirable patience and method. 
 He has resolutely discarded the hypothesis of 
 water, and the hypothesis of fire. Undeniable 
 facts establish that Pompeii was not drowned in a 
 torrent of liquid mud, as has been asserted. The 
 invading matter did not penetrate inclosed spaces. 
 The oven, in which was found bread in the process 
 of baking, was perfectly clean and empty inside, 
 with its eighty-one little loaves ; and it was only 
 partially closed. A well, the opening to which was
 
 136 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 preserved from the invasion of the volcanic cinders, 
 was not filled up; the water gushes up there, 
 at the present day, at a depth of twenty-five* 
 meters. 
 
 The system of conflagration is not admissible 
 either Pompeii did not perish by fire. The lead is 
 not melted, the marbles are not calcined, bits of 
 cloth and of wood adhere to metal, and are not 
 carbonized ; the mural paintings are exempt from 
 the action of fire and of smoke. Some facts, which 
 seem to lead to a contrary deduction, are ex- 
 plained, either by the fall of incandescent scoriae, 
 or by lightning, the action of which is pro- 
 duced with extraordinary violence around orifices 
 of eruption. In reality, Pompeii was covered, in a 
 few hours, with a layer of volcanic cinders and 
 ashes equivalent, with the cumulative action of the 
 rain, to seven or eight meters. Almost all the in- 
 habitants, to the number of 12,000, were able to 
 make their escape ; about 500 lingered and per- 
 ished. The rain of volcanic cinders preceded that 
 of ashes ; they could preserve themselves from the 
 former, by barricading themselves in cellars and 
 enclosed places. This explains the imprudence of 
 the 500 unfortunates. They awaited the end of 
 the shower of fine stones ; they did not count on 
 the shower of ashes which suffocated them. Events 
 took place very nearly as in 1872 ; only, on this 
 last occasion, the shower of ashes was much more 
 feeble, and people were merely put to the incon-
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 137 
 
 venience of using umbrellas in the streets of 
 Naples. 
 
 Meanwhile, M. Palizzi led us gradually to the 
 agreeable nook which he had prepared for us. The 
 heat was very powerful, the shadow of the old 
 walls was very narrow ; we finally arrived at the 
 threshold of our desires. M. Palizzi preceded us, 
 key in hand. Oh, surprise ! the little house was 
 occupied . . . occupied by an excellent company, 
 moreover ladies, who were engaged in partaking 
 of a frugal repast. We looked at Palizzi ; Palizzi 
 looked at us. What was the value of that key on 
 which we had founded our hopes? We applied to 
 the corporal who stood near by ; we explained the 
 case to him, he reflected at length : " There must 
 be two keys," said he. This hypothesis was no 
 more probable than those which are sometimes 
 hazarded on the subject of Pompeian problems ; 
 we did not contradict it, but we remained con- 
 vinced that the modern door, which did not adapt 
 itself well to the ancient framework, had been 
 forced. Naturally, we pretended to be happy at 
 having been anticipated, and, after taking precau- 
 tions that the incident should not be repeated, we 
 set off to pay another visit to the houses called 
 the house of Diomed, the house of Sallust, and 
 those of the Vestals and the Dancing Girls. Then 
 we found well-earned repose in the tiny house 
 which our discreet predecessors had finally va- 
 cated. M. Palizzi explained to me the results of
 
 I 38 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 the long sojourn which he had made on the ruins 
 of Pompeii, and, in particular, his observations on 
 the streets and ways. He pointed out to me the 
 extremely unequal pavements of the streets, and 
 how this state corresponded exactly with the limits 
 of the houses, so that the conclusion which must 
 be drawn from it was that the pavements fell 
 among the obligations of the proprietors abutting 
 on them. 
 
 I was examining attentively the interesting paint- 
 ings, the experiments in restoring ancient houses, 
 which covered the walls, when the unforeseen made 
 its entry once more, in the person of a porter, carry- 
 ing a bale corded with the utmost care and cleverly 
 concealing its contents. The idea had been, no 
 doubt, to turn aside the eyes of desire of such 
 people as should behold the mysterious basket on 
 its passage, and it had been given the appearance 
 which an archaeological package might assume. 
 
 It was the breakfast prepared by our friends an 
 exquisite breakfast, if ever there was one and 
 which reminded me of the collation which we had 
 found all ready, when we were making the tour of 
 Ischia, in the desert bay of Monte-Santangelo. 
 At Pompeii it was the best wines of France that 
 these gentlemen gave us to drink ; we preferred 
 to them that asprino, which the common people 
 buy for two sous, but which is not to be found in 
 the hotels which respect themselves, and a wine of 
 the Abruzzi prepared in French fashion, which
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 139 
 
 seemed to me to have a fine future before it. My 
 young friend Maurice was enchanted ; he was un- 
 dergoing his apprenticeship in Italian cordiality, 
 and had not reached his twentieth experience, as 
 I had. 
 
 I made the remark that it was, perhaps, impious 
 to breakfast so well in the house of the dead, but 
 some one replied : 
 
 " That happened a long time ago ; and, after 
 all, are they greatly to be pitied ? They would be 
 dead, all the same, and see how people talk of 
 them, and occupy their minds with them. Do not 
 you think that the Egyptians who were sacrificed 
 in the construction of the Pyramids live to-day far 
 more than those who paddled out the normal sum 
 of their years in the mud of the Nile ? The insect 
 pinned to a card in the museum, and which, by its 
 beautiful coloring, evokes a cry of admiration 
 from a pretty mouth, the animal which serves for 
 the demonstrations of science, are privileged above 
 their fellows, who remain obscure." 
 
 Palizzi did not approve of this paradox, and 
 justified our litth feast in another way. 
 
 " Have you not noticed," he said to me, " in the 
 street of Tombs, those semicircular benches, ar- 
 ranged expressly in the form of scholse, so that 
 the country-people might come thither to rest, 
 chat, and discuss ? It is an amiable idea of the 
 dead man to offer to his survivors an agreeable 
 moment, and, above all, that good counsel, to
 
 140 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 relish the honest joys of life without imagining 
 that they will last forever. And do not you think 
 that the funeral feast was a pious act in its own 
 way?" "Certainly," I replied, "and among those 
 of our ancestors who preserved longest their bar- 
 barous customs, this repast was bound to extend 
 even to drunkenness, to bloody battles. The same 
 thing still exists in Ireland ; in Brittany, also, 
 people would think that they were lacking in 
 respect for the dead did they return from the 
 funeral in full possession of their reason." 
 
 I was on the point of continuing when a move- 
 ment arose in the street. It was the result of the 
 excavations which was being brought to the central 
 office. "What !" said I. " Have the excavations 
 been made in our absence ! Can you imagine our 
 remaining idle, when they were at work?" My 
 companions smiled. " What do you suppose ex- 
 cavations made in the presence of eight thousand 
 persons amount to ? There is nothing serious 
 about them ; no one but the prefect of Naples can 
 have taken much interest in them." We followed 
 the three or four flat boxes, bearing the arms of 
 the King of Italy, which contained the objects 
 found. Ah ! good Heavens ! What a result ! 
 There was hardly anything in the boxes but the 
 bones of dead people. Well ! On thinking it 
 over I came to the decision that this was full of 
 tact. This result proved the honesty and scientific 
 seriousness of the directors of the festival. It
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 141 
 
 would have been so easy to prepare some dis- 
 covery in honor of the public, who expected some- 
 thing of the sort ! M. Ruggiero had denied him- 
 self this innocent bit of trickery ; the pickaxes 
 brought up only kitchen utensils, broken pots, and 
 a very considerable number of skulls and thigh 
 bone's. It is evident that the house investigated 
 was one of those where the people tarried longest. 
 Those poor pagans suggested to me many reflec- 
 tions. One of the fundamental principles of my 
 life, a principle to which I cling obstinately, al- 
 though many of my friends declare it an enormous 
 cheat, is to consider as an honest man every human 
 creature of whom the contrary has not been dem- 
 onstrated to me. Consequently, I saluted these 
 poor remains, and I wafted a kiss of peace to the 
 honest people to whom they had belonged. There 
 are persons who profess exactly the contrary doc- 
 trine, and persist, more or less, in regarding every- 
 one who has not been proved to them to be an 
 honest man, as a rogue. Good Heavens ! I think 
 that they are as cflen deceived as I am, and I 
 persist in believing that, if one bears in mind the 
 innumerable difficulties of the human state, general 
 benevolence is true justice. Among the dead, 
 whose bones lay there before my eyes, there were, 
 perhaps, resigned slaves, faithful servants, the 
 wounded of life who had arrived at irony, which is, 
 also, after its fashion, a species of wisdom. That 
 skull yonder is, perhaps, that of the bitter scoffer
 
 142 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS 01-' 
 
 who drew a little ass on the wall and wrote below 
 it : " Labora, bone asello, sicut ego laboravi, et 
 proderit tibi, sicut mihi prodest."* I have not the 
 "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum " of Berlin at 
 hand to verify the text. M. Zangmeister and my 
 dear colleague Leon Renier must pardon me if I 
 have made any mistake. 
 
 I saw with pleasure an inscription traced on a 
 column of the forum, of which M. Fiorelli sent a 
 stamp to the commission of the " Corpus Inscrip- 
 tionum Semiticarum " a few years ago. This stamp 
 then seemed to us absolutely inexplicable, and we 
 classed it, provisorily, in the category of unknown 
 inscriptions. But the fine publication of the in- 
 scriptions of Safa, near Damascus, made by Messrs. 
 Waddington and de Vogiie, has illuminated the 
 Pompeian text in a striking manner. 
 
 These inscriptions, the deciphering of which is 
 the work of M. Joseph Halevy, are genuine Arabic 
 inscriptions of the Roman epoch. The graffito of 
 Pompeii belongs indubitably to this group. It is 
 not in the least surprising to find an Arab writing 
 his name on a column at Pompeii, since, about the 
 same time, some Nabatseans of Petra left at Pouz- 
 zoles so many marks of their passage, and in par- 
 ticular two fine inscriptions in Nabatsean characters. 
 
 It was at this moment that I made the acquaint- 
 ance with a fine volume which was to be distributed 
 
 * Labor, good little ass, as I have labored, and it shall 
 profit you as it has profited me,
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 143 
 
 on the morrow, and which will remain as the record 
 of this scientific solemnity.* It is composed of a 
 series of memorials on the problems raised by 
 buried cities. Therein M. Ruggiero and his col- 
 laborators set forth, with the authority which be- 
 longs to them alone, the new views at which they 
 have arrived, as to the history of the great phe- 
 nomenon of 79. Here again my philosophy was 
 subjected to some trials, for one of M. Ruggiero's 
 best established results, is that the eruption, 
 according to all probability, occurred on the 23d 
 of November. Pliny's text leaves room for doubt, 
 but a multitude of details observed by M. Rug- 
 giero seem to prove that the event took place to- 
 wards the close of autumn. The vintage had been 
 finished, and the operations which follow it must 
 have been far advanced ; the amphorae, in general, 
 are not found in the cellars ; they are in the do- 
 mestic offices, in the kitchens ; they were at work on 
 them ; they were putting into them the pitch and 
 resin, the ordinary condiment of ancient wine. 
 M. Ruggiero draws the same deduction from the 
 fruits which are found, and those which are not 
 found, in Pompeii. This ran somewhat contrary to 
 my impressions, and I mentioned the matter to one 
 of my friends. " All days are alike," he said. 
 " How many anniversaries you have disarranged 
 or suppressed in your books ! Does that prevent 
 
 * Pompei e la Regione Sotterrata dal Vesuvio nel anno Ixxix. 
 Naples, tip. Gianni, in-4, 291-245 pages, avec planches.
 
 144 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 people continuing to celebrate the festivals on the 
 same day as usual ? Books and the ways of the 
 world have nothing to do with each other." 
 
 But the day was already declining, the railway 
 station at Pompeii was filled with people, the lo- 
 comotives set out on their return to Naples. We 
 cast a glance at the king of the festival, Vesuvius, 
 who had been too much forgotten. Vesuvius is in 
 a state of great activity at the present moment ; 
 the immenseness of the crater, which vomits smoke 
 at its full capacity, is nowhere to be measured 
 so well as from Pompeii. Seen through the street 
 of Mercury, the old giant showed himself really 
 grandiose, mythological ; there he stood, proud, dis- 
 dainful, content with his work, quite ready to be- 
 gin it all over again. The aspects of Vesuvius, 
 studied by the hour, as one can study them from 
 Sorrento, are the spectacle which gives the best 
 idea of the mythological conceptions of the 
 ancients. The somewhat human attitude of the 
 gaping monster, the very diverse and always plas- 
 tic aspects presented by the plume of smoke, ac- 
 cording to the direction of the wind and the time 
 of day, give the idea of a living being, which has 
 rages, has passions of his own. One can conceive 
 that the Greeks and the Italiotes should have 
 addressed prayers and sacrifices to these capri- 
 cious and irritable beings, in order to placate them; 
 one can conceive how the Jew beholds in them an 
 agent of the wrathful Jehovah. I meditated, in
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 145 
 
 particular, on the Apocalypse, and on the extraor- 
 dinary amount of space occupied in the book of 
 Enoch, and in almost all the Sibylline prophecies, 
 by the volcanic accidents of the Bay of Naples. 
 The great phenomena of eruptions and earthquakes 
 of the first and second centuries of our era are the 
 only ones of the sort which have exercised an in- 
 fluence on the history of thoughtful humanity. 
 They troubled people's imaginations, and, in com- 
 bination with the ideas of the Jews as to an ap- 
 proaching end of the world, they produced that 
 idea of a conflagration in which the ancient world 
 was to perish because of its crimes. Judicare secu- 
 lum per ignem The world is to be judged by fire. 
 Dangerous words, which must not be too often re- 
 peated ! For by dint of repeating a thing too 
 much, one inspires people, sometimes, with the idea 
 of realizing it. 
 
 We returned to Sorrento at a fresh and delicious 
 time of the day, finding the places charming which 
 we had regarded quite otherwise under a different 
 illumination at eight o'clock in the morning. My 
 young companion performed nearly the whole of 
 the journey on foot, climbing up the slopes, escalad- 
 ing the rocks to enjoy the admirable view. Ar- 
 rived at Sorrento we triumphed over those who had 
 been afraid of the crowd, the dust, and the official 
 ceremonies. There had not been a trace of dust in 
 Pompeii ; the official part had been reduced, with 
 perfect tact, to its just measure, and, as for the
 
 146 RECOLLECTIO\S AND LETTERS OF 
 
 crowd, thanks to M. Palizzi, we had only had a 
 distant glimpse of that. Our triumph was complete 
 when we began to extol the asprino ; everyone 
 desired 10 taste it ; we ordered some ; there was 
 none in the hotel, and I even think that our order 
 brought down upon us a certain amount of dis- 
 credit 
 
 THE PORTRAITS OF SAINT PAUL. LETTER TO 
 M. MEZIERES OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 
 
 PARIS, April 8, 1879. 
 
 My very dear Colleague : On reading this morn- 
 ing in the Journal des De"bats the charming words 
 in which you bade me welcome into the company, 
 I was still more touched than I had been on Thurs- 
 day, by so many tokens of friendship, and by the 
 share which you are so kind as to take in the re- 
 ligion of my dearest memories. Our disagreements 
 are a trifling matter ; for I subscribe heartily to 
 what you say regarding the respect of the religious 
 conscience ; I fear as much as you the advent of a 
 brutal force, void of ideal beliefs ; I sometimes 
 reproach myself for not liking to dwell in the 
 middle regions of literature, and as for Marcus 
 Aurelius and Faustina, I abandon them, since you 
 wish it, although it is impossible for me not to be 
 struck, on beholding the most pious of men, in his 
 most intimate converse with the divinity, associate
 
 ERNEST REXAN. 147 
 
 Faustina with the noblest persons whom he has 
 known with his mother and sister. This proves 
 that, of the two hypotheses proposed by Capitoli- 
 nus Velnesciit, vel dissimulavit Either he did not 
 know, or he concealed it the second is impossible. 
 But what matters it, since all the world agrees that 
 Faustina was a charming woman, and since Marcus 
 Aurelius remains the author of the " Thoughts," 
 that is to say, of the most exquisite book that 
 heathen antiquity has bequeathed to us ? 
 
 I do care a little about the ugliness of Saint 
 Paul, for I would not like to seem to have carica- 
 tured him, on any consideration. I certainly 
 should have done that, had I been the author of 
 the portrait which you quote as coming from me. 
 On page 170 of my " Apostles," I have mentioned 
 the texts on which I based my statements. No 
 doubt, you have thought them lacking in solidity ; 
 permit me to submit to you a few observations 
 whence it will appear, I think, that this portrait is 
 the exact reproduction of the manner in which the 
 disciples and admirers of Paul conceived his image 
 about a hundred years after his death. 
 
 The phrase which you cite is, in fact, in great 
 part borrowed from the third paragraph of the cele- 
 brated " Acts " of Paul and of Thecla.* Tertul- 
 lian, in his treatise on " Baptism," chapter 17, gives 
 us the most interesting details concerning the 
 origin of this book. He relates that this pretty 
 
 * Tischendorf, " Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha," p. 41.
 
 148 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 romance was the work of a priest from Asia, a very 
 great zealot on the subject of Paul's glor)^. Being 
 pressed with questions as to the sources whence he 
 had drawn these beautiful narratives, the priest, 
 driven to the wall, acknowledged that he had com- 
 posed the book himself "out of the great love 
 which he had for Paul." Convictum atque confessum 
 id se amore Pauli fecisse. This is charming, is it 
 not? What a flash of light this remark casts upon 
 the manner in which veracious history was under- 
 stood ! To attribute to a great and revered per- 
 sonage noble adventures, speeches which were 
 supposed to be sublime, far from passing for a 
 culpable imposture, was a meritorious act. They 
 gloried in it, and assumed that the personage whom 
 they had taken for their subject ought to feel him- 
 self highly honored. But is it in consequence of 
 this same sentiment that one could be led to 
 attribute to one's hero a small head, a long nose, 
 eyebrows which met in the middle of his forehead, 
 and bandy legs ? I do not think so. Convictum 
 atque confessum id se amore Pauli fecisse. One can 
 never believe that it was out of love for Paul that 
 the priest from Asia invented this portrait. I 
 incline rather to think that the Asian priest ex- 
 pressed himself thus because there existed a tra- 
 ditional image of the great apostle which he 
 contented himself with reproducing. Assuredly, 
 the "Acts" of Paul and Thecla contain fabulous 
 things, although quite recently our learned col-
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 149 
 
 league, M. Le Blant, who is a great authority in 
 Christian antiquities, has pointed out its historical 
 authority in many respects, and its value in the 
 matter of local color.* That which appears certain, 
 at the least, is, that having occasion to trace the 
 type of the apostle, the author cannot have done it 
 contrary to the generally received ideas. One 
 cannot imagine that in writing a book destined, in 
 his opinion, to glorify Paul, he should have pre- 
 sented the latter with features almost ridiculous, 
 and contrary, at the same time, to the image of him 
 which people held. 
 
 At what date was this romance composed, this 
 romance so full of grace and tenderness, probably 
 the most ancient of all Christian romances, which, 
 if it were translated to-day by a clever man, would 
 probably have, in the pious as well as in profane 
 circles, for opposite reasons, the greatest success ? 
 Tertullian wrote his treatise on " Baptism " about 
 the year 196 ; it is certainly one of his first works. 
 At that date the " Acts " of Thecla enjoyed great 
 authority in certain Christian churches. Tertullian 
 combats this authority, and informs us that the 
 priest of Asia, the author of the book, was already 
 dead, when he wrote. We are not too bold, there- 
 fore, in referring the date of the composition of 
 this book to the year 175 or 180. Paul died a little 
 before the year 70. The author was toward St. 
 
 * In the Annulaire de F Association des Etudes Grecques, for 
 the year 1877.
 
 15 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Paul, therefore, in the same situation, as regards 
 time, that we are in now toward Voltaire. 
 
 Certainly, it is possible that the text of the 
 "Acts" of Thecla, which has been published by 
 Grabe and by Tischendorf, differs in many respects 
 from that which Tertullian had in view ; but this 
 text is, in any case, very ancient. Tischendorf 
 and Grabe are persuaded that it is the identical 
 work of the Asian priest, slightly altered. 
 
 That which decided me, moreover, to give the 
 passage from the "Acts" of Thecla a place in my 
 narrative, is the astonishing coincidence of the 
 queer portrait sketched by the priest of Asia with 
 one of the most entertaining passages of the 
 dialogue entitled " Philopatris." You are ac- 
 quainted with this amusing little work, preserved 
 among the writings^of Lucian, but which certainly 
 did not belong to the scoffer of Samosata. The 
 " Philopatris " is dated with great precision. It is 
 from the reign of the Emperor Julian, and even 
 from the end of this reign, about the year 363, at 
 the time when the unhappy emperor was already 
 engaged in his fatal war with the Persians. It is 
 the work of an enemy of Christianity, solely intent 
 on representing the new believers as chimerical 
 dreamers and enemies of the Roman state. . 
 
 " Formerly," says the Christian Triephon, " I 
 
 nourished myself with the same doctrines as thou, 
 
 up to the moment when I had the good fortune to 
 
 encounter a certain Galilean* with a bald forehead 
 
 * Galilean is used in the sense of Christian.
 
 ERNEST REN A JV. 151 
 
 and a long nose, who had ascended to the third 
 heaven, and who had learned the most beautiful 
 things there. That man regenerated us by water, 
 and rending us away from the world of the un- 
 godly introduced us into the company of the 
 saints."* There can be no doubt that the question 
 here is of Saint Paul ; the ecstasy in the third 
 heaven does not admit of hesitation. It is hardly 
 probable that the pagan author of the " Philo- 
 patris" had read the romance of Thecla. If he 
 agrees with the priest from Asia, it is because he 
 was acquainted with the traditional type which the 
 Christians attributed to Saint Paul. This tradition 
 is not to be disdained ; you are not ignorant of 
 M. de Rossi's fine writings on the portraits of the 
 apostles Peter and Paul ; he has fully established, 
 if not their value as real portraits, at least their 
 high antiquity. When I see the coincidence of 
 these respectable images with the texts, I really 
 cannot believe that I have given too free play to 
 the imagination by following such old indications. 
 The Byzantine historians present precisely the 
 same description of Saint Paul's features. I will 
 cite, in particular, Saint Nicephorusf and John 
 Malala.J These authors add several features to 
 those of the "Acts" of Thecla and of the " Philo- 
 patris," evidently derived from the portraits which 
 they had before their eyes. Now, my dear col- 
 
 *" Philopatris," chapter 12. f Hist-Eccl., ii, 37. 
 
 JChronogr., p. 257, edit. Bonn.
 
 152 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 league, you who have resided in Athens, and who 
 are so well acquainted with the Eastern Church, 
 know better than anyone the force of tradition 
 in the religious paintings of the Greeks, and how 
 invariably each saint's type is there established. 
 
 The most extraordinary point is, that after hav- 
 ing sketched the portrait of St. Paul, as I have 
 done, Nicephorus, Malala, and even the author of 
 the " Acts," to a certain extent, insist that Paul was 
 handsome, in spite of it all. How can we explain 
 this singular contradiction ? In my opinion, by the 
 force of tradition, which imposed itself upon those 
 who would have the most desired that the face of 
 the apostle to the Gentiles should correspond to 
 the importance of his supernatural role. They 
 affirmed his beauty a priori, although fidelity to 
 tradition compelled them to transcribe certain 
 traits which, more or less, gave the lie in the most 
 startling manner to this affirmation. 
 
 One capital reason, finally, forbids us to neglect 
 such testimony ; it is, that it answers perfectly to 
 the idea that Saint Paul himself gives us of his per- 
 sonal appearance, and of his temperament in the 
 two epistles to the Corinthians, that is to say, in 
 writings whose authenticity is absolutely undeni- 
 able. The apostle informs us that his appearance 
 was fragile, and not in the least imposing. The 
 frivolous Corinthians openly gave the preference 
 over him to preachers better endowed in respect 
 to the exterior, like Apollos. " His letters are
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 153 
 
 weighty and powerful," they said, " but his bodily 
 presence is weak, and his speech contemptible."* 
 Paul makes constant allusion to his bodily weak- 
 ness ; he represents himself as a man who has only 
 a breath, ill, exhausted, and timid withal, without 
 fine appearance, with nothing which produces an 
 effect, so that his disciples, according to him, are 
 meritorious because they are not deterred by such 
 a wretched exterior. Neither did his speech pos- 
 sess any charm. A certain timorousness, embar- 
 rassment, inaccuracy, gave, at first, a poor idea of 
 his eloquence. Like a man of tact, he himself laid 
 stress on his external defects, and made capital out 
 of them, with great cleverness. 
 
 Paul's temperament, according to his own testi- 
 mony, was no less singular that his exterior. His 
 constitution evidently very tough, since it endured 
 a life composed entirely of fatigues was not 
 sound. He speaks mysteriously of a secret trial, 
 " of a thorn in the flesh," which he compares to an 
 angel of Satan, occupied in buffeting him, and 
 whom God has permitted to attach himself to him, 
 to prevent his growing proud. Volumes have been 
 written on this little point, or rather, on that thorn 
 in Paul's flesh (Skolops en sarki). It was certainly 
 an infirmity ; Paul forbids us to understand it as 
 carnal lust, since he himself informs us that he was 
 not very accessible to that sort of temptation. 
 For two months, I meditated on that passage ; 
 that thorn in the flesh seemed to me the exact 
 * II Corinthians, x, 10.
 
 154 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 definition of rheumatism, a real angel of Satan, who 
 does, in fact, buffet cruelly the patient who is deliv- 
 ered over to him by way of salutary humiliation. 
 
 You see, then, my dear colleague, that if I have 
 gone astray in the matter of the likeness which I 
 have traced of Saint Paul, it is much less through 
 abuse of imagination than through confidence in 
 tradition. I recognize the fact that this tradition 
 does not constitute absolute certainty ; it is certain 
 that a good photograph would be worth more. In 
 spite of the doubts which cling to it, it seemed to 
 me, nevertheless, that such statements should not 
 be passed over in silence. Tradition, legend, even, 
 cannot be entirely banished from serious history ; 
 they contain their share of truth ; they show, if not 
 how things took place, at least how they were 
 thought of. I employ the most scrupulous forms 
 of language, in order to distinguish that which is 
 certain from that which is probable, that which is 
 possible. But I consider myself authorized to 
 accord the probable and the possible a place, on 
 the condition, of course, of multiplying \\\t perhaps 
 and // seems to me, and the other phrases expressive 
 of doubt, of which one must not be sparing on 
 such a subject. That which I never do is to add 
 a material circumstance to the texts, a detail to 
 the pictures of manners, a stroke to the landscapes. 
 I understand the general effects in my own way ; I 
 never introduce into them an element which has 
 not been furnished me. Origins are always ob-
 
 ERNEST RENAX. 155 
 
 scure ; in order to divine the effaced pages of the 
 old histories, one requires a power of divination 
 into which there enters a personal element. It is 
 almost impossible to know exactly how things have 
 taken place ; the goal which criticism sets up for 
 itself, is to rediscover the manner, or the various 
 manners, in which they might have happened. 
 But the assumption of material circumstances not 
 supplied by the texts would be a proceeding fruit- 
 less and unworthy of the historian ; I never employ 
 it. 
 
 I desired, my dear colleague, to clear myself 
 from the charge of having made Saint Paul ugly. 
 That great man, who set so little store by a fine ap- 
 pearance for himself, since he tells us more than 
 half a score of times that he possessed the least 
 possible external advantages, would not be offended 
 with me for so small a matter ; but in the portrait, 
 which you quote as coming from me, there would 
 be an intention to caricature, and that I must dis- 
 pel. I should have need of the intercession of the 
 saints. A good Capuchin, who read the article 
 which I published, a few years ago, in the Journal 
 des DJbats, about Saint Francis d'Assisi, was de- 
 lighted with it, and, from that day forth, when he 
 heard people speak ill of me, he said : " Oh ! no 
 doubt . . . . ; but he spoke well of Francis 
 d'Assisi, Saint Francis d'Assisi will save him." 
 That is a powerful intercession ; I hope that Saint 
 Paul will add his to it, in consideration of the
 
 IS 6 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 trouble which I have taken, not to represent him as 
 a handsome man, but to show him as one of the 
 strongest and most extraordinary souls that have 
 ever existed. 
 
 Believe, my dear colleague, in my most sincere 
 friendship. 
 
 REPLY TO THE SPEECH OF RECEPTION 
 INTO THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF M. JULES 
 CLARETIE, FEBRUARY 21, 1889. 
 
 Sir : It is more than a quarter of a century 
 since we met, for the first time, at M. Michelet's. 
 The hospitable place, the affection which attached 
 us to the master, and a rare community of senti- 
 ments, united us. You were in all the fire of your 
 first revolutionary ardors ; I was under the influ- 
 ence of the inward conversations which I had 
 held in the East, like the disciples of Emmaus, 
 with a mysterious wayfarer. We came to an under- 
 standing with considerable promptness. Shall I 
 confess it to you ? I believe that, during those 
 first conversations, we said some evil of the 
 French Academy. Oh ! the Academy, sir, is infi- 
 nitely indulgent about the evil that is said of it. 
 Coarse insults do not reach it ; it accepts the 
 gentle reproaches of men of talent as marks of 
 love, and it takes good note of them for its future 
 favors. Certainly, there is one point upon which
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 15? 
 
 we were perfectly right ; it was when we expressed 
 our regret that the company did not count among 
 its members the exquisite master, the charming 
 historian, who consoled us in our sadness of those 
 days ! But what would you have ! A literary 
 company infallible ! We should almost be afraid 
 of it. Academies make no pretension to possess- 
 ing the rule of absolute justice. It is sufficient if 
 they are right sometimes. Room must be left 
 for unforeseen unions, for the witty freaks of 
 chance, for amiable encounters, in fine, like that 
 which has brought us together in this place to-day- 
 you, entered as a volunteer in the free band of 
 literature of twenty years ago, to take the place of 
 conservator in this senate I, a mistaken but ob- 
 stinate disciple of Saint Tudal or Saint Corentin,to 
 wish you welcome, and to press your -hand in the 
 name of an old friendship. 
 
 I was sure that I should please you, sir, by re- 
 turning with you to these memories of the time 
 when, as Petrarch says, we were, in part, other 
 men than we are to-day. The best mark of nobil- 
 ity, as you said a while ago, is to love each other 
 as we were in our youth, to remain faithful to the 
 illusions athwart which we first discovered life. I 
 do not think that we have changed much ; we are 
 still incorrigible idealists. I see you trait for trait 
 as you were then. Enthusiasm was the dominant 
 character of your nature, and if those uneventful 
 years, in the middle of the Second Empire, had
 
 158 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 permitted hazardous protestations, I think that 
 you would have thrown yourself valiantly into the 
 breach. Revolution was like a gulf which sum- 
 moned you. Your sentiments were all for that 
 instinctive devotion, for that manner of toying 
 with death, which lends an irresistible attraction to 
 the characters of the Revolution. Your history of 
 " Prairial " is a genuine martyrology. You have 
 unfolded, one by one, in the " Archives," those 
 pages penned by your heroes on their last nights ; 
 you have kept beneath your eye the dagger which 
 killed Romme, Bourbotte, Soubrany ; like the dea- 
 con in the times of persecution, you show us the 
 red phial and the bloody handkerchief. " Claretie's 
 book," said M. Michelet, "has made me shudder. 
 It is so burning, so cruelly true ! " You have gone 
 through all our fevers, sir, you have tasted all our 
 fits of madness. But, what shows well the solidity 
 of your judgment, you have returned from your 
 journey to the country of death without leaving 
 behind any part of yourself, you have traversed the 
 chaos without ever losing your footing. 
 
 Since that time you have marched from success 
 to success. After having traversed all the circles 
 of hell, you have contrived to smile so naturally 
 that people have believed that you have done noth- 
 ing else all your life. Your mind, at once both 
 supple and firm, capable of becoming passionate 
 and of dominating its passion, was very promptly 
 approved of by the public, which has applauded you
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 159 
 
 at the theater, followed you with favor in history 
 and romance, read eagerly those weekly chats a 
 new style of article which you so ably defined a 
 while ago, and which has, to some extent, super- 
 seded the ancient French form of correspondence. 
 The most important organs of public opinion have 
 made it a point to confide to you their chronicles 
 of the day, those rapid judgments of a referee, 
 which class a case, define it, frame it, while leaving 
 to the future the care of taking it up again and dis- 
 cussing it. It is in this department, sir, that you 
 have shown yourself to be in direct line with this 
 century. This dear nineteenth century, the future 
 will say a great deal of evil concerning it ; people 
 will be unjust if they do not recognize the fact that 
 it was charming. Such it appears in your pictures ; 
 it constituted one of my relaxations to read you, 
 when you were writing those beautiful pages. Even 
 when, by profession, one has chosen the company 
 of the dead, the light of the sun is sweet. This 
 Parisian life may seem superficial, at times, I con- 
 fess ; but it offers an admirable procession of 
 pleasant images. It is a good furnace to consume 
 that surplus of life which philosophy and science 
 do not absorb. A considerable part of humanity 
 lives on the chronicle of Paris. The world will 
 lose something on the day when it no longer has it. 
 Your romances in book form have added fresh 
 touches to that great romance without an end 
 which, for years, you have unraveled day by day.
 
 l6o RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Your episode of the love affairs of the patient at 
 La Salpetriere is exquisite. The " Million " is a de- 
 licious novel, with the suavest perfume. The "Flag," 
 "M.Michelet's Cane," breathe a touching patriotism. 
 ' Monsieur le Ministre " has raised a smile at cer- 
 tain weaknesses which a false prudery often affects 
 to take tragically. Politics have touched you with- 
 out stifling you. The Comedie Francaise and its 
 interests, which are inseparable from those of the 
 French mind, have prospered in your hands. When 
 you sought our votes, assuredly your merits were 
 sufficient to obtain them ; you desire, nevertheless, 
 that the public should know that your nomination 
 contained an amiable salute from our company 
 to the society of excellent artists which is charged, 
 like ourselves, with watching over the national 
 language and taste. May the Comedie Francaise, 
 which is represented here in virtue of a right that 
 we shall take great care not to forget, be so good 
 as to accept the expression of an ancient fellow- 
 ship which makes us proud and happy. 
 
 In choosing you to take the place of one of our 
 colleagues whom we have loved the mos^t, we were 
 sure, in advance, that you would trace a perfect 
 image of him. You have completely fulfilled our 
 expectations. M. Cuvillier-Fleury, in the pages 
 which you have just read, is precisely as we knew 
 him, with his brisk ways of an upright man, his 
 faith in healthy literature, his confidence in rea- 
 son and good cultivation of the mind, his absolute
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 161 
 
 devotion to France, a devotion which permitted 
 the most loyal of patriots to consider nothing for- 
 eign which the country has desired and admitted. 
 You have eulogized the educator in the best 
 manner I mean by his pupils by one of his 
 pupils in particularly that accomplished colleague 
 whom exile has taken from us, and whom we regret 
 so keenly not to see among us to-day, to join with 
 us in the praises bestowed upon his master. You 
 have eulogized the undaunted liberal, who was 
 shaken by no reaction, who always remained faith- 
 ful to that ideal of respect for the right, of benevo- 
 lence and of uprightness, which France has raised 
 in the world az tho creed of the honest man. You 
 have painted all this in excellent outlines ; for, if 
 you have not been intimately acquainted with our 
 colleague, you possessed, in regard to him, the 
 most perfect documents, the living confidences of 
 a discreet witness of his trials and his joys. The 
 best part of a beautiful life is that which is contin- 
 ued in the memories of a faithful wife. You have 
 known our colleague in that sweet prolongation 
 of existence, which is granted to those who are 
 worthy of it. He has appeared to you, surrounded 
 by that tranquil light which precedes the grand 
 oblivion of the second death ; thence proceed the 
 delicate shades which give to your portrait so much 
 harmony, those traits of profound resemblance 
 which have charmed us so greatly. 
 The Journal des Dtbats had erected a rostrum
 
 162 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 which was surrounded by an extraordinary audi- 
 ence, and whence each word fell with authority. 
 The anonymousness of a group of men, which 
 parity of talents and similarity of opinions merged, 
 so to speak, into a single person, Had come to con- 
 stitute a political and social power of whose im- 
 portance we can now form an idea only with 
 difficulty. The Messrs. Berlin presided, with the 
 tact and moderation which an undisputed title 
 confers, over the debates of that supreme court 
 of the French mind which realized, to a small 
 extent in journalism, what the Academy is in 
 literature. M. Cuvillier-Fleury was, .for the space 
 of fifty years, one of the most active members 
 of that exalted council of Dii Consentes* His 
 criticism, a perpetual lesson of good sense and up- 
 rightness, was extended to extremely varied sub- 
 jects. It was rightly considered, then, that the rule 
 of the good and of the beautiful is, in all points, 
 identical, and that a mind formed by the good dis- 
 cipline of antiquity may serve in the most diverse 
 exercises. 
 
 Nearly the entire century passed thus before 
 the eyes of our colleague, and he judged it well. 
 Whatever may be the opinion which people may 
 one day profess regarding the literary movement 
 
 * In the Etrusco-Romish language of religion, the Dii Con- 
 sentes were the twelve superior deities (six male, six female) 
 who formed the common council of the gods assembled by 
 Jupiter. Trans, note.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 163 
 
 of which the year 1815 may be regarded as 
 the initial date, and 1870 as the final date, no 
 enlightened man can refuse to that which was 
 in agitation during that period, in the depths of 
 the French conscience, originality, goodness, and 
 fecundity. The stock of ideas bequeathed by 
 the eighteenth century and the Revolution was 
 insufficient. A slender thread of clear voice may 
 possess agreeable notes, but it will not suffice for 
 all the modulations of the human spirit. In rid- 
 ding itself of the chains of old beliefs, which 
 easily degenerate into a deliberate choice of intel- 
 lectual mediocrity, the eighteenth century imposed 
 upon itself a far more burdensome chain than that 
 of orthodoxy the yoke of a sort of narrow good 
 sense, reducing the world of the mind to something 
 scanty, petty, coldly rational. Science had been 
 released from the restrictions which religion caused 
 to weigh it down, until nearly the eve of the Revo- 
 lution, and that is, surely, a point of capital im- 
 portance ; but a sort of dryness of heart and im- 
 agination rendered this progress hardly perceptible, 
 on the whole. People were free to think, and, as 
 a matter of fact, they thought very little ; the im- 
 mensity of the events of war and of the political 
 revolutions had absorbed the best forces of hu- 
 manity. The world longed for something, and in 
 fact, as soon as peace appeared, and under the in- 
 fluence of the name alone of liberty, an extraordi- 
 nary awakening took place in all classes. People
 
 164 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 opened their minds to foreign ideas ; a multitude 
 of things which had hitherto, had no names in 
 French, asserted their right of entry into the 
 inclosed field of our battles and gained a great 
 deal by being transferred to this fresh atmos- 
 phere. People comprehended the infinite, the 
 popular, the spontaneous. The language gained 
 in suppleness, in extent, in shading. Humanity 
 took to reflecting, more harshly than it had ever 
 done before, on its destiny. We do not know 
 whether all the problems which that period pro- 
 pounded have been solved ; but, assuredly, history 
 will refer to the first half of our century immense 
 conquests in the order of the mind, a general sen- 
 timent of courtesy, of gentleness, of taste for lib- 
 erty, an extraordinary enlargement of the circle of 
 the imagination, a notion of science, of philoso- 
 phy and of poetry of which our respectable ancest- 
 ors in the eighteen century possessed only a very 
 distant sentiment. 
 
 M. Cuvillier-Fleury assisted in this grand intel- 
 lectual battle of criticism, and in the quality of a 
 combatant. You have explained to us finely the 
 species of duality which always divided the liter- 
 ary conscience of our colleague. Although the 
 base of his classic faith was never shaken, he was 
 powerfully attracted by the moderns. At bottom, 
 he had a weakness for that which he combated 
 and a secret taste for the qualities which he did 
 not commend. Dulcia vitia > charming defects
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 165 
 
 the expression is Quintilian's. It might have 
 come from M. Cuvillier-Fleury. He blamed and 
 loved at one and the same time. He has been 
 shown to us as wittily taking a certain book from 
 the hands of his pupil and perusing it himself with 
 passionate delight. He never departed from the 
 rules of judgment and naturalness, and, neverthe- 
 less, they contained some of those " charming de- 
 fects " which he was forced to love. Was it weak- 
 ness ? No, it was impartiality, profound instinct 
 for the truth. Almost all the faults of the nine- 
 teenth century have come from a lofty principle. 
 We are sure that posterity will pass the sponge 
 over many deviations from the right path, at the 
 memory of so much ardor, so much sincerity, so 
 many noble aspirations. 
 
 How can one be just, in fact, otherwise than by 
 loving and hating, turn and turn about, that brilliant 
 generation which received with a light hand and 
 bore without embarrassment the heavy heritage of 
 ancient France, of the Revolution, of the Empire, 
 but which was not able to transmit anything to 
 those who came after it ; which caused the value of 
 finished form to be felt in literature, and left but 
 few irreproachable works ; which instituted a re- 
 action against a general tone of factitious pom- 
 pousness and of exaggerated solemnity, and was, 
 itself, rarely exempt from affectation ; which, 
 with a wealth, an exuberance, an amplitude of 
 genius which were truly extraordinary, produced
 
 1 66 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 thousands of excellent books, not one of which is 
 quite sure of a future ? The cause of this lies, 
 above all, I hasten to say, in the infinitely delicate 
 nature of the thoughts which we seek to express. 
 The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, revolv- 
 ing in a very limited circle of ideas, denying them- 
 selves every thought which could not be contained 
 in the ready-made frame, more easily attained to a 
 finished style than a century like ours, which is 
 surcharged with knowledge and is persuaded that 
 the human mind is being restricted when it is con- 
 fined to clear ideas. There are so many things 
 which we can only augur, divine, presage ! The 
 defects of the moderns frequently arise from the 
 fact that, in a hand to hand struggle with the in- 
 finite, they wish to say too many things. But how 
 many other -weaknesses these great innovators, 
 whose disciples we are, might have avoided ! The 
 good epochs of Greek and Latin antiquity, the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had accus- 
 tomed us, when it was a question of intellectual 
 works, to seek naturalness before all things ; peo- 
 ple wished to touch a man in the author ; modesty 
 was considered one of the conditions of pleasing. 
 All that was changed by the new generation. The 
 pain, often necessary, which a delicate soul often 
 accomplishes at the beginning of life, only with 
 fear and trembling, was called, by a frightful bar- 
 barism, "asserting one's self." People were satis- 
 fied with sonorous words, which the great centuries
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 167 
 
 had employed with much discretion. Unbridled 
 vanity and presumption, the love of success at 
 any price, were received by the public with exag- 
 gerated indulgence. A certain romancer pro- 
 claimed himself as greater than Napoleon, and this 
 did not appear too strong. The most immoder- 
 ate effusions of a childish braggadocio succeeded 
 in making themselves accepted. 
 
 How good the ancient codes of morals were, 
 applied to literature ! Old masters of Port Royal, 
 who thought that, when one possesses a superior- 
 ity, one must seek, above all things, to conceal it, 
 what would you have said to this twaddle, to this 
 false varnish of greatness, which passed by, 'with 
 head held high, fifty years ago, without being 
 stigmatized by Pascal ? Ah ! sir, it is difficult for 
 an epoch to get along without an aristocracy ! 
 Tact and taste need protection. What an error to 
 believe that a society where the man of letters oc- 
 cupies, or thinks that he occupies, the first place, 
 can keep its waterline straight ! Human affairs 
 are far more complicated than is believed ; the 
 dignity of the writer is better sheltered behind 
 ancient social conventions than behind the pre- 
 tended guarantees of property. The idea which 
 people formed for themselves, forty years ago, of 
 the man of letters, rich, brilliant, making his way 
 gallantly in the world, habituated them to the false 
 conception that the writer, that is to say, the honest 
 man who has something to say to the public, exer-
 
 1 68 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 9 
 
 cises a profession, and a lucrative profession. 
 Such a conception, founded on a moral error, 
 caused solid acquirements to be neglected, encour- 
 aged superficial work, diminished in the masses 
 that respect which they naturally entertain for 
 nobility of mind. 
 
 One of the consequences of this literature, 
 w.hich was, above all, witty and light, was to ac- 
 custom the public to be too much amused. The 
 almost exclusive perusal of romances became a 
 real source of degradation for women. Reading, 
 to be salutary, ought to be an exercise implying 
 some labor. From this point of view, it is good 
 that books should not be written entirely in ordi- 
 nary language. People reached the point of 
 demanding, as an essential condition of prose 
 destined to persons of society, that it should not 
 necessitate any sort of attention on the part of the 
 reader. In this there was a just return to human 
 things. France, in the eighteenth century, had 
 made its liberal and anticlerical campaign as an 
 amusement. It was decreed that this amusement 
 should prove fatal to it. It had slain the folios 
 of the Benedictines, the quartos of the academies. 
 A little frivolous volume, to fit the hand, said its 
 enemies there it is dying of lack of force. One 
 cannot count the truth for an indifferent thing 
 with impunity. Even light literature can be made 
 seriously, and without the master faculties of the 
 reason undergoing damage.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 169 
 
 To sum up, in a word, the defects of an epoch 
 which, by every hypothesis, will remain great and 
 honored, I will say that the half century, of which 
 M. Cuvillier-Fleury has been the enlightened 
 critic, was too literary an epoch. Admiration was 
 complacent ; authors were spoiled with petting ; 
 people habituated them to be easy toward them- 
 selves, to seek brilliancy, flashy colors, and the 
 beauties of ostentation. Poetry and reality were 
 too much mixed. Poetry is made to carry us out 
 of our depth, to console us for life with dreams, 
 not to influence life. At the epoch of the Astre'e, 
 plebeians of the Quartier Saint-Antoine were seen 
 to sell their stocks in commerce, in order to turn 
 shepherd and pasture imaginary sheep. Nowa- 
 days, the dreams are less innocent. Morbus lite- 
 rarius ! The literary malady. The character- 
 istic symptom of this evil is that people love less 
 things themselves than the literary effect which 
 they produce. One comes to view the world as 
 through a theatrical illusion. The public, attacked 
 by the same malady, seeks nothing but what makes 
 a picture ; the illumination of the footlights dis- 
 gusts them with the light of day. In this manner, 
 all right appreciation of things is impeded. The 
 good and the beautiful must first be loved for 
 themselves ; the aureole created by success, the 
 applause of the human race, come afterward, or 
 do not come at all. To tell the truth, they come 
 when they are not sought ; they do not come
 
 1 7 o RECOL LECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 when they are sought. It is not wholesome to 
 talk so much about glory, nor to adjudge to one's 
 self so haughtily the future. The future will not, 
 perhaps, have much time to read us ; it will be too 
 much occupied with itself to occupy itself much 
 with us. I fear that the abnegation of the realistic 
 writers, who aim at nothing, so they say, except to 
 prepare documents in the modest intention that 
 future centuries may know us, will be but ill 
 requited. 
 
 This question, which we hear so often pro- 
 pounded : " What will remain one of these days, 
 of the works of the nineteenth century?" has 
 something superficial and ingenuous about it. 
 People have been led astray by the great fact 
 which has happened twice or thrice in history, of 
 classic literatures, whose prestige has extended to 
 very diverse nations, in very different centuries, 
 and which have remained models for the human 
 race. It is not probable that this phenomenon 
 will occur again. The progress of civilization, of 
 which we are the witnesses, lies in extension, not 
 in delicacy. We shall never again, judging from 
 all appearances, see languages learned with a view 
 to literary culture by those whose mother tongue 
 they are not. The separation of nationalities, 
 carried to excess, will make each nation think that 
 there is no need to go and ask models from other 
 nations. Moreover, people will consult more than 
 they will read, The books of prime importance
 
 ERNEST REN AN. ijl 
 
 will be made over every twenty-five years. Each 
 newcomer will profit by his predecessors, and will 
 probably say a great deal of evil about them at the 
 same time. Translation itself will interfere with 
 the reading of originals. Moliere, Montesquieu, 
 Voltaire, owed little to translations ; they were 
 read in French. 
 
 Vanity of vanities, sir ! The centuries which 
 prate the most about immortality are those which 
 are the least assured of it. I will say as much of 
 that strange abuse of the word genius, which is 
 never more prodigally employed than when there 
 is the least of it, and of those pretended privileges 
 which the true man of genius has never either 
 known or claimed. Genius is, in general, very 
 modest ! it asks only one thing, that it may be left 
 in peace. It is wrong to make existence hard for 
 it ; but its duty, also, is to win pardon for its 
 singularity by dint of simplicity, of apparent vul- 
 garity, of deference for other men. The future is 
 to the brave, I willingly admit ; but the future 
 belongs, above all, to the modest ; those will 
 endure who have never given it a thought, and 
 who have never believed themselves assured of 
 the suffrages of posterity. 
 
 In order to establish those literary authorities 
 which are called classic centuries, something 
 especially healthy and solid is necessary. Com- 
 mon household bread is of more value here than 
 pastry. Literature which desires to be classic,
 
 172 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 that is to say, universal, should be of a nature to 
 be applied. That literature is good, in this 
 respect, which, transferred to practice, makes a 
 noble life. A life conducted according to the 
 literary maxims of the seventeenth century will be 
 upright and honest, whatever the proportions of 
 that life may be. Modern literature cannot 
 endure this ordeal. Assuredly, the artist is not 
 responsible for the nonsense that people make of 
 his work. The rustic, who stupidly swallows a 
 perfume that has been given to him to smell, can- 
 not blame anyone but himself for his folly. But, 
 in order to be eternal, the least that one can do is 
 to submit to some exactions. Everything which 
 owes something to the caprice of the moment 
 passes away like that caprice. What fashion 
 makes, fashion also unmakes. A thousand years 
 hence, probably only two books, the oldest books 
 of humanity, will be reprinted, Homer and the 
 Bible. I am mistaken ; for the tedium of future 
 generations, extracts, chosen by the professors of 
 literature of that day, will also be printed, with a 
 view to examinations. There will be, perhaps, a 
 few half-pages of some of us among them, accom- 
 panied by an interlinear translation in Volapiik. 
 Debemur morti nos nostraque We and our works 
 must die. 
 
 Thus, in consequence of some errors in aesthet- 
 ics and history, liberal France lost the fruit of 
 rare efforts and of exquisite gifts. The authors of
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 173 
 
 that day have the air of believing that they will 
 remain forever young ; they take no care to pre- 
 pare for themselves a literary old age. They for- 
 get, above all, that humanity is a noble personage, 
 and that it must be represented in its nobility. 
 After their day, people amused themselves with alow 
 class of scamps, of demoralized scapegraces, with 
 Vautrin and Quinola. They allowed themselves 
 to acquire a false taste for the ugly, the abject. 
 They tried to make a viand of that which should 
 serve only as condiment. The painting of a 
 manure-heap can be justified, provided that a 
 beautiful flower springs from it ; otherwise, the 
 manure-heap is only repulsive. The reality, alas ! 
 one encounters at every step. It has no need of 
 being provided with documents ; we know it but 
 too well. 
 
 People insisted on novelty at any price. They 
 established an auction where they outbid each 
 other for paradoxes. They had reached the last 
 icy peaks of Parnassus, where all life had ceased ; 
 they insisted upon mounting still, and were aston- 
 ished that the public no longer followed. The 
 public, on the whole, displayed a great deal of 
 sound sense. Enervated by the brief duration of 
 literary reputations, it lost all faith in literature, 
 and beheld in it only a pack of cards tumbling 
 down upon each other. The man of merit who, 
 instead of flinging himself, in cold blood, into 
 Etna like Empedocles, demanded the honor of
 
 174 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 his life only from serious services, was held as of 
 very small account. A fundamental error! Woe 
 to the nation which does not know how to make 
 proper use of the useful man who is exempt 
 from all pretensions to genius and immortality ! 
 Genius is rare and often dangerous in application ; 
 in order to make sure that it will live, a nation 
 should be able to dispense with it ; it cannot dis- 
 pense with good sense, conscience, assiduity in 
 labor, uprightness. 
 
 A great moral enfeeblement was the consequence 
 of the bad intellectual diet to which France had 
 subjected herself. The poison produced its effect, 
 though it had been taken in small doses. People 
 had created for themselves a necessity for un- 
 healthy liquors, good, at the most, to tickle the 
 palate for a moment ; that which was inoffensive as 
 a diversion, became bad as a habit. True intellec- 
 tual culture, which had been too much neglected, 
 took its revenge ; giddiness had no longer any 
 counterpoise. An hour of surprise sufficed to ruin 
 a compromise devised by the wisest minds. A 
 cycle of horrible occurrences was opened by those 
 ill-starred days, which France has not yet expiated, 
 it would seem. They cheerfully committed the 
 capital error of submitting to the masses the ques- 
 tion which it was the least capable of answering ; 
 the question as to the form of government and the 
 choice of a sovereign. The child of ten, on whom 
 they had imprudently conferred the rights of
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 1 75 
 
 majority, committed follies ; what is there sur- 
 prising in that ? They demanded reason of that 
 throng which, in one day, could show itself the 
 dupe of the grossest charlatanism and stupidly 
 accessible to every calumny. They imagined that, 
 without a dynasty, they could constitute a per- 
 manent brain for a nation. Hence an annoying 
 diminution in the central reason ; the sensorium 
 commune of the nation found itself reduced to 
 almost nothing. With precious qualities of courage, 
 generosity, amiability, the best endowed of nations, 
 by dint of having allowed its center of gravity to 
 descend too low, beheld its destiny committed to 
 the caprice of an average of opinion inferior to the 
 grasp of the most mediocre sovereign called to the 
 throne by the hazards of heredity. 
 
 Weak in resistance, this generation showed itself 
 harsh and narrow in reaction. We have seen, sir, 
 the blind reaction which followed 1848, sad years 
 in which our youth languished, and whose bitter- 
 ness we would gladly spare those who shall come 
 after us. Our fathers did not fulfill toward us the 
 first duty of a generation to its offspring, which is 
 to leave it an established order and fixed national 
 framework. We shall, probably, fail in this duty 
 toward those who come after us. Betrayed by our 
 elders, we shall have for excuse that we could not 
 bequeath that which we had not received. We 
 made great sacrifices to draw the least evil result 
 from an evil age ; they will serve no purpose.
 
 176 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Ah ! how true is the old Hebrew proverb : " Our 
 fathers have eaten green grapes, and the teeth of 
 their children are set on edge ! " 
 
 Are we to bring accomplished facts up for trial ? 
 Certainly not, sir. Our tastes in history are very 
 nearly the same, I think. We have, if I may say 
 so, the same set of patrons, fools, and enthusi- 
 asts. Fanatical causes are so dear to me that I 
 never narrate one of those heroic stories without 
 feeling a desire to join the band of believers, to 
 suffer and die with them. You love your Camille 
 Desmoulins, your condemned of " PrairiaP' ; you 
 grow impassioned in behalf of each one of them. 
 I love them, after your description, with their 
 melancholy eyes, their long hair which gives them 
 the look of apostles, those ardent convictions, 
 that style, at once declamatory and touching. 
 There is, nevertheless, a little difference between 
 us, perhaps. We are thoroughly agreed upon 
 the point that the progress of the world takes 
 place by impulses communicated by fanatics and 
 violent men. Only, you protest when they are 
 
 guillotined After all, they have willed it so. 
 
 The work of fanatics succeeds only on condition 
 that one speedily gets rid of them. Careers of 
 this sort should be brief. Let us imagine Camille 
 Desmoulins and Lucile dying in 1840, or 1845. 
 It would be as shocking as to picture to ourselves 
 Jeanne d'Arc living to the age of seventy. The 
 prophet who passed over the walls of Jerusalem
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 177 
 
 crying: " The voice of the East ! The voice of the 
 West ! A voice against Jerusalem and the temple ! " 
 kept within his part, when he added : " A voice 
 against me ! " and the stone launched by the 
 Roman balistas, which struck him full in the 
 breast, gave him the only death that was really 
 suitable for him. 
 
 The Revolution, as you have very plainly per- 
 ceived, must not be judged by the same rules 
 which are applied to ordinary situations of human- 
 ity. Viewed outside its grandiose and fatal char- 
 acter, the Revolution is only odious and horrible. 
 On the surface it is an orgy for which there 
 is no name. In that strange battle, men count 
 in proportion to their ugliness. Everything serves 
 there, save good sense and moderation. The 
 foolish, the incapable, the wicked, are attracted 
 to it by the instinctive feeling that the moment 
 for their usefulness has arrived. The success of 
 the days of the Revolution seems obtained by the 
 collaboration of all crimes and all insanities. The 
 wretch who knows nothing but how to slay ex- 
 periences fine days. The fallen woman, the mad- 
 woman from La Salpetriere finds employment 
 there. The times demanded madcaps and rascals ; 
 they were served to their heart's content. One 
 would have pronounced it the yawning of the gulf of 
 the abyss, with all the infernal vapors of a corrupt 
 century obscuring the heavens. 
 
 But we must not dwell upon these hideous de-
 
 178 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 tails, which are the price we pay fo.r the aid of the 
 populace. When one surveys the whole when 
 one takes into account, above all, this grand coeffi- 
 cient of human things, victory, which causes many 
 mad attempts to be judged by their success the 
 general phenomenon of the Revolution appears like 
 one of those great movements in history which are 
 dominated and directed by a superior will. The 
 fixed idea with some of these madmen: "The 
 Revolution must succeed at any price," became an 
 obsession, a voice from without which imposed 
 itself, a tyrannical suggestion. From that moment 
 the Revolution had a genius, which presided day 
 by day over its acts and which, in the matter of 
 success, made no mistake. A pact of terror united 
 thousands of men, and put them into that state of 
 impersonal enthusiasm in which one is swept away, 
 to life, or to death, upon a ship which one has 
 launched but which one can no longer steer. 
 
 France alone could offer this incredible mixture 
 of mind and ingenuousness, of ironical gayety and 
 concentrated wrath. It was a mad " emprise," 
 after the fashion of the chivalrous vows of the 
 Middle Ages. The wagerer succeeded by virtue 
 of fury, by love, by enraged conviction that he 
 must succeed. And these men, possessed of a 
 fixed idea, were so thoroughly in accord with that 
 which was willed by the force of things, that one 
 asks one's self in vain what the world would be had 
 the Revolution not succeeded. It was necessary,
 
 ERNEST REN AX. i?9 
 
 as the attack which saves or kills. It leaves us 
 suspended between admiration and horror. The 
 Revolution is the most violent of human spectacles 
 that it has been given to us to study. Even the 
 siege of Jerusalem cannot be compared with it. It 
 was a work as unconscious as a cyclone, carrying 
 away without selection everything within its reach. 
 Reason and justice are trifles to the colossal whirl- 
 wind. Like the leviathan of the book of Job, it is 
 created to be irresistible ; like the abyss, it fulfills 
 its vocation, never saying, " It is enough." 
 
 That is why the men of the Revolution are the ob- 
 jects of such contradictory judgments. These labor- 
 ers at the work of giants, viewed by themselves, are 
 pygmies. It was the work which was great, and 
 which, taking possession of them, transformed them 
 in accordance with its needs ; when the fit was past, 
 they became once more what they had been be- 
 fore, that is to say, mediocre. Take your Camille 
 Desmoulins, for example. I think I shall not 
 wound you, sir, if I tell you that he really amounted 
 to very little, a straw borne by the wind, an 
 enthusiast, a blackguard of genius, as you call him, 
 a giddypate, carried away by the intoxication of 
 the hour. His philosophy of history does not ex- 
 tend beyond Vertot's "Roman Revolutions." His 
 styJe ! ah, sir, you have upheld it! I compliment 
 you on your patience. In those days a man was a 
 great writer for two or three years. The terrible 
 gravity of events made men of genius for a year,
 
 l8o RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 for three months. Then, abandoned. by the spirit 
 which had sustained them for a moment, these heroes 
 of a day fell with their strength exhausted, mad- 
 dened, haggard, stupefied, incapable of beginning 
 life again. Napoleon did right in making expedi- 
 tionaries and subaltern chiefs of them. 
 
 Their literature, as a whole, is very weak. 
 They wrote badly and, what is singular in men so 
 thoroughly convinced, in a pretentious manner. 
 When one undertakes to print their complete works, 
 one finds one's self face to face with an empty 
 void. To tell the truth, their work was the 
 Revolution. For so short a passage athwart 
 life it was not worth the trouble to cast one's 
 words in bronze or to build solidly ; they aimed 
 only at the effect of the moment. Such an epoch 
 could not produce a solid style, any more than 
 it could produce durable edifices. Member of the 
 Convention Romme, on the eve of his death, 
 writes pages and pages. He is anxious " that people 
 should know how he died." This is ingenuous 
 and awkward. Nevertheless, I read and reread, 
 with profound emotion, that passage filled with 
 somber fire which you have published. Your pic- 
 ture of the death of the last Montagnards is touch- 
 ing and beautiful. The horrible machine worked 
 badly that day. It was necessary to set Bourbotte 
 up again. He profits by the fact to make a speech ; 
 with his neck fast in the fatal plank he still speaks. 
 Duroy, with his head under the knife, exclaims :
 
 EXNES7" REN AN. 181 
 
 " Unite ; all embrace each other ; 'tis the only 
 means of saving the republic ! " Ridiculous 
 phrases, uttered in such a situation, undergo a great 
 change in their aesthetic character. They possess 
 at least one quality they are always sincere. 
 
 The worst enemies of the great men of the Rev- 
 olution are those who, believing that they do them 
 honor, put them in the category of ordinary great 
 men. They were unconsciously sublime men, who 
 won their pardon by their youth, their inexperience, 
 their faith. I do not like to have titles of nobility 
 conferred upon them. They go alone, like the ex- 
 ecutioner. With several illustrious exceptions, 
 they have founded no families. As ancestors, they 
 are concealed ; no one claims them. People do not 
 readily acknowledge fathers from whom they can- 
 not take pattern. Above all, I do not like to have 
 statues erected to them. What a mistake ! What 
 a want of taste ! Those men were not great ! they 
 were the artisans of a great hour. They must not 
 be set up for imitation ; those who should imitate 
 them would be villains. We love them on condi- 
 tion that they shall be the last of their school. 
 They succeeded in an incredible wager, against all 
 probability. Where they found glory, their belated 
 pupils would reap only ruin, disaster, malediction. 
 
 No one is to blame for centenaries ; we cannot 
 prevent the centuries from attaining their hun- 
 dredth year. It is very annoying, nevertheless. 
 Nothing is more unhealthy than to rhyme the life
 
 1 82 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 of the present day upon the past, when the past is 
 exceptional. Centenaries invoke apotheosis ; that 
 is too much. A solemn, general absolution, with 
 panegyrics, nothing could be better ; an embalm- 
 ment, where the corpse is swathed in bands so that 
 it cannot be resuscitated, would also give us infinite 
 pleasure; let us, at least, restrain ourselves from 
 everything which may lead people to think that 
 such acts of juvenile imprudence and grandiose 
 heedlessness can be repeated. It is the glory of 
 a nation that it has in its history some of the tre- 
 mendous apparitions which come only once : 
 Jeanne d'Arc, Louis XIV., the Revolution, Napo- 
 leon ; but it is also a danger. The essence of these 
 apparitions is that they shall be unique. They are 
 beautiful on condition that they are not renewed. 
 The Revolution must remain an attack of sacred 
 malady, as the ancients said. Fever may prove 
 fruitful, when it is the indication of inward labor; 
 but it must not continue or repeat itself ; in that 
 case, it is death. The Revolution is condemned, if 
 it is proved that at the end of a hundred years it is 
 all to be done over again, that it has to seek its 
 path, and struggle unceasingly in conspiracies and 
 anarchy. 
 
 You are young ; you will behold the solution of 
 this enigma, sir. Were the extraordinary men in 
 whom we take a passionate interest right, or were 
 they wrong? What remains of that unprecedented 
 intoxication, reduced to the exact balance of profit
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 183 
 
 and loss ? Will it be the fate of these great enthus- 
 iasts to remain eternally isolated, suspended in the 
 void, victims of a noble folly ? Or have they, on the 
 whole, founded something and prepared the future ? 
 We do not know as yet. I think that we shall know 
 in a few years. If, in ten or twenty years, France 
 is prosperous and free, faithful to legality, sur- 
 rounded by the sympathy of the liberal portions of 
 the world, oh ! then the cause of the Revolution is 
 saved ; the world will love it and enjoy its fruits, 
 without having tasted its bitterness. But if, in ten 
 or twenty years, France is still in a state of crisis, 
 annihilated abroad, delivered over to the menaces 
 of sects and the enterprises of vulgar popularity at 
 home, oh ! then it must be pronounced that our 
 artistic enthusiasm has led us to commit a political 
 fault, that those audacious innovators, for whom we 
 have cherished a weakness, were absolutely in the 
 wrong. In that case, the Revolution would be 
 vanquished for more than a century. In war, a 
 captain who is always beaten cannot be a great 
 captain ; in politics, a principle which, in the space 
 of a hundred years, exhausts a nation, cannot be a 
 true one. 
 
 Let us suspend our judgment. Our sons will 
 have the reply to the question which holds us in a 
 painful uncertainty. Certainly, history has more 
 than once shown us a vanquished cause coming to 
 life again at the end of many centuries, with the 
 nation which had perished through representing it,
 
 184 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 the victim of its superiority and of the services 
 rendered by it to the common work of humanity. 
 But our abnegation does not go so far as to sacri- 
 fice to a resurrection and to hypothetical apotheoses 
 the existence of our dear country. The true way 
 to honor the generous Utopias of the past is to 
 show them realized and applicable. Who can say 
 what the goal of humanity is? But, whether it be 
 a question of humanity or of nature, the only or- 
 ganisms which leave behind a durable trace are 
 those which, conceived in sorrow, grow great in 
 strife, accommodate themselves to the necessities 
 of their surroundings, and resist the decisive test 
 of life. 
 
 You will aid us, sir, in defending the ancient 
 house of our fathers, in preserving its plan, at least, 
 in order that it may be rebuilt one day. You will 
 aid us in maintaining the fundamental idea of this 
 company the principle of a literary nobility, a 
 conception of the labor of the mind founded on 
 respect. That, it is said, is no longer an attribute 
 of our times. How many things, alas ! has our 
 century taken up again which it at first rejected ? 
 I fear that the work of the twentieth century will 
 consist only in picking out of the waste basket a 
 multitude of excellent ideas which the nineteenth 
 
 century has foolishly consigned to it But I 
 
 do not wish to conclude this reunion with sad 
 thoughts. This century, which proves its good- 
 ness in that one possesses every facility for 
 speaking evil of it, is, after all, that in which
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 185 
 
 it has been the pleasantest to live. We have 
 enjoyed the best that exists. If its close some- 
 times inspires us with anxiety, let us soar to 
 that serene region where we can say to our- 
 selves, without too many objections, "God does 
 well that which he does." These armchairs are, 
 after all, very comfortable places in which to await 
 death patiently ; life in them is fairly sweet. Let 
 us enjoy what is still granted us. We have had 
 our five acts, and, as Marcus Aurelius says : " He 
 who dismisses us is without wrath." The ancients 
 felt a sort of religious respect in the presence of 
 the spectacle of a happy life. Yours, sir, appears 
 to me to have been of this sort. Everything has 
 smiled on you, and, without any sacrifice of your 
 sincerity, you have contrived to unite, in common 
 sympathy, the most opposite parties the sym- 
 pathies which are the least accustomed to find 
 themselves together. This you owe to your happy 
 genius ; you owe it, also, to this gentle age of iron, 
 to this excellent country in which we have the hap- 
 piness to live, Our century has been good to us. 
 sir. It has found in us that which it loves pos- 
 sibly some of its defects. I do not know whether, 
 in any other epoch, in any other country, we should 
 have been able to put to so much profit the talent 
 which has been confided to us. Poor country ! It 
 is because we love it that we are sometimes a little 
 harsh toward it. You were quite right in saying 
 that it will always be the principle of our hopes and 
 of our joys !
 
 1 86 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 LECTURE BEFORE THE ALLIANCE FOR THE 
 PROPAGATION OF THE FRENCH LAN- 
 GUAGE, FEBRUARY 2, 1 888. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: When I received, a few 
 days ago, the visit of the young and amiable depu- 
 ties who came to invite me to take part in this fes- 
 tival, I felt great hesitation. This association is 
 certainly one of the works to which I am most de- 
 voted. On the other hand, I had imposed upon 
 myself this winter the absolute rule not to deliver 
 any more lectures. Old age, which has so many 
 ways of making itself felt, has chosen to try me at 
 this moment by a great weakness of voice. I 
 wished to refuse ; then I thought of the extreme 
 joy which I should feel at finding myself once 
 more in the presence of a young and sympathetic 
 audience ; I accepted. You will be indulgent, 
 ladies and gentlemen. It will be the last time, I 
 assure you, that I shall commit the error of speak- 
 ing in places so disproportioned to my present 
 powers. Moreover, I shall be brief. I should like 
 merely to exchange a few thoughts with you in 
 regard to our dear French language; on its benefits, 
 on the struggles which it is undergoing, on the 
 efforts which these gentlemen are making, with 
 such disinterested zeal, to assure it a future. 
 
 Yes, this is an excellent work, ladies and gentle- 
 men. I have always adhered to it with fervor. I
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 187 
 
 defend it from the bottom of my heart. This work 
 is good, in the first place, for our dear country, 
 which we should luve all the more, in proportion 
 as it is lacerated, as it is misunderstood. It is good 
 also for humanity. The preservation, the propa- 
 gation of the French tongue are of importance to 
 the general order of civilization. Some essential 
 thing will be lacking to the world on the day when 
 this great torch, clear and sparkling, shall cease to 
 shine. Humanity would be lessened if this mar- 
 velous instrument of civilization were to disappear 
 or to be diminished. 
 
 How many eternally good and true things have 
 been first uttered in French, ladies and gentlemen, 
 have been coined in French, have made their ap- 
 pearance in the world in French ! How many 
 liberal and just ideas have first found their for- 
 mula, their veritable definition in French ! How 
 many good and beautiful things our language has 
 said from its infant lispings in the twelfth century 
 down to our own days ! The abolition of slavery, 
 the rights of man, equality, liberty, were proclaimed 
 for the first time in French ! It is in England, but 
 in the French tongue that there bursts forth, in the 
 the twelfth century, this first appeal to equality, in 
 the mouth of the peasants : 
 
 We are men as they Nous sommes hommes 
 
 are : comme il sont : 
 
 We have all the mem- Tous membres avons 
 
 bers they have, comme ils ont,
 
 1 88 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 And \ve have as great a Et tout aussi grand corps 
 
 body, avons, 
 
 And we can suffer as Et tout autant souffrir 
 
 much ; pouvons ; 
 
 We lack only force of Ne nous faut fors coeur 
 
 heart. seulement. 
 
 It is rather brutal ; equality is so sometimes. 
 But would you have an expression of liberty less 
 haughty ? This is the way in which the king of 
 France expresses himself in 1315. It was written 
 in Latin, but assuredly thought in French. " As, 
 according to the law of nature, every man should 
 be born free [Franc]. . . ; we, considering that 
 our realm is called and named the kingdom of the 
 Francs, and wishing that the thing should agree 
 with the name, have ordained and do ordain, 
 etc." It appears that the fiscal laws had a good 
 deal to do with what followed ; but never mind, 
 fhe principle was a good one to utter, and it was 
 well uttered. 
 
 Here now, is a bishop, privy councilor of 
 Charles V., about the middle of the fourteenth 
 century, pronouncing the prelude to 1789 : "Now 
 the very noble line of the kings of France does not 
 learn to tyrannize, and thus the Gallican people 
 do not become accustomed to servile subjection, 
 and hence, if the noble royal line of France departs 
 from its first virtue, there is no doubt that it will 
 lose its kingdom, and this will be translated into 
 other hands."
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 189 
 
 That is tolerably swaggering, is it not ? He 
 was a Bishop of Lizieux ; he might have been 
 Bishop of Autun and celebrated, at another epoch, 
 in the Champs-de-Mars, the mass of Liberty on 
 the altar of country. 
 
 I should never make an end, ladies and gentle- 
 men, were I to enumerate to you, century by 
 century, all the phrases useful to humanity which 
 have blossomed in our dear language. It is a 
 truly liberal language. It has been good to the 
 weak, the poor, let us add, to the intelligent man, 
 to the witty man. 
 
 Everything may be abused, ladies and gentle- 
 men. The most noble banners may be dragged 
 through the mud. But the worst error that one 
 can commit is to repulse truths, because they 
 have been abused or because they have become 
 commonplace. Commonplace ! . . . that means 
 that they are true ; the greatest praise which an 
 idea can have is that it has become commonplace. 
 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. That is French, 
 and that will make the circuit of the earth. An 
 Oriental of my acquaintance almost brought about 
 a revolution in certain parts of Persia with those 
 three words. Some doctors of Kerbela decided 
 that they were more beautiful than the Koran, and 
 that there must have been a divine revelation in 
 order that those words might be discovered. A 
 charming traveling companion whom I had in 
 Syria allow me to name him : it was M. Lock-
 
 19 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 roy reaped unprecedented success of all sorts, in 
 Lebanon, especially when he sung the " Mar- 
 seillaise." Those fine people comprehended it 
 instinctively. Everywhere that the French lan- 
 guage goes, gentlemen, the Revolution will ride 
 behind it. I know that one must not have too 
 much of the Revolution ; but there are a great 
 many countries in the world where certain doses 
 of it would still do good. Let us not force it ; 
 but let us allow liberty of action to our little 
 clarion, which becomes, at certain times, we know 
 not well how, the trumpet of Jericho. 
 
 I say that French has been a beneficent lan- 
 guage to humanity. It has also been an amiable 
 language. Oh, what sweet things have been 
 said in French ! There is no language from which 
 one can detach prettier phrases. What fine and 
 exquisite sentiments have found their expression 
 in the harmonious idiom whose utterance Brunette 
 Latini already considered so delectable in the thir- 
 teenth century ! The question has been asked in 
 what language was the Lancelot which Francesca da 
 Rimini read ; for my part, I have no doubt on that 
 point ; it was in French. My learned colleagues, 
 M. Gaston Paris and M. Paul Meyer, will correct 
 me if I am wrong. 
 
 And what will this language, which has already 
 said so many charming things, say in the future ? 
 One must be a prophet to know that. It will 
 say tolerably diverse, but always liberal things.
 
 ERNEST KENAN. 19! 
 
 French, ladies and gentlemen, will never be the 
 language of the absurd, neither will it ever be a 
 reactionary language. I cannot imagine a serious 
 reaction having for organ the French tongue. 
 This good Gal Mean people, as Oresmus says, will 
 never entangle itself very deeply in that quarter. 
 Look at M. de Maistre, M. Chateaubriand ; oh, 
 such inquisitors would not alarm me much ! And 
 M. de Montalembert ! .... A matter for laugh- 
 ter ! M. de Falloux ! .... A little more serious. 
 The question is to know whether the reactionary 
 has wit. If he has, he halts very promptly. I 
 fear only the reactionary without wit ; but that 
 man does not speak French ; we need not occupy 
 ourselves with him. 
 
 A fact which is, with justice, regarded as very 
 significant, is the general sentiment of retrograde 
 parties, throughout the whole world, for French. 
 They are afraid of it ; they barricade themselves 
 against it. One would say that this language 
 carries the pest with it the pest according to the 
 reactionaries, of course. Proceed, proceed, never- 
 theless. Poor France ! her hour will come yet. 
 Who knows whether the propositions of peace and 
 of liberty which shall withdraw Europe from the 
 frightful state of hatred and of military prepara- 
 tions in which she lies, will not be formulated in 
 French ? 
 
 That is why French may really be called a classic 
 language, an instrument of culture and of civili-
 
 192 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 zation for all. This language improves ; it is a 
 school ; it has naturalness, good nature, it knows 
 how to laugh, it carries with it an amiable skepti- 
 cism, mingled with kindness skepticism without 
 kindness is a very bad thing. Fanaticism is im- 
 possible in French. I have a horror of fanaticism, 
 especially of Mussulman fanaticism ; well ! this 
 great scourge will cease through French. No 
 Mussulman who knows French will ever be a dan- 
 gerous Mussulman. It is an excellent language in 
 which to doubt ; now, in the future, doubt will, 
 perhaps, be a very necessary thing. Can you im- 
 agine Montaigne, Pascal, Moliere, Voltaire, other- 
 wise than in French ? Ah ! ladies and gentlemen, 
 what joy will leave the world on the day when 
 French leaves it ! Preserve it, preserve it. By 
 the side of the fanatic races, there are melancholy 
 races. Teach them also French. I am thinking 
 now, in particular, of our unhappy brothers, the 
 Slavs. They have suffered so much for centuries, 
 that they must be kept, above all things, from 
 loving nothingness. The French language and 
 French wine will have a humanitarian role to play 
 there. French rejoices ; its favorite locutions 
 imply a gay sentiment of life, the idea, that, at 
 bottom, nothing is very serious, and that one enters 
 into the intentions of the Eternal by a little irony. 
 The great inferiority of the barbarian of the 
 Oriental, in particular is that he does not know 
 how to laugh. Teach all nations to laugh in
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 1 93 
 
 French. That is the most philosophical thing in 
 the world, and the healthiest. French songs are 
 good also. In former days I calumniated the god of 
 the minstrels ; heavens ! how wrong I was ! He is 
 a god who is never malicious, who has never done 
 any evil. Who is it that said that God takes more 
 pleasure in the oaths of a French soldier than in 
 the prayers of such and such a Puritan sect ? One 
 enters, through gayety, into the profoundest views 
 of Providence. It is good policy to labor to render 
 man content. It is the only means of preventing 
 his being very] wicked. 
 
 Our Gallic race has always possessed an im- 
 mense superiority in this respect. I often reflect 
 that, during that somber first half of the Middle 
 Ages, when all joy of the real seemed lost, the 
 Burgundian or Aquitanian peasant continued to 
 drink his wine and to sing his joyous melodies, 
 without troubling himself over the grand, supernat- 
 ural dream which bewitched the rest of the world. 
 
 He did not contradict the universal be- 
 lief ; but he did not allow himself to be over- 
 whelmed by it. What I love most in Gregory of 
 Tours is the narrative of the manner in which the 
 bourgeois of Orleans induced Gontran to come 
 and taste with them the sweetness of city life. At 
 the end of a few days, Gontran found that this 
 manner of life was far superior to the profound 
 melancholy of a barbarian's life. That good Cari- 
 bert, King of Paris, was caught in the same way.
 
 194 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 He died young through having loved too much the 
 Parisian women of his day. Our language, our 
 customs, our wines, our songs, have always exer- 
 cised in the world an apostleship of good humor 
 and humanity. 
 
 You have been all the more in right, gentlemen, 
 in constituting yourselves the defenders of our 
 dear language, since it has always defended itself 
 very badly. It has always been one of the glories 
 of France, that she has never done violence to the 
 linguistic conscience of anyone. She has never 
 taken any coercive measures in the matter of 
 languages. Language is a religion, in its own way. 
 To persecute a person for his language is as bad 
 as to persecute him for his religion. As it often 
 happens, we have been punished for our delicacy. 
 A wind, so little liberal in its nature, has blpwn 
 over the world that that which men should have 
 praised has almost been converted into an argu- 
 ment against us. They have taken from us with 
 less scruple a country, " which," they said, " we 
 have not understood how to assimilate." What 
 would you have ? The world loves the strong. 
 Let us allow it to take its course ; then it will soon 
 change its fashion. Let us wait : we shall soon 
 find that we were in the right. I have always re- 
 garded as very beautiful the reply of Abraham to 
 his ally, the King of Sodom : Da mihi atiiwas ; 
 cxtera lolle tibi Give me the souls ; take thou the 
 rest!
 
 ERNEST REA'Atf. 195 
 
 The souls have remained faithful to us, gentle- 
 men. But sympathetic propaganda is permitted 
 to us in exactly the same proportion that brutal 
 propaganda is forbidden to us. Your schools 
 are a gratuitous gift, which forces no one. You 
 offer something excellent ; each person is free 
 to accept or reject. You obtain your results by 
 purely pacific means. The perusal of your Bulle- 
 tins is delicious and touching. What youth, what 
 devotion ! What courage in your schoolmasters 
 and mistresses ! I love those old Canadians who 
 travel a hundred leagues on horseback, to hear 
 French spoken. I love those religious heroes 
 who maintain, in the midst of barbarous lands, a 
 tradition of honesty, of uprightness, of cordiality. 
 Thanks to your excellent proceedings people will 
 not only learn French, but they will love it. For 
 those poor, disinherited races, all good things have 
 come with it. It will have been the bearer of all 
 good news, liberty, contentment, the joy of living. 
 Let all refer the commencement of all their joys to 
 the day when they learned French. 
 
 And let not the objection be raised that French 
 is an aristocratic language, of a culture too refined 
 for the barbarian, lace rather than homespun. 
 Oh ! it matters not, gentlemen. I will even say : 
 so much the better. Popular things are, almost 
 always, very aristocratic things. One must never 
 serve the people with anything that is not very 
 noble. Latin, the language which has conquered
 
 I9 6 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 most barbarians, is the infinitely delicate lan- 
 guage of poets, almost of decadents, as it is ex- 
 pressed to-day. In the matter of a language, num- 
 ber is necessary ; everything counts. In order 
 that some may speak well it is necessary that 
 some should speak ill. L( ng life to the barba- 
 rians, gentlemen ! It is through them that we live 
 and continue. 
 
 With a profound intuition of history, you have 
 perceived all this. The barbarian belongs to the 
 first person who captures him. The seed which 
 you are sowing will bear fruit for centuries. 
 Thanks, in the name of France, gentlemen. Thanks 
 in the name of us writers, who will, perhaps, be 
 indebted to you that some page of our books, 
 which has, by chance, escaped destruction, will be 
 read by the erudite a thousand years hence. 
 Thanks in the name of the French Academy, to 
 whom you will give the means of finishing its 
 historical Dictionary ; twelve hundred years are 
 required for that, according to the most moderate 
 computation ; we owe them to you. Thanks for 
 all the world. Hold, gentlemen, there is one day, 
 when the use of French will be very necessary ; it 
 is the day of the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Prolong 
 the life of French until the Last Judgment. I as- 
 sure you that, if German is spoken on that day, 
 there will be errors and confusion without number. 
 All the discoveries, for example, will turn out to 
 have been made by the Germans. Gentlemen, I
 
 ERXEST REN AN. 197 
 
 beg of you, arrange it so that German shall not be 
 spoken in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 My learned colleague, M. Gaston Paris, com- 
 municated to me yesterday, on this subject, a pas- 
 sage from a poet of Champagne of the twelfth cent- 
 ury, which ought to reassure us. According to 
 this author, French is the language of God himself: 
 
 C'est ci 1 que Dieu s'entent ar^ois, 
 Qu'il le fist et bel et legier. 
 
 'Tis that which God understands himself, 
 He made it beautiful and light. 
 
 This, certainly is a fine privilege. For my part, 
 gentlemen, I make a great point of your confirm- 
 ing it ; I will tell you why. You listen to me 
 with so much favor, ladies and gentlemen, that I 
 will confide to you a dream in which I often in- 
 dulge. I receive so many letters which announce 
 to me my eternal damnation that I have finally 
 come to a conclusion about it. It will not be very 
 just ; but I much prefer hell, after all, to annihila- 
 tion. I am persuaded that I shall succeed in put- 
 ting the situation to good use, and I think that, if I 
 have only the good God to deal with, I shall manage 
 to touch him. There are theologians who concede 
 a mitigation in the pains of the damned. Well, in 
 my sleepless nights, I amuse myself by composing 
 petitions, which I suppose addressed to'the Eternal 
 from the remotest depths of hell. I almost al \vays 
 try to prove to him that he is a little the cause of
 
 I9 8 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 our perdition, and that there are things which he 
 should have made clearer. Among these petitions 
 there are some tolerably piquant specimens, which 
 would make the Eternal smile, I think. But it is 
 plain that they 'will lose all their salt if I am 
 obliged to translate them into German. Preserve 
 me from that misfortune, gentlemen. I depend on 
 you to make French the language of eternal life. 
 Otherwise, I shall be lost. 
 
 Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, for having in- 
 terrupted your pleasures with such black thoughts. 
 Let me thank you for the extreme joy which you 
 have given me by your sympathetic attention, and 
 your cordial welcome. 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT MONTMORENCY, ON 
 THE OCCASION OF THE REMOVAL OF THE 
 ASHES OF MICKIEWICZ, JUNE 2Q, 1890. 
 
 Gentlemen : The College of France thanks you 
 for having been so good as to associate me with 
 your noble thought to return to his native land the 
 remains of an eminent man whom Poland had lent 
 to us, and whom she takes back to-day ; that is 
 justice. Our college, founded to interrogate 
 nature, and to explain, by languages and literatures, 
 the free genius of peoples, is like a common land 
 for souls, where all meet. Bodies do not belong
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 199 
 
 to us. Take then, these remains, which genius 
 illuminated. Adam Mickiewicz does not quit us 
 entirely. We shall have his spirit, his memory. 
 Our ancient halls will preserve the distant echo of 
 his voice. Some survivors of those heroic times 
 can still tell us how much intoxication, magic, 
 enchanting power, his words possessed. Asso- 
 ciated in a glorious trinity with two other names 
 which are dear to us those of Michelet and 
 Quinet the name of Mickiewicz has become for 
 us a creed, an inseparable part of our ancient 
 glories and our ancient joys. 
 
 This is because your compatriot, gentlemen, had 
 the capital quality by which a man dominates his 
 century sincerity, personal enthusiasm, absence 
 of self-love, creating a state of soul in which he 
 does not do, or does not say, or does not write 
 that which he wishes, but in which he does, 
 says, or writes that which is dictated to him 
 by a genius placed outside of him. This genius 
 is, almost always, the century, eternally ill, which 
 desires that its wounds shall be caressed ; that its 
 fever shall be calmed with sonorous words. It 
 is far more, even, the race, the interior voice of an- 
 cestors and the man's blood. Mickiewicz had these 
 two great sources of inspiration. When Madame 
 Sand, like a true sister, comprehended his genius at 
 the first word, she perceived that that heart had felt 
 all our wounds ; that our convulsions had made it 
 palpitate. The glory of our century lies in having
 
 200 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 wished to realize the impossible ; to solve the 
 insoluble. Glory to it ! The men of action who 
 shall attempt to realize the immensity of these 
 programmes will all be impotent ; the men of 
 reason will end only in contradictions. The poet 
 who never doubts, who after each defeat sets to work 
 more ardently and more vigorously than ever, is 
 never confounded. Such was Mickiewicz. He 
 possessed within himself sources of infinite 
 resurrections. He endured the most cruel 
 anguishes, but never that of despair ; his imper- 
 turbable faith in the future sprang from a sort of 
 profound instinct from something which is in us, 
 and which speaks to us more loudly than the sad 
 reality. I mean the spirit of the past, solidarity 
 with that which does not die. The cheerful men 
 are those in whom is thus an incarnated form of the 
 universal conscience, who accomplish their human 
 destiny as the ant toils, as the bee makes its 
 honey. 
 
 Sprung from that family of the Aryan race which 
 has been most conservative of primitive gifts 
 from that Lithuania which, by its language, its 
 serenity, its moral seriousness, represents best to 
 us our grave and honest ancestors Mickiewicz 
 was related to the ancient centuries by bonds of 
 secret communication which made of him a seer 
 into the past. And he was, at the same time, a seer 
 into the future. He believed in his race ; but he 
 believed, above all, in the divine spirit which ani-
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 20 1 
 
 mates ail that which bears within it the breath of 
 life, and, athwart all clouds, he beheld a brilliant 
 future in which poor humanity should receive con- 
 solation for its sufferings. This great idealist was 
 a great patriot, but he was, above all, a believer. 
 And as the real reason for belief in immortality is 
 furnished by the martyrs, his prophetic imagina- 
 tion, inspired by the beating of his own heart, 
 persuaded him that it is not in vain that humanity 
 has toiled so much, and that its victims have suf- 
 fered so much. 
 
 This is why enlightened French society welcomed 
 so gladly this great and noble spirit, associated 
 him with all that it held dearest, made him spon- 
 taneously, and almost without consulting him, 
 member of a triumvirate for liberty and against 
 religion badly understood. On the day when the 
 Slavic genius had conquered its place among the 
 national geniuses which are studied in a scientific 
 manner, and when the creation of a professorship 
 of Slavic languages and literatures was decided 
 upon, a highly liberal thought occurred to those 
 who then directed the intellectual affairs of France, 
 and this was to charge Mickiewicz with this 
 instruction. The poet, the man who represents 
 the soul of a people, who possesses its legends, who 
 has the intuition of its origins, appeared preferable 
 for the profound analysis of a race to the learned 
 man of the study who works only with books. 
 They were right. The living meadow, with its
 
 202 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 flowers, is superior to the dried herbarium, which 
 offers only a pale memory of life. The volumes 
 containing M. Mickiewicz's first course of lectures, 
 constitute a treasure of original information upon 
 the ancient history of the Slav race, which the 
 professor explained like a learned man and felt 
 like a man of the people. He was accused of 
 transgressing his programme. Ah ! how difficult 
 it is to confine one's self to a limited programme 
 when one is intoxicated with the infinite ! Such as 
 he was, with his bold divinations, his overflowing 
 aspirations, his noble illusions of a prophet, we are 
 proud of him, and although the decree of his 
 official election was deferred through scruples of 
 policy, we have inscribed his name on the tablets 
 of marble which contain the names of our seniors. 
 He had in his favor the best of decrees, that which 
 is countersigned by the enthusiasm of the people. 
 You are about to transport him from the hospitable 
 soil where he has reposed for five-and-thirty years 
 to your Saint Denis, in the vaults of Wawel, where 
 repose your ancient sovereigns. There he will lie 
 by the side of Kosciusko and Poniatowski, the only 
 members of that noble assembly who were not 
 kings. By the side of those who have wielded the 
 sword you have desired to prepare a place for the 
 inspired poet, who has lent a voice to yours trong 
 and ardent genius, to your exquisite legends, to all 
 which transports and consoles you, which makes you 
 smile and weep. Thereby you give a great lesson 
 to idealism ; you proclaim that a nation is a spiritual
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 203 
 
 thing, that it possesses a soul which is not con- 
 quered with the means wherewith the body is 
 conquered. 
 
 Great and illustrious colleague, remember 
 France ; from the royal tomb which the admira- 
 tion of your compatriots has prepared for you, 
 remember France. Poor France ! She does not 
 forget, be assured. That which she has loved 
 once she loves forever. That which she has ap- 
 plauded in your words, she will applaud again. 
 The rostrum which she has offered to you, she will 
 offer again more freely. You would hesitate to 
 recall there so often memories of victory, but you 
 would find heartfelt words wherewith to teach the 
 austere duties of the vanquished. Go to the glory 
 which you have merited ; return to the homage of 
 the people, to that country which you have loved 
 so much. We restrict our ambition to a single 
 point, that it may be stated on your tomb that you 
 were one of us; that people may know, in the 
 Poland of the future, that, in the days of trial, 
 there was a liberal France to receive you, to 
 applaud you, to love you. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 M. VICTOR HUGO was one of the proofs of the 
 unity of our French conscience. The admiration 
 which surrounded his last years has demonstrated 
 tint there are still points upon which we are in ac-
 
 204 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 cord. Without distinction of classes, of parties, of 
 sects, of literary opinions, the public, for the last 
 few days, has hung suspended on the heartbreak- 
 ing narrative of his death-agony ; and now there is 
 no one who does not feel a great void at the heart 
 of the country. He was an essential member of 
 the Church in the communion of which we live ; 
 one would say that the spire of that ancient cathe- 
 dral had crumbled with that noble existence which 
 has borne the highest, in our century, the banner 
 of the ideal. 
 
 M. Victor Hugo was a very great man ; he was, 
 above all, an extraordinary man, a unique man. 
 He seems to have been created by a special nomi- 
 nating decree of the Eternal. All the categories of 
 literary history were thrown into confusion in him. 
 That criticism which shall, one day, seek to disen- 
 tangle his origins, will find itself in the presence of 
 the most complicated problem. Was he French, 
 German, Spanish ? He was all this and something 
 more. His genius is above all distinctions of race ; 
 none of the families into which the human race is 
 divided, physically and morally, can claim him. 
 
 Is he a spiritualist ? Is he a materialist ? I do 
 not know. On the one hand, he does not know 
 what abstraction is ; his principal, I may say his 
 sole, cult, is for two or three enormous realities, 
 such as Paris, Napoleon, the people. On souls, he 
 held the ideas of Tertullian ; he thinks he sees 
 them, he touches them ; his immortality is only the
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 205 
 
 immortality of the head. He is highly idealistic, 
 withal. For him, the idea penetrates matter and 
 constitutes its reason for existence. His God is 
 not the hidden God of Spinoza* a stranger to the 
 development of the universe ; he is a God to 
 whom it may be useless to pray, but whom he 
 adored with a sort of trembling. He is the Abyss 
 of the Gnostics. His life was passed under the 
 powerful obsession of a living infinity, which em- 
 braced him, overflowed upon him from all direc- 
 tions, and in the bosom of which he found it 
 sweet to lose himself and enter into delirium. 
 
 That lofty philosophy which was the daily occu- 
 pation of the long hours that he passed alone with 
 himself is the secret of his genius. For him the 
 world is like a diamond with a thousand facets, 
 sparkling with internal fires, suspended in a night 
 without bounds. He desires to express that which 
 he sees and feels ; materially he cannot. The tran- 
 quil state of the poet's soul, which believes that it 
 holds the infinite, or which easily resigns itself to 
 its impotence, is not his. He persists, he stammers, 
 he hardens himself against the impossible ; he does 
 not consent to hold his peace ; like the Hebrew 
 prophet, he likes to say : Doming, nescio loqui 
 Lord, I know not how to speak. His prodig- 
 ious reason completes what his imagination does 
 not perceive. Often above humanity, he is some- 
 times below it. Like a Cyclops, hardly disengaged 
 from matter, he possesses the secrets of a lost
 
 206 RECOLLECTIOXS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 world. His immense work is the mirage of a uni- 
 verse which no eye shall behold again. 
 
 His defects were thus necessary defects ; he 
 could not have existed without them ; they were 
 the defects of an unconscious force of nature, act- 
 ing through the effect of an inward tension. He 
 was born to be the sonorous clarion which throws 
 down walls of cities which have waxed old. The 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had excelled 
 in a limited conception of the human mind. The 
 great writers of those epochs wished to see only 
 the finished ; things appeared to them in their 
 definitive state, they never beheld them in the proc- 
 ess of creation. The infinite development escaped 
 them. The mysteries of origins, the wonders of 
 instinct, the genius of crowds, spontaneity under 
 all forms, were beyond them. At the beginning 
 of our century the evil had reached its height. 
 The physical contemplation of the universe 
 wrought miracles : " La Me"chanique Celeste " of 
 Laplace, and " La Me"chanique Analytique " of La- 
 grange, composed separately, arrived at an em- 
 brace, like two hemispheres combined expressly to 
 be united ! But the moral contemplation of the 
 universe, that is to say, literature, had become a 
 puerile game something empty, factitious, scanty. 
 
 M. Victor Hugp was the most illustrious among 
 those who undertook to lead back this degraded 
 literature to lofty inspirations. He was filled with 
 a truly poetical breath ; with him, everything is
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 207 
 
 germ and vigorous with life. A singular discovery 
 coincides with that of the new spirit ; it is that the 
 French language, which might seem no longer 
 good for anything but to rhyme witty or amiable 
 little verses, suddenly finds itself vibrating, 
 sonorous, full of brilliancy. The poet, who has just 
 opened to imagination and sentiment fresh paths, 
 reveals to French poetry its harmony. That which 
 was only a great bell of lead becomes in his hands 
 a fine, small bell of steel. 
 
 The battle was won. Who, to-day, would wish 
 to demand of the general an account of the 
 maneuvers which he employed, of the sacrifices 
 which were the conditions of success ? ' The gen- 
 eral is obliged to be an egotist. The army is he ; 
 and personality, to be condemned in other men, is 
 imposed upon him. M. Hugo had become a creed, 
 a principle, an affirmation the affirmation of 
 idealism and of free art. He owed himself to his 
 own religion ; he was like a god who should be, at 
 the same time, a priest to himself. His strong and 
 lofty nature lent itself to such a part, which would 
 have been (insupportable for any other. He was 
 the least free of men, and that did not weigh upon 
 him. A great instinct made its way to the light 
 through him. He was like a spring of the spiritual 
 world. He had not the time to have taste, and, 
 moreover, that would have served him but little. 
 His policy must be that which best suited his 
 battle. It was, in reality, subordinated to his
 
 208 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 great literary strategies, and was sometimes forced 
 to suffer from them, like everything of the first 
 order which it reduced to the second rank and 
 which it sacrificed to a preferred goal. 
 
 In proportion as he advanced in life, the grand 
 ideal which has always filled him was expanded, 
 purified. He was more and more seized with pity 
 for the thousands of beings whom nature immolates 
 to the great things which she makes. Eternal 
 honor of our race ! Starting from the two opposite 
 poles, M. Hugo and Voltaire unite in the love of 
 justice and of humanity. In 1878 ancient literary 
 antipathies subsided : the cold tragedies of the 
 eighteenth Century were forgotten ; Victor Hugo 
 awarded to his adversary the apotheosis, certainly 
 not for his literary baggage, but in spite of his lit- 
 erary baggage. Liberalism is the national work of 
 France ; one is judged, in history, according to the 
 measure 'of services .which one has rendered to it. 
 
 What will happen in 1985 when the centenary of 
 M. Victor Hugo will be celebrated in its turn ? 
 Who shall dare to predict, in the face of the. 
 obscurities of a future which appears to us closed 
 on all sides ? One thing alone is very probable. 
 That which has remained of Voltaire will remain 
 of M. Hugo. Voltaire, in the name of an admi- 
 rable good sense, proclaims that men blaspheme 
 God when they think to serve his cause by preach- 
 ing hatred. M. Hugo, in the name of a grandiose 
 instinct, proclaims a father of beings, in whom all 
 beings are brothers. The priests will be absent
 
 ERNEST RENAK. 209 
 
 from M. Hugo's funeral. That is loyal ; it would 
 have been better had matters passed off with the 
 same decorum at the funeral of Voltaire. For my 
 part, had I the right to wear the gown and band 
 of any religion, and were I called upon to pro- 
 nounce the last farewell to the dead, this is what I 
 would say, as I poured a few grains of incense 
 upon the sacred flames. 
 
 "Brothers and sisters, send up with this incense 
 your best prayers, in memory of those great men 
 whom the purified manner in which they regarded 
 divine things has not permitted to desire ordinary 
 songs and chants. So strong an ideal filled their 
 soul that they affirmed the immortality of the ideal 
 itself. They believed so energetically in the true, 
 in the good, in justice, that they conceived these 
 apparent abstractions as a real and supreme exist- 
 ence. Their language on this point was that of 
 the most simple among you. They took pleasure 
 in the words which you employ ; they avoided the 
 mistake of many subtle minds which, in order not 
 to speak like the credulous centuries, wear them- 
 selves out in seeking synonyms of God." 
 
 GEORGE SAND. 
 
 DURING the days which preceded her death, 
 Madame Sand had written for the Temps, in rela- 
 tion to my " Philosophical Dialogues," an article 
 which the director of the Temps was so kind as to
 
 2 1 o RECOLLECTIONS A ND LE TTEXS OF 
 
 communicate to me. I thanked him for it in the 
 following letter : 
 
 PARIS, June n, 1876. 
 
 My Dear Friend : I send you back, not without 
 some tears, the sheets which you have permitted 
 me to read. I am touched to the bottom of my 
 heart at having been the last to cause vibration in 
 that sonorous soul, which was like the seolian harp 
 of our epoch. Her death appears to me a loss to 
 humanity ; henceforth, something will be lacking to 
 our concert ; a cord has been broken in the lyre of 
 the century. She possessed the divine talent of be- 
 stowing wings on everything, of making art with 
 the idea which, to others, remained rough and 
 formless. She drew charming pages from people 
 who have never written a single good page ; for an 
 instrument of infinite sensibility lay within her ; 
 moved by everything that was original and true, 
 responding by the wealth of her inner being to all 
 impressions from without, she transformed and 
 rendered everything into infinite harmonies. She 
 gave life to the aspirations of those who felt but 
 who could not create. She was the inspired poet 
 who clothed with a body our hopes, our plaints, our 
 faults, our groans. 
 
 This admirable gift of understanding and ex- 
 pressing everything was the source of her kindness. 
 It is the characteristic of great souls that they are 
 incapable of hatred. They see good everywhere 
 and they love good in everything. "I had no
 
 ERNEST REX AN. 21 1 
 
 other enemies than those of the state," said a great 
 man in politics. We have no other enemies than 
 those of the ideal ; now, if we except a few souls 
 which have been unfortunately born, the ideal has 
 no enemies in reality ; it has its more or less imper- 
 fect adorers. Madame Sand has sometimes been 
 reproached for that indulgence which, it was said, 
 prevented her feeling sufficient indignation against 
 evil, left her disarmed in the presence of her 
 enemies, made her forget quickly outrage and 
 calumny. It was because she had, in fact, a very 
 different work to do from occupying her mind with 
 such petty thoughts. Hate the foolish great 
 Heavens ! reply to all the absurdities, wear out her 
 life in a fruitless struggle, place herself at the 
 mercy of her insulters by giving them the right to 
 think that they can wound her what madness, 
 when the world is so vast, when the universe con- 
 tains so many secrets to be divined, so many charm- 
 ing things to contemplate ! Madame Sand had 
 not the ordinary defect of literary people. She 
 knew no self-love. Her life, passed, in spite of 
 appearances to the contrary, in a profound peace, 
 in noble disdain of plebeian judgments, was, 
 throughout, an ardent seeking after the forms under 
 which it is permitted us to admire the infinite. 
 
 She took no precautions against pharisees. She 
 did not provoke them, but she never thought of 
 them. Her candor, her artlessness permitted her 
 to indulge in miracles of disdain and of admirable
 
 2 1 2 RECOLLECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 serenity. Yesterday, an hour before her funeral, 
 some literary reticences, dominated by respect, 
 could be expressed among those whom a desire to 
 render her homage had assembled in her park. A 
 nightingale suddenly began to sing in a voice so 
 sweet that many said : " Ah ! that is the speech 
 which is really in place here ; her eulogium is that 
 which flows from the breast swelling with the love 
 of pure and simple beings." Her funeral was what 
 it should have been. She reposes in the corner of 
 a rustic cemetery, beneath a fine green cypress. 
 All the inhabitants of the country round about 
 were present ; all wept. With much tact, it had 
 been felt that the ideas of the simple women who 
 came to pray for her, hooded, chaplet in hand, 
 must not be troubled. That coffin, covered with 
 flowers, borne by peasants, must traverse the 
 church. For my own part, I should have regretted 
 to pass, without entering, that porch sheltered by 
 great trees ; I should have regretted the absence 
 of trie old chanter who intoned the psalms without 
 understanding them, and of the choir boy who 
 carried the holy water with an air of abstraction 
 Oh ! what a fine legend will be built thereon b; 
 the people and the Church, those eternal creator , 
 of myth, more true than the truth ! The simple 
 who imagine that she had errors to retract, will 
 make out that she was converted. They will 
 not be able to make up their minds to damn so 
 great a soul. The first time that I saw a portrait
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 213 
 
 of Madame Sand, was in Brittany, in the year 1836 
 or 1837 (I was fifteen years of age) ; the priests ex- 
 hibited it with horror ; it was a lithograph represent- 
 ing a tall woman, clad in black, trampling under 
 foot a crucifix. How quickly the Church pardons ! 
 In ten years she will be saved. Thousands more 
 will peruse her, saying, to excuse their hardihood : 
 " It is possible that she erred ; but she made a 
 good end." 
 
 Very few will be able to understand such sin- 
 cerity, such a complete absence of declamation, 
 such a perfect horror of posing and phrase-making, 
 so much innocence of mind. Genius plays with 
 error as children play with serpents ; they are not 
 bitten. Madame Sand traversed all dreams ; she 
 smiled on all, believed for a moment in all ; her 
 practical judgment was sometimes led astray ; but, 
 as an artist, she never made a mistake. Her works 
 are really the echo of our century. She will be 
 loved, she will be sought, when this poor nineteenth 
 century which we calumniate, but which will one 
 day be pardoned much, shall be no more. George 
 Sand will come to life again as our interpreter. 
 The century has not received a wound at which her 
 heart has not bled, it has not suffered a malady 
 which has not wrung from her harmonious tears. 
 Her books bear promises of immortality because 
 they will be forever the testimony of that which we 
 have desired, thought, felt, suffered. 
 
 Give quickly to your readers these fine pages, the
 
 214 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 last, it would seem, that she wrote before being 
 struck down by the pains of death, and believe in 
 my sincere affection. 
 
 M. COUSIN. 
 
 MY learned colleague, M. Janet, has lately pub- 
 lished a volume filled with facts and judicious re- 
 marks, under the title : " Victor Cousin and his 
 Works."* M. Janet has decided that the moment 
 has arrived for setting forth with impartiality the 
 work of philosophical restoration attempted by M. 
 Cousin at the beginning of this century. He has 
 fulfilled his task like a friend ; but friendship has 
 not blinded him. Disparagement, after all, leads 
 to the commission of as many errors as good will. 
 An excellent principle in literary history is, to dis- 
 trust all testimony, but, in the end, to believe 
 friends rather than enemies. 
 
 The oblivion which, in less than twenty years, 
 has overtaken M. Cousin's work, is singular. This 
 oblivion is unjust ; nevertheless, it can be explained 
 on many grounds. It is not good for philosophy 
 to win too complete victories. The Revolution of 
 1830 was more fatal to M. Cousin than the narrow 
 spirit of the Restoration had been. Once free, or, 
 to express it more accurately, being obliged to 
 translate into practice that which had been hitherto 
 only a theory for him, he was forced to enter into 
 * Paris, Calmann Levy.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 215 
 
 the order of compromises and concessions ; he be- 
 came an administrator of philosophy rather than a 
 philosopher. The very sincere desire to found a 
 philosophy which might be taught in the schools, 
 and to replace the wretched manuals which had 
 reigned hitherto, debased his genius. He fell into 
 the chimera of a state philosophy, into the dream 
 of a lay catechism, implying a double erroneous 
 assumption ; the first that freethinkers would be 
 content with it, the second, that it would enchant 
 the Catholics. Now, neither the freethinkers nor 
 the Catholics lent themselves to this misapprehen- 
 sion. M. Cousin's condescension was wasted. His 
 marvelous talent never abandoned him, but, by dint 
 of seeing him preserve, for a period of nearly forty 
 years, a prudent silence upon the problems which 
 constitute the very essence of philosophy, people 
 became unaccustomed to regard him as a philoso- 
 pher ; the exquisite writer was prejudicial to the 
 thinker; he seemed to content himself so easily 
 with official solutions that people began to doubt 
 whether the thirst of the true had ever been an 
 imperious necessity with him. 
 
 And nevertheless, such were the complexity and 
 hidden resources of his rich nature that the thinker 
 had very readily existed in him, before the orthodox 
 dogmatist. M. Janet excels in demonstrating 
 this ; this constitutes the new and finely observed 
 side of his book. There were two phases in the 
 philosophical life of M. Cousin. The supreme end
 
 2 1 6 RECOLLECTIONS A XD LE TTERS OF 
 
 of existence did not always consist, for him, in draw- 
 ing up, in correct style, programmes appropriate to 
 the use of Lyceums. At the origin of all this, there 
 was a mind singularly open to all the sounds from 
 without ; an eloquent and profound interpreter of 
 all that had agitated the European conscience, a 
 young enthusiast, intoxicated in his day with the 
 ideal and with lofty speculation. His defects, then, 
 are those of his time a time preoccupied to excess 
 with eloquence, with poetry, with worldly success ; 
 these are, above all, the defects of his masters, 
 the Germans. The importance which he attributes 
 to subjective idealism is exaggerated ; the attention 
 devoted to the scientific knowledge of the universe 
 is insufficient. But, athwart a host of defects, 
 what a lofty sentiment of the infinite ! what a just 
 view of the spontaneous and the unconscious ! 
 what a religious accent, unheard since Male- 
 branche, when he speaks of reason ! How well one 
 understands the traces which men like Jouffroy 
 retained of this first instruction ! I made acquaint- 
 ance with the course of 1818 in its first edition, 
 that of M. Adolphe Gamier, which is the genuine 
 one, under the shadows of Issy, about 1842. The 
 impression which it made upon me was extremely 
 profound ; I knew those winged phrases by heart. 
 I dreamed of them. I am conscious that many of 
 the outlines of my brain are derived from that 
 source, and that is why, without ever having be- 
 longed to M. Cousin's school, I have always enter-
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 217 
 
 tained for him the most respectful and the most 
 deferential feelings. He has been not one of the 
 fathers, but one of the exciters of my brain. 
 Hence M. Janet is right in protesting against a 
 sort of ingratitude to which generations are sub- 
 ject when they enjoy full liberty on entering life. 
 They forget how much courage has been required 
 to lift a world of ignorance and prejudices ; they 
 treat as weakness what was merely prudence ; they 
 almost reproach Galileo and Descartes for not 
 having smashed the windows of the Inquisition and 
 the Sorbonne. The youth of our day can hardly 
 understand any longer, in particular, what the 
 years of reaction which followed 1848 were like 
 years when the enemies of the human mind reigned 
 as masters. I knew M. Cousin about that epoch. 
 Certainly, the effect which he then produced upon 
 me was far less than that which I had felt at Issy 
 when listening to the distant echo of his first word. 
 I was more formed, less susceptible to captivation, 
 and he had lost the greater part of his fascinations. 
 But what charm still ! what gayety ! what love of 
 work ! what respect for the language, and what 
 conscientiousness in research! I loved him twice, in 
 a manner, and the man I went to salute at the Sor- 
 bonne was not exactly the same who had troubled 
 and enchanted me at Issy. But I always found him 
 good, amiable, living exclusively the life of the 
 spirit, sincerely liberal. Two classes of persons 
 only could be severe toward him : in the first
 
 2 1 8 RECOLLECTIONS A ND LE TTERS OF 
 
 place, the disciples whom he had enlisted, and who 
 imagined that they could reconquer their inde- 
 pendence by ingratitude ; then the rather heavy- 
 witted, who took him quite seriously, arid did not 
 admit a grain of irony as one of his essential 
 elements. 
 
 In short, Victor Cousin was one of the most 
 attractive personalities of the nineteenth century. 
 I do not know whether he will hold a very great 
 place in the critical history of philosophy con- 
 ceived on the plan of Brucker or Tennemann ; 
 but certainly he will fill a curious chapter of the 
 French spirit at one of its most brilliant moments. 
 It is a fact very honorable for the half-forgotten, 
 master that the first effort at reaction in his 
 favor should come from so sincere a mind, and 
 one so devoted to the truth, as M. Janet. Happy 
 is he who is still sufficiently alive twenty years 
 after his death to find so clever and so convinced 
 an apologist. 
 
 MADAME HORTENSE CORNU. 
 
 A WEEK ago,* a few friends were assembled in 
 the little church of Longport, near Montlhery, to 
 pay the last respects to a woman who will leave a 
 deep impression on all who knew her. Madame 
 Hortense Cornu will occupy an important place in 
 the history of our times, and, nevertheless, it has 
 * June 10, 1875.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 219 
 
 been granted to only a very small number to ap- 
 preciate that rare mind, that noble heart, that phil- 
 osophical soul, that rich nature in which the most 
 varied gifts were united without contradiction. 
 The seclusion in which she had lived for the last five 
 years had caused her to be forgotten ; the ingrati- 
 tude of some, the injustice of others had created a 
 void about her ; she almost rejoiced in it ; she was 
 too philosophical to seek, with death so near, any 
 consolations save the memory of the good which 
 she had done. 
 
 Hortense Albin Lacroix was born in Paris, on the 
 8th of April, 1809. Her mother was attached to the 
 service of Queen Hortense. Her fate was full of pe- 
 culiarities. One year previously, almost to a day, he 
 who was destined to become the Emperor Napoleon 
 III. was born in the same house. The two children 
 grew up together. and, dating from 1815, became 
 inseparable, receive^! the same education. That 
 which was lacking in this education was not knowl- 
 edge on the part of the masters ; it was coherence, 
 oversight, attention on the part of the parents and 
 preceptors. Louis Napoleon was the same then 
 that he was in later years ; a nature profound, 
 dreamy, embarrassed, but strong and obstinate, in- 
 capable of being turned aside from his fixed idea, 
 incapable, also, of acquiring from without that 
 which the sluggish and obscure movement of his 
 own brain did not lead him to see himself. He 
 possessed the inflexible will of the believer, the
 
 220 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 awkwardness of a man held by an evil spirit ; his 
 absolute lack of facility predestined him to em- 
 brace energetically whatever he understood, but 
 also never to understand a mass of things. The 
 lessons which he received as a child were nearly 
 useless to him ; the master did not consider it his 
 duty to have recourse to long and patient methods 
 to make his teaching penetrate a mind which was 
 closed only in appearance, but into which one 
 could enter only after having long sought the ap- 
 proaches. 
 
 It was quite otherwise with the little girl of. 
 twelve or thirteen years who listened beside him. 
 There was no necessity for aiding her to under- 
 stand ; the lessons were, in reality, for her. The 
 house was vast, sad, solitary. Shut up alone, 
 aimost all day long, in a great schoolroom, the 
 two children 'brought themselves up as best they 
 might. In one hour Hortense had scampered 
 through her task and that of her fellow-student, 
 and the rest of the time was spent in exercises of 
 strategy, for which the school books suffered. 
 The tables, the chairs, the benches, became im- 
 provised fortresses ; dictionaries served as pro- 
 jectiles, and would to heaven that the Prince had 
 always confined himself to such inoffensive ar- 
 tillery as that ! 
 
 The good and affectionate nature of Prince Na- 
 poleon could not fail to attach to him the child 
 who then shared his sort of seclusion. Hortense
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 221 
 
 Lacroix had precisely that which he lacked move- 
 ment, initiative, life. Through her, the external 
 universe made its way to him. Shut up, after the 
 manner of a somnambulist, in a fantastic world, 
 haunted even then by that sort of hallucination of 
 the Napoleonic specter, which, like the ghost in 
 Hamlet, was destined to lead him to the end of the 
 narrow path beyond which there lies nothing but 
 the abyss, the timid, headstrong, taciturn child 
 had found a sister in this little comrade, who dared 
 everything with him, astonished him, roused him, 
 shook him up incessantly, giving him his education 
 all by herself and serving as interpreter between him 
 and the world of reality. Hortense Lacroix, at that 
 age, was as intelligent as she ever was ; reason did 
 not yet regulate in her that touch of the witty, revo- 
 lutionary Paris street-Arab who divines what he 
 has not yet learned. This charming little Ga- 
 vroche, with her delicate features, was in every 
 respect the contrary of the grave, gloomy, em- 
 barrassed child, who could not express his 
 thoughts, but whose inward characteristics and 
 destiny were already fixed in an irrevocable man- 
 ner. 
 
 Although overthrown, the Bonaparte family 
 kept up their relations with most of the reigning 
 houses of Germany. Hortense Lacroix was early 
 known to them, and singularly appreciated by 
 them ; the Grand-Duchess Stephanie of Baden, in 
 particular, cherished a lively affection for her.
 
 222 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Germany was then at its moment of greatest philo- 
 sophical and literary splendor. That beautiful 
 and intelligent manner of understanding the cul- 
 ture of the human mind left upon her a pro- 
 found impression ; but she speedily descried its 
 gaps and limits. Italy was what enchanted her 
 most of all ; she was thoroughly intoxicated by it ; 
 the taste for art awoke vigorously in her, and she 
 conceived at that time, as the principal occupation 
 of her life, a history of modern art, even to its 
 most obscure pages. Her erudition rendered her 
 perfectly fitted for this. The pages which she 
 published on Italian art in the eighteenth volume 
 of M. Didot's " Encyclopedic Moderne," under the 
 pseudonym of Sebastien Albin, have something 
 very just and solid about them. She also planned 
 some studies in iconography, in particular a "his- 
 tory of the crucifix," which, however, I believe she 
 never executed. 
 
 Two youthful pupils of M. Ingres, who were 
 then in Rome and frequented the palace inhabited 
 by the Bonaparte family, knew her, and conceived 
 for her the most lively attachment. Gleyre was 
 her lifelong friend ; Sebastian Cornu married her. 
 M. Cornu possessed precisely what was required 
 for Hortense's happiness. This very conscien- 
 tious and decisive artist was, at the same time, 
 the gentlest and best of men. By his side, Hor- 
 tense exercised freely her thoroughly masculine 
 activity, without this tranquil, almost mystic friend
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 223 
 
 after the manner of Flandrin, ever once being 
 troubled by a vicinity, exquisite, no doubt, but 
 which did not create precisely a desert around 
 him. 
 
 The fact is that no woman ever lived the 
 elevated parts of the life of her century with so 
 much ardor as Madame Cornu. Nothing escaped 
 her. Her taste for conversation and discussion 
 had led her to make acquaintance with all that 
 was then in agitation in Italy and elsewhere. 
 What her mind penetrated quickly, her heart em- 
 braced with warmth. She thought like a man and 
 felt lil*e a woman. Although extremely German 
 in the turn of her intelligence, although half 
 Italian by admiration and love of an unequaled 
 past, she was essentially French in spirit. Her 
 patriotism was the purest, the most disinterested, 
 the most sincere that I have ever known. Her 
 dream was a France, the center of the aspirations 
 of the whole world. Her religion was the religion 
 of France ; she was faithful to her, even when 
 she perceived her passing errors and illusions. 
 
 Now, at that epoch, France really had a re- 
 ligion it was liberalism, the taste for the noble de- 
 velopment of humanity, esteem and sympathy for 
 all that bears the features of a man, sympathy for 
 all that is weak, persecuted, for all that seeks to 
 rise, to free itself. Stupid that we are we did 
 not dream that those whom our country aided 
 most to escape from the other world would soon
 
 224 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 say to her, like the scoffers of Calvary : " He has 
 saved others, himself he cannot save. Let him 
 now descend if he can ! " Madame Cornu, indif- 
 ferent to the ingratitude which concerned only 
 herself, but less indulgent to ingratitude toward 
 others, could not recall without bitterness how 
 many recent upstarts she had formerly seen sup- 
 pliant and happy at receiving favors. Will these 
 experiences correct us, and cause us to renounce 
 the old virtues of whose habit we shall succeed 
 in breaking the world ? It is hardly probable. 
 We are too old to follow the maxims which the 
 new leaders of fashion seem to desire to inaugur- 
 ate. If the final expression of wisdom and prog- 
 ress in setting the rights of man and the rights 
 of people at defiance ; in treating as chimerical 
 all chivalry, all generosity, all gratitude be- 
 tween nations; in substituting for our clear and 
 simple notion of liberty I know not what subtleties 
 by means of which liberty is proved to consist in 
 being as much governed as possible, for one's 
 own good, yes, we prefer to be among the lag- 
 gards rather than to serve such progress as that. 
 Let us learn to wait ; some day we shall be regret- 
 ted. The world has preferred a master to a ca- 
 pricious mistress, who sometimes tormented it. 
 Let it earn its experience. But let us remain 
 obstinately liberal, even toward those who are 
 not so themselves ; let us say, like Corneille's 
 Pauline :
 
 ERXEST REN AN. 225 
 
 My duty does not depend upon his ; 
 
 Let him fail, if he will ; I must still do mine. 
 
 Madame Cornu had committed all the noble er- 
 rors of the days when she was young. She loved 
 Italy, she loved Poland ; she had an aversion for 
 what is strong, and a taste for the weak, even per- 
 ceiving always in that very weakness a presumption 
 of sound right. That is why she was generally on 
 the side of those who conspired ; she sympathized 
 with the revolutionists of all lands ; he who haz- 
 arded his life for his cause was dear to her from 
 that fact alone. In France, her relations were with 
 the Republican party. At the epoch of her life 
 which we have now reached, these sentiments had 
 not created the slightest disagreement between her 
 and the friend of her childhood. This was the 
 time when the latter wrote : "What we require in 
 France is a government in harmony with our needs, 
 our nature. Our needs are equality and liberty ; 
 our nature is to be the ardent promoters of civiliza- 
 tion." During his imprisonment at Ham, Prince 
 Louis found in his childhood's friend more devo- 
 tion than ever. The prince had a taste for histor- 
 ical researches, and would have displayed some 
 aptitude for them, had not his education been 
 neglected. Madame Cornu constituted herself his 
 secretary at a distance. She passed whole days in 
 the libraries, copying passages for him, and em- 
 ployed her numerous friends in procuring for him 
 the books which he required. Never was friend-
 
 226 RECOLT.ECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 ship more free from any calculation. Who could 
 foresee, in 1840, that, eight years later, that which 
 had been madness would become wisdom in the 
 eyes of five million and a half electors? 
 
 Madame Cornu, in any case, was so far from 
 agreeing with the counselors of illegal measures, 
 that the 2d of December, 1851, marked a com- 
 plete rupture between her and her friend. For 
 many years she ceased absolutely to see him. She 
 denied herself no sprightly saying ; her little house 
 on the Boulevard Latour-Maubourg was actively 
 watched ; her name figured for a short time on the 
 lists of exile compiled by an awkward zealot. It 
 was impossible that this state of things should last 
 long. The Emperor had need of his little friend 
 of Augsburg and Arenenburg. She was a part of 
 himself, an organ of his life. Madame Cornu's 
 affection for the prince was too warm to keep her 
 resentment from yielding at a sign. Moreover, she 
 was like all the rest of us. She had an ideal which 
 she placed above politics. What finer occasion 
 could she have to realize the good which she had 
 dreamed ? All favors were laid at her feet. It is 
 unnecessary to say that she never accepted any- 
 thing for herself; but from that moment she con- 
 ceived the plan which absorbed her wholly for the 
 next fifteen years: to seek to surround the Em- 
 peror with better people, to recall to him the 
 dreams of his youth, to arouse his liberal sympa- 
 thies for suffering nations, to recall to him the
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 227 
 
 special bonds which united him with Italy. An 
 excellent policy, but one in which persistence was 
 necessary. It was not her fault that the hesita- 
 tions of the Emperor's mind, that habit of his of 
 believing that he must take a step backward for 
 every step which he took forward, transformed into 
 mortal poison that which should have been our 
 safety and our strength. We shall, perhaps, some 
 day regret that she who knew so well the intermit- 
 tences of that singular mind, its tergiversations, 
 its abrupt decisions which became fatally irre- 
 vocable, did not calculate better the bearing of the 
 effect which she produced through him. But who 
 can foresee the unforeseeable? .... Moreover, it 
 was in another direction that Madame Cornu was 
 destined to render to her country eminent services 
 whose memory will not perish. 
 
 Madame Cornu's vigorous education and her 
 long researches had made of her, literally, a savant. 
 She loved the conversation of the erudite, and, 
 beginning with 1856, she missed hardly a single 
 session of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles- 
 Lettres. We regarded her as a colleague ; we dis- 
 cussed with her the gaps in our studies, the many 
 fine things to be done, the many reforms to be 
 brought about. She understood everything, saw 
 clearly what was possible and what was not. She 
 had too much good judgment to believe that she 
 had riveted fetters on the Emperor. That was not 
 granted to anyone ; the solitary nature, the pro-
 
 228 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 found personality of Napoleon III. never permitted 
 him to give himself wholly. He yielded much ; he 
 was even weak ; " No " was the word which he 
 found it hardest to utter ; but the foundation of 
 his thought was unalterable. His own government 
 displeased him, but he thought that France did 
 not wish any other. Madame Cornu saw very well 
 that it was impossible to change the groundwork 
 of the government, and, above all, to persuade the 
 Emperor to modify his official circle ; still, she saw 
 that, by small concessions, much could be obtained, 
 especially in the order of serious things where she 
 was sure to disturb the designs of very few rivals 
 at court. 
 
 Superior instruction, or rather scientific instruc- 
 tion, was the line in which she succeeded best. 
 Her knowledge of Germany had revealed to her, 
 before we had talked to her about it, the defect of 
 our higher education, of those courses open to all 
 comers, without definite pupils, where one goes to 
 pass an hour, not to study a science, but to hear 
 someone talk agreeably. Let the Faculties con- 
 tinue the traditions of these excellent lessons ; we 
 have nothing to say against that; but Athenaeum 
 lectures at the College de France seem to us out of 
 place. The extraordinary brilliancy of the instruc- 
 tion at the Sorbonne, under the Restoration ; the 
 too great indulgence which talent lacking in science 
 enjoyed during the reign of Louis Philippe ; the 
 sharing of historical studies between the Academy
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 229 
 
 of Moral and Political Sciences, and the Academy 
 of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres which had the 
 inconvenient feature that it allowed of the sup- 
 position that, in historical sciences, general ex- 
 position and work on documents can be sun- 
 dered and, above all, the taste which leads our 
 country far more toward literary success than 
 toward scientific discussions, had brought about in 
 those of our institutions whose only aim is the dis- 
 covery of the truth a certain abasement. Thanks 
 to Madame Cornu, a renaissance took place. The 
 creation of several courses like those of M. Ber- 
 thelot, of M. Leon Renier, of M. Breal, at the Col- 
 lege of France, the establishment of the School 
 for Higher Studies, many scientific missions some 
 of which were very fruitful a new impulse imparted 
 to the acquisition of objects of antiquity, a great 
 number of learned publications undertaken with 
 the justest feeling of the requirements of erudition, 
 marked a new era. It is very far from our inten- 
 tion to say that all this was her work ; but all this 
 belonged to her indirectly, since it was under her 
 influence that the Emperor entered into the direc- 
 tion of ideas which rendered the second half of his 
 reign a very brilliant epoch for critical studies. 
 M. Duruy, whom Madame Cornu supported with 
 all her credit, applied the same views in the most 
 widely varying directions. At the present hour, 
 the fruits are visible. An immense progress has 
 been accomplished in our historical and philolog-
 
 230 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 ical studies. An authority has been established 
 outside the elegant nonsense which fascinates the 
 members of the fashionable world. Healthy meth- 
 ods are represented in nearly all branches by some 
 good worker. The School of Higher Studies is an 
 open laboratory, where these methods are taught in 
 familiar lessons, the only sort which are fruitful. 
 I made some objection, at first, on this last point. 
 " Why," I said, "create a new establishment under 
 this title ? The School of Higher Studies has 
 existed for three hundred and fifty years. Fran- 
 cis I. created it in 1530; it is the College de 
 France, since this great establishment represents 
 exactly that scientific elaboration for which the 
 University principally a corps for teaching does 
 not suffice. Placed between the Sorbonne and our 
 College, your school will be what is termed in ar- 
 chitecture out of perpendicular." They did not 
 halt at this objection, and, no doubt, they did well. 
 The Emperor found it easier to create new things 
 than to reform that which was established, for the 
 established defends itself ; being kindly by nature, 
 the Emperor listened to all claims and, in order 
 not to discontent anyone, took contradictory meas- 
 ures, whence he afterward extricated himself only 
 at the cost of a good deal of embarrassment. 
 
 This was Madame Cornu's experience in the 
 efforts which she essayed in behalf of the fine arts. 
 Here she suffered almost complete shipwreck. Her 
 taste was grand and pure ; she dreamed of an art
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 231 
 
 of the state, classic and grave, and could not en- 
 dure the style of production which commerce en- 
 courages. In art, as in literature, she was even a 
 little unjust, perhaps, toward certain merits. In 
 this direction she held, in the highest degree, the 
 opinions of the Bonapartes, which were essentially 
 classic, intolerant, even, at times, which conceded no 
 part to fancy, to petty literature, to romanticism, 
 which were narrowly intrenched in Greek, Latin, 
 and Italian tradition. I never could induce her to 
 be just to Sainte-Beuve nor to one or two of the 
 writers of our times, whose manner prevented her 
 discerning their rare qualities. Art for the sake of 
 art, literature for the sake of literature, were intol- 
 erable to her. She did not admit that there could 
 be lateral currents in the great stream of the 
 human mind. Literature, in her eyes, was a com- 
 bat for France and progress ; those who lingered 
 by the hedgerows seemed to her deserters. 
 
 As all this was in her the fruit of the love for things 
 for their own sake, she resigned herself cheerfully 
 to be frequently vanquished. She suffered two or 
 three grand defeats from the Emperor ; but the 
 nature of the friendship which the Emperor 
 cherished for her could suffer no shock, nor did it 
 permit of any susceptibility on her side. The 
 kindness of her Majesty the Empress, her affection, 
 her maternal cares for the Prince Imperial, the 
 constant friendship of Prince Napoleon, of the 
 Princess Julie Bonaparte, of her Majesty the
 
 232 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Queen of Holland rendered her happy and sus- 
 tained her in her trials. 
 
 The lamentable act of the month of July, 1870, 
 overturned all these dreams. She did not see the 
 Emperor during those gloomy days, and, had she 
 seen him, she probably could not have pierced the 
 fatal mist in which that brain, whose weaknesses 
 she knew so well, had shut itself up. At the be- 
 ginning of the war she withdrew to a little house 
 which she owned at Longpont. There M. Cornu 
 was attacked by a serious illness ; he died while 
 being transported to Versailles. An affection of 
 the heart had made its appearance in her some 
 time previously ; in a few months she grew twenty 
 years older. She was much neglected, as she 
 might have expected. This woman, to whom so 
 many people owed their lives and fortunes, found 
 herself in a state bordering on privation. She had 
 nothing but her house at Longpont, which was in- 
 significant in value. If some of her friends had 
 not made her understand that her poverty would 
 be an insupportable reproach to them, she would 
 have died in destitution. 
 
 Her lofty idealism never weakened for a moment 
 in her cruel illness. During the last days, the 
 struggle between a strong and powerful head, still 
 all alive, and annihilated organs, was terrible. In 
 bidding farewell to one of her friends, she said : 
 
 " Tell Marguerite [a young girl of eighteen] that 
 dying is no great matter ; only it is very long."
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 233 
 
 Who, more than she, deserved to leave life calmly ? 
 She did a great deal of good ; the good that she 
 did survives her, and will bear fruit without ceas- 
 ing ; all her friends will keep her image preciously 
 engraved upon their hearts. 
 
 QUEEN SOPHIE OF HOLLAND.* 
 
 THE death of Queen Sophie of Holland is a great 
 grief to all those who love France, as well as all 
 good and beautiful things. " ' The Last of the 
 Great Princesses,' that is the title of the study 
 that ought to be published of her," said to me yes- 
 terday one of the men who knew her best, and who 
 alone could relate all the sincerity, disinterested 
 .ardor, lofty aspirations in this choice soul, who 
 was the victim, in so many respects, of our century 
 of iron. She possessed, in fact, in the highest de- 
 gree, the qualities which the throne exalts but does 
 not create. Modern philosophy, which makes the 
 destiny of man consist in a perpetual effort toward 
 reason, cannot always be suitable to those whom 
 fate has vowed to humble duties ; it is, above all, 
 the philosophy of sovereigns. 
 
 Queen Sophie, uniting with this the delicate tact 
 of the woman, replied victoriously to those who be- 
 lieve that the sole perfection of ruins is the tender 
 and heedless grace of a Marguerite de Provence, 
 or the resignation of a Jeanne de Valois. 
 *Died May 25, 1877.
 
 234 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 She belonged to that grand epoch of the German 
 race in which so many strong qualities, masked for 
 centuries by roughness or a sort of awkwardness, 
 suddenly reached the point of revealing a fojm of 
 human aristocracy hitherto unknown. That which 
 characterized, in the highest degree, this new mode 
 of feeling and thinking, was warmth of soul, a cer- 
 tain nobility, generosity, strength, implying respect 
 for one's self and for others. French society of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had furnished 
 the model for what may be called politeness en- 
 lightened mind. Goethe and his great contempo- 
 raries, while paying homage to our brilliant initiative, 
 demonstrated that Voltaire, despite his well-de- 
 served glory, was not everything ; that the heart is 
 a master to whom it is as necessary to listen as to 
 the mind. Religion no longer consisted of servile 
 attachment to the superstitions of the past, nor to 
 the narrow forms of a theological orthodoxy ; it 
 was the infinite, vividly comprehended, embraced, 
 realized in all one's life. Philosophy was no longer 
 something dry and negative ; it was the pursuit of 
 the truth in all its branches, with the certainty that 
 the truth to be discovered would be a thousand 
 times more beautiful than the error which it re- 
 placed. Such a scheme of wisdom renders him 
 who possesses it ardent and strong. The virile 
 education which Queen Sophie received at the 
 Court of Wurternberg, her rich and open nature, 
 early inculcated upon her those grand principles,
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 235 
 
 as a faith, but a faith which does not know what it 
 is to reject or hate. 
 
 Her whole existence was permeated with it. The 
 German Spirit then resembled Jehovah, who, ac- 
 cording to the fine expression of Job, " maketh 
 peace upon his high places." They did not wish 
 to destroy anything, they sought to conciliate every- 
 thing. The queen remained faithful to this spirit, 
 even when it had been rejected by many of those 
 who had proclaimed it. She showed herself anx- 
 ious to welcome every good thing that blossomed 
 in the whole world. National prejudice was what she 
 feared the most ; far from penning up the moral 
 education of man in the notions of one race and 
 one language, she dreamed, like Herder, of a recip- 
 rocal interchange of all the gifts of humanity. 
 Her sympathy halted only in the presence of the 
 mediocre and the evil ; then she no longer under- 
 stood. 
 
 Thus her whole life was passed in loving. She 
 loved first the noble country which had her for its 
 sovereign, and which, better than any other, knew 
 her mind and her goodness. She loved Holland, 
 not only because fate had made it her duty, but be- 
 cause she perceived at once the providential char- 
 acter of this sacred estuary, the asylum of liberty ; 
 where the human mind had so often found a refuge 
 against the overstrong powers of the rest of 
 Europe. Who can say that it will not have to ful- 
 fill this mission yet again ? Holland heartily re-
 
 236 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 turned her affection. Never wassovereign more pop- 
 ular. No one understood better than she the soul 
 of the nation, its past grandeur, its future duties. 
 She was proud of being associated with so much 
 glory, and when, a few days hence, she reposes at 
 Delft, by the side of the Taciturn whom she ad- 
 mired, her tomb will be one seal the more to the 
 compact of union between Holland and the house of 
 Orange, that is to say, to the fundamental chart of. 
 the nationality of the country. 
 
 She loved France also. On the day of her mar- 
 riage, in 1839, at Stuttgart, the Protestant clergy- 
 man who preached saw fit to spice his sermon with 
 a diatribe against Napoleon. A young man of 
 seventeen years, the first cousin to the princess, 
 who was present, rose and left the building. This 
 was a scandal, a great affair in the little court. 
 
 " If I had been able, I should have done as he 
 did," said she. The grandeur of the French 
 epopee, consisting of two indissoluble parts, the 
 Revolution and the Empire, had early taken posses- 
 sion of her imagination. She loved us with all 
 our defects. Our writers, our artists, our wits were 
 familiar to her ; she often knew them better than 
 we did ourselves. She was even curious about our 
 democracy. She feared so greatly to pass by, in- 
 attentively, anything which might have a future ! 
 Poor France ! she forgave her, because she knew 
 that a great heart lay behind her faults, and that 
 one day the prodigal son would be preferred to 
 those who had never sinned.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 237 
 
 It was thus that this great queen, the most Ger- 
 man of the princesses of our century probably, had 
 had nothing but sympathy for what fanatics call 
 the race enemy. She loved, both France and Ger- 
 many, and she was right. Noble things, far from 
 excluding each other, hold each other, summon 
 each other, and we maintain that the great Ger- 
 mans of former days would recognize much more 
 as their true sons in spirit those who, for the last 
 ten years, have protested against a violent policy, 
 than those who allow themselves to be dazzled by 
 these exhibitions of force. The queen suffered 
 cruelly on the day when she saw what she had 
 adored as an aspiration toward justice become the 
 brutal negation of all ideal principles. German 
 unity had been her dream ; but she desired it to 
 be brought about otherwise. She hardly recog- 
 nized the Germany of her youth in that imitation 
 of the defects of our First Empire, in that transcend- 
 ent disdain of all generosity, in that fashion of 
 reproaching others for imitating those fine exam- 
 ples of internal reform which Germany, in its fine 
 days, gave to all peoples. 
 
 That ardent life consumed itself ; a sort of in- 
 ward fire devoured that nature which nothing ever 
 left untouched. It is not that the queen did not 
 know how to take rest. Her tranquil Maison du 
 Bois, near The Hague, breathed calm and serene 
 gayety. The historical studies in which she de- 
 lighted, and by which she sought to distract her
 
 238 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 thoughts from apprehensions of the present, fur- 
 nished an excellent regimen for her mind. Never- 
 theless, grave symptoms made their appearance in 
 connection with the heart. In the month of 
 December last, when the queen beheld Paris for 
 the last time, her friends were alarmed. The 
 sweet and tranquil atmosphere of The Hague re- 
 stored her somewhat. A festival, organized by 
 some friends of philosophy to celebrate the anni- 
 versary of Spinoza's death, interested her greatly. 
 She wished to take part in it in spirit, and caused a 
 portrait of the Dutch thinker, which never quitted 
 her chamber, and is probably the only authentic 
 one of him, to be exhibited in the hall of the re- 
 union. That evening she mentioned the sage's 
 fine maxim : " Philosophy is meditation, not on 
 death but on life." Her death has been a public 
 calamity to Holland. We shall, perhaps, medi- 
 tate upon her life some day, when it will be pos- 
 sible, in thinking of her, to devote a share to some- 
 thing besides grief and regret. 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL OF M. 
 ERNEST HAVET, DECEMBER 24, 1889. 
 
 Gentlemen: The illustrious colleague to whom 
 we to-day bid farewell was an eminent servant of 
 the greatest work of our century, the persistent 
 search of the truth. This savant was, before all
 
 ERNEST KENAN. *$$ 
 
 else, an upright man of French race. Like Des- 
 cartes, he liked only clear ideas clearly expressed. 
 The genius of Germany (when one could speak of 
 a German genius) pierced more deeply, perhaps, 
 into the abysses which hem us in so closely ; but 
 Havet will be quoted, in the centuries to come, for 
 having been the first to cast upon the problems 
 which have troubled souls the most, a few just, 
 firm, sober, and cold words. He believed, and I 
 believe with him, that the era of official veils is 
 passed, that it serves no end to make a distinction 
 between the truths which are good for utterance 
 and those which are not good, since no one is de- 
 ceived any longer, and since the mass of the hu- 
 man species, reading the eyes of the thinker, 
 demands of him, without circumlocution, whether 
 the truth is not, at bottom, melancholy. The only 
 means of consoling poor humanity a little, is to 
 persuade it thoroughly that we are concealing 
 nothing from it, and that we are treating it, not as 
 rhetoricians occupied with political and pedagogi- 
 cal cares, but as learned men, with absolute sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 Havet never concealed a shade, even a fugitive 
 shade, of his thought. He believed in civilization, 
 in reason, in that light of the human conscience 
 which reveals to us some features of the truth, 
 some rules of good. For him the history of this 
 revelation, the only real one, was clear in its essen- 
 tial lines. Born in Greece, that motherland of all
 
 240 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 harmonies, reason, under divers names and not 
 without strange alloys, makes the circuit of the 
 world. That sun, of which Rome in its grand 
 epoch possessed such fine reflections, never disap- 
 pears completely. Humanity lives upon it. The 
 supernatural ideas of the Orient, the decadence of 
 the ancient world, the invasions of the barbarians, 
 veil it but do not extinguish it. Christianity, in its 
 vital parts, is only a viaticum composed of good 
 Greek ideas and cleverly prepared for the gloomy 
 night of a thousand years to which the dawn of the 
 Renaissance put an end. Thus all proceeds from 
 a single luminous blossoming. Greece prepared 
 the scientific framework, capable of being indefi- 
 nitely enlarged, and the philosophical framework, 
 susceptible of embracing everything, in which, for 
 the space of two thousand years, the intellectual 
 and moral efforts of the race to which we belong 
 have riot ceased to move. 
 
 Let us set aside then all petty reserves (I, as the 
 historian of Israel, should have some to make) ; 
 our colleague is in the right. Greek culture de- 
 mands no sacrifice from the reason ; the culture 
 which comes from the East does demand it, since 
 no fact has ever appeared to prove that a Superior 
 Being has made to a man or to men any revelation 
 whatever. The idea (to kalori) of Greece is indeed 
 the whole of human life, embellished, ennobled. 
 It was Havet's task to follow this great ribbon of 
 living water, this blue Nile which traverses the
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 241 
 
 * 
 
 deserts. He acquitted himself of it with a sort of 
 faith. Never was believer more faithful to his 
 dogma than was Havet to his philosophy. 
 
 Yes, I repeat it, he was right. Greece created 
 truth as she created beauty. On the other hand, 
 our Celtic and Germanic races have certainly had 
 some share in founding that which may be called 
 honesty, uprightness of heart. All the best that is 
 contained in Christianity we have put there, and 
 that is why we love it, that is why it must not be 
 destroyed. Christianity, in one sense, is decidedly 
 our work, and in seeking therein the traces of our 
 most intimate sentiments, Havet was not pursuing 
 a chimera. Christianity is ourselves, and what we 
 love the most in it is ourselves. Our fresh, cool 
 fountains, our forests of oaks, our rocks have col- 
 laborated in this. In the order of the things of 
 the soul, our charity, our love of men, our tender 
 and delicate feeling for woman ; the suave and 
 subtle mysticisn of a Saint Bernard or a Francis 
 d'Assisi, spring rather from our ancestors, possibly 
 pagans, than from the egotist David, or the exter- 
 minator Jehu, or the fanatic Esdras, or the strict 
 observer Nehemiah. 
 
 Havet comprehended all this marvelously, and 
 expressed it in perfect style. Hfs book on "The 
 Origins of Christianity," which treats only one side 
 of the subject, treats it in a definitive manner. It 
 is an inflexible book. Havet believes in the true ; 
 he makes no compromises. Tell him that, in re-
 
 242 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 % 
 
 jecting those old, traditional beliefs, we shall reject 
 at the same time, many excellent things ; that 
 these conventions, beloved and accepted, are the 
 postulates of life, as it were ; he will tell you that 
 pretended social unity cannot be taken as the 
 measure of the investigation of matters. The first 
 approach to truth is rarely agreeable. Down to 
 the present day, no one has been right with im- 
 punity. The Greek who dared to say that the sun 
 might be as large. as the Peloponnesus was treated 
 not only as a madman but as a malefactor. The 
 moderate considered him a false, exaggerated mind ; 
 he was put to death, it is said. That no longer 
 happens in our day. Havet was reviled by all 
 routines in coalition, by the secret league of all 
 weaknesses ; he stood his ground, remained calm, 
 and ended by carrying the day.* 
 
 Honor then, gentlemen, to this illustrious friend 
 of the truth ! He was one of the glories of our 
 race. He felt all the legitimate needs of his cen- 
 tury, without participating in any of its faults. 
 His grand soul traversed the world with no other 
 care than that of the truth. The seductions, the 
 bewitching charms of probability, did not attract 
 him. He loved only the certain ; miracles escaped 
 his notice, he "beheld only that which lasts 
 reason. The triumph of reason will be his recom- 
 pense. A recompense ! To tell the truth, we 
 desire none. We have served the truth under the 
 hard conditions imposed by fate upon the human 
 race. That is our recompense, we desire no other.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 243 
 
 Nil nisi te, domine ; nil nisi te Nothing but Thee, 
 O Lord ; nothing but Thee. 
 
 Farewell, dear colleague. You have fought the 
 good fight, the fight for the true, for reason. We 
 shall wait long, no doubt, for the triumph of our 
 cause. But we have eternity in which to wait. 
 Our ancestors of the College of France, who 
 founded the true, in the midst of persecution and 
 poverty, saw very different sights : Ramus, who 
 got himself killed for supporting the correct- 
 ness of the principles of our institute ; Denys 
 Lambin, who beheld his fate written in that of 
 Ramus ; many modest " professors of tongues," 
 as we were called, who braved the haughty Sor- 
 bonne of those days ! More happy than they, 
 we shall have perceived the true, without suf- 
 fering much for it. Moreover, is not your fate 
 worthy of envy? In a funeral inscription found in 
 Syria, the passer-by is supposed to console the 
 dead in these words : " Courage, since you died 
 without having to lament any of your children, 
 and since you leave in life the wife whom you 
 loved ! " 
 
 This last happiness was not reserved to you ; the 
 loss of a wife who was worthy of you was one of 
 the griefs which darkened your last years. But 
 you leave behind you two sons whom we love, 
 the heirs of your method and of your learning. 
 You leave a completed work, by which all friends 
 of the true will know how to profit. Courage, 
 dear Havet, courage !
 
 244 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 SPEECH AT THE FUNERAL OF M. CUVILLIER- 
 FLEURY, OCTOBER 21, 1887. 
 
 How many afflictions, blow upon blow, gen- 
 tlemen ! After the eminent moralist, after the 
 faithful and impartial historian, to-day it is our 
 dean in age, the critic of high authority, the excel- 
 lent judge of things of the mind, who has been 
 taken from us. During his long existence of 
 eighty-five years, M. Cuvillier-Fleury lived only in 
 the love of letters, of that repose of spirit which 
 they give, in the faith in good which they inspire. 
 It is the glory of the ancient literatures of Greece 
 and Rome, that they have been able, through the 
 worships of which they have been the objects for 
 the last four centuries, to furnish noble lives 
 with the very principle of their nobility to have 
 concealed, beneath the charms of beautiful lan- 
 guage, a powerful leaven of moral education and 
 of sound philosophy. Early devoted to the edu- 
 cation for which his precocious successes desig- 
 nated him, M. Cuvillier-Fleury did not ask of liter- 
 ature only the amusement of his hours of leisure, 
 the least vain of the satisfactions of vanity. He 
 sought in it the rule of reason and the consolation 
 of life. And the rule which he found in it was 
 good. Cicero, in ancient times, had set the exam- 
 ple of associating with letters an elevated sentiment 
 of nobility and uprightness. Our ancient umver-
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 245 
 
 sity had no other creed than that. Those old pro- 
 fessors were honest men. They appreciated all 
 the exercises of the mind by the good which they 
 did to the soul, by the efficacy which they exhibited 
 in preparing good men. They formed few learned 
 men ; but they did form liberal men, and amiable 
 men, which is also something. An excellent school, 
 from the point of view of education ! Education 
 is a work of the heart, not of erudite refinements. 
 Where should we be, had humanity sought in the 
 Gospel only a curious linguistic document, instead 
 of seeking there the aliment of the soul and the 
 book of the heart ? 
 
 Liberalism was the religion of that excellent 
 generation. M. Cuvillier-Fleury and his contem- 
 poraries had the happiness of starting out with the 
 triumph of their ideas. The aspirations of their 
 youth were fully satisfied before the moment of 
 disappointment arrived. They were victorious at 
 their hour, after having deserved their victory ; 
 they beheld a liberal and enlightened monarchy, the 
 complete reign of that of which they had dreamed. 
 When the vicissitudes which human things cannot 
 escape arrived they could say : " I have lived." 
 They had not to endure the harsh grief which 
 other generations have suffered, of seeing them- 
 selves stifled before birth, of being blighted in 
 their flower. The strong and brilliant life which 
 filled the interval from 1830 to 1848 was lived 
 through entire by our colleague. Summoned, by
 
 246 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 the dynasty which liberal France had imposed on 
 herself, to the most delicate functions, he showed 
 himself worthy of such a mark of confidence. 
 The culture of his whole life had prepared him 
 admirably for this task. His principles were so 
 well defined that on the day after the catastrophe 
 which seemed to put them in the wrong, they re- 
 mained the same that they had been on the day of 
 battle. " I honestly confess," said our well-beloved 
 colleague, M. de Sacy, one of the most worthy 
 companions-in-arms of M. Cuvillier-Fleury, " I 
 have not changed. Far from being shaken in my 
 convictions, reflection, age, and experience have 
 confirmed me in them. I believe in right and jus- 
 tice, as I believed in them in my most artless youth- 
 ful period. I am happy to take up in letters, in 
 philosophy, in everything which pertains to the do- 
 main of conscience and pure thought, that princi- 
 ple of liberty which circumstances have adjourned 
 in politics. That is what we shall try to do in the 
 Journal des Dttats. Possessing different shades of 
 taste and opinion, it is the mind which will rally 
 us all together." M. Cuvillier-Fleury could have 
 said this quite as well as his friend. Those old 
 masters, who are decried nowadays, were pro- 
 foundly versed in the art of educating souls. And 
 what pupils they formed ! You know one of them, 
 gentlemen, since he is our colleague. How is it 
 possible for me not to speak of him over this grave, 
 of him whom M. Cuvillier-Fleury called his best
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 247 
 
 work, of him who will count his absence from this 
 ceremony as one of the bitter consequences of 
 exile, a thing which is always so bitter in itself ? 
 The perfect naturalness of the honest man, that 
 pure and sincere manner of writing, that passionate 
 sentiment for France and all her glories, that 
 amenity, that delicate taste of literary knowledge, 
 of those qualities, M. le Due D'Aumale desired 
 that a portion of all this should be attributed to his 
 preceptor. Let it be according to his will ! What 
 more touching, more honorable for both, than this 
 sentiment of exquisite friendship which the master 
 felt for his pupil and the pupil for his master? 
 One of the most beautiful spectacles of our century 
 has been furnished by this esteem, this reciprocal 
 respect, which carry us back to the fine days of 
 Quintilian, as Rollin understood him : the pupil 
 recognizing the fact that he owed to his master the 
 notion of the serious in life ; the master, under the 
 appearance of oratorical preoccupation solely, being 
 dominated by anxiety for uprightness and honesty. 
 Oh, great and holy school of educators, I fear that 
 the pedantic methods of modern pedagogy will find 
 it difficult to fill your place. 
 
 And, when M. Cuvillier-FIeury had completed 
 his task of educator, how well he understood the 
 art of continuing it, in the view of the literary pub- 
 lic, by those articles in the " Miscellanies " of the 
 Journal des Debats, which reserved for initiated 
 readers such delicate enjoyment and such useful
 
 248 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 guidance ! Our colleague's criticism was a perpet- 
 ual lesson in good sense. It was the criticism of 
 an honest man, founded upon rectitude of judg- 
 ment, the taste for naturalness in everything, with 
 extreme indulgence for whatever departed from 
 his rule, and a secret taste for the qualities which 
 were not those that he recommended. Here, again, 
 Quintilian was his model, and the latter's dulcia 
 vitia, which the latter found in Seneca, bear a 
 strong resemblance to the brilliant defects which 
 our colleague blamed, while forced, at times, to 
 love them. 
 
 He loved ardently that which he believed to be 
 true. He served it with speech as well as with pen. 
 His conversation was very much alive ; he took 
 great pains with it, for it was one means of accent- 
 uating the conviction which he bore within him. 
 Oh ! what a good house the Journal des Dtiats 
 was then, and what a memory we retain of those 
 amiable jousts of words, in which M. de Sacy, and 
 the friend who goes to-day to join him, indulged in 
 a combat of wit, spirit, and good nature ! At the 
 Academy the tourney began again, and it was in- 
 offensive ; for both broke lances in the same cause. 
 Everything which was good, noble, generous, made 
 their hearts vibrate. Their patriotism was pure as 
 the thought of a child. Above all, they beheld 
 France : they believed in her, they adored her. 
 Poor France ! It is impossible that she should 
 perish ; she has been too much beloved !
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 249 
 
 The literary faith which animated M. Cuvillier- 
 Fleury sustained him to the end. The gift of long 
 life was accorded to him, his appetite for beautiful 
 things and his taste for society suffered cruel re- 
 verses ; an almost complete blindness separated 
 him partly from life the life which he loved so well. 
 He supported this cruel trial with admirable 
 courage. His solitude, or, rather, his foretaste of 
 the eternal shadows, was, moreover, greatly 
 softened. The noble and devoted companion of 
 his life redoubled the miracles of vigilant tender- 
 ness with which she surrounded him, and calmed 
 his sufferings, as has been very well said, by the 
 graces of her mind and the inexhaustible delicacies 
 of her heart. 
 
 Farewell, dear colleague and friend. 1 recall that 
 one day I was attacked in the Ddbats, I do not 
 know very well why perhaps rightly. I still hear 
 you say in an aside to M. de Sacy : " We must up- 
 hold our young colleague." The young colleague, 
 dear master, will soon follow you, perhaps. Life is 
 only a shadow ; one gives to that shadow a certain 
 reality by devoting one's self, as you have done, to 
 the persistent seeking for that which is straight- 
 forward, simple, just, and pure.
 
 250 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURATION 
 OF THE STATUE OF M. ABOUT, DECEMBER 
 20, 1887. 
 
 HERE, indeed, gentlemen, are those features 
 which we loved ! Here is the smile which fluttered 
 upon the lips of our colleague, when he was writ- 
 ing all those charming works ; here is that open 
 countenance, on which was to be read, at the first 
 glance, the philosophy, at once ironical and amiable, 
 which sustained him in his career of ardent activity. 
 What a rich nature, gentlemen, what a superabund- 
 ance of vigor ! What a joy it was for us, during 
 those years of sadness which marked the middle of 
 our century, to behold this brilliant young man 
 enter the lists of the great battles, this true son of 
 Voltaire, in whom the old French spirit, that which, 
 though conquered, always comes to life again, 
 seemed to jeer merrily at those who had believed 
 it to be dead, and to cry : " I still live ! " Yes, 
 among the many illustrious newcomers in the field, 
 thanks to whom our country, humiliated by so 
 many badly concerted revolutions and blind re- 
 actions, was able to respond, after 1858, to the 
 challenges which were addressed to her, About 
 was the one who continued our ancient tradition 
 with the least alloy. He possessed the dominat- 
 ing quality of the French mind, honest straight- 
 forwardness, clearness. Voltaire was, above all
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 251 
 
 things, an honest mind ; About was so, also, in the 
 highest degree. To demand of such men that 
 they shall eternally wear a mask upon their faces, 
 accept with docility the conventions, often puerile, 
 submission to which is but a small merit in the 
 majority of people, is to demand of the light that 
 it shall not proceed in a straight line. The atmos- 
 phere in which they dwell is absolutely transparent ; 
 mvstery has no meaning for them ; like the electric 
 light, they search all the crannies and render false- 
 hood, difficult ; it is impossible for them not to 
 stigmatize the absurdities which they perceive. 
 
 Is this egotism, coldness ? Oh, no ! certainly 
 not. These pitiless adversaries of falseness and 
 subdued lights love the truth. Hypocrisy inspires 
 in them a real nausea ; dogmas which flee the light 
 irritate them. To every proposition to dissimulate 
 what they think they reply : " What is the use of 
 living if one has no longer any cause for living? " 
 
 A strong love, moreover, a dominating love was 
 the moral principle of that soul which superficial 
 critics have characterized as frivolous. It was the 
 love of this poor France, to whom he owed the best 
 that was in him. The parties which succeeded 
 each other in power, with disheartening rapidity, 
 would have liked to have him refuse to survive 
 them, in order that he might remain faithful to 
 them. But France still existed for him, after the 
 ruin of parties. His patriotism contrived to be 
 both eloquent and courageous in the days of trial.
 
 252 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 France was the fairy who had endowed him, who 
 had crowned him, so long as it was in her power to 
 confer crowns. When she had no longer anything 
 to distribute to those who loved her, except 'signs 
 of mourning, About vowed himself to a sadness 
 for which he refused to be consoled. He conceived 
 suspicions even of his talent, which might have 
 served to distract him. The dainty writer of for- 
 mer days became a fighter of journalistic battles. 
 He grew bitter, sometimes misunderstood his 
 friends, irritated his enemies. 
 
 Wrath is a bad councilor, gentlemen, even when 
 it is most just. The worst feature in the condition 
 of the conquered is, that his situation condemns 
 him to deceive himself. He becomes exacting 
 suspicious, susceptible. If About sometimes allowed 
 himself to be led astray by false judgments of this 
 sort he was himself their chief victim. Ah ! great 
 asperity of our time! Adversaries rend each 
 other, scorn each other. Judging from their 
 extreme severity toward each other, one would be- 
 lieve that they are virtuous, and, nevertheless, if a 
 true moral sentiment inspired their attacks, they 
 would be indulgent. Oh ! when shall we behold a 
 temple erected to reciprocal pardon and oblivion ? 
 To tell the truth, I fear that the temple of my 
 dreams is the cemetery. It is only there that peace, 
 which is, after all, only a chimera, becomes a 
 reality. I think that we shall soon say, with Eccle- 
 siastes : " Happy are the dead ! "
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 253 
 
 Our colleague did not receive even that rec- 
 ompense which old fighters generally enjoy, of 
 looking on, tranquilly, toward the end of their 
 lives, at the battles of others. At the moment 
 when he was about to take possession of the chair 
 to which your votes had called him, death came to 
 take him. We did not have the joy of seeing him 
 sit among us. The battle of life has assumed 
 such asperity in our day that we no longer pick 
 up the dead. Thanks to you, gentlemen, thanks 
 to the talent of the artist, whose work has just 
 been revealed to you, the future will salute, in this 
 place, the true image of one of the men who have 
 added the most, in our epoch, to that mass of 
 reason which, although still feeble, is augmented 
 from century to century by the efforts of all great 
 souls and all good spirits. Behind the clouds 
 which gather there is still a blue sky, there are 
 still warm rays. When the hour of impartiality 
 shall have arrived, many adversaries will recognize 
 the fact that they have toiled at the same task 
 without knowing it. Then will all proclaim that 
 About was one of those who have loved the most, 
 at a critical hour, if ever there was one, both 
 progress and liberty.
 
 254 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 LETTER TO M. GUSTAVE FLAUBEBT ON THE 
 " TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTHONY."* 
 
 VENICE, September 8, 1874. 
 My Dear Friend: Yesterday, at the Labbia 
 palace, Tiepolo's scenes from the life of Cleopatra 
 made me think of your " Temptation of St. 
 Anthony," which has been so unjustly criticised. 
 Three years ago, my beloved and regretted Arnold 
 made me understand the brilliancy, life, color, and 
 individual originality of these frescoes. Did Tie- 
 polo intend to give a lesson in history, a lesson 
 in morals, a lesson in archaeology, or a lesson in 
 politics ? Did he undertake to raise or lower 
 Antony and Cleopatra ? Was he accused of hav- 
 ing failed in respect for the royal majesty, which 
 was compromised in a festival of equivocal appear- 
 ance ? No ; he opened to the imagination a bril- 
 liant dream. That was enough ; neither archae- 
 ologist nor moralist, neither historian nor pol- 
 itician, have any fault to find. Nothing is bad 
 in art, save that which has neither style nor con- 
 struction : 
 
 Pictoribus atque poetis 
 Quidlibet audiendi semper fuit aequa potestas.f 
 
 People no longer understand it in that way. 
 The weakening of the imagination tends to create 
 
 * This article has never been published, 
 f Painters and poets have always possessed equal powers of 
 making themselves heard.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 255 
 
 for the written, in comparison with the painted, 
 work an inequality of treatment which we cannot 
 accept. Callot and Teniers did what you have 
 done ; they hesitated at nothing, and no one 
 blamed them. The "Temptations " of Callot and 
 Teniers teach nothing in the line of history, prove 
 nothing in the department of morals, refute noth- 
 ing in politics. They did not try to preach, to 
 improve, to instruct, any more than you. Their 
 aim was not, any more than yours has been, to 
 prove that profound faith triumphs over the most 
 violent assaults. They were not reproached with 
 being bad painters of saints, with having dis- 
 honored St. Anthony. Callot and Teniers are 
 jesters. You are fantastic. The one should be as 
 much permitted as the other ! " A Midsummer- 
 night's Dream " has its rights, by the side of the 
 Gallic farce and the laughter of Voltaire, which 
 have their rights also. If I had still been writing 
 for the papers when your book appeared, I should 
 have tried to controvert these errors. One person 
 insisted that you had undertaken to write a history 
 of gnosticism, and thought that a good summary 
 would have been of more value ; another con- 
 sidered that you had given a bad rendering of 
 St. Anthony's biography ; one declared that 
 your secret idea had been to inculcate a system of 
 philosophy. In our land people insist that a book 
 shall instruct, edify, or amuse .... really amuse, 
 cause laughter. The thing which, above all others,
 
 256 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 is amusing and philosophical, the contemplation 
 of reality, the spectroscopy of the universe, is but 
 little understood. People will not admit that the 
 nightmare has a charm of its own. They grant 
 it in painting; they admit "Salome" or "The 
 Executioners " of Henri Regnault, works which, 
 assuredly, teach nothing whatever, and which do 
 not awaken any agreeable image. How much 
 nearer right was Boileau, that great artist in form : 
 
 II n'est pas de serpent ni de monstre odieux 
 Qui, par 1'art imite, ne puisse plaire aux yeux.* 
 
 That great consoler of life, imagination, has one 
 special privilege, which makes of it, all things con- 
 sidered, the most precious of gifts ; it is that its 
 sufferings are pleasures. With it everything is 
 profit. It is the base of the soul's health, the 
 essential condition of gayety. It makes us enjoy 
 the folly of fools and the wisdom of sages. The 
 Greeks took pleasure in the cave of Trophonius, 
 evidently, since they resorted thither. If the 
 nocturnal revels were true, I do not say that I 
 should care to go there ; that is contrary to the 
 rules of conduct which I have imposed upon 
 myself, but I should desire that there should be 
 people who would go there, and I would read then 
 with pleasure the vividly colored books which they 
 would make out of it. 
 
 * There is no serpent nor odious monster which may not 
 please the' eyes when imitated by art.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 257 
 
 People forget that one-half of Greek literature, 
 that marvel, that rule of the beautiful, when it is 
 understood, is only chased work and imagination. 
 What does an idyl of Theocritus prove ? What 
 aim did that charming poet propose to himself, 
 three-quarters of the time ? The aim that our 
 friend Theophile Gautier had ; to find a theme 
 with fine images, with adorably made verses. In 
 the first idyl, thirty-five verses are consecrated to 
 the description of a porringer with a realism which 
 outdoes anything that the school of our day 
 has ever dared attempt. Has Bion's " Tombeau 
 d'Adonis"any object, moral, historical, or politi- 
 cal ? And the " Metamorphoses " of Ovid, that de- 
 licious series of noble and enchanting images, pro- 
 foundly connected with nature, each one of which 
 evokes a thousand questions, without solving them 
 . . . . I really believe that, if a poet incur day were 
 to make a masterpiece of this sort, there would be 
 found critics to say to him : " Capricious childish- 
 ness, what do you want with us!" Alas! our 
 public is like one of those of which your Apol- 
 lonius speaks : " It believes, like a brute, in the 
 reality of things." When an art shall have been 
 constructed upon that basis, I shall believe ; until 
 then, it will remain for me the reasoning of Blem- 
 myes, of pygmies, of sciapods. Do you know what 
 M. Hugo thinks of your book ? It is said that, in 
 addition to his genius, he possesses remarkable 
 discernment in matters of taste.
 
 25 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Because the procession of the dreams of humanity 
 resembles a masquerade, at times, that is no reason 
 for interdicting its presentation. Poor humanity ! 
 Oh ! the further I go, the more I love it, and the 
 more esteem I feel for it. How it toils ! Setting 
 out from such a depth, what great or charming 
 things it has drawn from its bosom ! " Oh ! what 
 a good animal man is ! " Among all these sacred 
 follies, there is not one which does not possess its 
 touching side, which does not redeem our race and 
 the spirits which it bears. Even irony is a cult ; 
 comedy is the act of an aristocrat, which Louis XIV., 
 great centuries, great peoples, alone can permit 
 themselves. What ! it pleases this noble, so tried 
 by fate, this poor man so battered by storms, to turn 
 his attention for a moment from his destiny, to 
 amuse himself with a review of his chimeras, to 
 laugh for an hour, before he resumes his weeping, 
 and people consider him wicked ! I persist in be- 
 lieving that this martyr suffers for something, that 
 he will have his recompense some day. But every- 
 one has his hours of doubt ; at those hours, noth- 
 ing consoles him but form and color. And this 
 is not a vain debauch. The imagination has its 
 own philosophy. Ask Goethe, ask Darwin. 
 Morphology is everything, and everything will be 
 brought back to it. 
 
 Why have we not Sainte-Beuve ? He criticised 
 but he understood. Do you remember our dinners 
 with that great friend whose loss leaves me in the
 
 ERNEST REMAN; 25$ 
 
 same literary void as though he had carried half 
 of the public with him to the tomb ? I have always 
 maintained, you know, that color is only the ac- 
 cessory, that it serves to heighten a principal fact, 
 which ordinarily ought to be of the moral order. 
 But there is no absolute rule. Lucian, Apuleius, 
 and even that jester Philostratus, the Mery of antiq- 
 uity, must not be dismissed. Everything that is 
 not common should be received with kindness. 
 Plebeian platitude alone, in art, has anything im- 
 moral about it. 
 
 What an error to call the exercise of our natural 
 faculties a malady ! It is mediocrity which is 
 scrofulous and sickly. Have you noticed that the 
 audacious and narrow-minded spirits which our 
 country has lost have not acquired a single new 
 idea since ? The work of the imagination is 
 healthy, as it is healthy for a country to have 
 good soldiers, good painters, good philologists, 
 good workers of every sort. People understood 
 this forty years ago. But you have hit upon a bad 
 time. At the present moment, parties appreciate 
 us in proportion to the aid which we afford them. 
 You present to such a public a work which has 
 been long studied ; each one asks himself in what 
 way you serve his policy. Poor country ! That 
 has happened to it which happened to your Cato- 
 blepas, who devoured his own paws, one day, 
 without noticing it. 
 
 You are credited with propagandist intentions
 
 260 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS* OF 
 
 while you desire but one thing : to charm, to strike, 
 to touch, to move. You offer to the delicate a per- 
 fume to smell ; the dullards have swallowed it in 
 gulps. That is no fault of yours. People have 
 not comprehended your admirable conclusion, the 
 profoundly conceived role of Hilarion science 
 slowly developing its mortal batteries your 
 adorable Ebionites, your Buddha, your Cannes, 
 the discourse of Isis, the philosophical dialogue of 
 Anthony upon Satan's shoulders. This enchants 
 me, and I am not the only one to be enchanted ; 
 some Strasburg professors to whom I lent your 
 book were delighted with it. We may be chal- 
 lenged, it is true ; in regard to you we stand, some- 
 what in the position of a chemist or a physician, 
 to whom a young and charming woman speaks of 
 his works. Cur ideas, returning to us clothed in 
 your rich fancy, charm us. You are considered to 
 be exaggerated in many cases where you are only 
 true. Your impression of the desert of Libya is 
 just. Even he who has been only to Cairo and 
 has seen the tombs of the Caliphs, almost buried 
 in the sand, has understood this sort of beauty. 
 It is not the only one, and the public must not be 
 confined to it. I confess to you, timidly, that 
 more than once, in Syria, in Egypt, I dreamed of a 
 pretty house in the valley of the Auge, tapestried 
 with Bengal roses, of a meadow on the banks of 
 the Oise, of a village in Brittany at the hour when 
 the evening Angelus is sounding. But we must not 
 tear from the aesthetic lyre a single one of its
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 261 
 
 cords. It is when they all vibrate in unison that 
 they make the full accord which is called a fine 
 century. 
 
 And, surely, that which has been the least 
 understood is your indifference to popular success. 
 How many men besides yourself, after " Madame 
 Bovary," would have made endless rehearsals of the 
 work which the public had accepted. You have 
 fled to the other pole, from Normandy to the 
 desert. Aristocrat that you are, you feared to 
 have perpetrated some folly, when you saw that 
 you amused the public. Wrath has taken posses- 
 sion of you ; heroic in everything, you have taken 
 a bludgeon to put to flight your plebeian admirers. 
 I understand it ; but now you must take your 
 revenge. Return to that which captivates all the 
 world. You have painted the repulsive and the 
 strange in a masterly manner. Sat prata biberunt. 
 A person who is very fond of you said to me, a 
 few months ago, how greatly he desired to see you 
 make a book which should be the whole of your- 
 self, which should excite men to nobleness, to 
 virtue. Keep your foundations ; they are admi- 
 rable ; but make them serve some purpose. Add a 
 trifle ; place a flower on these manure-heaps, as 
 you did in " Madame Bovary." The good and the 
 beautiful exist, as well as the evil and the ugly*. 
 You will be able to paint them admirably when you 
 wish it. 
 
 We leave in a few days for Bologna and Parma. 
 Believe in my sincere friendship.
 
 262 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL. 
 I. 
 
 WE must feel infinitely grateful to the persons 
 who, moved by a sentiment of pious friendship, 
 have undertaken the difficult task of introducing 
 Henri Frederic Amiel to the public, which occupied 
 the mind of this distinguished thinker to a large 
 extent, but which a certain timidity prevented his 
 addressing directly. Amiel's intellectual situation 
 is one of the most peculiar of our times ; his life 
 exhibits admirably several of the maladies which 
 are at work upon our epoch. Although possessed 
 of really eminent philosophical aptitudes, Amiel 
 arrived only at sadness ; gifted with true literary 
 qualities, he was not able to give to his ideas that 
 form which commands respect. A perfectly up- 
 right man, he lacked firm design in the control of 
 his life. Moralists and publicists of the second 
 rank have been more remarked than he ; writers a 
 hundred times less learned have left their impress 
 on our literary history ; a multitude of mediocre 
 natures have, perhaps, rendered more services to 
 the cause of the true and the good than this pas- 
 sionate friend of all that is ideal. 
 
 If Amiel had been one of that troop, assuredly 
 the best among the elect, which has taken for its 
 motto " ama nesciri" (love to be unknown), there 
 would be nothing to say. It is an accepted prin-
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 263 
 
 ciple among persons experienced in criticism that 
 literature impairs that which it touches ; that the 
 most beautiful sentiments will always remain un- 
 known ; that the most true and vigorous ideas that 
 have ever been entertained with regard to the 
 universe have remained unpublished, or, to put 
 it more accurately, unexpressed. God and his 
 angels, as the phrase used to run, have enjoyed 
 the privilege of the only fine spectacles in the 
 moral and intellectual order ; I mean those of 
 meditations and sentiments produced in the bosom 
 of an absolute objectivity, without being spoiled by 
 the interested second thought of how they may be 
 put to profit. The man who is virtuous in silence, 
 the grand heart which makes no parade of its 
 heroism, the great mind which yields up its lofty 
 views only when forced to it, so to speak, are 
 superior to the artisan in words, engrossed in the 
 idea of giving a form to opinions which, as likely 
 as not, he does not cherish very deeply. Amiel, 
 though very virtuous, had not reached the degree 
 of disinterestedness of those ascetics who take a 
 vow of perpetual silence. He was not exempt 
 from the great malady of our day, which is the 
 literary malady the false idea that thought and 
 sentiment exist for the purpose of being expressed, 
 which turns one aside from loving life for itself, 
 and causes an exaggerated value to be placed on 
 talent. Amiel would have liked to produce, but 
 he was thoroughly conscious that he was not a
 
 264 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 writer. According to the vulgar expression which 
 a certain style of literature has brought into fashion, 
 he is a rate a flash-in-the-pan because he does 
 not know how to attach the public to the order of 
 ideas which he has chosen ; but he is a flash-in-the- 
 pan who is conscious of his defects, who adores 
 that which he does not possess himself, and eats 
 his heart out with regret. He does not see with 
 sufficient distinctness that, without being a writer, 
 one can do things of the highest rank, and he falls 
 back upon the falsest of compromises I mean 
 upon the private journal, detached thoughts, 
 memoirs destined for himself alone. 
 
 This is a dangerous, sometimes an unhealthy 
 fashion a fashion which is adopted ordinarily by 
 those who have no other, and upon which must 
 rest, unless in the case of exceptional success, 
 a priori a certain condemnation. The man who 
 has the time to write a private journal seems to us 
 not to have comprehended how vast the world is. 
 The extent of things to be known is immense. The 
 history of humanity is barely begun ; the study of 
 nature contains in reserve discoveries which it is 
 absolutely impossible to foresee. How can a man, 
 in the presence of so colossal a task, pause to devour 
 himself, to doubt life ? It is far better to take his 
 mattock and set to work. The day when it will 
 be permissible to loiter over the exercises of a dis- 
 couraged thought, will be that on which we shall 
 begin to perceive the fact that there is a limit to
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 265 
 
 the matter to be learned. Now, supposing that, in 
 the course of centuries, such a limit should be 
 perceived for history, it will never be perceived for 
 nature. But the problems which appear com- 
 pletely barred, like those of physical astronomy, 
 are susceptible of being suddenly shifted in an 
 unforeseen manner. While working on the for- 
 mulas, ever more and more comprehensive, acquired 
 by preceding scientific generations, physics, chem- 
 istry, biology have before them a programme 
 which enlarges in proportion as they advance. My 
 friend M. Berthelot would have time to occupy 
 himself during hundreds of consecutive lives with- 
 out ever writing a word about himself. I calculate 
 that I should require five hundred years to exhaust 
 the compass of Semitic studies as I understand 
 them ; and if the taste for them should ever weaken 
 in me, I would learn Chinese ; that new world, 
 still awaiting criticism almost intact, would whet 
 my appetite for an indefinite period. Subjective 
 skepticism, doubt as to the legitimacy of our facul- 
 ties, is the birdlime in which the natures attacked 
 by the malady of scruple are caught. Apprehen- 
 sions of this sort always come from a certain 
 indolence of mind. He who thirsts for reality is 
 'drawn out of himself. It is for this reason that a 
 genius like M. Victor Hugo never had the leisure 
 to scrutinize himself. When one is powerfully 
 attracted by things, one is sure that it is they and 
 not a vain phantasmagoria which one is clasping.
 
 266 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Amiel has not that love for the universe which 
 causes one to have no eyes for anything else. For 
 more than thirty years he never let a day pass 
 without observing himself and describing his state 
 of soul ; he recorded his reflections in large quarto 
 notebooks which, when put together, made a total 
 of more than sixteen thousand pages. Felix culpa .' 
 From this undigested mass, Amiel's friends oh, 
 what a good thing it is to leave true friends behind 
 one ! have culled two volumes of thoughts which 
 offer us, without any sacrifice made to the work of 
 art, the perfect mirror of one of the most upright 
 of modern consciences, arrived at the highest 
 degree of culture, and at the same time a finished 
 picture of the sufferings of a sterile genius. These 
 twp volumes may certainly be reckoned among the 
 most interesting philosophical writings which have 
 appeared in recent years. Amiel's defects, in fact, 
 are as striking as possible. He himself takes 
 pleasure in emphasizing them and placing them in 
 prominent positions ; but there is not a single one 
 of them which does not proceed from an excess of 
 nobility and an elevated principle. " I insist ob- 
 stinately on doing nothing which can please me. 
 serve me, or aid me. My passion is to injure my 
 own interests, to set good sense at defiance, to be 
 
 headstrong to my own detriment I am 
 
 ashamed of my interests, as of an ignoble and 
 servile motive." 
 
 "What a singular nature," he exclaims, "and
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 267 
 
 what an eccentric propensity ! Not to dare to 
 enjoy artlessly, without scruple, and to withdraw 
 from the table for fear the repast should come to 
 an end." " As soon as a thing attracts me," he 
 says again, " I turn away my head, or, rather, I can 
 neither accustom myself to insufficiency, nor find 
 anything which will satisfy my aspirations. The 
 real disgusts me, and I do not find the ideal." 
 That is the truth. His impotence comes from his 
 being too perfect. " In love," says M. Scherer, 
 " he recoiled before avowal ; in literature, he re- 
 coiled before a work." One cannot be a man of 
 letters without some defect. The perfect man, 
 such as Amiel dreamt of, would have no talent. 
 Talent is a petty vice, of which a saint should cure 
 himself first of all. 
 
 Amiel's sterility springs from another cause : the 
 too great diversity of his intellectual and moral 
 origins. Variety, in this line, is an excellent 
 thing; but the two elements must not neutralize 
 each other. One must dominate, and the rest 
 must be only accessory. Amiel is too hybrid to 
 be fruitful. The excellent Germanic education 
 which he received was constantly at war with other 
 parts of his nature. He laid the blame upon the 
 language.* He thought that French was the cause 
 of the difficulty which he found in expressing his 
 thought. A profound error. " The French lan- 
 guage," he says, "can express nothing nascent in 
 the germ. It paints only effects, results, the caput 
 * Vol. i, pp. 83-84 ; vol. ii, p. 184.
 
 268 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 mortuum (the death's head), but not the cause, the 
 movement, the force, the future of any phenome- 
 non whatever. It is analytical and descriptive ; 
 but it does not help one to understand anything, 
 for it does not make one see the beginnings and for- 
 mation out of nothing." If Amiel had been better 
 acquainted with the language in which he habitually 
 wrote, he would have seen that French suffices for 
 the expression of every thought even of thoughts 
 the most foreign to its ancient genius and that if, 
 in the transfusion, it allows some details to escape, 
 precisely these details were after-growths which 
 prevented the new thought from assuming a uni- 
 versal character. Amiel was not a perfect master 
 of his instrument. .Not knowing all his notes, he 
 considered it unfit to produce certain sounds ; then 
 he threw it out of tune with impatience. He would 
 have done better to study it thoroughly. 
 
 Amiel went to Germany when young almost as 
 soon as he left college. He embraced, with much 
 ardor, the intellectual discipline which then reigned. 
 The school of Hegel taught him its complicated 
 manner of thinking, and, at the same time, ren- 
 dered him incapable of writing. This school in- 
 cited rather to eloquence and dissertation upon all 
 sorts of subjects than to the continuous composi- 
 tion which prose demands. Hegel has some good 
 points ; but one must know how to take him. One 
 must restrict one's self to an infusion ; he is an ex- 
 cellent tea, but one must not chew the leaves.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 269 
 
 Amiel did too much of this. For him everything 
 becomes matter for system so completely that, for 
 example, on meeting a very pretty woman one day 
 in the Jura, in the neighborhood of Soleure, he 
 passes his day in constructing the theory of co- 
 quetry and of the inconveniences of beauty.* 
 
 If, at least, this Hegelian education had but 
 given him the scientific spirit ! Nothing of the 
 sort. No school has disseminated in the world more 
 ingenious or profound ideas than that of Hegel ; 
 but in hardly any direction has it produced truly 
 learned men. There is in Hegel a little of Ray- 
 mond Lulle. I mean of that false idea that one 
 can substitute lay figures and general procedure 
 for the direct study of realities. Hence a sort of 
 lassitude, which speedily manifested itself among 
 the leaders and disciples of this school, otherwise 
 so eminent. There is no curiosity when the result 
 is foreseen in advance. One quickly perceives the 
 end of that which one attains by the turnpike of 
 logic ; one never sees the end of reality. 
 
 The sort of lack of perpendicular, which renders 
 the layers of Amiel's life so unstable, has for cause 
 this ill-harmonized education. He is not estab- 
 lished squarely in his chair ; he has not a suffi- 
 ciently clear idea of the goal of the human mind 
 of that which gives and furnishes a serious base to 
 life ; he is neither a learned man nor a lettered 
 man ; he declares repeatedly that for him the su- 
 preme ideal is the art of the man of letters ; but he 
 * Vol. ii, p. 6, and following pages.
 
 270 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 is perfectly conscious that he lacks this art ; he 
 even forms for himself a false idea of it ; he makes 
 too much of a distinction between the foundation 
 and the form ; he would gladly believe that writing 
 is distinctly separate from thinking. He is one of 
 the most honest seekers after truth that has ever 
 existed ; he is almost a saint, and, withal, he halts 
 at every turn in the road to bewail evils or (what is 
 more singular) imaginary sins, and to note details 
 which are not remarked by a man who is in haste. 
 He is never in haste ; that constitutes a quality, if 
 you choose to so consider it ; but it is the mark of 
 a mind only moderately possessed by curiosity, by 
 a craving for things. He does not picture to him- 
 self the world as great or astonishing as it is ; he 
 would like to imagine God forgive me ! that 
 one can know the final facts about it. Now, that 
 is not possible. Everything remains to be done, 
 or to be done over in the order of science, of 
 nature, and of humanity. When one is conscious 
 of laboring in this infinite work, one has no time to 
 pause over petty melancholy points on the road. 
 
 The most vexatious thing about it is that this 
 very strained philosophy did not render him as 
 happ'y as he deserved to be. At first glance, one 
 cannot well see what complaint he could have to 
 make against his destiny. He was born eminently 
 well endowed in intellectual and moral directions ; 
 he possessed all the means for acquiring high cul- 
 ture ; he never had to struggle with harsh necessi-
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 2? I 
 
 ties ; he lived for sixty years, suffering much, it is 
 true, in his last years, but his mind was always 
 free. With all this, it seems as though he should 
 have been as happy as a king ; yet his habitual 
 turn of thought is a complaint against his fate. It 
 appears that his childhood was not encompassed 
 with affection, and that is one of the worst things 
 that can happen to a man ; the joys and sorrows of 
 early years are reflected in the whole life. Geneva, 
 on the other hand, was one of the points in the 
 world which was least suited to his nature ; his 
 German education had made him practically a 
 stranger there, and then, a small state resembles a 
 small town. Perhaps Amiel did not observe a suf- 
 ficiently complete system of precautions with re- 
 gard to the society in which he lived. When one 
 is not like other men, one must guard one's self 
 against them, to some extent. All that any one of 
 us has the right to exact from the society of which 
 he forms a part is that he shall be tolerated. One 
 almost always succeeds in securing this, by dint of 
 good humor and impartiality. One of Amiel'sbits 
 of simplicity was to consider himself obliged to 
 take part in the battles of the pygmies, and to make 
 common cause with a party which, had it been in 
 power, would have understood him no better than 
 the democratic party. He became a reactionary 
 wantonly, and in the most disinterested fashion. 
 The man who has consecrated his life to the search 
 for the true and the pursuit of good ought not to
 
 272 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 attach himself absolutely to any of the revolutions 
 which follow each other in this world. He should 
 know but one interest that of the human soul 
 and the human mind. 
 
 That which is to be sincerely regretted is that 
 Amiel did not come to Paris in 1860, at the epoch 
 when the Germanic Review was founded ; M. 
 Scherer invited him. M. Sainte-Beuve would have 
 exercised a dominating influence upon him. We 
 should have succeeded, I think, in diminishing, for 
 his own good, the deleterious influence of the fer- 
 ments of sadness which nature, as well as his first 
 and his second education, had implanted in him. 
 Religion, it must be admitted, had aggravated the 
 evil. This is, assuredly, the most singular side of 
 Amiel. This Hegelian to the last degree, this 
 Buddhist, this rationalist, perfectly convinced of 
 the non-existence of the unrevealed supernatural, 
 followed the established cult. The traces of the 
 sermons of Saint Peter of Geneva are frequently 
 encountered in his thoughts. Amiel is not only a 
 Protestant, he is an orthodox Protestant, extremely 
 opposed to liberal Protestantism. He speaks of 
 sin, of salvation, of redemption, of conversion, as 
 though they were realities. Sin, in particular, 
 engrosses his attention, saddens him him; the best 
 of men, who less than anyone else could know 
 what it is. He reproaches me forcibly for not 
 taking it sufficiently into account, and he asks 
 himself two or three times : " What does M. Renan
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 273 
 
 do with sin ? " As I said the other day, in my 
 native town, I really believe that I suppress it, in 
 fact. That is the great difference between Catholic 
 and Protestant education. Those who, like myself, 
 have received a Catholic education, have preserved 
 profound vestiges of it. But these vestiges are 
 not dogmas ; they are dreams. When that great 
 curtain of cloth of gold, striped with silk, cotton, 
 and calico, with which Catholicism masks from us 
 the view of the w%rld ; when this great curtain, I 
 say, has once been rent, one beholds the universe 
 in its infinite splendor, nature in its lofty and com- 
 plete majesty. The most liberal Protestant often 
 retains some sadness, a foundation of intellectual 
 austerity analogous to the Slavic pessimist. It is 
 one thing to smile at the life of such a mythological 
 saint ; it is quite another thing to preserve the im- 
 print of those terrible mysteries which have sad- 
 dened so many souls, and those of the best. What 
 is odd, in fact, is that it is the souls which are the 
 most foreign to sin which torment themselves the 
 most with it, search persistently for it, and, under 
 the pretext of extirpating an evil which they have 
 not, dissect themselves, tear themselves perpetually 
 with blows of the scalpel. 
 
 Moreover, there was in Amiel's religious attitude 
 something more than the memories of childhood. 
 He must have learned those fine feats of strength 
 which permit one to deny everything speculatively, 
 only to affirm everything practically, at Berlin, from
 
 274 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 old Marheineke, or from some one of his pupils. 
 Afterward it only grew and added embellishments. 
 The strangest intellectual paradox with which 
 philosophical Germany has astonished us is the 
 eccentric pretension of a certain school to found 
 religion upon the postulate of pessimism. Have 
 we not lately seen M. Hartmann, the same M. 
 Hartmann who declares explicitly that creation is 
 an error, and that the hypothesis of nothingness 
 would have been better than he hypothesis of 
 being, find at the same time that religion is neces- 
 sary, and that it has for its base the evil inherent 
 in human nature ? 
 
 "Religion," writes M. Hartmann, "has its source 
 in the fact that the human mind comes into col- 
 lision with evil, with sin, and because, in conse- 
 quence, it aspires to explain them, and, as much as 
 possible, to conquer them. The man who asks 
 himself, 'How shall I manage to endure evil? 
 How shall I succeed in reconciling my tortured 
 conscience with it ? ' that man is on the road to 
 religion. Whether one places the accent upon evil 
 or upon sin, it is always discontent with the world 
 which leads to religion. If the painful impressions 
 caused by evil and sin do not weigh sufficiently 
 heavy in the scale of the balance to surmount, in 
 a durable manner, the agreeable impressions of 
 worldly life, the religious impulses of the mind will 
 
 be only passing caprices It is only when 
 
 bitter doubt in relation to evil and the agony of
 
 ERNEST RE MAX. 27$ 
 
 moral culpability have dominated worldly satisfac- 
 tions and formed the general current of existence ; 
 it is only when the pessimistic sentiment has gained 
 the upper hand that religion can establish itself in 
 the soul in a durable manner. Where this pes- 
 simistic direction of the mind is not found religion 
 cannot grow, at least spontaneously." 
 
 Here, indeed, is the antipodes of our ideas. We 
 think, the best of us, that one is religious when one 
 is content with the good God and with one's self; 
 and now it appears that one is religious when one 
 is in a bad humor, and when one has committed 
 sins ! .... I no longer understand it in the least. 
 Day by day I grow more disgusted with tran- 
 scendentalism, and I am coming to believe that the 
 French solution, which is contained in liberty, and 
 which is destined to end, gradually, in the separa- 
 tion of religions and the state, is, in the present 
 condition of the human mind, the only rational 
 solution. Liberalism terminates nothing, no doubt ; 
 but it is precisely on this point that it is right, or, 
 at least, it is on this point that it is the sole prac- 
 tical expedient in the presence of that individual- 
 ism in belief which has become the law of our times. 
 
 Superior minds frequently have to guard them- 
 selves against these reactionary tendencies, masked 
 beneath appearances of profound philosophy. As 
 they soar very high in the region of the atmos- 
 phere where ideas unfold, and where are formed 
 the great currents of air which waft them, they
 
 276 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 imagine that they can couple the clouds at their 
 will, and, like ^Eolus, force the wind to blow where 
 they please. These fine aerial strategies have 
 something touching about them, but also something 
 pretentious. A man desires to be the lancet which 
 strikes and which cures ; after having cleverly cut 
 the root of moral and religious beliefs, he wishes 
 to figure as the restorer of them ; after the reader 
 has passed through the alarms of skepticism, he 
 finds that, thank God, all is safe and sound. And 
 in connection with this subject, I cannot help 
 thinking of our eminent thinker M. Lachelier, the 
 inventor of the most surprising circular philo- 
 sophical movement of modern times after Kant. 
 After having applied to all the operations of the 
 mind a criticism so corrosive that it leaves almost 
 nothing behind it, on arriving at the final bounds 
 of nihilism he turns completely round. One sad 
 thought suffices to make him discover that he is a 
 perfect Christian. This reconstruction of Chris- 
 tianity on the basis of pessimism is one of the most 
 striking intellectual symptoms of our day. It is so 
 difficult to deprive one's self of the support of an 
 established religion that, after having destroyed 
 the churches of granite, people build churches of 
 old plaster. This reminds me of the church of 
 Ferney, which now serves as a hay barn, with the 
 inscription : Deo erexit Voltaire Voltaire erected 
 this to God. 
 
 What is very remarkable is that the elements of
 
 ERNEST RENAN. . 277 
 
 this pessimistic Christianity, by which people imag- 
 ine that they can make religion flourish once more 
 in the world, are drawn solely from Saint Paul. 
 Jesus and the preaching of the Gallilean are for- 
 gotten ; one no longer knows what the sun of the 
 kingdom of God is. I confess that the dogma of 
 original sin is the one for which I have the least 
 taste. There is not another dogma which is built, 
 like that one, on the point of a needle. The tale 
 of Adam's sin is found in only one of the editions 
 whose alternate pages compose the tissues of Gen- 
 esis. If the Elohist edition alone had come down 
 to us, there would have been no original sin. The 
 Jehovist narrative of the first fault, a very beautiful 
 narrative, by the way, and, relatively, very ancient, 
 was never noticed by the ancient people of Israel. 
 Saint Paul was the first to draw from it the fright- 
 ful dogma which, for centuries, has filled humanity 
 with sadness and terror. It is quite true that this 
 may have been powerful in its day, that Protestant- 
 ism in particular, in order that it might have the 
 right to suppress much more gross and abusive dross, 
 may have been right in laying emphasis on those 
 austere beliefs, which, by placing men in absolute 
 dependence upon God and Jesus Christ removed 
 him from the priest and the official Church ; but 
 why should rational minds, like ourselves, retain 
 such fictions ? If we admit the part of the super- 
 natural contained in original sin and in the redemp- 
 tion, I do not see why we halt there. The ques-
 
 2? S RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 tion is to find out whether the supernatural exists. 
 When one has recognized its existence, there is no 
 reason for bargaining about quantity. 
 
 Has this dogma of sin, at least the advantage of 
 accounting, in a more or less symbolical manner, 
 for the great facts of the history of human society ? 
 No, certainly not. Do we desire to say that phys- 
 ical and moral evil are superabundant, that man 
 does not attain his goal, which is the realization of 
 a society in some small degree just, only by dint of 
 continual efforts ? Oh ! that is true, no doubt. 
 But that is giving to the expression of an evident 
 fact a mythological and inexact turn. The world 
 reveals to us, with a complete absence of a well- 
 digested plan, a spontaneous effort, like that of the 
 embryo, toward life and consciousness. The world, 
 or, to speak in a more limited manner, the planet 
 which we inhabit, draws or will draw from the 
 capital which has been allotted to it, the sutiinnim 
 of what can be extracted from it. To demand of 
 the universe and of each one of its bodies that they 
 shall realize, on the first start, absolute perfection, 
 is to demand of it a flagrant contradiction. Good 
 is ob.tained by the obscure consciousness of the 
 universe only in consideration of a certain quantity 
 of evil. To be or not to be, the choice is open. 
 But from the moment that the universe has decided 
 and I think that it has done very well in favor of 
 being and for conscience, the compensating dose 
 of evil is absolutely inevitable,
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 279 
 
 The metamorphosis of animals is a fit of pain. 
 Pain is the perpetual warning of life, the incitement 
 to all progress. Why does the insect aspire to dis- 
 embarrass himself of an organ which would burden 
 him in his new life ? Because he suffers. Why 
 does the being engendered desire to separate 
 itself from the generating being ? Because it 
 suffers. Pain creates effort ; it is salutary. Man 
 is, evidently, the special being, which is the most 
 elevated that we can know. His astonishing pre- 
 rogatives are purchased by harsh conditions. The 
 development of an organ so complicated as the 
 human body presupposes a considerable sum of 
 suffering. It is impossible that the child should 
 not suffer, that the mother should not suffer, that 
 the old man should not suffer, and, as for death, it 
 is the absolutely necessary consequence of the self- 
 evident law that every organism which has a begin- 
 ning must have an end. 
 
 " Thou shalt bring forth children in pain," is 
 presented by .theologians as a condemnation in 
 consequence of a crime, but, to be more exact, it 
 would be necessary that the actual period should 
 have been preceded by another period in which 
 the woman brought forth without pain, which has 
 never existed, unless on the lowest rungs of human- 
 ity. The man of fine race is a determinate thing, 
 a maximum obtained only by skirting precipices ; 
 a thousand causes of ruin level their aim at him, 
 besiege him. The exquisite is a wager against the
 
 280 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 possible. Nature, aiming 'at obtaining the most 
 elevated type of animal, could not do otherwise than 
 make the birth of such a being a crisis for the 
 mother. Supposing that man had a head as large 
 again as that which he has in the good races, he 
 would kill his mother at his birth, and he would be 
 subject to perpetual congestions. Everything in 
 nature is the result of a balance struck between 
 the opposing advantages and inconveniences. The 
 lever of the arm is very disadvantageous for mus- 
 cular effort ; a better lever would have given us 
 an arm like the wing of a pelican. Our heart, our 
 spinal cord, our brain, are very fragile things ; were 
 they more solid they would be unsuited to the del- 
 icate uses to which we put them. Nature never 
 enters upon a blind alley without exit ; in order to 
 obtain the result which she seeks, always a good 
 one, she goes to the point where the compensating 
 inconvenience is mortal ; she behaves like a gen- 
 eral who weighs in the balance the object and the 
 losses necessary to attain it. She wishes the high- 
 est sum of life with the least possible suffering. 
 
 She wishes I say it badly, no doubt ; but things 
 happen as though it were so. The definitive re- 
 sult of the obscure battle which is being inces- 
 santly waged for life is in favor of good. The too 
 deficient being disappears or does not arrive at 
 existence, the imperfect being reforms itself and 
 aspires to a type possible in normal life. This is so 
 true that nature troubles herself not at all about
 
 EKA T EST REN AN. 281 
 
 small inconveniences. As in a state it is easier to 
 correct great evils, ulcers which constitute a danger 
 of death, than to extirpate the petty abuses which 
 do not menace the existence of the social body ; so 
 nature has not corrected in the human body those 
 defects which shock us, but which were not of a 
 sort to condemn the species to the impossibility of 
 existing. 
 
 II. 
 
 Amiel's religion was in constant process of puri- 
 fication, but it always remained a sad religion, more 
 analogous, on the whole, to Buddhism than to 
 Christianity. Although he deprecates the excesses 
 of what he terms German Sivaism, in Bahnsen, for 
 example, he strongly recalls, in reality, the last 
 formulas of Hartmann. Sin and deliverance, that 
 is the sum of the theology of the modern disciples 
 of Cakya-Mouni. 
 
 Nothing, in my opinion, could be more contrary 
 to the ideas which are bound to prevail in the 
 future. The sum of human happiness must be aug- 
 mented. It is not of sin, of expiation, of redemp- 
 tion that men must be told in the future ; it is of 
 goodness, cheerfulness, indulgence, good humor, 
 resignation. In proportion as the hopes of the 
 next world vanish, these transitory beings must 
 become habituated to regard life as supportable ; 
 otherwise they will revolt. Man can no longer be 
 kept in repose, except by happiness. Now, in a so-
 
 282 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 ciety which is not too badly constituted, very few 
 people have reason to complain that they have been 
 brought into the world. The cause of pessimism 
 and nihilism lies in the tedium of a life which, in 
 consequence of a defective social organization, is 
 not worth the trouble of living. Life is of value 
 only in proportion to its fruits ; if we wish that men 
 should cling to it, it must be rendered savory and 
 delectable to lead. 
 
 Amiel asks himself uneasily : " What is it that 
 saves ? " Eh! good Heavens ! 'tis that which gives 
 to each person his motive for living. The means 
 of salvation are not the same for all. For one it is 
 virtue, for another it is ardor for the truth, for an- 
 other the love of art, for others still curiosity, am- 
 bition, travel, luxury, women, wealth ; in the lowest 
 degree, morphine and alcohol. Virtuous men find 
 their recompense in virtue itself ; those who are 
 not virtuous have pleasure, instead. 
 
 All have the imagination, that is to say, supreme 
 joy, enchantments which never grow old ; with the 
 exception of a few cases of moral pathology there 
 is no life so gloomy that some ray of sunshine does 
 not penetrate it. 
 
 The most dangerous error, in the matter of social 
 morality, is the systematic suppression of pleasure. 
 Rigorously correct virtue is an aristocracy ; every- 
 body is not equally bound thereto. He who has 
 received the privilege of intellectual and moral 
 nobility is obliged to belong to it ; but the good
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 283 
 
 old Gallic morality did not impose the same bur- 
 dens on all ; kindness, courage, gayety, confidence 
 in the God of good men, suffice for salvation. It 
 is necessary that the masses should amuse them- 
 selves. For my own part I feel no need of exter- 
 nal amusement ; but I do need to feel that people 
 are amusing themselves around me ; I enjoy the 
 gayety of others. Temperance societies are founded 
 upon excellent intentions, but upon a misunder- 
 standing as well. I know but one argument in their 
 favor. Madame T. said to me one day, that the 
 husbands in certain countries beat their wives, when 
 they are not temperance men. That is horrible, as- 
 suredly ; we must try to correct that. But instead 
 of suppressing drunkenness for those who require 
 it, would it not be better to try to render it gentle, 
 amiable, accompanied by moral sentiments ? There 
 are so many men with whom the hour after intoxi- 
 cation is, next to the hour after love, the moment 
 when they are at their best. 
 
 Inequality and variety are the fundamental laws 
 of the human species. Nothing must be suppressed 
 in the conflicting manifestations of this eccentric 
 collective being. It has been said that it is neither 
 angel nor beast ; I would say rather, that it is both 
 angel and beast. A being organized eternal and 
 perfect is a contradiction. Must we for this reason 
 reject the pencil of light which nature deals out to 
 us in our turn ? It is as though one were to refuse 
 a cup of exquisite wine because it will soon be ex-
 
 284 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 hausted, or a pleasure because it does not last 
 long. There is great inequality, no doubt ; but 
 nearly everyone has something, and the progress 
 of human societies will, constantly reduce more 
 and more the number of the disinherited. There 
 remains pain, which is, assuredly, an odious, hu- 
 miliating thing, injurious to the noble functions 
 of life. Man can combat it, almost suppress it, 
 always escape it. The cases in which man is fet- 
 tered to life are very rare. The only destiny to be 
 absolutely condemned is that of the enslaved ani- 
 mal; of the horse, for example, who cannot commit 
 suicide, or of those persons condemned to death, 
 who are kept in sight, or of the demented ; but 
 these are very exceptional situations. The im- 
 mense majority of individuals have not to complain 
 of their passage through being, since the balance 
 of life is settled in joy, and since death may some 
 day be rendered painless. 
 
 Hence the problem of the origin of evil, so pain- 
 fully agitated by ancient philosophy, is not a 
 problem. The Manichaean theory of the good 
 God and the evil God is irrefutable in the theistic 
 conception of the reckoning and omnipotent God. 
 It has no longer any sense in the conception 
 of a universe which draws from its own bosom 
 all that it can. Evil is the absolute condition of 
 conscious existence. The world succeeds in pro- 
 curing a little of good justice, and the ideal, with 
 myriads of egotisms. When one thinks of the road
 
 ERNEST KENAN". 285 
 
 that it has been necessary to traverse in order that, 
 from the system of reciprocal extermination, which 
 was the law of the primitive world, Kant's notion 
 of the categorical imperative should emerge, one is 
 really surprised at the wise ways which nature's 
 policy has pursued. The order of things in which 
 evil is of the most consequence, and in which our 
 supreme duty is to combat it, is the human reign ; 
 therein an infinite amount remains to be done, un- 
 deniably ; but much has also been done already. 
 The human world is much less wicked nowadays, 
 and much less unjust, than it was three or four 
 thousand years ago. The general intention of the 
 universe is benevolent. The evil which it still re- 
 tains is the necessary imperfection which sponta- 
 neity cannot eliminate and which science must 
 combat. The problem is to learn whether the 
 hypothesis of the existence of the world was worse, 
 as M. Hartmann maintains, than the hypothesis of 
 non-existence. For my own part, I think that the 
 hypothesis of being is of more value, from the 
 simple fact that it has been realized. The world, 
 in M. Hartmann's opinion, is an effect without 
 a cause. Being, or consciousness, at least, began 
 and continues in the world only because there is 
 in being an increased value of good for the sum 
 total of conscious individuals. 
 
 A world in which the evil should surpass the good 
 would be a world which would not exist or which 
 would disappear. There are very few beings, in fact.
 
 286 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 who, when placed in the presence of destruction, 
 have not a horror of it. They prefer existence 
 with its miseries, to nothingness. Suicide is an ex- 
 tremely rare event. Even the animal which is, in 
 appearance, the most odiously- exploited by an- 
 other, has its compensations. The oyster gives 
 pleasure to the man who swallows it under condi- 
 tions in which its pain must be almost nothing ; and 
 before that, for months, the man has guarded it in 
 an oyster bed where he has protected it against all 
 hostile beasts, and where it has enjoyed a longer 
 and happier existence than it would have had in a 
 state of nature. There are, we admit, some human 
 creatures for whom, in consequence of fatal coin- 
 cidences, it would have been better had they not 
 existed. Let us hope .that the cases of this sort 
 will become more and more rare, and that they will 
 even disappear altogether. 
 
 Nothing, then, is less well grounded than the re- 
 proaches which pessimists indulge in toward the 
 spirit of benevolence which, in our opinion, rules 
 this universe. These objections land full in the 
 breast of those pure theists, who consider the divine 
 consciousness to be a reflective consciousness 
 which combines things scientifically. They are 
 unsolvable for those who cling to the ideas of the 
 ancient theology as to the divine omnipotence. 
 But such objections have no value as opposed to 
 those who believe that the world is abandoned to 
 the spontaneous play of its own forces. Nature is
 
 ERNEST KENAN: 287 
 
 like a boiler at high pressure ; it gives off every- 
 thing which is not retained by the wall of the 
 impossible. In reality, what the pessimists de- 
 mand, what they conceive as the ideal of a per- 
 fect world, is a world of miracles, a world where 
 the deus ex machina should intervene incessantly, 
 to correct, in detail, the defects which he has not 
 been able to foresee in the lump. That which 
 possesses them all is the anthropocentric error, 
 the artless fatuity of man judging the world 
 from the point of view of his comfort, as though 
 the ant should set up its theory of the universe, 
 taking into account only the needs of its little 
 circle. 
 
 Amiel has too just a sense to allow himself 
 to indulge in the exaggerations of the school, 
 void of tact, which has sprung from the clever 
 Schopenhauer. Amiel is a poet, and he has 
 a lively love for nature. He understands half of 
 Goethe ; then the fundamental contradiction of 
 his being gets the upper hand. 
 
 " Goethe ignores sanctity, and would never re- 
 flect upon the terrible problem of evil He 
 
 never reached the sentiment of obligation and of 
 sin." The idealistic Manichaeism is all the more 
 singular in Amiel since he fully admits the rights 
 of aestheticism. Now, the singular fact of admit- 
 ting in nature a sort of coquetry is full of conse- 
 quences. If Nature were wicked she would be
 
 288 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 ugly. Beauty is the adornment which both 
 flower and animal assume with a -view to love. 
 In this adornment of the plant and the animal 
 there is never a fault in the design, there is 
 never a crude or badly assorted color. Nature 
 has taste ; only she does not go as far as morals ; 
 she does not go beyond love. 
 
 That is why, in the eyes of reason, she is 
 so often unjust and immoral. We feel an irre- 
 sistible need for assuming in the government 
 of the world the justice of which we find the 
 dictates in our hearts ; and, as it has been plainly 
 proved that this justice does not exist in the 
 reality of the universe, we come to exact ab- 
 solutely, as a condition of morality, the sur- 
 vival of each human consciousness beyond the 
 tomb. Here shines forth the supreme contra- 
 diction between nature and reason. Such a 
 postulate is, in fact, the most necessary thing 
 a priori and the most impossible a posteriori. 
 The thesis of the " Phaedo " is only a subtlety. 
 I much prefer the Juclseo-Christian system of 
 the resurrection. The resurrection would be a 
 miracle and cannot be conceived in the present 
 state of the world, where we perceive above material 
 facts only this poor humanity, still so weak, and a 
 general, obscure conscience which is utterly heed- 
 less of individuals. Reason is not all-powerful 
 now; it endures flagrant injustices which it cannot
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 289 
 
 prevent. But if we could suppose that it were all- 
 powerful, nothing would then hinder its being just, 
 and just retrospectively for the ages when justice 
 has not been possible. In a word, God is already 
 good ; but he is not omnipotent ; he will be so 
 some day, no doubt. God already does what he 
 can for justice ; one of these days, when he shall 
 have at his disposal the capital of the entire uni- 
 verse, he will be able to do all things. In that 
 way, one might imagine a grand reparation, and, 
 as a slumber of a million centuries is not longer 
 than the slumber of an hour, the reign of justice 
 which we have loved will appear to us the immedi- 
 ate continuation of the hour of death. 
 
 The resurrection would thus be the final act of 
 the world, the act of an omnipotent and omniscient 
 God, capable of being just and wishing to be so. 
 Immortality would not be as Plato would have it ; 
 that is a gift inherent in man, a consequence of his 
 nature ; it would be a gift reserved by the Being, 
 become absolute, perfect, all-powerful, for those 
 who should have contributed to its development. 
 It would be an exception, a divine selection, a rec- 
 ompense accorded by the triumphant good and 
 true, to the only consciousness of the past in which 
 the love of the good and the true should have 
 reigned. It would be, in short, a miracle ; that is 
 to say, a well-meditated, divine act ; such acts, of 
 which we do not, at present, know a single example, 
 would become the law of. the universe on the day
 
 290 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 when the being should arrive at perfect conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 I sometimes try to imagine for myself a sermon 
 suitable for All Saints' Day the most eternal of 
 religious anniversaries delivered a thousand years 
 hence, when man will, perchance, have already 
 caught a glimpse of the secret of immortality. Is 
 it not remarkable that the festival of All Saints, 
 inseparable from the festival of the dead, should 
 be the only anniversary which the populace have 
 retained ? In the melancholy with which we think 
 of the elect of the less favored ages, there lies 
 hidden a sort of pious effort to restore them to 
 life. We are obliged to think that everything 
 which has existed still exists somewhere in an 
 image which can be revivified. The negatives of 
 all things are preserved. The stars.at the extreme 
 ends of the universe are receiving, at the present 
 moment, the image of deeds which took place 
 centuries ago. The imprints of everything which 
 has existed live, arranged in degrees, in the 
 diverse zones of infinite space. It remains for the 
 supreme photographer to strike off fresh copies 
 from them. Surely he will resuscitate only that 
 which has served the ends of the good, and, con- 
 sequently, of the true. That will be our recom- 
 pense. Inferior souls will have had theirs in the 
 low enjoyments which they have sought. 
 
 These are the questions which 1 should have so 
 much liked to discuss with poor Amiel, if I had 
 had the pleasure of knowing him. On page 123 of
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 291 
 
 Volume II, I think that he is rather unjust to me. 
 He is indignant that, when I treat of such topics, 
 I sometimes allow of smiles and irony. Well, in 
 that point I think that I am tolerably philosophical. 
 Complete obscurity, which is, perhaps, providential, 
 conceals from us the moral objects of the universe. 
 On this matter one makes bets ; one draws lots ; 
 in reality, one knows nothing. Our wager, our 
 real acierto in the Spanish fashion, the inward in- 
 spiration which makes us affirm duty, is a sort of 
 oracle, an infallible voice,- coming from without, 
 and corresponding to an objective reality. We 
 stake our nobility on this obstinate affirmation ; we 
 do well : we must cling to it, even in the face cf 
 evidence. But there are almost as many chances 
 that the exact contrary may prove true. It is 
 possible that these inward voices proceed from 
 honest illusions upheld by habit, and that the 
 world is merely an amusing fairy spectacle, which 
 is not in charge of any god at all. Hence, we 
 must so arrange matters for ourselves that, in 
 either hypothesis, we may not be wholly in the 
 wrong. We must listen to the higher voices, but 
 in such a manner that, in case the second hypothesis 
 prove the true one, we may not be too thoroughly 
 duped. If, in fact, the world is not a serious 
 thing, it is the dogmatic people who will turn out 
 to have been frivolous, and the worldly people, 
 those whom the theologians treat as giddypates, 
 who will have been the genuinely wise. 
 
 What seems advisable, under the circumstances,
 
 292 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 is a double-edged wisdom, equally ready for the 
 two eventualities of the dilemma, a middle course 
 in which, in one fashion or another, we shall not be 
 obliged to say: Ergo erravimus Therefore we have 
 gone astray. It is, above all, for the sake of others 
 that we must be scrupulous in this matter. A man 
 may run great risks on his own account ; but he 
 has not the right to gamble for others. When a 
 man has souls in his charge, he must express himself 
 with a good deal of reserve so that, in the hypothe- 
 sis of a grand bankruptcy, those whom he has com- 
 promised may find that they have not been too 
 much victimized. 
 
 In iiti-umque paratus ! To be ready for every- 
 thing therein, perhaps, lies wisdom. The way to 
 be sure that one has been in the right, for a few 
 moments at least, is to abandan one's self, by turns, 
 to confidence, to skepticism, to optimism, to irony. 
 You will say to me that by this means one will not 
 turn out to have been completely in the right. No 
 doubt ; but as there is not the slightest chance 
 ,that the grand prize in this lottery is reserved for 
 anyone, it is prudent to confine one's self to more 
 modest pretensions. Well ! that state of soul which 
 M. Amiel disdainfully designates as " the epicurism 
 of the imagination " is, perhaps for that very reason, 
 not so bad a course. Gayety has this one very 
 philosophical thing about it, that it seems to say to 
 nature that we do not take her any more seriously 
 than she takes us ; if the world is a bad farce, we
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 293 
 
 shall turn it into a good farce by dint of gayety. 
 On the other hand, if an indulgent and benevolent 
 thought does preside over the universe, we enter 
 into the intentions of this supreme thought far 
 better by joyous resignation than by the sullen 
 rigidity of the sectary and the eternal lament of the 
 believer. 
 
 " Banter hypocrisies ; but speak in a straightfor- 
 ward way to honest men," Amiel says to me with a 
 certain acerbity. Good Heavens ! honest men are 
 often exposed to the danger of being hypocrites 
 without knowing it ! It is said that Socrates in- 
 vented irony. If this be true, it must be confessed 
 that the sage of Athens has uttered the final word 
 of philosophy. We no longer admit, in truth, of 
 philosophy being spoken of otherwise than with a 
 smile. We owe virtue to the Eternal ; but we 
 have the right to couple irony with it, by way of 
 personal reprisals. By this method we return 
 pleasantry for pleasantry to the .person to whom it is 
 due ; we play the trick which has been played on us. 
 Saint Augustine's remark :Domine, si error est, a te 
 decepti sunnis Lord, if there be an error, we have 
 been deceived by Thee still remains very beauti- 
 ful, very much in conformity with modern senti- 
 ments. Only, we desire the Eternal to feel that, 
 if we accept the cheat, we accept it with full knowl- 
 edge and voluntarily. We are resigned beforehand 
 to lose the interests of our virtuous investments ; 
 but we should not like to be exposed to the ridicule
 
 294 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 of seeming to have reckoned much upon them. By 
 speaking of all this in a positive manner, we fear 
 to appear to have fallen too readily into the trap 
 set for our simplicity. 
 
 Such was, moreover, Amiel's final conclusion. 
 A few weeks before his death he perceived wisdom. 
 On the last leaves of his journal we find the fol- 
 lowing beautiful page : 
 
 " For many years, the immanent God has been 
 more actual to me than the transcendent God ; the 
 religion of Jacob has been stranger to me than that 
 of Kant or even of Spinoza. The entire Semitic 
 dramaturgy has appeared to me a work of the im- 
 agination. The apostolic documents have changed 
 their value and their sense in my eyes. Belief and 
 truth have differentiated themselves with ever- 
 increasing clearness. Religious psychology has 
 become a simple phenomenon, and has lost its 
 fixed and nominal value. The apologetics of 
 Pascal, of Leibnitz, of Secretan, seem to me no 
 more proof positive than those of the Middle Ages, 
 for they assume that which is in question, a re- 
 vealed doctrine, a definite and immutable Christi- 
 anity. It seems to me that that which remains to 
 me, from all my studies, is a new phenomenology 
 of the mind, the intuition of the universal meta- 
 morphosis ; all private convictions, all principles 
 concerning it, all acknowledged formulas, all non- 
 fusible ideas are only prejudices useful to practice, 
 but proofs of narrowness of mind. The absolute 
 of detail is absurd and contradictory. Political, 
 religious, aesthetic, literary, parties are ankylosis of 
 the thought. Every special belief constitutes a 
 rigidity and an obtuseness, but this consistence is
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 295 
 
 necessary in its own season. Our monad, in so far 
 as it is thinking, clears the limits of time, of space, 
 and of historic surroundings ; but, in so far as it is 
 individual, and for the sake of doing something, 
 it adapts itself to current illusions, and sets a defi- 
 nite goal for itself." 
 
 These lines were written on February 4, 1881. 
 Amiel died on the nth of May, of the same 
 year. He had his defects ; but he certainly was 
 one of the strongest speculative brains which re- 
 flected upon matters in the period from 1845 to 
 1880. The form which he selected for the expo- 
 sition of his thought a manuscript journal of 
 16,000 pages was the most disadvantageous possi- 
 ble. Thanks to the posthumous care of his friends, 
 thanks to M. Scherer, who has set forth most per- 
 fectly, in a profound study, the fine character of 
 that life, Amiel's thought will appear, to all those 
 who take an interest in the problems of philosophy, 
 as clear and complete as though he had understood 
 how to make a book ; that is to say, to limit himself. 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION OF CON- 
 SCIENCE. 
 I. 
 
 THE first duty of the sincere man is not to influ- 
 ence his own opinions, to allow reality to reflect 
 itself in him as in the dark chamber of the photog- 
 rapher, and to assist in the character of spectator
 
 296 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 at the inward battles which ideas carry on in the 
 depths of his conscience. We should not interfere 
 in this spontaneous labor ; we should remain pas- 
 sive before the internal modifications of our intel- 
 lectual retina. Not that the result of the uncon- 
 scious revolution should be a matter of indifference 
 to us and that it should not yield to serious conse- 
 quences ; but we have not the right to hold a 
 desire when reason speaks ; we should listen, 
 nothing more ; ready to allow ourselves to be 
 borne, bound hand and foot, whither the best argu- 
 ments carry us. The production of the truth is an 
 objective phenomenon, bound to the Ego, which 
 takes place within us without our aid, a sort of 
 chemical precipitate which we must content our- 
 selves with contemplating with curiosity. It is 
 good to pause from time to time, to withdraw into 
 one's self for reflection ; to examine in what way 
 the manner in which we regard the world may 
 have been modified, what progress the ladder lead- 
 ing from probability to certainty, the propositions 
 which we have made the base of our life, may 
 have made. 
 
 One thing absolutely beyond doubt is, that in the 
 universe which is accessible to our experience, 
 we do not observe and we never have observed any 
 passing fact which proceeds from a will, or from 
 wills superior to that of man. The general consti- 
 tution of the world is filled with intentions, appar- 
 ent intentions at least ; but in the facts in detail
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 297 
 
 there is nothing intentional. That which is at- 
 tributed to angels, to daimones, to particular pro- 
 vincial planetary gods, or even to one sole God 
 working by special volitions, has no reality. In 
 our day, nothing of this sort can be established. 
 Written texts, if we take them seriously, would make 
 us believe that such facts did occur in former times ; 
 but historical criticism demonstrates the slight cred- 
 ibility of such narrations. If the rule of special 
 volitions had been the law at any epoch of the 
 world, one would be able to perceive some remnant, 
 some shred of such a government in the actual 
 state. Now, the present actual state of things 
 presents no trace of any action coming'from without. 
 The state which we have before us is the result of 
 a development whose beginning we do not see ; in 
 the innumerable links of this chain, we do not dis- 
 cover a single free action, before the appearance of 
 man, or, if the expression is preferred, of human 
 beings. Since the appearance of man there 
 has been a free cause which has made use of the 
 forces of nature for definite ends ; but this cause 
 emanates from itself, from nature ; it is nature re- 
 covering herself, attaining consciousness. What 
 has never been beheld is the intervention of a 
 superior agent to correct or direct the blind forces, 
 to enlighten or ameliorate man, to prevent a fright- 
 ful calamity, to hinder an injustice, to prepare the 
 way for the execution of a given plan. The char- 
 acter of absolute precision of the world which we
 
 298 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 call material, would suffice to set aside the idea of 
 intention, since the intentional, nearly always, mani- 
 fests itself by the lack of geometrical accuracy and 
 mere approach to perfection. 
 
 What we have just said applies with a sort of 
 experimental certainty to the planet Earth, whose 
 history is sufficiently well known to us to prevent 
 any great peculiarity of its government escaping 
 our notice. We can apply it without hesitation to 
 the sun and to the whole solar system, which form, 
 in company with ourselves, only a single, small 
 cosmos. We can even apply it to the whole side- 
 real system which is revealed to the inhabitants of 
 the earth, thanks to the transparency of air and 
 space.* In spite of the distances, surpassing all 
 imagination, which separate these different bodies 
 from each other and from us, we have been able to 
 verify the fact that the physical forces, the mechan- 
 ism, the chemistry of these bodies are identical with 
 those of the solar system. There is no doubt that 
 they, like the solar system, follow the laws of a 
 development which contains within itself its own 
 causes. In any case, were it otherwise, the onus 
 probandi the burden of proof would lie with 
 those who should maintain the contrary, in virtue 
 of the principle that we must not discuss as pos- 
 sible that which no indication leads us to assume. 
 Every indication, however slight, should be fol- 
 
 * This is what I designate as universe, throughout all of 
 this article.
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 299 
 
 lowed up by science with zeal. But gratuitous 
 assertion needs no refutation Quod gratis asseritur 
 gratis negatur. 
 
 As we do not perceive above us any trace of in- 
 telligence acting with a view to determinate ends, 
 so we perceive none below us. The ant, although 
 very small, is more intelligent than the horse ; but 
 if, in the microbic order, there were very intelligent 
 beings, we should perceive them through the acts 
 of reflection emanating from them. Now the 
 action of these tiny beings, who are the cause of 
 nearly all morbid phenomena, is of such short 
 range that a very advanced state of science has 
 been required to perceive it ; at the present mo- 
 ment, their action is still almost confounded with 
 chemical and mechanical forces. So far as our 
 experience goes, though it is restricted, no doubt, 
 intelligence appears limited to the realm of the 
 finite : above and below all is night. 
 
 We may then assume, as a thesis, the proposi- 
 tion that \hzjieri by internal development, without 
 intervention from the exterior, is the law of the 
 whole universe which we behold. An infinite 
 number of blows makes everything come to pass, 
 and causes the ends attained by chance to seem 
 to have been attained by volition. Our universe, 
 within the reach of our experiment, is not gov- 
 erned by any intelligent reason. God, as the com- 
 mon herd understand him, the living God, the act- 
 ing God, the God-Providence, does not show him-
 
 300 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 self in it. The question is, to know whether this 
 universe constitutes the totality of existence. 
 Here doubt begins. The active God is absent 
 from this universe ; does he not exist beyond it ? 
 
 And, in the first place, is this universe infinite ? 
 Does the golden dust, unequally distributed, which 
 we behold above our heads, on a clear night, fill 
 space? Is it certain that there are not stations in 
 space whence an eye would descry, on the one 
 hand, a sky sown with stars, like the one on which 
 we gaze ; on the other a black abyss, void of all 
 luminous bodies ? Immense this universe certainly 
 is. But what is a decillion of leagues in compar- 
 ison with infinity ? 
 
 And even if it were certain that space is filled 
 with suns, and is without limits, would it follow 
 that there are not other infinites of a superior or 
 inferior order ? Infinitesimal calculation assuredly 
 hinges on formulas only ; but these formulas are 
 striking symbols. There are divers orders of in- 
 finites, of which the inferior are as zero compared 
 with the superior. This apparent paradox serves 
 as base for the calculations of absolute truth. 
 Every finite quantity, added to the infinite or sub- 
 tracted from the infinite, is equivalent to zero ; 
 every finite quantity is nothing when compared 
 with the infinite. Our ideas of space and of time 
 are all relative. The distance of the earth from 
 Sinus is enormous, according to our measurements ; 
 the interior voids of a molecule may be as con-
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 301 
 
 siderable for beings endowed with another criterion 
 of size. The longevity of our world might, in the 
 eyes of a god, appear the equivalent of a single 
 day. 
 
 All seems thus composed of worlds which hardly 
 exiit, so far as the others are concerned, but which 
 constitute the infinite for themselves. He who 
 knows France best is ignorant of what is going on 
 in a thousand little provincial centers ; he who 
 knows one of these little centers sees nothing 
 beyond, and finds it composed of still smaller cen- 
 ters, each one of which beholds only itself. Worlds 
 inclosing worlds, the infinitely small of the one 
 being the infinitely great of another that is the 
 truth of the matter. Our reality that in which we 
 live, which is for us the finite is composed of infin- 
 ites of an inferior order ; it serves itself to make 
 superior infinites. It is an infinitely great for him 
 who is beneath, an infinitely small for him who is 
 above, a medium between the two infinites. 
 
 We see little of the order of the infinite which is 
 beyond us ; but the order of the infinite which is 
 below us, the world of the atom, of the cell of the 
 microbe composed of microbes, exists with as much 
 certainty as the order of the finite, which is the 
 habitual subject of our researches and of our medi- 
 tations. The negatives of the memory, those in- 
 numerable little images which we can dust off and 
 call to life again at will, are contained beneath the 
 osseous casket of our skul!, in a very limited space,
 
 302 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 The types of generation, inclosed one in another, 
 like the germ of a flower in a bud, are another ex- 
 ample of the infinite flexibility of space, or of its 
 relativity.* The atom may contain an infinite. 
 The coal which maintains warmth in our fireplaces 
 is composed of little worlds which our world 
 employs ; perhaps we are the atom of carbon 
 which maintains the warmth of another word. 
 We do not behold God in this universe ; atheism 
 is logical and fatal in this case ; but this universe 
 is, perhaps, subordinate ; possibly one is an atheist 
 because one does not see far enough. Do endless 
 circles command each other, or does a fixed and 
 immovable absolute unite the infinite zones of the 
 variable and mutable, according to the beautiful 
 biblical formula : Tu autem idem ipse est, et anni tui 
 non deficiunt ? For Thou art the same, and Tin* 
 years fail not. We know absolutely nothing about 
 it. 
 
 It is in the comparison of the atom with the 
 universe that infinitesimal considerations receive 
 their just application. Relatively to the order of 
 grandeurs in which we live, the atom is an infinitely 
 small thing, a zero. Relatively to the size below 
 the atom is infinitely great. The atom is for us a 
 point of resistance : the conception of the atom as 
 a solid plenum, as small as one pleases, must be 
 
 * The considerations of modern geometry upon space hav- 
 ing more than three dimensions are, perhaps, connected with 
 the reality in this case.
 
 ERNEST RENAtf. 303 
 
 set aside, it seems ; since the indivisible plenum 
 does not exist in nature. Our universe, although 
 composed of bodies which leave immense empty 
 spaces between them, is, in reality, impenetrable. 
 Let us assume that an arrow is shot with infinite 
 force from the confines of the universe ; that arrow 
 would not traverse the universe, thinly scattered as 
 it is in appearance ; it would encounter bodies 
 without number which would stop it ; just as a 
 bullet could not pass through a cloud without get- 
 ting wet. 
 
 An atom of a simple body, an atom of gold, for 
 example, can thus be conceived as a universe, 
 whose different components, far from forming a 
 solid plenum, would be as widely separated from 
 each other as the different centers of solar systems. 
 Impenetrability would result from the internal 
 invariability of such a body which no natural or 
 scientific means has, so far, been able to assail. 
 The unassailable character of the simple body 
 would be analogous to the stability of the laws of 
 our universe, or rather, to the absence of special 
 wills in the government of this universe. The 
 absence of all external intervention, in the order of 
 things which we see, would answer to the fact that 
 no chemist has succeeded, up to the present, in 
 destroying that grouping of an infinite primordial 
 force which constitutes an atom. 
 
 Hence, it is not exact to say : " The universe 
 which we see is eternal," any more than it is exact
 
 34 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 to say : "The atom is eternal." The atom has had 
 a beginning a phenomenon which has had a begin- 
 ning, it will come to an end. That which has never 
 had a beginning and which will never have an end 
 is the all-absolute, it is God. Metaphysics is a 
 science which has but one line : " Something exists; 
 hence, something has existed from all eternity " ; 
 such an affirmation is equivalent to " no effect 
 without a cause," art assertion which certainly con- 
 tains an element of experimentalism. But, between 
 this primordial existence and the world which we 
 see, there are infinite intervals. The world which 
 we see, and the atom of a simple body have, per- 
 haps, existed, for decillions of decillions of cen- 
 turies ; or, what amounts to the same thing, for 
 decillions of decillions of centuries no special will 
 has assailed either our universe or the atom. As 
 the human imagination does not grasp the difference 
 between the infinite and the indefinite, this suffices 
 for the certainties which we require. We cannot 
 distinguish between the probability of a milliard 
 against one and certainty. The induction : "The 
 sun rose to-day, hence it will rise to-morrow," gives 
 ns full security ; that great fabric of approximations 
 to things, which constitutes human life, finds a more 
 solid base than itself in this fact that, never, to our 
 knowledge, have the laws of trature been infringed. 
 But, because this has not happened, at least 
 within an enormous period, have we a right to con- 
 clude that it never will happen ? Perhaps the
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 35 
 
 world is the toy of a Superior Being, the experi- 
 mental piece of a transcendent savant, who pos- 
 sesses the final secrets of being. Will some 
 chemist of genius succeed, one of these days, in 
 decomposing the simple atom or in suppressing it ? 
 Until the eve of the day when such a discovery 
 shall be made, the consciousnesses which may ex- 
 ist in the atom * will say, as we say : " the world is 
 immutable, eternal," and at the moment of the 
 discovery, they will recognize their error. In the 
 same way, a Superior Being may, one day, direct 
 an attack upon the law of stability of our universe, 
 without much more concern for the beings which 
 dwell there than the laborer who hacks apart a 
 clod of earth concerns himself about the insects 
 who may be living out their little lives in it. 
 Without going into the profundities of chemical 
 action, let us take as the object of our meditation 
 such an atom lost among the masses of granite 
 which form the substratum of our shores. It has 
 been in existence for thousands of centuries, and, 
 if there are in that atom sentient beings their 
 opinion must be that their world, so tiny for us, so 
 great for them, is impenetrable, infinite, autono- 
 
 * The atom is no more conscious than the universe ; 
 nothing proves it, at least ; but, just as the universe, uncon- 
 scious as a whole, contains consciousnesses that of man, for 
 example which do not make themselves felt in the whole ; 
 so the atom may contain, in its elements, twice as infinitely 
 small, in comparison with us, consciousnesses which do not 
 make themselves felt in the whole.
 
 306 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 mous, alive in itself. They would be mistaken, 
 nevertheless. Opposite the coast of Brittany, 
 where I am writing these lines,* I used to behold 
 in my childhood an island, Grand Island, which 
 has now almost completely disappeared. M. 
 Haussmann caused it to disappear ; the masses 
 of granite of which it was composed at the present 
 moment form the sidewalks of the boulevards in 
 Paris, which were constructed under the Second 
 Empire. When the mine began to work in those 
 depths, the astonishment of the millions of milliards 
 of tiny worlds which lay hidden there from us, in a 
 shadow which was absolute to us, must have been 
 very great. And only the granitic universes 
 situated at the points of fracture could have noticed 
 anything. In the interior of the slabs which we 
 tread underfoot in Paris, slumber millions of uni- 
 verses, as tranquil in their error touching the auton- 
 omy of their world as when they formed part of 
 the cliffs of Brittany. The light will dawn for 
 them only on the day when they are reduced to 
 macadam. 
 
 The surprise experienced by the little universes 
 of the granite cliffs of Grand Island, the surprise 
 which the world contained in an atom of gold 
 would experience if the gold were dissolved, may 
 be in store for us. A God may reveal himself one 
 of these days. The eternity of our universe is no 
 longer assured, from the moment that we have a 
 * September 2, 1888.
 
 ERXEST REXAN. 307 
 
 right to suppose that it is a finite, subordinated to 
 an infinite. The superior infinite ma}' dispose of 
 it, utilize it, apply it to its ends. " Nature and its 
 author " is not, perhaps, so absurd an expression 
 as it seems. Everything is possible even God. 
 The history of the universe has never shown, some- 
 one may object, so far as man can know, any reason 
 for forming such an hypothesis. No doubt ; but 
 the atoms of the deep-lying layers of granite on 
 Grand Island were also a very long time in per- 
 ceiving the existence of humanity. God does not 
 make appearances in the world which we can 
 measure and observe ; but we cannot prove that 
 he does not make them in the infinity of time. 
 Man does not see falsely, as subjective skeptics 
 suppose ; he sees in a narrow way. His universe 
 is great and old, no doubt ; it is a in the formula 
 x-{-z, and in this case, a=o. 
 
 Hence, it is not impossible that outside the uni- 
 verse which we know finite or infinite, it matters 
 not which there is an infinite of another order, 
 in which our universe is only an atom. This in- 
 finite, which would be God * for us, may reveal 
 itself only at intervals, in our estimation extremely 
 long, but insignificant in the bosom of the absolute. 
 From this point of view, the existence of a God 
 with special volitions, who does not appear in our 
 
 * I speak in a relative sense. A being which infinitely sur- 
 passes us and discloses himself to us by special intentional acts, 
 would be God for us, as man is the god of the animal.
 
 308 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 universe, may be considered possible in the womb 
 of the infinite, or, at least, it is as rash to deny it as 
 to affirm it. 
 
 II. 
 
 The innumerable individual consciousnesses 
 which the planet Earth has produced, which the 
 other planets, the other suns may have, produced, 
 certainly have the air of being destined to remain 
 inclosed, as in a capsule, in the universe to which 
 they have belonged. The renewal of these con- 
 sciousnesses would constitute a miracle, as those 
 theologians have thought who have maintained 
 that the soul of man is immortal, not in its nature, 
 but through a special volition of God. In the sur- 
 roundings which we are experimenting upon, 
 miracles do not take place ; but, from the point of 
 view of the infinite, nothing is impossible. It is 
 very curious that the Jews, who, without entertain- 
 ing the least belief in an immortal soul, have con- 
 tributed the most toward disseminating the ideas 
 as to future recompenses, under the form of belief 
 in the kingdom of God and the resurrection, formed 
 an analogous image, conceiving the apparitions of 
 divine justice as intermittent, and the awakening 
 of the just as a miracle wrought directly by God. 
 This was, assuredly, better than the sophisms of 
 the "Phaedo." The infinity of the future settles 
 many difficulties. If God exists, he must be good, 
 and he will end by being just. Man would thus
 
 EKNEST RENAN. 39 
 
 be immortal in the infinite, to infinity. The two 
 great postulates of human life, God and the immor- 
 tality of the soul, which are gratuitous assumptions 
 from the point of view of the finite in which we 
 live, are, perhaps, true, within the limits of the 
 infinite. 
 
 As time, in fact, exists only in a wholly relative 
 manner, a sleep of a decillion years is no longer 
 than a sleep of an hour. Paradise does not 
 exist ; perhaps it will exist, in a decillion of years. 
 Those whom a tardy justice will place there, once 
 more, will think that they died the day before. 
 As in the legend of the Middle Ages, when they 
 feel of their death-bed, they will find it still warm. 
 To have been is to be. Consecutiveness is the 
 absolute condition of our spirit ; but, in the object, 
 consecutiveness and simultaneousness are con- 
 founded. From this point of view, a display of 
 fireworks is eternal. My grandson, who is five 
 years old, amuses himself so well in the country 
 that his only grief consists in being obliged to go 
 to bed. "Mamma," he asks his mother, "will the 
 night be long to-day ? " When, in the presence of 
 death, we ask ourselves : " Will this night be long ? " 
 we are no less artless. 
 
 Here the mystery is absolute ; we do feel within 
 us the voice of another world, but we do not know 
 what that world is. What does this voice tell us? 
 Things that are tolerably clear. Whence comes 
 that voice ? Nothing is more obscure. This voice
 
 31 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 makes itself heard by us through unexplained in- 
 clinations, impalpable pleasures, little elfin airs, 
 fugitive, intangible, which insinuate to us devotion, 
 which render us capable of duty, inspire us with 
 courage, make us experience the seductions of 
 beauty. It bursts forth, above all, in those sublime 
 absurdities in which one becomes entangled, know- 
 ing all the while that one is making a very bad bar- 
 gain, in those four grand follies of man, love, re- 
 ligion, poetry, virtue ; providentially useless things 
 which the egotistical man denies, and which, in 
 spite of him, lead the world. It is when we listen 
 to these divine voices that we really hear the har- 
 mony of the celestial spheres, the music of the infi- 
 nite. Prtzsiet fides supplementum sensuum defectui 
 Let faith supply that in which sense is deficient. 
 
 Love is the first of these great revelatory in- 
 stincts which rule all creation, and which seem to 
 have been imposed by a supreme will.* Its great 
 excellence lies in the fact that all beings participate 
 
 * It is surprising that science and philosophy, adopting the 
 frivolous system of people of the world of treating the case, 
 which is mysterious above all others, as a simple matter for 
 pleasantries, should not have made of love the capital object of 
 their researches and their speculations. It is the most extra- 
 ordinary and the most suggestive fact of the universe. Through 
 a prudery which has no sense in the system of philosophical 
 reflection, people do not mention it, or confine themselves to a 
 few foolish platitudes. People will not see that they are in the 
 presence of the nodal point of things, in the presence of the 
 most profound secret in the world. The fear of fools should,
 
 ERNEST A' EN AN. 311 
 
 in it, and that we clearly perceive its connection 
 with the ends of the universe. Its first nest ap- 
 pears to have been in the origins of life, in the cell. 
 The beginning of the duality of the sexes commu- 
 nicated to it a direction which thenceforth never 
 underwent change, and produced marvelous blos- 
 somings. The dissonance of the two sexes, uniting 
 at a certain height in a divine consonance, whence 
 is born the perfect accord of creation, is the funda- 
 mental faith of the world. In the vegetable king- 
 dom, these mysterious aspirations are summed up 
 in the flower the flower, that unrivaled problem, 
 before which our giddiness passes with stupid in- 
 attention ; the flower, a language splendid or 
 charming, but absolutely enigmatical, which seems, 
 indeed, an act of adoration from the earth to an 
 invisible lover, according to a rite which remains 
 always the same. The tiny flower, in fact, which 
 man hardly sees, is as perfect as the great one. 
 Nature employs the same coquetry in its fabrica- 
 tion ; the same being is reflected in both. 
 
 not, however, prevent that which is serious from being treated 
 seriously. Physiologists will see nothing in it but that which 
 is connected with the play of the organs. I spoke one day to 
 Claude Bernard of the deep significance contained in the fact 
 of sexual attraction. He answered me, after a momentary 
 reflection: "No; they are clearly defined functions, conse- 
 quences of nutrition." Very good ; but, in that case, let a 
 science be founded which shall occupy itself with the obscure 
 consequences of the clearly defined functions. Why, for ex- 
 ample, has the flower perfume ?
 
 3 1 2 RECOLLECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 In the bosom of the animal kingdom, the equiva- 
 lent of the flower is the intoxication of joy of the 
 child, the beauty of the young girl, that gleam of a 
 day, that luminous exudation which, like the phos- 
 phorescence of the glowworm, shows the feverish 
 ardor of a life aspiring to its blossoming. Like 
 the flower, beauty is impersonal ; the effort of the 
 individual counts for nothing here. It is born, 
 appears for a moment, vanishes, like a natural phe- 
 nomenon. Nature in her entirety is herself a great 
 flower full of harmony. One finds therein no fault 
 of design. " It is we," people say, " who put this 
 harmony into it." How does it happen, then, that 
 man so often spoils nature? The world is beauti- 
 ful until man touches it ; absurdities, awkward- 
 nesses, bad ta*ste, false colors, crudities, deformi- 
 ties, vileness begin with the appearance of man in 
 this paradise, hitherto immaculate. 
 
 With the animal love has been the principle of 
 beauty. It is because, at that moment, the male 
 bird makes a supreme effort to please, that his 
 colors are more vivid, and his form better out- 
 lined.* With man, love has been a school of 
 gentleness and courtesy. I will add, of religion 
 and morals. An hour when the most wicked 
 being experiences an impulse of tenderness, when 
 
 * Things have been overturned by humanity. The true 
 analogue of the beauty of the male is the modesty of the fe- 
 male. A little air of reserve, of timidity, of touching subjec- 
 tion, has finally become more attractive to man than beauty.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 3 r 3 
 
 the narrowest individual has the sentiment of in- 
 timate communion with the universe is, assuredly, 
 a divine hour. It is because, at that hour, man 
 hears the voice of nature, that in it he contracts 
 lofty duties, takes sacred vows, tastes supreme 
 joys, or prepares for himself acute remorse. In 
 any case, it is the hour in his fugitive life when 
 man is at his best. The immense sensation which 
 he experiences when he thus emerges, in a man- 
 ner, from himself, shows that he really comes 
 in contact with the infinite. Love, understood 
 in a lofty way, is thus a religious thing, or rather, 
 a part of religion. Could one believe that friv- 
 olity and folly have succeeded in causing this 
 ancient remnant of relationship with nature to be 
 regarded as a shameful remains of animalism ? Is 
 it possible that so holy an aim as that of continu- 
 ing the species could have been attached to a 
 culpable or ridiculous act ? One attributes to the 
 Eternal, by this supposition, a grotesque intention 
 or a veritable piece of buffoonery. 
 
 The serious character of love has been obliter- 
 ated by levity. Duty is surely something from 
 above, since it is accompanied by no pleasure and 
 often entails harsh sacrifices. And nevertheless, 
 man clings to it almost as much as to love. Man 
 is grateful when he is furnished with reasons for 
 believing in devotion ; to prove duty to him is to 
 find his titles of nobility for him once more. One 
 is not welcome when one proposes to deliver him
 
 3 14 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 from it. The care of the animal for its offspring, 
 a multitude of facts which show us the need of 
 sacrifice in consciences the most egotistical in ap- 
 pearance, prove that very few beings avoid the 
 commandments established by nature in view of 
 ends for which they themselves care very little. 
 Duty and the instincts for building a nest and 
 hatching, in the bird, have the same providential 
 origin. Even in the most vulgar life, the share of 
 what is done for God is enormous. The most 
 degraded being prefers to be just rather than 
 unjust ; we all adore, we all pray many times in 
 the day, without knowing it. 
 
 Whence come those voices, now sweet, now 
 austere? They come from the universe, from God, 
 if you like. The universe, with which we are con- 
 nected as by an umbilical cord, will have devotion, 
 duty, virtue ; in order to attain its ends, it employs 
 religion, poetry, love, pleasure, all sorts of decep- 
 tions. And what the universe wills, it will always 
 compel ; for it possesses unprecedented ruses to 
 support its decrees. The most self-evident courses 
 of reasoning of the critics will not be able to do 
 anything toward demolishing these sacred illusions. 
 Women, in particular, will always offer resistance ; 
 we may say what we will, they will not believe us, 
 and we are delighted at it. That which is in us, 
 without our own will and in spite of ourselves, the 
 unconscious, in a word, is the revelation above all 
 others. Religion, the summing up of moral needs,
 
 ERNEST RE NAN. 315 
 
 of man's virtue, modesty, disinterestedness, sacri- 
 fice, are the voice of the universe. Everything is 
 contained in an act of faith to instincts which 
 assail us, without convincing us ; in obedience to a 
 language coming from the infinite, a language per- 
 fectly clear, as to what it commands us, obscure as 
 to what it promises. We see the charm ; we baffle 
 it ; but it will never be broken, for all that. Quis 
 posuit in visceribus hominis sapientiam ? Who has 
 placed understanding in the bowels of man ? 
 
 Of this supreme resultant of the total universe 
 we can say only one thing, that it is good. For, if 
 it were not good, the total universe, which has ex- 
 isted from all eternity, would have been destroyed. 
 Let us suppose a banking house which has existed 
 from all eternity. If this house had the least de- 
 fect in its basis, it would have suffered bankruptcy 
 a thousand times. If the balance of the world 
 were not liquidated by a surplus to the profit of 
 the shareholders, the world would have ceased to 
 exist long ago. A profit, a favorable remainder is 
 the result of this immense balancing of the ledgers 
 of good and evil. This surplus of good is the 
 reason for the universe's existence, and for its 
 preservation. Why be, if there is no profit in being ? 
 It is so easy not to be. 
 
 I regard as superficial the objections which some 
 learned men raise against finality, by calling atten- 
 tion to certain imperfections of nature, defects of 
 the human body, for example, such and such a
 
 316 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 muscle which constitutes a lever of the least effect- 
 ive sort, the eye constructed with a singular approx- 
 imation only to what it should be. One forgets 
 that the conditions of creation, if one may express 
 one's self thus, are limited by the balancing of con- 
 flicting advantages and inconveniences. It is a 
 curve determined beforehand by the asesmbling of 
 its co-ordinates, and written in advance in an ab- 
 stract equation. A better lever to the forearm 
 would have given us the conformation of pelicans. 
 An eye which should avoid the defects of the present 
 eye would fall, probably, into more serious incon- 
 veniences still. More powerful brains than the 
 best human brains can be conceived ; but they 
 would have entailed for those endowed with them 
 congestions and cerebral fevers. A man who 
 should never be ill, on the other hand, would 
 probably be condemned to incurable mediocrity. 
 A humanity which was not revolutionary, tor- 
 mented by Utopias, would resemble an ant-hill, 
 a China which believes that it has found the per- 
 fect form and abides by it. A humanity, which 
 was not superstitious, would cherish discour- 
 aging positivism. Now, nature possesses a sort 
 of foresight ; she does not create that which 
 would be destined to perish through an inherent 
 blemish. She divines the roads which have no 
 exit, and does not entangle herself in them. 
 
 Certain inconveniences of the body are like 
 historical abuses, which the progress of evolution
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 3 T 7 
 
 has not taken an interest in reforming. When the 
 inconvenience has been sufficiently grave to kill 
 the individual and extinguish the species, the 
 struggle has been to the death ; the mortal blemish 
 has been corrected, or the species has become 
 extinct ; but when the defect for example, the 
 useless prolongation of the caecum was merely of 
 a nature to produce some maladies, some deaths, 
 nature has not considered it worth her while to 
 take violent measures for so small a matter. It is 
 thus that, in a society, the extirpation of great 
 abuses is easier than the correction of the lesser 
 abuses ; for, in the first case, it is a question of 
 life and death ; in the second, no one takes suffi- 
 cient interest in the reform to engage in a radical 
 battle. The objections of the learned men, who 
 hold themselves on their guard against what they 
 consider a resurrection of finalism, are directed, at 
 bottom, against the system of a wise and omnipo- 
 tent Creator. They do not bear upon our hypoth- 
 esis of a profound nisus (pressure) exerting itself 
 in a blind way in the abysses of being, urging 
 all to existence, at every point in space. This 
 nisus is neither conscious nor all-powerful ; it puts 
 the matter which is at its disposal to the best pos- 
 sible profit. Hence it is quite natural that it should 
 not have made things which offer contradictory 
 perfections. It is natural, also, that the part of the 
 cosmos which we behold should present limits and 
 gaps, arising from the insufficiency of the material?
 
 318 RECOLLECTIONS AXD LETTERS OF 
 
 which nature had under its control at a given 
 point. It is the nisus acting upon the totality of 
 the universe which will perhaps, some day, be con- 
 scious, omniscient, omnipotent. Then a degree of 
 consciousness can be realized of which nothing at 
 the present time can give us an idea. In the 
 Middle Ages, the highest result of the world, at 
 least of the planet Earth, was a choir of monks 
 chanting psalms. The science of our epoch, 
 responding to the desire which the world feels for 
 knowing itself, attains very superior effects. The 
 College of France is far beyond the most per- 
 fect Abbey of the Order of the Cistercians. The 
 future will, no doubt, bring about far finer results 
 still. In the infinite, the absolute Being, having 
 reached the acme of his deific evolutions, and 
 understanding himself perfectly, will, perhaps, 
 realize these fine verses of the Christian mysticism : 
 
 Illic secum habitans in penetralibus, 
 Se rex ipse suo contuitu beat.* 
 
 III. 
 
 Thus the two fundamental dogmas of religion, 
 God and immortality, remain rationally undemon- 
 strable ; but one cannot say that they are smitten 
 with absolute impossibility. The touching efforts 
 of humanity to save these two dogmas must not be 
 
 * Dwelling alone in strictest solitude, the king delights in 
 his happiness.
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 319 
 
 censured as being a pure chimera. A general con- 
 sciousness of the universe, a soul of the world, are 
 things which experience has never proved ; but a 
 molecule from one of our bones has no suspicion 
 of the general consciousness of the body of which 
 it forms a part, of that which constitutes our unity. 
 The most logical attitude of the thinker in the 
 presence of religion is to act as though it were 
 true. One must behave as though God and the 
 soul existed. Religion thus comes under the head 
 of those numerous hypotheses, such as the 
 ether, the electric, nervous, luminous, and caloric 
 fluids, the atom itself, which we are well aware are 
 only symbols, convenient means of explaining phe- 
 nomena, and which we uphold all the same. God, 
 creating the world by virtue of profound calcula- 
 tions, is a very coarse formula ; but things con- 
 duct themselves very nearly as though that was 
 what did take place. The soul does not exist as a 
 separate substance ; but things go on very much 
 as though it did exist. Nothing has ever been re- 
 vealed to any human family by supernatural voices, 
 and yet revelation is a metaphor which religious 
 history finds it difficult to dispense with. The 
 eternal paradise promised to man has no reality, 
 and nevertheless, it is necessary to act as though 
 it had ; it is necessary that those who do not be- 
 lieve in it should surpass in goodness and in abne- 
 gation those who do believe in it. 
 
 People are accustomed to present these two
 
 320 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 great consolatory dogmas, God and immortality, 
 as the postulates of the moral life of Christianity ; 
 and certainly, this is right, in many respects. To 
 act for God, to act in .the presence of God, are 
 conceptions requisite to a virtuous life. We do 
 not demand a rewarder ; but we do wish for a 
 witness. The recompense of the cuirassiers of 
 Reichsofen in eternity is the phrase of the old 
 Emperor : " Oh ! the brave fellows ! " We should 
 like a phrase of that sort from God. Sacrifices ig- 
 nored, virtue misunderstood, the inevitable errors 
 of human justice, the irrefutable calumnies of his- 
 tory, render legitimate, or rather lead fatally to, 
 an appeal from the consciousness oppressed by 
 fatality to the consciousness of the universe. This 
 is a right which the virtuous man will never re- 
 nounce. In the heroic situations of the Revolu- 
 tion, the necessity of the immortality of the soul 
 was claimed by nearly all parties. The solicitude 
 of the men of that epoch for their memoirs and 
 their justificatory documents, depended on the 
 same principle. They wrote and wrote, persuaded 
 that there would be someone to read them. They 
 imperatively demanded a judge beyond the tomb ; 
 they demanded it from the consciousness of the 
 wjDrld, or from the consciousness of humanity. 
 Humanity is thus driven to bay in this singular 
 pass without exit that, the more it reflects, the 
 more it perceives the moral necessity of God and 
 immortality, and the better also it perceives the
 
 ERNEST REN AN. 321 
 
 difficulties which rise against the dogmas whose 
 necessity it affirms. 
 
 These difficulties are of the gravest ; they must 
 not be concealed. Ancient religious ideas were 
 founded on the narrow concept of a world created 
 several thousand years ago, of which the earth and 
 man were the center. A little earth containing a 
 computable number of inhabitants, a little heaven 
 surmounting it like a cupola, a celestial cpurt a few 
 leagues away in the air, all busied with the childish 
 affairs of mankind, with the Isles of the Blessed, 
 situated to the Westward, whither the dead betake 
 themselves in a bark, or a paper paradise, which 
 the slightest scientific reflection will tear asunder, 
 that is a world which a God with a great white 
 beard can easily wrap in the folds of his garment. 
 When Nimrod launched his arrows against heaven, 
 they returned to him stained with blood ; we may 
 shoot as we will, the arrows no longer return to us. 
 The enlargement of the idea of the world, and the 
 scientific demolition of the ancient anthropocentric 
 hypothesis, in the sixteenth century, is the capital 
 moment in the history of the human mind. Aris- 
 tarchus of Samos had the first gleam of light on 
 that point, and he was considered impious. The 
 rage of the Church against the founders of the new 
 order Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Galileo was 
 sufficiently consistent in the same line. The little 
 world over which the Church had reigned, with its 
 dogmas restricted to the earth, was irrevocably
 
 3 2 2 RECOLLECTIONS AND LE TTERS OF 
 
 broken. The most modern views upon the ages of 
 nature and the revolutions of the globe, by throw- 
 ing open to man the perspective of the infinite of 
 past time, have had the same result in a still more 
 conclusive fashion. 
 
 We shall not be able to reconstruct the ancient 
 dreams. If the law of the world were a narrow 
 fanaticism, if error were the condition of human 
 morality, there would be no reason to take an 
 interest in a globe vowed to ignorance. We 
 love humanity because it produces science ; we 
 hold fast to morality because honest races alone 
 can be scientific races. If we were to set ignorance 
 as the necessary limit of humanity, we should no 
 longer see any reason for caring about its ex- 
 istence. The humanity which the reactionaries 
 invoke by their desires would be so insignificant 
 that I should prefer to see it perish by anarchy and 
 lack of morality, rather than by folly. The return 
 of humanity to its ancient errors, regarded as irr- 
 dispensable to its moral ity, would be worse than 
 its utter demoralization. 
 
 Hence we must make our choice, and in our 
 views of the universe avoid the absurdity of the 
 provincials, who seeing nothing beyond their own 
 clock-tower, imagine that all the world is troubling 
 itself about their affairs, that the king's sole solici- 
 tude is for their petty town, that tod even has an 
 opinion about the petty cliques into which it is 
 split up. Humanity is in the world what an ant-
 
 ERWEST REMAN. 323 
 
 hill is in a forest. The internal revolutions of an 
 ant-hill, its decadence, its ruin, are secondary 
 matters in the history of a forest. If humanity suf- 
 fers shipwreck for lack of knowledge or virtue if 
 it fails in its vocation, its duties analogous occur- 
 rences have taken place thousands of times in the 
 history of the universe. Let us then take care not 
 to believe that postulates are the measure of 
 reality. Nature is not obliged to bend to our little 
 conventions. To this declaration of man : " I 
 cannot be virtuous without such or such a chimera," 
 the Eternal has a right to reply ; " So much the 
 worse for you. Your chimeras will not force me 
 to change the order of fatality." 
 
 What still further weakens a priori reasoning on 
 this point is, that among the postulates of hu- 
 manity, there are some which are notoriously im- 
 possible. It must be noted well that the God 
 which the greater part of humanity assumes is not 
 the God situated in the infinite, whose existence 
 we admit as possible. That God is too distant for 
 piety to attach itself to. What the vulgar herd 
 wishes is a God who certainly does not exist, a 
 God who busies himself about rain and fair 
 weather, about war and peace, about the jealousies 
 of men among each other, who can be made to 
 change his mind by importunity. Humanity, in 
 other terms, would like to have a God for itself, a 
 God who takes an interest in its quarrels, a special 
 God of the planet, ruling it like a good governor,
 
 3^4 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 like the provincial gods dreamed of by paganism 
 in its decadence. Each nation goes further ; it 
 would like to have a God for itself alone. An 
 idol would suit it still better, and, if a free course 
 were accorded to the desires of men, they would 
 claim powers for their national relics, for their 
 sacred images.* How many postulates which will 
 not be taken into account in the least ! Man 
 needs a God who shall be in conformity with his 
 planet, his century, his country : does it follow 
 that such a God exists ? Man has need of per- 
 sonal immortality : does it follow that this immor- 
 tality exists? In other words, man is in despair 
 at forming part of an infinite world in which he 
 counts for zero. A paradise composed of a de- 
 cillion of beings is not at all the little family para- 
 dise, where people know each other, where they 
 continue to be neighborly, to barter and intrigue 
 together. God must be petitioned to contract the 
 world, to put Copernicus in the wrong, to bring us 
 back to the cosmos of -the Campo Santo of Pisa, 
 surrounded by nine choirs of angels, and held in 
 the arms of Christ. 
 
 Thus we arrive at this strange result, that 
 
 * This is why vulgar devotion goes further in the case of 
 the saints than with God. Pure deism will never be the relig- 
 ion of the people ; in fact the deist and the common herd do 
 not adore the same God. There exists here a certain mis- 
 understanding, with which a certain philosophy has been able 
 to cover itself in time of war, but over which it must cherish 
 a scruple in time of peace.
 
 ERA'EST RENAN. 3 2 5 
 
 immortality is, a priori, the most necessary of 
 dogmas and, a posteriori, the most feeble. Like 
 the ant or the bee, we work from instinct at com- 
 mon tasks, whose bearing we do not see. The 
 bees would cease their toil, if they read articles 
 which told them that their honey would be taken 
 from- them, that they would be killed in recompense 
 for their toil. Man goes on still in spite of his sic 
 vos non vobis this do ye, but not for yourselves. 
 We see neither that which is above us, nor that 
 .which is beneath us. "We are the chain-gang," 
 a man of superior mind said to me. The divine 
 intentions are obscure. We are one of the mil- 
 lions of fellahs who worked at the Pyramids. 
 The result is the Pyramid. The work is anony- 
 mous, but it lasts ; each one of the workmen lives 
 in it. What would really not be unjust, is what the 
 factory workmen are demanding, that we should 
 be associated in the work of the universe in the 
 matter of participating in the profits, that we 
 should, at least, know something of the results of 
 our labors. Now, though admitted to the labors, 
 we are not admitted to the dividends, and even our 
 salary is very badly paid to us. Others would get 
 up a strike ; as for us, we go on just the same. 
 
 Upon the whole, the existence of a conscious- 
 ness superior to the universe is much more prob- 
 able than individual immortality. We have no 
 other foundation for our hopes in this respect than 
 the great presumption as to the goodness of the
 
 326 RECOLLECTIONS AND LETTERS OF 
 
 Supreme Being. Everything will be possible to 
 him one of these days. Let us hope that he will 
 then wish to be just, and that he will then restore, to 
 those who have contributed to the triumph, the con- 
 sciousness of life. This will be a miracle. But the 
 miracle, that is to say, the intervention of a Supe- 
 rior Being, which does not take place now, may 
 possibly, some day, when God shall be conscious, 
 be the normal rule of the universe. The Judseo- 
 Christian dreams, placing the reign of God at the 
 termination of humanity, will still preserve their, 
 grandiose truth. The world, now governed by a 
 blind or impotent consciousness, may be governed 
 some day by a more thoughtful consciousness. 
 All injustice will then be repaired, all tears dried. 
 Absterget deus omnem lacryinam ab oculis eoruin God 
 shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. 
 
 The pearl oyster appears to me to be the best 
 image of the universe, and of the degree of con- 
 sciousness which we must assume in the whole. 
 At the bottom of the abyss, obscure germs create 
 a singular consciousness badly served by organs 
 yet tremendously clever in attaining its ends. 
 What is called a malady of their little living cosmos, 
 superinduces a secretion of ideal beauty, the pos- 
 session of which men dispute with each other at 
 cost of gold. The general life of the universe is, 
 like that of the oyster, vague, obscure, singularly 
 restricted, slow in consequence. Suffering creates 
 mind, intellectual and moral movement. Malady
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 327 
 
 of the world, if you will, pearl of the world in 
 reality, the mind is the goal, the final cause, the 
 last and certainly the most brilliant result of the 
 world which we inhabit. It is very probable that, 
 if there are ulterior results, they are of an in- 
 finitely more elevated order. 
 
 THE END.
 
 " " mil mn inn mil M mi |||| 
 
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