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THE PROSE WRITINGS OF ANDRE CHENIER.*

EVERY one at all conversant with French literature has heard of the young poet, who "struck his lyre at the foot of the scaffold," and whose last verses were inter

rupted by the summons of the executioner. It is not so generally known that this man was one of the most vigorous, independent, and sagacious writers of the exciting period at which he lived. The first feeling on reading his political essays is one of surprise, that writers on the French Revolution should have alluded to him only as the poet-or rather the youth who would have been a poet, had he not perished so young. Even his cousin, M. Thiers, while going so far as to call him a distinguished poet, makes not the least mention of his controversial writings.

Now in this we are persuaded that Chénier has not been fairly treated. His poetry, rough and fragmentary as most of it is, does not put him very high on Parnassus-even the Gallic Parnassus. His longer productions are principally imitations of the classics; and everybody knows what French imitations of the classics are, and that they resemble the Greek originals about as much as the domestic madonnas, so common in a certain city of this Union, do the Raphaels at Florence. To our mind the man who could translate

ἀλλάλαις λαλοῦνται τέον γάμον &ι κυπάρισσαι,

C'est ce bois qui de joie et s'agite et murmure,

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"Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zéphyre," &c.,

owe their celebrity more to the unexampled circumstances under which they were written, than to any intrinsic merit. And, generally, his "rough sketches," (ébauches,) as Thiers appropriately calls them, have been praised by his compatriots, chiefly for the promise they gave, as if, to use his own dying words, he "had something in his head," which would have come out with more time and opportunity. Now this sort of reputation is, we repeat it, very And we far below Chénier's deserts. would vindicate for him, not the vague and doubtful renown of a possible poet, but the real and tangible character of an excellent political writer, with a strong and clear style, an indomitable spirit of independence, and a sagacity which, considering the circumstances in which he was placed, is but faintly depicted by the epithet extraordinary. Before proceeding to justify this claim of ours in detail, we will mention two facts which may, at any rate, tend to gain us a hearing. It was André Chénier whom the conservative secession from the Jacobin Club, selected to prepare their manifesto and profession of faith. It was Andre Chénier who composed that letter in which the unfortunate Louis XVI. made his last appeal to the people.

Louis Chenier, a French consul, married a Greek beauty. His third son, Andre, was born at Constantinople, in 1762. Sent to France in his infancy, and liberally educated, he entered the army, and at the age of twenty was in quarters at Strasburg as a sub-lieutenant. A soldier's life, in time of peace, is particularly unsatisfactory to an active and ambitious young man. In six months Andre quitted his profession forever, and returned to Paris. There he began to study furiously. He seems to have proposed for himself what Chatham is said to have proposed for his son, "to learn the whole Cyclopædia," As is usual

in such cases, he read himself nearly to death. His health was partially restored by a journey in Switzerland, during which he made some efforts to commit his impressions to paper; but his enthusiasm was too buoyant to be thus fixed, and he

ably for the new government that is preparing for them. All imagine they have acquired the right of co-operating in the government, and demand the exercise of that right with an unreasonable impatience. Every one wishes, not merely to assist and protect, but even to preside over a part, at least, of the fabric; and as the general interest of these partial reforms is not so striking to the multitude, their unanimity is less thorough and active. The number of feet retards the general progress; the number of arms the general action.

had not sufficient command over his own
feelings. Next he went to England, in the
suite of the ambassador, (the Count of Lu-
cerne,) a
of taming any ex-
likely way
very
cess of spirits. With England he was dis-
pleased, as most foreigners, and especially of
most Frenchmen, may well be on short ac-
quaintance. Yet his penetrating mind
fully appreciated the strong common sense
of the English people; and the contrast
which he subsequently drew between the
political clubs of London and those of
Paris, was not at all flattering to his coun-
trymen.

It was not till 1790 that he established himself at Paris, and applied himself seriously to poetic composition. The state of public affairs soon turned his talents in another direction. The Friends of the Constitution, afterwards so formidable as the Jacobins, had in their progress towards anarchy, eliminated from themselves a number of moderate men, among whom were De Pauge and Condorcet. The result was the Society of 1789, a society whose object was pretty well indicated by its title. Chénier joined these men, and to him as the best or boldest, or both, of their writers, was the task assigned of putting forth an official statement of their principles, of "defining their position," as our phrase is. This he did in an essay on the momentous question, Who are the real enemies of the French?" He begins with a graphic sketch of the condition of France at that time :

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"When a great nation, after having grown gray in careless error, wearied at length of evils and oppression, wakes from this long lethargy, and by a just and lawful insurrection enters upon all its rights, and overturns the order of things which violated all those rights, it cannot in an instant find itself calmly established in its new condition. The strong impulse given to so weighty a mass, makes it vacillate for some time before it can recover its equilibrium. After all that is bad has been destroyed, and those charged with the execution of reforms are pursuing their work in haste, we must not hope that a people still heated with emotion, and exalted by success, can stay quiet and wait peace

"In this state of uncertainty, politics take hold every mind. All other labors are suspended ;

all the old-fashioned kinds of industry are banished; men's heads are heated; they originate ideas, or follow those of others; they pursue them; they see nothing else; the patriots who at first made but one body, because they looked to but one end, begin to discover differences, in most cases imaginary, among themselves; every one labors and struggles; every one wishes to show himself; every one would carry the flag ; every one in his principles, his speeches, his actions, wishes to go beyond all others.

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"These agitations, provided that a new order of things, wisely and promptly established, does not give them time to go too far, may not be injurious, nay, may turn out a public benefit, by exciting a sort of patriotic emulation; and if while all this is going on, the nation is enlightening and fashioning itself by really liberal principles; if the representatives of the people are not interrupted in the work of forming a constitution; and if the whole political machine is tending towards a good government, all these trifling inconveniences will vanish of themselves, and there is no cause for alarm. But if we see that, far from disappearing, the germs of political hatred are taking deeper root; if we see grave accusations and atrocious imputations multiplied at random; if we see everywhere a false spirit and false principles working blindly, as if by some fatality, in the most numerous class of citizens; if we see at the same moment in every corner of the empire illegal insurrections brought on in the same manner, founded on the same misapprehensions, defended by the same sophistries; if we see frequent appearances in arms on the part of that lowest class of the people, who, understanding nothing, having nothing, possessing no interest in anything, can only sell themselves to whoever will buy them; then such symptoms must be alarming."

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them!" The young conservative was a doomed man already.

be their nature." How accurately Chénier foresaw what would be the consequence of giving in to these people may be seen from the following extract :

He goes on to say that such a deplorable state of things must be owing to the machinations of some public enemies. Who are these enemies? Not the Austrians, "Now, as I was saying, is it not evident that, on the one hand, the workmen and day-laborers fatigued and exhausted by their own wars; of every class, who only live by constant and nor the English, "that nation about which steady work, abandoning themselves to this the Parisians talk so much and know so turbulent indolence, will no longer be able to little;' nor yet the emigrants. These last gain a subsistence, and before long, stimulated have been influenced by fear, prejudice by hunger, and the rage which hunger inspires, and ignorance. The surest way to bring will only think of seeking for money wherever them back and make them good citizens is they imagine it may be found? On the other to present such a spectacle of order and hand, it is hardly necessary to say that the farms and workshops thus abandoned will cease tranquillity as will show them that their to be capable of supplying that income of infears and prejudices are unfounded. But dividuals which alone makes the public income. even admitting their hostility, what can No more taxes then; consequently no more such a faction accomplish if the State is public service; consequently the upper classes united? And this leads to the first conreduced to misery and despair; the army disclusion, that the real public enemies are banded and pillaging the country; the infamy of a national bankruptcy accomplished and dethose causes which prevent the re-establish-clared; the citizens all in arms against each ment of public tranquillity. Now what are these causes? "Everything that has been done in this revolution, good or bad, is owing to writings: in them, perhaps, then, we shall find the source of the evils that threaten us." And, accordingly, he proceeds to show that these public enemies are the encouragers and apologists of popu lar excesses. After a hasty summary of these excesses, he exclaims, with a natural and virtuous indignation-" And to think that there are writers blood-thirsty or cowardly enough to come forward as the protectors and excusers of these murders! That they dare to abêt them! That they dare to point out this and that victim! That they have the audacity to give the name of popular justice to these horrible violations of all justice and all law! To be sure, the power of hanging, like all other powers, is ultimately referable to the people, but it is a frightful thing, if this is the only power which they are not willing to exercise by their representatives."

Then follow several pages of just and powerful invective against "those people to whom all law is burdensome, all restraint insupportable, all rule odious; people for whom an honest life is the most oppressive of yokes! They hated the old government, not because it was bad, but because it was a government; they will hate the new; they will hate all, whatever

Equally true this, at the present day.

other. No more taxes; consequently no more government; the National Assembly obliged to abandon its task, and put to flight; universal slaughter and conflagration; provinces, towns, and individuals mutually accusing one another of their common disasters; France torn to pieces by the convulsions of this incendiary anarchy."

There was no want of respectable persons to laugh at these alarms and pity the alarmists. Chénier has a word for these:

"I should like these persons, for our entire satisfaction, to deign to take pen in hand, and prove that these fermentations, these tempests, these continued pangs, have not the tendency which I attributed to them; that they do not produce a spirit of insubordination and want of discipline; or, if they please, that this spirit is not the most formidable enemy of law and liberty. I should like them also to show us what will become of France, if the bulk of the French people, wearied of their own indiscretions and the anarchy resulting from them, wearied of never arriving at the goal which they have themselves continually put further off, should come to believe that liberty is only to be found in disgust of liberty, and, as the remembrance of former evils is readily effaced, should end by regretting their old yoke of quiet degrada tion."

He proceeds to draw an important distinction :

"These same persons are never tired of repeating to us that things are preserved by the same means which have acquired them. If by

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obedience to the caprices of despots is called public order, under a free constitution founded on the national sovereignty, public order is the only safeguard of persons and property, the only support of the constitution.

this they mean that courage, activity and union | are as necessary to preserve liberty as to win it, nothing is more incontrovertible or more irrelevant; but if they understand that in both cases this courage, and activity, and union, are to manifest themselves in the same way and by the same actions, they are very much mistaken. The very contrary is the truth, for in destroy- "That there is no constitution, unless all ing and overthrowing a colossal and unjust the citizens are freed from every illegal repower, the more ardent and headlong our cour-straint, and cordially united to bear the age the more certain our success. But after

wards, when our ground is cleared and we have

to rebuild on extensive and durable foundations, when we must make after having unmade, then our courage should be the very reverse of what it was at first. It should be calm, prudent and deliberate; it should manifest itself only in wisdom, tenacity and patience; it should fear to resemble those torrents which ravage without fertilizing. Hence it follows that the

means which accomplished the Revolution, if they continue to be employed without addition or qualification, can only destroy its efficiency by hindering the constitution from being established. Hence again it follows that those wild pamphleteers, those unruly demagogues, who, enemies, as we have seen, of all government and all restraint, thundered against old abuses at the beginning of the Revolution, were then right enough,* for they found themselves for the moment united with all honest men in proclaiming the truths which have made us free; but that now they ought not to claim our confidence as a debt, or accuse our want of attention as a want of gratitude, while in using the same expressions and the same declamations against an absolutely new order of things, they are preaching an entirely different doctrine,

which would conduct us to a different end."

What remedies and safeguards are to be adopted? Popular errors are apt to arise from ignorance, rather than deliberate wickedness. The real principles of civil liberty must be carefully inculcated. Here are some of the things which every citizen ought to know and feel:

"That there can be no happiness and freedom in society without government and public order.

"That there can be no private wealth, unless the public revenue, or in other words, the public wealth, is secure.

"That the public wealth cannot be secure without public order.

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That, while in despotic states a blind

*An application of the same principle explains what has puzzled some good men-how Protestants may consistently join with skeptics in opposing the abuses of the Romish Church, where Romanism is the prevailing religion.

yoke of the law a yoke always light when all bear it equally.

"That every respectable nation respects itself.

That every nation which respects itself respects its own laws and magistrates.

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That there is no liberty without law. "That there is no law if one part of society, be it the majority or not, can forcibly assail and attempt to overthrow the former general wish which has made a law, without waiting for the times and observing the forms indicated by the constitution.

"That, as M. de Condorcet has very well shown in a late publication, when the constitution gives a legal way of reforming

a law which experience has shown to be faulty, insurrection against a law is the greatest crime of which a citizen can be guilty; for he thereby dissolves society so far as in him lies, and this is the real crime of treason.

"That there is no liberty if all do not obey the law, and if any one is obliged to obey anything except the law and its agents.

"That no one ought to be arrested, searched, examined, judged, or punished, except according to law and by the agents of the law.

"That the law is only applicable to actions, and that all inquisitions upon opinions and thoughts are no less violations of liberty when exercised in the name of the people, than when exercised in the name of tyrants."

If these brief sentences had been written at the present day; if they had appeared, for instance, in an article of the Courier and Enquirer, or our own Review, against the anti-renters, while it could not be denied that they expressed sound political views in a bold and forcible manner, it might be said that they contained nothing very striking or remarkable, but were only a succinct and vigorous statement of what all honest and sane men believed.

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