Rameau's Nephew and First Satire (Oxford World's Classics) (19 page)

You make yourself ridiculous, but you’re neither ignorant nor silly, even less are you bad, for seeing nothing beyond your own concerns.

Imagine me tormented by regular attacks of vomiting; I spew forth gallons of a caustic, clear liquid. I’m frightened, and send for Thierry. The Doctor smiles as he examines the fluid that has issued from my mouth and fills an entire bowl … ‘Well, Doctor, what’s wrong with me?’ ‘You’re a most fortunate man; you’ve restored to us the vitreous phlegm of the Ancients, which we’d lost …’ I smile in my turn, and think no better, and no worse, of Doctor Thierry.

There are so many, many cries intrinsic to a man’s occupation, that even someone more patient than you would be utterly exhausted, were I to tell you of all those that come to mind as I write. When a monarch, who personally commands his forces, says to his officers after they abandon an attack in which they would all have perished uselessly:
What were you born for, if not to die
?. . . he is uttering a cry of his profession.

When some grenadiers beg their general to show mercy to one of their brave comrades who’s been caught plundering, and say:
General, give him to us. You would put him to death; we know a more severe punishment for a grenadier: he shall not take part in the first battle you win …
, they speak with the eloquence of their profession, a sublime eloquence! Woe betide the man with the heart of bronze who is not swayed by it! Tell me, my friend, would you have had him hanged, that soldier who was so well defended by his comrades? No. Nor would I.

Sire, that canonball! … What’s that cannonball to do with the dispatch I’m dictating? … It’s blasted my mess bowl to bits, but it hadn’t any rice in it
. The question was asked by a king,
*
the
response uttered by a soldier, but they were both brave men; neither was a creature of the state.

Were you present when the castrato Caffarelli filled us with a rapture greater than anything that your fervour, Demosthenes, or your melodious cadences, Cicero, or your lofty genius, Corneille, or your tenderness, Racine, ever inspired in us? No, my friend, you were not present. What a lot of time we’ve wasted, what a lot of pleasure we’ve missed through not knowing one another! Caffarelli sang, and we were dazed with admiration. I turned to the famous naturalist Daubenton with whom I was sharing a sofa. ‘Well, Doctor, what do you think of him?’ ‘His legs are frail, his knees rounded, his thighs heavy, his hips broad; possibly a being deprived of the organs that characterize his sex tends to mimic the bodily structure of the opposite sex …’ ‘But that heavenly music! …’ ‘Not a single hair on his chin!’ ‘That exquisite taste, that pathos-filled sense of the sublime, that voice!’ ‘It’s a woman’s voice.’ ‘It’s the most beautiful, balanced, supple, true, soul-stirring voice …’ While the
virtuoso
was making us weep, d’Aubenton was studying him with a naturalist’s eye.

The man wholly dedicated to his calling, if he has genius, becomes a prodigy; if he has no genius, then unwavering application raises him above the common level of mediocrity. Happy the society in which every man keeps himself occupied with his own calling and with that alone! He whose glance attempts to encompass everything sees nothing, or sees imperfectly; he interrupts constantly, and contradicts the man who is speaking, and who has observed accurately.

I can hear you from here, you’re saying to yourself: God be praised! I’d had quite enough of those cries of nature, of passion, of character, of profession: finally I’ve heard the last of them … You’re wrong, my friend. After citing so many impolite or idiotic remarks, I’m asking your patience for one or two that are different. ‘Chevalier, how old are you?’ ‘Thirty.’ ‘I’m twenty-five; well, you’d love me for sixty years or so, it’s not worth beginning, for so short a time …’ ‘That must be a prude speaking.’ ‘And your response is that of a man with no principles, it’s the reaction of
joy, of wit, and of virtue. Each sex has its own language; the man’s has neither the lightness, nor the delicacy, nor the sensitivity of the woman’s. The one seems always to command and to affront, the other to complain and to entreat … And now for the words of the celebrated Muret, and then I’ll move on to other topics.

Muret falls ill while travelling, and is taken to hospital. He’s placed in a bed beside the litter of an unfortunate victim of one of those maladies that mystify practitioners of the healing arts. The doctors and surgeons confer about his condition. One of the consultants suggests an operation that is equally as likely to kill as to cure the patient. Opinions are divided. They are inclining towards letting Nature determine the fate of the sick man, when one of them, bolder than his colleagues, says:
Faciamus experimentum in anima vili
. That is the cry of the wild animal. But from within the curtains which surround Muret comes the cry of the man, the philosopher, the Christian:
Tanquam foret anima vilis, illa pro qua Christus non dedignatus est mori
. . .
*
Muret’s words prevented the operation, and the patient recovered.

To this medley of the cries of nature, of passion, of character, of profession, add the distinctive timbre of the national character, and you will hear the aged Horace say of his son:
That he should
die,
*
and the Spartans say of Alexander:
Since he wishes to be God, let him be God
,
*
These words do not reveal the character of a single man, but the general character of a nation.

I shall say nothing of the mind and manners of the clergy, nobility, and magistrature. Each has its own style of commanding, entreating, and complaining. This style is traditional. Individual members can be base or grovelling, but the class as a whole preserves its dignity. The remonstrances of our historical assemblies, however, have not always been masterpieces, although Thomas, that most eloquent man of letters, that loftiest, most admirable of souls, would not have signed his name to them; he would not have settled for something inferior, he would have gone beyond.

All this is why, my dear friend, I shall never be in a hurry to enquire about a newcomer to a social group. Such a question is often impolite, and almost always useless. With a little patience,
you avoid troubling either the master or the mistress of the house, and you allow yourself the pleasure of guessing.

These precepts did not originate with me, but were given me by a very astute man
*
who demonstrated their application, in my presence, at Mademoiselle D***’s,
*
the night before I set off on that immense journey which I undertook in spite of your objections.
*
During the course of the evening a gentleman arrived whom my friend did not know; this person spoke quietly, carried himself easily, expressed himself elegantly, and behaved with chilly politeness. ‘This man,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘is someone attached to the Court …’ Then he observed that, almost invariably, he kept his right hand upon his chest, fingers together and nails facing out … ‘Aha!’ he added, ‘he’s an exempted officer of the Lifeguards, all that’s missing is his baton.’ Shortly afterwards, the man in question told a little story. ‘There were four of us,’ he said, ‘Madame and Monsieur Such-and-such, Madame de ***, and myself.’ Whereupon my instructor continued: ‘Now I have the full picture. My man’s married, the woman whom he mentioned third is surely his wife, and he’s given me his own name in naming her.’

We left Mademoiselle D***’s house together. It was not yet too late to take a walk; he suggested a stroll round the Tuileries and I agreed. As we walked, he made many subtle, penetrating observations, expressing himself in language that was equally so; but as I’m a very plain, straightforward man, and the subtlety of his remarks obscured their true meaning for me, I begged him to clarify them with a few examples. Limited minds require examples. He was kind enough to comply, and said:

‘I was dining one day as a guest of the Archbishop of Paris. I know few of the people who frequent the Archbishop, a fact which troubles me little; however, one’s neighbour, the person seated beside one at table, is quite another matter. One has to know with whom one is conversing, and to succeed in this one only has to let him talk, and then piece the evidence together. I had someone on my right to decipher. In the first place, the Archbishop spoke to him only rarely, and then rather curtly;
either he’s not devout, I thought, or else he’s a Jansenist ... A passing remark about the Jesuits told me that the latter was the case. A loan was being negotiated for the clergy, and I used the opportunity to question my man about the resources of the church. He gave me a full and detailed account of them, complained that the church was overtaxed, lashed out against the Minister of Finance, and added that he’d had it out in no uncertain terms in 1750 with the Comptroller of Taxes. I then realized that he’d been Agent to the clergy. In the course of the conversation he led me to understand that, had he wished it, he could have become a bishop; I supposed he must be well-born. However, as he boasted, more than once, of an elderly uncle who was a Lieutenant-General, but didn’t breathe a word about his father, I deduced that he was a
parvenu
who’d made a blunder. He recounted scandalous stories involving a number of bishops, a clear indication that he possessed a malicious tongue. He went on to tell me that, in spite of intense competition, he’s succeeded in getting his brother named as Administrator of ***. You’ll agree that, had I been informed, on taking my seat at the table, that he was a Jansenist, humbly born, arrogant and scheming, that he hated his colleagues and that they hated him, in short that he was the Abbé of ***, I wouldn’t have learnt anything more than what I discovered, and I’d have been deprived of the pleasure of discovery.’

The crowds on the Grande Allée
*
were beginning to lessen. My companion pulled out his watch and said to me: ‘It’s getting late, I’ll have to leave you, unless you’d care to join me for supper.—Where?—Near here, at Mademoiselle Arnoud’s.—I’m not acquainted with her.—Must one be acquainted with a courtesan to go to her house for supper? In any case, she’s a charming creature, who’s quite at home both with her own kind and with people of fashion. Do come, you’ll enjoy yourself.—Thank you, but no; however, I’m going in that direction, so I’ll keep you company as far as the cul-de-sac Dauphin …—We set off, and on the way he repeated to me some of Arnoud’s cynical witticisms, and some of her artless, sensitive remarks. He told me of
all the regulars he met there, adding a comment about each one … Applying to this same man the principles that he had given me, I saw that he frequented both high society and low company.—Doesn’t he write verse, you ask?—Very good verse.—Wasn’t he a friend of Field-Marshal de Richelieu?
*
—A close friend.—Isn’t he paying his addresses to the Countess d’Egmont?—Assiduously.—Isn’t there some story or other about him? …—Yes, something that happened in Bordeaux, but I don’t believe it. People here are so spiteful, they circulate so many stories, there are so many rogues who want to bring everyone down to their own level!—Has he read you his
Russian Revolution?
*
—Yes.—What do you think of it?—I think it’s a historical novel that’s quite well written and very interesting, a blend of lies and truths that our descendants will liken to a chapter of Tacitus.

And now you’ll tell me that instead of having elucidated a passage from Horace, I’ve very nearly given you a satire in the style of Persius.
*
—That’s right.—And you think I’m going to let you off with that?—No.

You know Burigny?—Who doesn’t know that honourable and learned old man, who is Madame Geoffrin’s faithful disciple? He’s very good, and very learned.—A bit odd.—Yes, I agree.—Highly inept.—And all the better for it. One should always provide a little absurdity for the entertainment of one’s friends … So? What of Burigny?—I was chatting to him, I don’t recall about what. In the course of our exchange I chanced to touch on his favourite topic, erudition, whereupon my learned friend interrupted me, and launched into a digression that just went on and on.—He does that all the time, and never without one learning something as a result.—And I learned that a passage of Horace that I’d thought rather gloomy and dull, was full of natural charm and exquisite subtlety.—Which passage?—The one where the poet maintains that he won’t be denied an indulgence that was certainly accorded to his compatriot Lucilius.
*
Whether Lucilius was Apulian or Lucanian, says Horace,
*
I’ll follow in his footsteps.—I understand, and it’s into the mouth of Trebatius, whose favourite text Horace has mentioned, that you put the long
discussion on the early history of both countries. That was very good, very perceptive.—How credible do you find it, the poet knowing all those facts? And even if he knew them, that he should be so lacking in taste as to abandon his topic and launch into the tedious minutiae of ancient history!—My thoughts exactly.—Horace says:
Sequor hunc, Lucanus an Apulus
. The learned Trebatius takes both sides, and says to Horace: ‘Let’s be entirely clear. You’re neither from Apulia nor Lucano, you’re from Venosa, and you labour in both vineyards. You’ve replaced the Sabellians, after they were expelled. Your ancestors were put there as a barrier to halt the incursions of the Lucanians and the Apulians. They filled that vacuum, and kept our territory safe against two violent enemies. At least, that’s according to a very old tradition.’—The learned Trebatius, ever learned, instructs Horace in the outdated chronicles of his country. The learned Burigny, ever learned, elucidates a difficult passage in Horace for me, by interrupting me exactly in the way the poet was interrupted by Trebatius.—And you yourself use that as an excuse to treat me to a lengthy disquisition about cries of nature and expressions of passion, character and profession?—Quite true. Horace’s addiction is writing verse, Trebatius’s and Burigny’s is discussing ancient history, mine is moralizing, and yours …—You don’t have to tell me, I know what mine is.—Then I’ll say no more. My best to you, and to all our friends of the Rue Royale
*
and the Cour de Marsan;
*
keep me in your thoughts, as I do you in mine.