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Sainte-Beuve and America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Lander MacClintock
Lander MacClintock*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

In Sainte-Beuve's Volupté the hero, Amaury, upon sighting the shores of the New World at the end of his voyage from France, asks this rhetorical question: “Est-il vrai qu tu contiennes, ainsi qu'on en vient de toutes parts à le murmurer, la forme materielle que doivent revêtir les sociétés humaines à leur terme de perfection?” Volupté appeared in 1835 at a time when many French people were asking themselves this very question, when travelers by the thousands were crossing the Atlantic to have a look at this new democracy, which might possibly prove to be an antidote to “le mal europeen.” It was the time, in Robert Mahieu's phrase, of the “Third Discovery of America.” The enthusiasm for liberty which fifty years earlier had sent so many young French aristocrats to fight in Washington's army had somewhat changed its character and France, plagued by internal strife and reaction, was endeavoring to discover the answer to her problems in a knowledge of the young American republic.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , June 1945, pp. 427 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945

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References

Note 1 in page 427 Volupté, ii, 282.

Note 2 in page 427 Sainte-Beuve refers (Causeries du Lundi, vii, 415) to an epic of Daru, Washington ou la Liberté de l'Amérique, from which “on pourrait citer des vers honorables.” Certainly faint praise! He had also read Fontanes' Eloge de Washington. (See Chaueaubriand et son groupe littéraire, ii, 115, and Premiers Lundis, ii, 239.)

Note 3 in page 427 Portraits litteraires, ii, 141 ff. Based on Mémoires, correspondance et manuscrits du Général Lafayette (Paris, 1837).

Note 4 in page 427 Premiers Lundis, ii, 158, and Nouveaux Lundis, xi, 158. Based on Luce de Lancival, Mémoires militaires, historiques et politiques de Rochambeau (Paris, 1809).

Note 5 in page 427 Causeries du Lundi, iv, 287. Based on A. L. Biron (Duc de Lauzun), Mémoires (Paris, 1822).

Note 6 in page 427 Portraits litteraires, ii, 365. Based on de Ségur, Memoires, ou souvenirs et anecdotes (Paris, 1824–26).

Note 7 in page 428 Causeries du Lundi, ii, 377. The only edition of the Prince de Broglie's work in the B.N. catalogue is Deux Français aux Etats-Unis et dans la Nouvelle Espagne en 1782 (Paris, 1903). The two Frenchmen were De Broglie and de Ségur.

Note 8 in page 428 Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire, i, 251.

Note 9 in page 428 Ibid., i, 104, 127.

Note 10 in page 428 Ibid., i, 196.

Note 11 in page 428 Ibid., i, 130.

Note 12 in page 428 Causeries du Lundi, vii, 424.

Note 13 in page 428 Ibid., vii, 426.

Note 14 in page 428 Premiers Lundis, ii, 277. This book had been recently translated.

Note 15 in page 429 Ibid., ii, 128.

Note 16 in page 429 Ibid., ii, 277. Michel Chevalier, Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord (Bruxelles, 1827).

Note 17 in page 429 Ibid., ii, 277. When this essay was written Murat had published three books on America: Lettres d'un citoyen des Etats-Unis à un de ses amis en Europe (1830); Esquisse morale et politique des Etats-Unis (1832); Exposition des principes du gouvernement républicain tel qu'il a êtê perfectionné en Amérique (1833).

Note 18 in page 429 Nouveaux Lundis, xiii, 185. J. J. Ampère, Promenade en Amerique (1855).

Note 19 in page 429 Nouveaux Lund is, x, 262. The lettres appeared with the title “Huit mois en Amerique—1864–65.”

Note 20 in page 429 Premiers Lundis, ii, 277, on the first two volumes of De la Démocratic en Amérique; Causeries du Lundi, xv, 93, on Œuvres et correspondance inédites; and Nouveaux Lundis, x, 280, on Nouvelle correspondance inédite.

Note 21 in page 429 Sainte-Beuve, Correspondance avec Juste Olivier, p. 405, note. There is some doubt as to who issued this invitation. Séché says Agassiz invited Olivier, but the late Prof. E. P. Dargan maintained that it was Jared Sparks, then president of Harvard. See also Séché, Sainte-Beuve, ii, 129.

Note 22 in page 430 F. Baldensberger, “La Collaboration commencée par Sainte-Beuve à l'Evening Post de New York,” Revue de littérature comparée, viii (1928), 179.

Note 23 in page 430 Volupté, ii, 274 and 282. See also Allem, Sainte-Beuve et Volupté (Paris, 1935), p. 112.

Note 24 in page 430 John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, i, 251 and iv, 148.

Note 25 in page 430 Nouvelle Correspondance, p. 327.

Note 26 in page 430 Life and Letters of George Ticknor (Boston, 1876), ii, 105.

Note 27 in page 430 J. Troubat, Souvenirs et Indiscretions, p. 305.

Note 28 in page 430 Nouvelle Correspondence, p. 327.

Note 29 in page 430 Correspondance, II, 90, 143, 269.

Note 30 in page 430 Portraits Contemporains, iii, 114. This was translated as Les Puritains d'Amérique in 1829.

Note 31 in page 430 Premiers Lundis, i, 290.

Note 32 in page 431 Translations were available for everything he mentions. The only evidence that he might have read some in English is a passage in the essay on Franklin, where he writes: “Je n'écris point la vie de Franklin, elle est écrite par lui-même, et, là où il s'arrete, il faut chercher la continuation dans l'excellent compl6ment qu'a publié M. Sparks et qu'on ferait bien de traduire.” Causeries du Lundi, vn, 148.

Note 33 in page 431 G. D. Morris, Feinmore Cooper et Edgar Poe, d'après la critique française du XIXme Siècle (Paris, 1912), p. 2.

Note 34 in page 431 Premiers Lundis, i, 288.

Note 35 in page 431 Ibid., i, 289.

Note 36 in page 431 Ibid., i, 290.

Note 37 in page 432 Ibid., i, 293.

Note 38 in page 432 Ibid., i, 294.

Note 39 in page 432 Nouveaux Lundis, vii, 180.

Note 40 in page 432 Translated by Mme Elise de Vellars. See Bonnerot, Correspondance generale de Sainte-Beuve, iii, 369.

Note 41 in page 432 Nouvelle Correspondance, p. 235.

Note 42 in page 432 This translation appeared in June, 1830. Correspondance générale, i, 535, note.

Note 43 in page 432 Correspondance Generale, ii, 535.

Note 44 in page 432 G. D. Morris, op. cit., p. 202.

Note 45 in page 432 Correspondance, i, 210.

Note 46 in page 432 Probably refers to the story “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion.”

Note 47 in page 432 Correspondance, i, 222.

Note 48 in page 433 Nouveaux Lundis, i, 401.

Note 49 in page 433 Ibid., xii, 23.

Note 50 in page 433 Premiers Lundis, ii, 124.

Note 51 in page 433 Causeries du Lundi, vii, 127. He used Jared Sparks' edition of The Works of Franklin (Boston, 1840). There had been several translations of parts of Franklin's writings issued previous to this and listed in the B.N. catalogue. A popular one was Melanges de Morale, d'Economic et de Politique extraits des ouvrages de Franklin (Paris, Renouard, 1824). This work had been reprinted several times.

Note 52 in page 433 Here is a list of Americans mentioned (usually in connection with one of these three); John Adams, Cranford, Gallatin, Jackson, John Paul Jones, General Knox, Samuel Kirchval, Robert Livingston, Madison, Monroe, Gouverneur Morris, William Penn, Dr. Priestly, Roger Sherman, General Sullivan.

Note 53 in page 433 First in 1828 (Premiers Lundis, i, 293), the last in 1865 (Nouveaux Lundis, x, 36).

Note 54 in page 433 Premiers Lundis, ii, 150.

Note 55 in page 433 Ibid., ii, 150.

Note 56 in page 433 Nouveaux Lundis, x, 36.

Note 57 in page 433 Causeries du Lundi, i, 326.

Note 58 in page 433 Premiers Lundis, ii, 131.

Note 59 in page 433 Ibid., ii, 136.

Note 60 in page 434 Ibid., ii, 161.

Note 61 in page 434 Jared Sparks (ed), The Works of Franklin (Boston, 1840).

Note 62 in page 434 Port Royal, iii, 360.

Note 63 in page 434 Nouveaux Lundis, ii, 274.

Note 64 in page 434 Causeries du Lundi, ii, 322.

Note 65 in page 434 Portraits de Femmes, p. 318.

Note 66 in page 434 Nouveaux Lundis, iv, 265.

Note 67 in page 434 Causeries du Lundi, xi, 278.

Note 68 in page 434 Nouveaux Lundis, xi, 383. See also C. Guyot, Notes inédites de Sainte-Beuve (Université de Neuchàtel, 1931), notes 99, 295, 354, 770.

Note 69 in page 435 Premiers Lundis, ii, 135.

Note 70 in page 435 Nouveaux Lundis, x, 327.

Note 71 in page 435 R. Mahieu, Les Enquêteurs français aux Etats-Unis, de 1830 d 1837 (Paris, 1934).

Note 72 in page 435 Introduction to reprint of Sainte-Beuve, Thomas Jefferson et Tocqueville (Princeton, 1943).

Note 73 in page 436 Nouveaux Lundis, x, 327.