A Distinguished Provincial at ParisBalzac, Honoré de
General
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Balzac, Honoré de
France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
With these two, both marked by death, and unknown to-day in spite of
their wide knowledge and their genius, stands a third, Michel Chrestien,
the great Republican thinker, who dreamed of European Federation, and
had no small share in bringing about the Saint-Simonian movement of
1830. A politician of the calibre of Saint-Just and Danton, but simple,
meek as a maid, and brimful of illusions and loving-kindness; the owner
of a singing voice which would have sent Mozart, or Weber, or Rossini
into ecstasies, for his singing of certain songs of Béranger’s could
intoxicate the heart in you with poetry, or hope, or love—Michel
Chrestien, poor as Lucien, poor as Daniel d’Arthez, as all the rest
of his friends, gained a living with the haphazard indifference of
a Diogenes. He indexed lengthy works, he drew up prospectuses for
booksellers, and kept his doctrines to himself, as the grave keeps the
secrets of the dead. Yet the gay bohemian of intellectual life, the
great statesman who might have changed the face of the world, fell as a
private soldier in the cloister of Saint-Merri; some shopkeeper’s bullet
struck down one of the noblest creatures that ever trod French soil, and
Michel Chrestien died for other doctrines than his own. His Federation
scheme was more dangerous to the aristocracy of Europe than the
Republican propaganda; it was more feasible and less extravagant than
the hideous doctrines of indefinite liberty proclaimed by the young
madcaps who assume the character of heirs of the Convention. All who
knew the noble plebeian wept for him; there is not one of them but
remembers, and often remembers, a great obscure politician.
Esteem and friendship kept the peace between the extremes of hostile
opinion and conviction represented in the brotherhood. Daniel d’Arthez
came of a good family in Picardy. His belief in the Monarchy was quite
as strong as Michel Chrestien’s faith in European Federation. Fulgence
Ridal scoffed at Léon Giraud’s philosophical doctrines, while Giraud
himself prophesied for d’Arthez’s benefit the approaching end of
Christianity and the extinction of the institution of the family. Michel
Chrestien, a believer in the religion of Christ, the divine lawgiver,
who taught the equality of men, would defend the immortality of the soul
from Bianchon’s scalpel, for Horace Bianchon was before all things an
analyst.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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