Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in FranceBrandes, Georg
History
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism
And thus it fell to Madame de Krüdener's lot to give practical proof
of what the rehabilitation of Christianity as authority meant. For it
was only as _authority_, as _power_, as _order_, that Christianity
was wanted. It was employed as the police, the army, the prisons
were employed, to keep everything quiet and support the principle of
authority. From the moment when it began to be regarded as a personal
matter, as a thing in itself, and to be practised in a manner which
threatened to produce social disturbances, from that moment it was
_disorder_, and the authorities expedited it, in the person of Madame
de Krüdener, as promptly as possible from frontier to frontier.[5]
[1] A manuscript of Chênedollé's, quoted by Sainte-Beuve in _Derniers
Portraits_, p. 290.
[2] Chateaubriand, _Congrès de Vérone_, i. 147.
[3] Sainte-Beuve, from the account of an eye-witness.
[4] Katerkamp, _Denkwürdigkeiten aus dem Leben der Fürstinn Amalia von
Galitzin_, Münster, 1828.
The best idea of her religious enthusiasm is to be gained from such a
production as the following beautiful little poem:--
GEBET DER LIEBE.
Liebe! lehre uns beten, dass uns erhöre die Liebe.
O der Liebe vereintes Gebet ist Quelle der Liebe,
Quelle des ewigen Lebens und unaussprechlicher Wonne!
Schwester, rufe mir zu: "O Bruder! Bitten der Liebe
Sende dem Vater für mich--ich sende Bitten der Liebe
Täglich dem Vater für dich." O Schwester! der Bitten nicht eine
Kann an die Liebe, von Liebe, für Liebe umsonst seyn.]
[5] Sources: Charles Eynard, _Vie de Madame Krüdener_, vols. i. and
ii.; Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits de Femmes; Derniers Portraits; Deutsche
Rundschau_ for November and December 1899.
IX
LYRIC POETRY: LAMARTINE AND HUGO
When the Hundred Days were over, and Louis XVIII, had returned for
the second time, a mixed feeling, in which melancholy was the chief
ingredient, took possession of the French people. Their king's first
return had partaken of the appearance of a recall by the nation. But,
seeing that he himself had made no attempt whatever to resist Napoleon
with the troops which remained faithful to him, it was not possible
to disguise the fact that he had been brought back by the bayonets of
foreign armies. Hence in the eyes of the great majority his second
accession bore the appearance of a humiliation inflicted upon France.
But, on the other hand, it meant the restoration of lawful liberty
after the terrible military despotism under which France had now sighed
for so many years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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