27 November 2015
A tale of two Françoises: Madame de Maintenon (1635-1719)
When little Françoise d’Aubigné came into the world on 27 November 1635, her future seemed unlikely to be dazzling. True, her paternal grandfather was the distinguished Huguenot poet and patriot Agrippa d’Aubigné, but his son Constant had proved a sore disappointment, and had ended up in prison for conspiring against Cardinal Richelieu. He had married the prison governor’s daughter Jeanne de Cardilhac with suspicious haste; Françoise was their last child, following two older brothers. At the time of her birth Constant was still in prison at Niort, and according to some sources she was actually born within the prison walls.
Even after Constant’s release in 1639, his profligacy made the family’s fortunes unstable, and in an attempt to restore them he swept his wife and children off to Martinique, hoping for a lucrative position in France’s Caribbean colonies. The venture foundered, their house burnt down, and Jeanne returned to France with her children in 1647 in such poverty that the two youngest were reduced to begging. Shortly afterwards Constant died, and Françoise and her brothers Constant and Charles were taken into the home of their Huguenot aunt and uncle Louise and Benjamin de la Villette. This happy interlude ended abruptly when the family of Françoise’s godmother Suzanne de Neuillant insisted that she should be raised in the Catholic faith of her baptism and educated in a convent.
However, Madame de Neuillant introduced Françoise to a wider social circle in Paris and brokered a marriage for her with the celebrated author and satirist Paul Scarron. The bride was 15 and her bridegroom 25 years older, but despite this, and the fact that he was grotesquely crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, their shared literary interests made for a stable marriage in which she nursed him until his death in 1652. His pension was continued by Anne of Austria, enabling Françoise to remain in the intellectual world of Paris, but when Louis XIV rescinded it in 1666 she was preparing to set out for Lisbon in the retinue of the new Queen of Portugal when she was saved by an unlikely new friendship.
Portrait of Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon (1698), by Pierre Mignard (From Wikimedia Commons)
Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan, had been a lady-in-waiting before catching the eye of Louis XIV and displacing Louise de la Vallière as his official mistress. She had dropped her homely Christian name in favour of the more ambitious Athénaïs as a member of the intellectual précieuses, and in these circles met Françoise, took a liking to her, and persuaded Louis to restore her pension. As the relationship with the king bore fruit, ‘la veuve Scarron’ was appointed to care for the growing brood of illegitimate royal children in a house in the Rue de Vaugirard. Discretion was taken to such extremes that even essential workmen were rarely admitted, and the practical Françoise found herself hanging pictures and curtains and even turning her hand to plumbing when a leak threatened to flood the house.
However, not only constant child-bearing but an excessive fondness for the pleasures of the table (both feasting and gaming) and the bottle would prove the downfall of Athénaïs. Jean Teulé’s lively novel Le Montespan (English translation Monsieur Montespan: London, 2010; H.2012/.5122) vividly depicts her taste for fine clothing, her audacious hairstyle, and her capricious nature, which the king found increasingly wearing. Allegations that she was involved in the Affair of the Poisons did nothing to help her cause, and in 1691 she retired to a convent.
Meanwhile Françoise had become governess to the royal children at Saint-Germain following their legitimation in 1673, and was rewarded by the king with the wherewithal to buy an estate at Maintenon the following year. In 1675 she was granted the title of Marquise de Maintenon, by which she is generally known. Louis appreciated her serene and steadfast temperament, and by the late 1670s had grown to enjoy her witty and well-informed conversation more and more. His Queen, Marie-Thérèse, also benefited from the calmer atmosphere at court following Madame de Montespan’s departure in 1680.
Inevitably detractors were eager to attach scandal to the Marquise’s name, and anonymous satires appeared, including La Cassette ouverte de l’illustre Criole, ou les Amours de Madame de Maintenon (1694; 1480.a.6.(1.), possibly by Pierre Le Noble, and Scarron aparu à Madame de Maintenon et les reproches qu’il lui fait sur ses amours avec Louis le Grand, in which the ghost of Scarron materializes to upbraid his widow for her unseemly familiarity with the king.
Scarron aparu à Madame de Maintenon et les reproches qu’il lui fait sur ses amours avec Louis le Grand (Cologne, 1694) 8005.a.37.
By this time, though, Louis had legitimized not only his children but his relationship with their former governess. Not long after the death of the Queen in 1683, he married Madame de Maintenon in a private ceremony conducted at midnight by the Archbishop of Paris. Their unequal rank meant that the marriage could only be morganatic and was never officially announced, but it provided both, now well into their forties, with an emotional security and true companionship hitherto lacking in their lives. Her lack of a formal position as queen made her more approachable, and she exerted a considerable and largely benign influence on Louis, who admired her good judgment and shared her religious as well as her cultural interests. Among devotional works dedicated to her, the British Library holds the anonymous Réflections sur quelques parolles de Jésus-Christ.
Réflections sur quelques parolles de Jésus-Christ... (Paris, 167?) RB.23.a.36014
Notable among her enterprises was the school for impoverished girls of noble birth which Madame de Maintenon founded at Saint-Cyr. Planning a theatrical performance by the pupils, she commissioned Jean Racine to write two plays on edifying themes, Esther and Athalie, for them with great success, though not surprisingly there were those who insinuated that the first suggested the rivalry between Mesdames de Maintenon and Montespan in the virtuous Esther’s displacement of the scheming Queen Vashti. Her experience as a royal governess equipped her ideally for her work with her young protégées, who regarded her with great affection. When Louis died in 1715, she retired to Saint-Cyr, where she died in 1719 and was buried in its chapel. In an age whose pursuit of celebrity cults rivals that of the 21st century, her discretion, resourcefulness, wit and tact prevailed over more obvious attractions, and have much to teach us today.
Susan Halstead, Content Specialist (Humanities and Social sciences), Research Engagement.
23 November 2015
1267 Shots Later
The Stefan Zweig Collection of manuscripts, donated to the British Library in 1986, has been described as ‘the most important and valuable donation made to the Library in the 20th century’. The manuscripts are not those of Zweig’s own works but a selection of the autograph manuscripts of great composers, writers and historical figures which Zweig collected throughout his life. A catalogue of the music manuscripts was published in 1999 and these have all been digitised. Now it is the turn of the literary and historical manuscripts. A digitisation programme was begun in early 2015, and nearly all of the manuscripts can now be viewed via the Library’s Digitised Manuscripts catalogue. A printed catalogue is due for publication in 2016, and the full catalogue descriptions will also be found online. In this post, Pardaad Chamsaz, a collaborative PhD student working on the collection, considers the challenges involved in digitising Honoré de Balzac’s proof copy of his novel Une ténébreuse affaire, with its myriad corrections and editions.
When the first marked page of the corrected proof for Balzac’s Une ténébreuse affaire (British Library Zweig MS 133) prosaically gives its title, author and status as “épreuves”, we may linger on this last word, as it signals both its stage in the writing process as well as the “test” that its reading threatens. This innocuous page sits on top of a pile of over 600 sheets, both typed and handwritten, where the typescript is aggressively handled and manipulated, so that the physical struggle for the work is eternalised on the underbelly of its published variant.
The unassuming first leaf of Une ténébreuse affaire
This unassuming opening faced the Imaging Studio team, as Une ténébreuse affaire was delivered for digitisation earlier this year. They were all too aware of the “test” they were about to embark on. Indeed, translations for épreuve include equivalents such as “hardship”, “ordeal”, “trial” – words not inappropriate to the task at hand. Once the conflict of logistics around when to attempt the digitisation was resolved (the difference between the “let’s leave it until the end of the project” and “let’s get it out of the way” schools of thought – both implying trepidation), the photographer entered the proof, labelled by its collector, Stefan Zweig, as a ‘Höllenlabyrinth von Korrekturen’, an infernal labyrinth of corrections.
The ‘infernal labyrinth’ within: f. 18 of Une ténébreuse affaire
Zweig considered the proof as a key document in his collection that could provide immense insights into the secret of literary creation. When Zweig purchased the item in 1914, he wrote in his diary that as soon as he saw it in the famous Parisian antiquarian bookseller, Blaisot, he bought it ‘lightning-quick, rashly, greedily, in spite of feeling like I might have overpaid’. Now, the library’s Zweig MS 133 is one of the most unique and complete examples of a Balzac corrected proof outside of the Spoelberch de Lovenjoul collection in the library of the Institut de France in Paris.
This mass of workings around the detective novel’s ever more complex intrigue, contains printed pages of uneven lengths and widths overlain with thick handwritten corrections, often with an indecipherable set of symbols linking old and new text. The reader will find slips of paper glued onto some pages to indicate replacement text, as well as, from the very beginning of the “labyrinth”, around 200 inserted small leaves of manuscript additions. It was rumoured that Balzac would go through this correction process 10-15 times for each work, and Zweig was in awe of how Balzac’s physical work was so tangible in these proofs.
Just as Zweig senses the artist wrestling with their art, like Jacob with the angel, the photographer fought with our corrected proof, unfolding its pages, pinning it down (for the count), before focusing the camera (one, two…) and shooting it still… only to turn the page and for the battle to recommence. ‘Jedes Blatt ein Schlachtfeld’, every page a battlefield, in the words of Zweig. Weeks of labour, in Balzac’s rewriting, in Zweig’s reading, in our digitizing. If the corrected proof opens a door onto the workshop of the writer, where, in the stroke and the trace of the ink, we experience the fugitive presence of the hand manically at work, we should retrace our digitisation in the same way and detail the actions behind the stillness of a photo.
Balzac pinned down (photo: Pardaad Chamsaz)
Balzac fights back (photo: Pardaad Chamsaz)
Balzac captured on the Imaging Technician’s screen (photo: Pardaad Chamsaz)
With the majority of the manuscripts in the Stefan Zweig Collection now digitised and available online, we are presented with an awkward idea: the unique material object, with which Zweig experienced the writing process, has lost its materiality through its digital cloning. No longer the actual trace, the photograph becomes, in the words of Sonja Neef, an ‘imprint of a trace’, a step away from the unique encounter. In the same way as Zweig draws attention to the “underground” compositional stages of writing, perhaps, by re-embodying the digitisation process, we can give the screen shot the texture it deserves.
Pardaad Chamsaz Collaborative Doctoral Student
References:
Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von gestern. (Frankfurt, 1955). F10/3573
Oliver Matuschek, Ich kenne den Zauber der Schrift: Katalog und Geschichte der Autographensammlung Stefan Zweig, (Vienna, 2005). YF.2006.a.13265
Sonja Neef Imprint and Trace: handwriting in the age of technology (London, 2011). YC.2011.a.14184
19 November 2015
From Poetry to Songs: Hare, Rabbit and Sirens in Apollinaire’s Bestiary
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) moved to Paris and started publishing poems, articles and art reviews in the 1900s. He was close to artists like Pablo Picasso, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck or le Douanier Rousseau. In 1911, he published a deluxe edition of his Bestiaire, in 120 copies, composed of 30 poems illustrated with engravings by Raoul Dufy. 18 of these poems had previously appeared in 1908 in the journal La Phalange, under the title ‘La marchande des quatre saisons ou le Bestiaire mondain’.
Mediaeval interest in bestiaries often resided less in the naturalistic and physical descriptions of the animals and their behaviour, often fanciful, than on their symbolic and allegorical level. Although Apollinaire does not put the emphasis on the didactic aspect of the bestiary, his work is infused with both Classical and Biblical or religious references. The poet, who chose his pseudonym after Apollo, God of Music and Poetry, gave his 1911 Bestiary, the subtitle ‘Cortege d’Orphée’. The collection of poems is introduced and guided by the character of Orpheus, emblem of the poet himself, who addresses directly the reader, drawing his attention to the text, the images, and the animals, in four poems introducing and accompanying the collection. The poet plays on the concept of the animal series and on the combination of text and engravings. He accentuates the brevity of each entry, as each poem is only formed of a quatrain.
The Hare, from Guillaume Apollinaire, Le bestiaire, ou Cortège d’Orphée, illustrated with woodcuts by Raoul Dufy (New York, 1977) LR.430.e.10
In medieval bestiaries, and at least since Isidore of Seville, the hare is characterised by its velocity, associated with timidity and fearfulness, while the rabbit is known both for its fertility and the fact that it is hunted by dogs. In Raoul Dufy’s engraving, a hare bouncing in an open field appears encircled in a medallion formed by a horn, while the frame is completed with gun and whip and with two hunting dogs. In Apollinaire’s poem, both the hare and the rabbit are associated with love, sexual intercourse and fertility. The poem is formulated as an advice to the reader, who should not be like the hare and the lover, both ‘lascif[s] et peureux’, but should aim to reach the fertility and productivity of the doe, transposed in the field of imagination and intellectual creativity: ‘Mais que toujours ton cerveau soit / La hase pleine qui concoit’.
As for the rabbit, it is presented by Apollinaire as a symbol for the beloved, and the archaic or literary use of the French word ‘connin’ for rabbit, reminds us of the medieval association of the animal with the female organ (‘con’), in the context of the love chase, an aspect often playfully illustrated in manuscript marginalia (as in this example).
François Chauveau, ‘Carte du Tendre’, from Madeleine de Scudéry, Clélie, Histoire romaine, première partie (Paris 1654) Paris, BNF, Cartes et Plans, GE F PIECE- 11777
The use of allegory in the bestiary is reinforced in ‘Le Lapin’ by Apollinaire’s reference to the 17th century engraving of the ‘Carte du Tendre’. In La Clélie, a romantic novel by Madame de Scudéry, this allegorical map provides a topographical representation of the country or journey of love with all its delights and pitfalls. In the 1911 Bestiaire, Dufy’s engraving shows the rabbit in front of a peaceful hilly countryside with plants and trees and a church in the background (below).
The only imaginary creature retained by Apollinaire is the siren, actually presented as a group: ‘les Sirènes’. They are preceded by a representation of Orpheus accompanied by a warning against flying Sirens (‘volantes Sirènes’, ‘oiseaux maudits’) and their deadly songs. In antiquity, they were half women half birds, reputed to charm sailors with their songs and lull them into sleep before killing them, but in the middle ages, sirens also started to be depicted and pictured as women with a fish tail.
Mediaeval Siren and Onocentaur (man/donkey hybrid), Bestiary, British Library MS Sloane 278. f. 147
The chant of Apollinaire’s Sirens can be contrasted with that of the poet, whose love and song has the power to raise Eurydice from the dead, or that of the pure and sexless angels in Paradise. In both the Orpheus and the Sirens’ engravings, the sirens bear female heads and breasts, but also wings and lion arms, their body ending in a tripartite fish tail in the second engraving. This maritime aspect is highlighted in the corresponding poem, where the enticing song of the temptresses gives way to wails founded in tediousness (‘ennui’).
Sirens from Apollinaire’s Bestiaire
The position of the poet himself becomes ambiguous when his identification with Orpheus leads to an association with the sirens, as he depicts himself as the sea, full of ‘vaissaux chantants’ and ‘voix machinées’, in a curious conflagration of the tricky and enticing sirens and the ships and crews which become their victims. While in Orpheus’ poem, death was associated with the sirens’ songs, in the sirens’ verses, age may account for the voices haunting the poet’s mind, and his experience may be related to the use and mastery of crafty devices in the range of his poetical work.
Orpheus from Apollinaire’s Bestiaire
After the First World War, without consultation, both Louis Durey and Francis Poulenc, members of the Groupe des six (a group of composers close to the poetic avant-garde circles, Jean Cocteau in particular) set Apollinaire’s Bestiaire to music. In 1919, Durey produced melodies for song and piano for the 26 animal poems of the Bestiaire (Music Collections G.1270.b.(16.)), while the four Orpheus sections remained spoken. A later version, produced in 1958, is set for voice and orchestra. Poulenc set 12 of Apollinaire’s poems to music, although following Georges Auric’s advice, he finally retained only six of them: Le Dromadaire, La Chèvre du Tibet, La Sauterelle, Le Dauphin, L’Ecrevisse and La Carpe, a work which gave him notoriety and had a long lasting success (Music Collections H.1846.kk.(2.)).
Record sleeve showing Le groupe des six (Le chant du monde, 1968); the recording includes Poulenc’s Bestiaire, sung by Irène Joachim
Later musical adaptations include Claude Ballif’s 30 poems for soprano or baritone and piano (1945-1948), Jean Absil’s Cinq petites pièces pour quatuor vocal mixte (1964), Alan Mills’ 6 poems for baritone and piano (1985) , John Carbon’s 3 poems for soprano, horn, cello and piano (2002), and Régis Campo’s 11 poems for soprano and orchestra (2008). The British Library Sound Archive holds many audio recordings of Poulenc’s songs (from the ‘Groupe des six’ to contemporary adaptations), several recordings of Durey’s Bestiaire and one of Absil’s, recorded by the Chorale universitaire de Grenoble, which can be listened to in the British Library Reading Rooms.
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Curator, Romance Collections
References / further reading
Francis Steegmuller, Apollinaire: Poet among the Painters (London, 1963).
David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle Ages (online resource)
Debra Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge, 1995). YC.1996.b.2164
Christian Heck and Cordonnier Rémy. Le bestiaire médiéval : l'animal dans les manuscrits enluminés (Paris, 2011) LF.31.b.9154
Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the End of the Middle Ages, ed. by Evelyn Antal and John Harthan (London, 1971). X.322/1206.
L'humain et l'animal dans la France médiévale (XIIe-XVe s.) = Human and animal in medieval France (12th-15th c.), sous la direction d'Irène Fabry-Tehranchi et Anna Russakoff. (Amsterdam, 2014) YF.2014.a.22449
17 November 2015
From Shakespeare and Stendhal to Stalin and Sarkozy: André Glucksmann (1937-2015)
When the French philosopher André Glucksmann died on 10th November 2015, the news perhaps received less attention in the United Kingdom than elsewhere in Europe. Glucksmann was indeed a European in the widest sense of the word, both in terms of his origins and his range of influence. Born in 1937 in Boulogne-Billancourt, he was the son of an Ashkenazi Jewish couple from the heart of Europe; his father originally came from Bukovina (now Romania) and his mother from Prague. His education, too, followed the classic French model; after graduating from the Ecole normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, he published his first book, Le Discours de la Guerre (Paris, 1967; British Library X.700/21738), which fittingly appeared in 1968, the year of the Paris student uprisings.
André Glucksmann in 2012 (©Stephan Röhl. Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Although his allegiances were initially Marxist, Glucksmann gradually developed a critical outlook which led him in 1975 to publish La Cuisinière et le Mangeur d’hommes (Paris, 1975; X.708/17739), an essay on the relationship between the State, Marxism and concentration camps which drew comparisons between the rise of Nazism and Communism and the atrocities committed in the name of both. It appeared in a Russian translation by Nina Staviskaya (Kukharka i liudoed; London, 1980; X.908/43770). He went on to explore the subject of totalitarianism and its origins in the thought of Fichte, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche in Les maîtres penseurs (Paris, 1977; X.510/10207).
A close associate of Jean-Paul Sartre, Glucksmann traced the Existentialist strands in the writings of Dostoevsky in the wake of the 2001 New York bombings in Dostoïevski à Manhattan (Paris, 2002; YF.2006.a.28133). He declared that his interest in philosophy and the moral basis of human rights stemmed from his experiences as a member of a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied France and the conviction which he developed in consequence of the vital importance of intervention. With notable impartiality, he spoke up for the Muslim victims of Islamic terrorism, the Nicaraguan Contras, the independence of Chechnya and the Vietnamese boat people, but also advocated the use of nuclear power.
Together with Bernard-Henri Lévy, another former Marxist thinker, he was a member of the Nouveaux Philosophes; his Czech heritage and his rejection of Communism naturally drew him to Václav Havel, resulting in the publication of a volume (YA.1990.a.14197) in 1989 pairing a translation of one of Havel’s texts (Quelques mots sur la parole) with Glucksmann’s Sortir du communisme, c’est rentrer dans l’histoire. Glucksmann joined Havel, Desmond Tutu and Wei Jingsheng in signing an appeal in August 2008 urging the Chinese authorities to respect human rights at the time of the Beijing Olympics, and was also a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.
The complex power structures within the former Soviet Union also attracted Glucksmann’s attention, and won him a particularly strong reputation in Ukraine, where Galina Akkerman published Na zakhysti svobody (Kyïv, 2013; YF.2014.a.14241), a collection of Elena Bonner's conversations with him. He recognized the importance of Georgia’s oil and gas reserves in maintaining the European Union’s independence from Gazprom, and thus opposed attempts by Abkhazia and South Ossetia to achieve autonomy.
Books by André Glucksmann from our collections
Glucksmann supported Nicolas Sarkozy in the April-May 2007 French presidential elections, and together with his son Raphaël Glucksmann (b.1979) he published Mai 68 expliqué à Nicolas Sarkozy (Paris, 2008; YF.2009.a.20084), examining the philosophical revolutions and counter-revolutions behind the events of that year and concluding with ‘praise of permanent subversion’ to counter the violent diatribe launched on 29 April 2007 by Sarkozy against the Sorbonne uprising. The breadth of Glucksmann’s intellectual compass, from Montaigne and Shakespeare to Stendhal and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, is typical of the daring and expansive approach and the skilled and incisive arguments of a philosopher who was prepared to apply them in the service of humanity in its fullest sense.
Susan Halstead, Content Specialist, Humanities & Social Sciences, Research Engagement
11 November 2015
Mechanics not Magic
From the flint axe to the electric washine machine, human beings have generally tried to lighten the physical load in their lives and increase comfort and pleasure. In 18th-century Europe, new technologies burgeoned for ever more purposes. From Jethro Tull’s seed drill to increasingly sophisticated mechanical clocks, new inventions were both discussed in learned journals and sold at various metropolitan and provincial fairs throughout France and England. That science and technology were servants of a wider humanity was an idea that Revolutionary France extensively explored and implemented. The imposition of the kilometre and kilogram brought order, uniformity and mutual understanding and, indeed, the guillotine itself replaced protracted, labour-intensive methods of execution with an instantaneous and humane one.
This idea also explored in the literature of the Revolution and a curious example of it is the novella Le miroir des événemens actuels, ou La belle au plus offrant, histoire à deux visages by François-Félix Nogaret (1740-1831). The British Library has recently acquired a copy of this extremely rare work. Combining shades of the Gothic, Romantic and erotic, it is science fiction aspiring to be science fact. It evolves into a political tract advocating an alliance between applied science and rational thought in order to enhance human well-being and happiness.
Title-page of François-Félix Nogaret, Le miroir des événemens actuels, ou La belle au plus offrant, histoire à deux visages (Paris, 1790) British Library C.188.b.98
The story develops through the person of Aglaonice – a young, intelligent woman – who offers to marry the man who will create the most ingenious machine to win her heart. Six suitors then come forward. The first two discredit themselves by the scientific incompetence and pointlessness of their inventions. The third and fourth suitors reveal themselves as fraudsters intent only on swindling the gullible. The fifth suitor is named Frankestein, as comely in person as he is in character. He offers a self-locomoting statue which plays a range of music of exquisite beauty. Understandably, Aglaonice desires him but accepts his advice to see the sixth suitor before making her decision. This final suitor’s machine is also an automaton which manufactures jewels. Since his invention combines superior technological ingenuity with financial stability and wealth generation, Aglaonice chooses him as her husband. Her sister marries Frankestein.
The mechanism to make these automata function is not described but Aglaonice’s examination of each invention is strictly rational and scientific. If it fails against its scientific claims, she rejects it. Her criteria are also ethical, requiring the betterment and greater happiness of human beings and not just simple scientific achievement without social purpose. Therefore, only that which brings wealth and beauty into the world wins Aglaonice’s heart. Frankestein’s ethics match Aglaonice’s. By not pressing his initial advantage but wanting the sixth suitor’s invention to be seen, he ensures the greatest good of the greatest number. He thus exemplifies the “new man” advocated by so much Revolutionary rhetoric - devoted to the general welfare rather than to private benefit and reflecting the social optimism which was so strong in the first phase of the Revolution.
In the text, both the fictional and factual interweave rather awkwardly but are humorous and serious by turns with occasionally the texture of journalism. The French reading public of 1790 would have immediately understood the social and political events and technological developments to which the many puns, leitmotifs and wordplays refer. The author also supports his purpose with frequent digressions into science and natural history. The story ends with an unsurprising attack on the obscurantism and authoritarianism of the Catholic Church and a demand for its exclusion from all social and political power.
Since 1818 and the first publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there is also the teasing question of the relationship, if any, between her novel and Nogaret’s novella. Certainly, the name of Frankestein echoes in Frankenstein and unnamed beings are artificially created in both cases. Otherwise, these two works mirror each other only in their points of opposition.
The creatures made by Frankestein and the sixth suitor serve what La Mettrie believed to be the purpose of human nature which is the search for and creation of hedonism and delight in life. These automata are made to bring exclusively these things to human beings. They cannot do otherwise. The medical scientist Dr Victor Frankenstein, however, assembles and reanimates a human corpse just because he can. The scientific achievement is justification enough for his actions. The being that he creates inherits the fullness of human nature. It demands love but is physically unlovable and Dr Frankenstein denies it any possibility of love. In return and of its own free will, it chooses to destroy the loving relationships of others.
Frontispiece from Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (London, 1831). 1153.a.9.
There have been suggestions that Shelley’s Frankenstein may be a story describing how the French revolutionaries lost control of the Revolution which became a deadly behemoth and that Nogaret’s novella was a possible source for her story. Without firmer evidence, these must remain suggestions.
Des McTernan, Former Curator, French Collections
26 October 2015
The Tale of Mélusine
The ongoing exhibition in the British Library’s front hall, Animal Tales brought to mind one tale which holds particular resonance on the theme of allegory, which is so expertly dealt with in the exhibition. This tale, however, is beyond the remit of the exhibition because it deals with mythological creatures.
The tale in question is the tale of Mélusine. It stands as a clear signpost in the transition which marks the intersection between myth and historicity. At the turn of the 14th century to the 15th century two versions of the legend of Mélusine appeared the first by Jean d’Arras (1393-1394), with another penned by Coudrette sometime in the opening years of the 15th century. This tale is about one of the most compelling female characters in medieval French fiction. It most likely draws on earlier myths dating back to Gallo-Roman and Celtic prototypes. Even the name ‘Fair Melusina’ may derive from the same ancient Gaulish root for the fair beings such as mermaids, water sprites, and forest nymphs.
The intriguing story tells or the beautiful Mélusine, the result of the marriage of the King of Scotland and his fairy wife. In her youth Mélusine entombed her father in a mountain leaving her mother heartbroken. The deed displeased her mother and as punishment Mélusine was condemned to transform into a serpent from the waist down every Saturday.
Mélusine, from a 19th-century edition of the version by Jean d’Arras (Paris, 1859) British Library 12430.m.2. [vol. 7]
Archetypally for late medieval narrative, while out hunting in the forests (typically sites for magical encounters in fairy stories) of the Ardennes, Raymond, Lord of Forez in Poitou, a poor but noble gentleman, meets Mélusine. She was sitting beside a fountain in “glimmering white dresses, with long waving golden hair, and faces of inexpressible beauty”. In discovering Mélusine by a watersource, this indicates a connection between her and the supernatural world. Raymond, so taken by her beauty and her amiable manners, falls totally in love with her. Mélusine agrees to marry Raymond, but on the condition he vows not to attempt to see her on Saturday when she will go into seclusion.
Mélusine bathing in secret, woodcut from Dis ouentürlich buch bewiset wie von einer frauwen genantt Melusina ... ([Strassburg, ca 1477]) C.8.i.5.
Over the following years under Mélusine’s direction the region of Poitou, situated in the westerly central France around modern day Poitiers, blossomed; forests were cleared, the land developed for agriculture and the planting of crops. She oversaw the building of cities and castles including her own seat, the Château de Lusignan. Here we see the connection between Mélusine, with her fae heritage, and the growing prosperity and fertility of the region of Poitou is indicative and the foundations of our modern construct of the benevolent fairy godmother.
During this time of plenty she bore Raymond ten sons. Some became Kings while others became tyrants. Some were marked with strange signs and deformities because of their mixed heritage. Here the elements of myth and folklore are blended with epic to align the supernatural founder of the dynasty of Lusignan with the aspirations of late feudal society. By weaving the mythology of the supernatural from the folklore tradition into the lineage the myths and the powers therein can be ascribed to a family name, adding glamour and legitimacy.
Title-page of Mélusine (Paris, 1530) C.97.bb.30.
With such ambivalence about Mélusine’s background and her activities on a Saturday tensions arose, possibly suspicsions of infidelity were planted in Raymond’s mind. Ultimately he was overcome with curiosity. Spying through the keyhole at Mélusine’s bizarre metamorphosis, Raymond was astonished to see her lower part of body take on serpentine qualities. His transgression was only apparent to her when later he called her a “serpent”. This results in Mélusine transforming in to the shape of a winged dragon and flying off. The mythology of a fairy bride whose body is not to be looked on and who. when the husband transgresses, immediately vanishes is common enough in folklore across a number of cultures.
Mélusine takes flight, from Dis ouentürlich buch …
It was said that Mélusine would return periodically to keep watch over her sons, flying around the castle crying mournfully. In parts of Europe to speak of the whining of Mélusine,“often refers to the sound the wind makes swirling around the chimney breast”.
In terms of common depictions of Mélusine, the siren on the Starbucks logo has been likened and contrasted with a Mélusine. This link via a coffee shop franchise brings us back to Animal Tales, where a copy of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is on display. The character of Starbuck in Moby Dick, of course, lent his name to the coffee shops.
Jeremy Jenkins, Curator Emerging Media, Contemporary British Collections
References/further reading:
Jean D’Arras, Melusine (London 1895) 3642.97500 Vol.68.
Women, Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopaedia, Editor Margeret Schaus (London 2006) HLR 305.409
Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopaedia, Vol.II, Editors: Katharina M. Wilson & Nadia Margolis (London, 2004) HLR 305.409
Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology Vol.I (London, 1900) HLR 293.13
Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology & Legend, Editor Maria Leach (New York, 1972) HLR 398.03
S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (London, 1892) 12431.bb.17.
Ann Rippin, “Space, place and the colonies: re‐reading the Starbucks’ story”, Critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 3 Iss: 2 2007, pp.136-149. E-Resources.
25 October 2015
History Written by the Victors, Poetry by the Losers? Charles d’Orléans, the Prisoner-Poet of Agincourt
25th October 2015 marks the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, one of the most celebrated British military victories. The struggle between the armies of Henry V of England and Charles VI of France, in which, according to the French eye-witness Jean de Wavrin’s statement, ‘the French were six times more numerous than the English’, immediately captured the imagination of chroniclers in both prose and verse, and was commemorated in the famous Agincourt Hymn Deo gratias, Anglia which was sung as Henry, bare-headed and on foot, made his triumphal entry into London, as well as in the ballad The Bataille of Agincourt, attributed to John Lydgate. Most famously of all, it inspired Shakespeare’s Henry V, familiar not only through countless stage performances but through two notable films in which Laurence Olivier (1944) and Kenneth Branagh (1989) portrayed the young warrior king. The play’s message of chivalry and the English fighting spirit which won out against tremendous odds lent itself to the climate of Britain in the closing years of the Second World War but also to a more generous and impartial perspective in the later version with its emphasis on the sufferings of war.
The saying of Walter Benjamin that ‘history is written by the victors’ might therefore seem to apply to poetry and drama too, but is far from the truth in this case. Not only were there notable accounts of the battle from the French side, including those by Enguerrand de Monstrelet (c. 1400-1453) of which the British Library holds a first printed edition from around the beginning of the 16th century illustrated with numerous wood engravings.
The English fleet sets out to France, from Le premier volume de enguerran de monstrellet … (Paris, between 1499 and 1503) British Library C.22.d.6. (f.203 v)
One of the outstanding poets of his age, who actually appears in Shakespeare’s play, was also one of the hostages of war and spent 21 years in captivity in England. Charles d’Orléans (24 November 1394–5 January 1465) succeeded to the dukedom of Orléans at the age of 13 after the murder of his father Louis I on the orders of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. His mother Valentina, the daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, did not long survive this loss, and in the early years of his reign Bernard VIII, Count of Armagnac, the father of his second wife Bonne (Bona) was a strong influence, which led to his followers being known as Armagnacs. When the battle lines were drawn up on St. Crispin’s Day 1415 the newly-knighted Duke was placed in the front line, but although he survived the conflict he, together with the Duke of Bourbon, Marshal Boucicaut and the Counts of Richemont, Eu and Vendôme, was among the 1,500-1,600 noble prisoners captured by the English. Their impressive but cumbersome armour made it difficult to move quickly in hand-to-hand combat, and Charles was discovered alive but immobilized under a pile of corpses (the Earl of Suffolk was less fortunate, and suffocated in similar circumstances).
Armoured knights in battle, from Le premier volume de enguerran de monstrellet … (f. 211 v.)
The prisoners were transported to England in the hope that their kinsmen would ransom them, but in Charles’s case this would not happen until 1440. A cynic might conclude that his countrymen were in no hurry to have him back, but in fact Henry had placed a specific embargo on his release, fearing that as the natural head of the Armagnac faction he would represent a source of danger. Finally, having received an undertaking that Charles would not seek vengeance for his father’s assassination, Philip the Good, the current Duke of Burgundy, arranged for his release.
Charles d’Orleans in captivity at the Tower of London, from a manuscript collection of his poetry, BL Royal MS 16 F II, f. 73
Charles had not been idle during his captivity. He was kept on the move from one fortress to another, including the Tower of London; in an uncanny reprise he spent part of his imprisonment in Pontefract Castle like Richard II, whose child widow Isabella of Valois had been Charles’s first wife. By the time he was returned to France, the English chronicler Holinshed observed that he spoke better English than French, which equipped him to write over 500 poems in both languages. The British Library holds an illuminated manuscript of these (Royal MS 16 F II), and also a volume of those in English at C.101.a.38, ‘first printed from the manuscript [i.e. Harley MS 682] of the library in the British Museum’ in 1827 by George Watson Taylor, which contains a autograph letter by the editor presenting it to the Museum.
George Watson Taylor’s letter presenting his book to the British Museum Library, from Poems, written in English, by Charles, Duke of Orleans, during his captivity in England, after the battle of Azincourt. With an introductory notice by G. W. Taylor. (London, 1827) C.101.a.38]
The poems in both languages bemoan the pains of captivity and of courtly love in the ballade and rondeau forms. They attracted several musical settings, including a group of three by Claude Debussy and another by Edward Elgar. The Duke’s colourful life also inspired a historical novel by the Dutch author Hella S. Haasse, Het Woud der verwachting (1949).
Once liberated, Charles returned to France, was joyfully welcomed by the people of Orleans, and embarked on a third marriage to Marie of Cleves which produced three children, including the future King Louis XII. His Italian ancestry led him to press a claim to Asti, but without any real conviction, and he lived out the rest of his life as a Knight of the Golden Fleece and, fittingly, as a generous patron of the arts. His library had been saved by Yolande of Aragon and was awaiting him on his return, and, like another creation of the dramatist who had put him on stage, Shakespeare’s Prospero, he might well have remarked, ‘… my library was Dukedom large enough’.
Susan Halstead, Content Specialist (Humanities and Social Sciences), Research Engagement.
References
Pierre de Fénin, Mémoire de Pierre de Fénin, escuyer et panetier de Charles VI., roy de France, contenant l'histoire de ce prince depuis l'an 1407 jusques à l'an 1422. Recueillis par G. de Tieulaine … (Paris, 1825) 909.e.9.
Jean-Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI., Roy de France, et des choses memorables advenuës durant 42 années de son Règne depuis 1380 jusques à 1422 … (Paris, 1836)
Hella S. Haasse, Het Woud der verwachting. Het leven van Charles van Orléan. (Amsterdam, 1959) 10865.d.17; English translation In a dark wood wandering (London, 1990) Nov.1990/506.
16 September 2015
Bruto, a clever dog from the 1490s
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478-1557) is best known nowadays as the author of the Historia general y natural de las Indias (1535, second edition 1547), a pioneering account of the history and natural history of the Americas.
He is also of interest as a writer and courtier whose career spanned the Atlantic. He was also obviously something of a dog-lover.
The focus of today’s blog is the Libro de la cámara del príncipe don Juan. This is a very full account of the personnel and activities of the court of Prince John (born 1478), son of the Catholic Monarchs. John died young in 1497 at the age of 18. The Libro (first manuscript version 1547-48, revised a year later) was prepared by Oviedo for the guidance of Prince Philip (later King Philip II).
One detail which Oviedo added in the second version was this account of Bruto (Brutus), the prince’s greyhound.
He had black and white patches. He was not a handsome beast, as his father must have been a mastiff, and so he did not have a pretty head, but he was strongly built and not very tall. But he was clever, as dogged as could be and marvellously quick at the attack.
A contemporary greyhound. No stain of the mastiff here (British Library Royal MS 16 F II)
When on the road or hunting, the prince would deliberately drop a glove or handkerchief and once they had gone on a league or so, would say, “Bruto, bring me my glove.” And the dog brought it to him in his mouth, as pristine and clean of dribble as if a man had brought it; and this regardlesss of whether the terrain was open or thickly covered in trees.
A number of men could be fifteen, twenty or thirty paces away, and the prince would say, “Bruto, bring me that man.” And he would go and take him by the arm, very gently and without sinking his teeth. And when the prince said, “Not him,” Bruto left him and fetched another. And when he said, “Not him, but the one with the green, or grey cape,” as he was commanded so he did, in such as way that it seemed he knew his colours, like a person of good judgment. He was a marvellous tracker.
When the prince was buried at dawn on 5 October 1497 in the Cathedral of Salamanca, Bruto lay down at the head of the tomb, and whenever they took him away he returned to his place; so that finally they supplied him with a cushion to lie on, day and night, and they fed and watered him there, and when he went out to perform his necessities, he returned to his cushion. When the King and Queen left for their daughter’s weddding in Portugal, on their return they found him there still.
The prince’s final resting place was at Avila.
The tomb of Prince John at Avila (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Writing in 1549 of events of 1497, Oviedo obviously found Brutus as admrable as Greyfriars Bobby was to be four and a half centuries later, an exemplar of canine loyalty above the bestial standards of the late medieval court.
Barry Taylor, Curator Romance Studies
References
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Libro de la cámara del príncipe don Juan, ed. Santiago Fabregat Barrios (Valencia, 2006), pp. 135-37.
Libro de la Cámara real del Príncipe Don Juan, é officios de su casa é seruiçio ordinario, ed. J. M. Escudero de la Peña (Madrid, 1870) Ac.8886/7.
Angel Alcalá and Jacobo Sanz, Vida y muerte del Príncipe Don Juan : historia y literatura (Valladolid, 1999) YA.2002.a.11935
14 September 2015
Champfleury and his Cats
Champfleury, pseudonym of Jules Husson Fleury (1821-89), is little read nowadays, though his name is familiar to students of French 19th-century culture because of the variety of his interests and activities, both literary and artistic. A prominent member of bohemian circles in Paris in the 1840s, a novelist and short story writer, he also championed the painter Gustave Courbet and realism in art and literature, and played a key role in the ‘rediscovery’ of the Le Nain brothers, 17th-century painters of ‘reality’ who, like Champfleury himself, were born in Laon in Picardy. He had a lifelong interest in ‘popular’ arts and wrote on a wide variety of subjects including pantomime, caricature, popular imagery, Japanese prints and ceramics. For the last 17 years of his life he was the curator of the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres.
Champfleury’s most popular work was his book on cats, published in 1869. Les Chats, histoire, moeurs, observations, anecdotes was advertised by a poster with a lithograph by Manet, Le rendez-vous des chats (‘The cats’ rendezvous’), showing two cats on a rooftop engaged in a mating game. The black cat was no doubt a reminder of the cat that featured prominently in Manet’s Olympia, the painting that had caused a scandal when first displayed in 1865. Manet’s lithograph was also used on the poster for the second edition of Champfleury’s work a few months later and an engraving of it appears in the book itself.
Poster with a lithograph by Manet, advertising Champfleury’s Les Chats (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
The popularity of the book was such that it was reprinted twice in quick succession and two deluxe editions followed in 1870 with several additional texts and illustrations including, in the fifth edition, an etching by Manet, Le Chat et les fleurs (‘Cat and Flowers’), showing a cat on a balcony near a ceramic jardinière, an image influenced by Japanese prints and also a reference to Champfleury’s interest in ceramics. [Fig.3]
Edouard Manet, Le Chat et les fleurs. Etching in Les Chats (5th edition, 1870)
The book’s 23 short chapters (34 in the de luxe editions) and numerous appendices look at cats in ancient civilizations, popular traditions, heraldry, art and literature. There are also chapters on friends, enemies and painters of cats. It is profusely illustrated with full-page illustrations, decorated letters and vignettes, and several chapters have delightful tailpieces, several of them copied from a sheet of studies of cats by Hiroshige (which Champfleury erroneously attributes to Hokusai).
Ando Hiroshige , Sheet of cat studies from Ryusai gafu. ca 1836
The frontispiece of the original 1868 edition is a drawing by the Swiss artist Gottfried Mind (1768-1814), ‘the Raphael of cats’, a nickname given to him (according to Champfleury) by Mme Vigée Lebrun. Mind painted an infinite variety of cats and he would sit for hours drawing with a cat sitting on his lap and two or three kittens perched on his shoulders; a general massacre of cats in 1809 in his native Berne was the greatest tragedy of his life. Another Mind drawing in the text (below right) has the elegance and grace of a Matisse line drawing.
Images of cats by Gottfried Mind, frontispiece and p. 142 of the 1869 edition of Les Chats
Champfleury’s erudite interests are much in evidence in the book in the inclusion, for example, of two devices of the Sessa family of printers, active in Venice in the 16th century, showing a cat.
Sessa’s printers device, Les Chats (1869) p. 152
There are also examples of cats in heraldry, in legends and, above all, in popular prints. They include a 17th-century French woodcut showing a concert of cats in a fairground, their trainer surrounded by cats reading from scores headed ‘miaou’ and a Russian lubok colour print showing ‘The Mice Burying the Cat’, a typical example of the world turned upside down.
‘La Musique des Chats’ [above] and ‘The mice burying the cat’ [below], from Les Chats (1870)
An impressive full-page Japanese print (below) showing a composite head of a cat is another example of the author’s interest in Japanese art.
The numerous portraits of writers and artists who were cat-lovers include Montaigne, Chateaubriand, Hoffmann and Baudelaire, but pride of place is given to Victor Hugo and his cat Chanoine.
A vignette of Chanoine in the first edition became the frontispiece of the de luxe editions (above) with a note in Hugo’s hand quoting Joseph Méry’s dictum “God made the cat to give man the pleasure of stroking a tiger.”
While a drawing of a cat by Delacroix (above) almost looks like a self portrait, cat’s ears are sprouting on Champfleury’s own head in the final illustration in the book, a humorous portrait of the author in his study, poring over a book about cats and observed by a cat perched on a bookcase behind him.
Chris Michaelides, Curator Romance Studies
References:
Champfleury Les Chats. Histoire-mœurs-observations-anecdotes. Troisième édition. (Paris, 1869). 7207.aa.23;
Quatrième édition. (Paris, 1870). 7208.aa.10.
1869 edition available online from the Bibliothèque nationale de France via Gallica
Luce Abélès, Champfleury: l'art pour le peuple. (Paris, 1990). ZV.9.a.67(39)
A cat-eared Champfleury in his study, portrait by Edmond Morin from Les Chats (1869), p. 287.
07 November 2013
Rights, rats and revolution: Albert Camus turns 100
7 November 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of birth of French writer, philosopher, playwright and activist Albert Camus (1913-1960). It is impossible to speculate how his career in any of these fields might have developed had he not died prematurely in a car accident on 4 January 1960 when a Facel Vega driven by his publisher and friend Michel Gallimard crashed near Sens, killing them both.
Camus (left) and Michel Gallimard
Born in Algiers into a poor family, Camus was brought up by his mother after the death of his father in the Battle of the Marne (1914), and during his years as a student was forced to limit his studies and his activities as a goalkeeper for the university football team Racing Universitaire d'Alger when he developed tuberculosis. Throughout his life his ties to his native Algeria remained strong, and he wrote evocatively of the heat and brilliance of the climate, never more tellingly than in his most famous novel L’étranger (The Outsider; 1942) of which the British Library possesses a first edition (W17/9256 DSC), where the relentless glare of the sun is a direct factor in the narrator Meursault’s attack on an Arab which ultimately sends him to the guillotine.
In another novel, La Peste (The Plague; 1947: first edition at 012551.m.30. and W26/4658 DSC), Camus once again sets the action in North Africa as the backdrop for the ethical choices and changes which confront the inhabitants of a small town when a mysterious rat-borne plague suddenly erupts. The rats have been interpreted by critics as symbols on a variety of levels, including carriers of moral and political corruption as well as an allusion to the compromises for which France was blamed during the German occupation.
Camus’s own political beliefs brought him into numerous conflicts, from his membership of the French resistance cell ‘Combat’ and editorship of its paper to the outspoken criticism of Communism which led to his expulsion from the party in 1937 and his breach with his fellow-Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre in 1951. His vigorous advocacy of human rights encompassed pronouncements on the bombing of Hiroshima, the Hungarian uprising of 1956, and the Algerian war in 1954, and opposition to totalitarianism and the death penalty, which he joined forces with Arthur Koestler to criticize.
In 1957 Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature ‘for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times’. This is nowhere more evident than in his dramas, which place the moral dilemmas of human existence and the workings of the absurd in a variety of contexts which, from ancient Rome in Caligula (1938) to pre-revolutionary Russia (Les Justes, 1949), frame timeless questions about human guilt and responsibility and make them accessible to all. It is surely no coincidence that Camus and Sartre’s first meeting in 1943 was at a rehearsal of the latter’s play Les Mouches (The Flies), where Orestes and his fellow-citizens grapple with a symbolic plague no less virulent than that in Camus’s work.
By locating the action of these plays in distant times and places, Camus enables his audiences to enter into it without the limited identification with specific contemporary issues which would have resulted from a modern setting, and stimulates discussion of questions which remain of vital importance a century after the author’s birth. And yet, despite their enduring dramatic power and the serious quality of their content, we may recall Camus’s response when asked by his friend Charles Poncet whether he preferred the theatre to football: he is said to have replied, ‘Football, without hesitation’.
Susan Halstead, Curator Czech & Slovak Studies
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