PART III.—BOOK I.

CONCLUSION.

AFTER DEATH.—SHAKESPEARE.—ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I

In 1784, Bonaparte, then fifteen years old, arrived at the Military School of Paris from Brienne, being one among four under the escort of a minim priest. He mounted one hundred and seventy-three steps, carrying his small trunk, and reached, below the roof, the barrack chamber he was to inhabit. This chamber had two beds, and a small window opening on the great yard of the school. The wall was whitewashed; the youthful predecessors of Bonaparte had scrawled upon this with charcoal, and the new-comer read in this little cell these four inscriptions that we ourselves read thirty-five years ago:—

It takes rather long to win an epaulet.—De Montgivray.

The finest day in life is that of a battle.—Vicomte de Tinténiac.

Life is but a long falsehood.—Le Chevalier Adolphe Delmas.

All ends under six feet of earth.-Le Comte de la Villette.

By substituting for "an epaulet" "an empire,"—a very slight change,—the above four inscriptions were all the destiny of Bonaparte, and a kind of "Mene Tekel Upharsin" written beforehand upon that wall. Desmazis, junior, who accompanied Bonaparte, being his room-mate, and about to occupy one of the two beds, saw him take a pencil (it is Desmazis who has related the fact) and draw beneath the inscriptions that he had just read a rough sketch of his house at Ajaccio; then, by the side of that house, without suspecting that he was thus bringing near the island of Corsica another mysterious island then hid in the deep future, he wrote the last of the four sentences: "All ends under six feet of earth."

Bonaparte was right. For the hero, for the soldier, for the man of the material fact, all ends under six feet of earth; for the man of the idea everything commences there.

Death is a power.

For him who has had no other action but that of the mind, the tomb is the elimination of the obstacle. To be dead, is to be all-powerful.

The man of war is formidable while alive; he stands erect, the earth is silent, siluit; he has extermination in his gesture; millions of haggard men rush to follow him,—a fierce horde, sometimes a ruffianly one; it is no longer a human head, it is a conqueror, it is a captain, it is a king of kings, it is an emperor, it is a dazzling crown of laurels which passes, throwing out lightning flashes, and allowing to be seen in starlight beneath it a vague profile of Cæsar. All this vision is splendid and impressive; but let only a gravel come in the liver, or an excoriation to the pylorus,—six feet of ground, and all is said. This solar spectrum vanishes. This tumultuous life falls into a hole; the human race pursues its way, leaving behind this nothingness. If this man hurricane has made some lucky rupture, like Alexander in India, Charlemagne in Scandinavia, and Bonaparte in ancient Europe, that is all that remains of him. But let some passer-by, who has in him the ideal, let a poor wretch like Homer throw out a word in the darkness, and die,—that word burns up in the gloom and becomes a star.

This vanquished one, driven from one town to another, is called Dante Alighieri,—take care! This exiled one is called Æschylus, this prisoner is called Ezekiel,—beware! This one-handed man is winged,—it is Michael Cervantes. Do you know whom you see wayfaring there before you? It is a sick man, Tyrtæus; it is a slave, Plautus; it is a labourer, Spinoza; it is a valet, Rousseau. Well, that degradation, that labour, that servitude, that infirmity, is power,—the supreme power, mind.

On the dunghill like Job, under the stick like Epictetus, under contempt like Molière, mind remains mind. This it is that shall say the last word. The Caliph Almanzor makes the people spit on Averroes at the door of the mosque of Cordova; the Duke of York spits in person on Milton; a Rohan, almost a prince,—"duc ne daigne, Rohan suis,"—attempts to cudgel Voltaire to death; Descartes is driven from France in the name of Aristotle; Tasso pays for a kiss given a princess twenty years spent in a cell; Louis XV. sends Diderot to Vincennes; these are mere incidents; must there not be some clouds? Those appearances that were taken for realities, those princes, those kings melt away; there remains only what should remain,—the human mind on the one side, the divine minds on the other; the true work and the true workers; society to be perfected and made fruitful; science seeking the true; art creating the beautiful; the thirst of thought, torment and happiness of man; inferior life aspiring to superior life. Men have to deal with real questions,—with progress in intelligence and by intelligence. Men call to their aid the poets, prophets, philosophers, thinkers, the inspired. It is seen that philosophy is a nourishment and poetry a want. There must be another bread besides bread. If you give up poets, you must give up civilization. There comes an hour when the human race is compelled to reckon with Shakespeare the actor and Isaiah the beggar.

They are the more present that they are no longer seen. Once dead, these beings live.

What life did they lead? What kind of men were they? What do we know of them? Sometimes but little, as of Shakespeare; often nothing, as of those of ancient days. Has Job existed? Is Homer one, or several? Méziriac made Æsop straight, and Planudes made him a hunchback. Is it true that the prophet Hosea, in order to show his love for his country, even when fallen into opprobrium and become infamous, espoused a prostitute, and called his children Mourning, Famine, Shame, Pestilence, and Misery? Is it true that Hesiod ought to be divided between Cumæ in Æolia, where he was born, and Ascra, in Bœotia, where he had been brought up? Velleius Paterculus makes him live one hundred and twenty years after Homer, of whom Quintilian makes him contemporary. Which of the two is right? What matters it? The poets are dead, their thought reigns. Having been, they are.

They do more work to-day among us than when they were alive. Others who have departed this life rest from their labours; dead men of genius work.

They work upon what? Upon minds. They make civilization.

"All ends under six feet of earth "? No; everything commences there. No; everything germinates there. No; everything flowers in it, and everything grows in it, and everything bursts forth from it, and everything proceeds from it! Good for you, men of the sword, are these maxims!

Lay yourselves down, disappear, lie in the grave, rot. So be it.

During life, gildings, caparisons, drums and trumpets, panoplies, banners to the wind, tumults, make up an illusion. The crowd gazes with admiration on these things. It imagines that it sees something grand. Who has the casque! Who has the cuirass? Who has the sword-belt? Who is spurred, morioned, plumed, armed? Hurrah for that one! At death the difference becomes striking. Juvenal takes Hannibal in the hollow of his hand.

It is not the Cæsar, it is the thinker, who can say when he expires, "Deus fio." So long as he remains a man his flesh interposes between other men and him. The flesh is a cloud upon genius. Death, that immense light, comes and penetrates the man with its aurora. No more flesh, no more matter, no more shade. The unknown which was within him manifests itself and beams forth. In order that a mind may give all its light, it requires death. The dazzling of the human race commences when that which was a genius becomes a soul. A book within which there is something of the ghost is irresistible.

He who is living does not appear disinterested. People mistrust him; people dispute him because they jostle against him. To be alive, and to be a genius is too much. It goes and comes as you do, it walks on the earth, it has weight, it throws a shadow, it obstructs. It seems as if there was importunity in too great a presence. Men do not find that man sufficiently like themselves. As we have said already, they owe him a grudge. Who is this privileged one? This functionary cannot be dismissed. Persecution makes him greater; decapitation crowns him. Nothing can be done against him, nothing for him, nothing with him. He is responsible, but not to you. He has his instructions. What he executes may be discussed, not modified. It seems as though he had a commission to execute from some one who is not man. Such exception displeases. Hence more hissing than applause.

Dead, he no longer obstructs. The hiss, now useless, dies out. Living, he was a rival; dead, he is a benefactor. He becomes, according to the beautiful expression of Lebrun "l'homme irréparable." Lebrun observes this of Montesquieu; Boileau observes the same of Molière. "Avant qu'un peu de terre" etc. This handful of earth has equally aggrandized Voltaire. Voltaire, so great in the eighteenth century, is still greater in the nineteenth. The grave is a crucible. Its earth, thrown on a man, sifts his reputation, and allows it to pass forth purified. Voltaire has lost his false glory and retained the true. To lose the false is to gain. Voltaire is neither a lyric poet, nor a comic poet, nor a tragic poet: he is the indignant yet tender critic of the old world; he is the mild reformer of manners; he is the man who softens men. Voltaire, who has lost ground as a poet, has risen as an apostle. He has done what is good, rather than what is beautiful. The good being included in the beautiful, those who, like Dante and Shakespeare, have produced the beautiful, surpass Voltaire; but below the poet, the place of the philosopher, is still very high, and Voltaire is the philosopher. Voltaire is common-sense in a continual stream. Excepting in literature, he is a good judge in everything. Voltaire was, in spite of his insulters, almost adored during his lifetime; he is in our days admired, now that the true facts of the case are known. The eighteenth century saw his mind: we see his soul. Frederick II., who willingly railed at him, wrote to D'Alembert, "Voltaire buffoons. This century resembles the old courts. It has a fool, who is Arouet." This fool of the century was its sage.

Such are the effects of the tomb for great minds. That mysterious entrance into the unknown leaves light behind. Their disappearance is resplendent. Their death evolves authority.

CHAPTER II.

Shakespeare is the great glory of England. England has in politics Cromwell, in philosophy Bacon, in science Newton,—three lofty men of genius. But Cromwell is tinged with cruelty and Bacon with meanness; as to Newton, his edifice is now shaking on its base. Shakespeare is pure, which Cromwell and Bacon are not, and immovable, which Newton is not. Moreover, he is higher as a genius. Above Newton there is Copernicus and Galileo; above Bacon there is Descartes and Kant; above Cromwell there is Danton and Bonaparte; above Shakespeare there is no one. Shakespeare has equals, but not a superior. It is a singular honour for a land to have borne that man. One may say to that land, "Alma parens." The native town of Shakespeare is an elect place; an eternal light is on that cradle; Stratford-on-Avon has a certainty that Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Ohio, Argos, and Athens—the seven towns which disputed the birthplace of Homer—have not.

Shakespeare is a human mind; he is also an English mind. He is very English,—too English. He is English so far as to weaken the horror surrounding the horrible kings whom he places on the stage, when they are kings of England; so far as to depreciate Philip Augustus in comparison with John Lackland; so far as expressly to make a scapegoat, Falstaff, in order to load him with the princely misdeeds of the young Henry V.; so far as to partake in a certain measure of the hypocrisies of a pretended national history. Lastly, he is English so far as to attempt to attenuate Henry VIII.; it is true that the eye of Elizabeth is fixed upon him. But at the same time, let us insist upon this,—for it is by it that he is great,—yes, this English poet is a human genius. Art, like religion, has its Ecce Homo. Shakespeare is one of those of whom we may utter this grand saying: He is Man.

England is egotistical. Egotism is an island. That which perhaps is needed by this Albion immersed in her own business, and at times looked upon with little favour by other nations, is disinterested greatness; of this Shakespeare gives her some portion. He throws that purple on the shoulders of his country. He is cosmopolite and universal by his fame. On every side he overflows island and egotism. Deprive England of Shakespeare and see how much the luminous reverberation of that nation would immediately decrease. Shakespeare modifies the English visage and makes it beautiful With him, England is no longer so much like Carthage.

Strange meaning of the apparition of men of genius! There is no great poet born in Sparta, no great poet born in Carthage. This condemns those two cities. Dig, and you shall find this: Sparta is but the city of logic; Carthage is but the city of matter; to one as to the other love is wanting. Carthage immolates her children by the sword, and Sparta sacrifices her virgins by nudity; here innocence is killed, and there modesty. Carthage knows only her bales and her cases; Sparta blends herself wholly with the law,—there is her true territory; it is for the laws that her men die at Thermopylæ. Carthage is hard. Sparta is cold. They are two republics based upon stone; therefore no books. The eternal sower, who is never mistaken, has not opened for those ungrateful lands his hand full of men of genius. Such wheat is not to be confided to the rock.

Heroism, however, is not refused to them; they will have, if necessary, either the martyr or the captain. Leonidas is possible for Sparta, Hannibal for Carthage; but neither Sparta nor Carthage is capable of Homer. Some indescribable tenderness in the sublime, which causes the poet to gush from the very entrails of a people, is wanting in them. That latent tenderness, that flebile nescio quid, England possesses; as a proof, Shakespeare. We may add also as a proof, Wilberforce.

England, mercantile like Carthage, legal like Sparta, is worth more than Sparta and Carthage. She is honoured by this august exception,—a poet. To have given birth to Shakespeare makes England great.

Shakespeare's place is among the most sublime in that élite of absolute men of genius which, from time to time increased by some splendid fresh arrival, crowns civilization and illumines with its immense radiancy the human race. Shakespeare is legion. Alone, he forms the counterpoise to our grand French seventeenth century, and almost to the eighteenth.

When one arrives in England, the first thing that he looks for is the statue of Shakespeare. He finds the statue of Wellington.

Wellington is a general who gained a battle, having chance for his partner.

If you insist on seeing Shakespeare's statue you are taken to a place called Westminster, where there are kings,—a crowd of kings: there is also a comer called "Poets' Corner." There, in the shade of four or five magnificent monuments where some royal nobodies shine in marble and bronze, is shown to you on a small pedestal a little figure, and under this little figure, the name, "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE."

In addition to this, statues everywhere; if you wish for statues you may find as many as you can wish. Statue for Charles, statue for Edward, statue for William, statues for three or four Georges, of whom one was an idiot. Statue of the Duke of Richmond at Huntley; statue of Napier at Portsmouth; statue of Father Mathew at Cork; statue of Herbert Ingram, I don't know where. A man has well drilled the riflemen,—he gets a statue; a man has commanded a manœuvre of the Horse Guards,—he gets a statue. Another has been a supporter of the past, has squandered all the wealth of England in paying a coalition of kings against 1789, against democracy, against light, against the ascending movement of the human race,—quick! a pedestal for that; a statue to Mr. Pitt. Another has knowingly fought against truth, in the hope that it might be vanquished, and has found out one fine morning that truth is hard-lived, that it is strong, that it might be intrusted with forming a cabinet, and has then passed abruptly over to its side,—one more pedestal; a statue for Mr. Peel. Everywhere, in every street, in every square, at every step, gigantic notes of admiration in the shape of columns,—a column to the Duke of York, which should really take the form of points of interrogation; a column to Nelson, pointed at by the ghost of Caracciolo; a column to Wellington, already named: columns for everybody. It is sufficient to have played with a sword somewhere. At Guernsey, by the seaside, on a promontory, there is a high column, similar to a lighthouse,—almost a tower; this one is struck by lightning; Æschylus would have contented himself with it. For whom is this?—for General Doyle. Who is General Doyle?—a general. What has this general done?—he has constructed roads. At his own expense?—no, at the expense of the inhabitants. He has a column. Nothing for Shakespeare, nothing for Milton, nothing for Newton; the name of Byron is obscure. That is where England is,—an illustrious and powerful nation.

It avails little that this nation has for scout and guide that generous British press, which is more than free,—which is sovereign,—and which through innumerable excellent journals throws light upon every question,—that is where England is; and let not France laugh too loudly, with her statue of Négrier; nor Belgium, with her statue of Belliard; nor Prussia, with her statue of Blücher; nor Austria, with the statue that she probably has of Schwartzenberg; nor Russia, with the statue that she certainly has of Souwaroff. If it is not Schwartzenberg, it is Windischgrätz; if it is not Souwaroff, it is Kutusoff.

Be Paskiewitch or Jellachich,—they will give you a statue; be Augereau or Bessières,—you get a statue; be an Arthur Wellesley, they will make you a colossus, and the ladies will dedicate you to yourself, quite naked, with this inscription: "Achilles." A young man, twenty years of age, performs the heroic action of marrying a beautiful young girl: they prepare for him triumphal arches; they come to see him out of curiosity; the grand-cordon is sent to him as on the morrow of a battle; the public squares are brilliant with fireworks; people who might have gray beards put on perukes to come and make speeches to him almost on their knees; they throw up in the air millions sterling in squibs and rockets to the applause of a multitude in tatters, who will have no bread to-morrow; starving Lancashire participates in the wedding; people are in ecstasies; they fire guns, they ring the bells,—"Rule Britannia!" "God save!" What! this young man has the kindness to do this? What a glory for the nation! Universal admiration,—a great people become frantic; a great city falls into a swoon; a balcony looking upon the passage of the young man is let for five hundred guineas; people heap themselves together, press upon one another, thrust one another beneath the wheels of his carriage; seven women are crushed to death in the enthusiasm, and their little children are picked up dead under the trampling feet; a hundred persons, partially stifled, are carried to the hospital: the joy is inexpressible. While this is going on in London, the cutting of the Isthmus of Panama is interrupted by a war; the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez depends on one Ismail Pacha; a company undertakes the sale of the water of Jordan at a guinea the bottle; walls are invented which resist every cannon-ball, after which missiles are invented which destroy every wall; an Armstrong cannon-shot costs fifty pounds; Byzantium contemplates Abdul-Azis; Rome goes to confession; the frogs, encouraged by the stork, demand a heron; Greece, after Otho, again wants a king; Mexico, after Iturbide, again wants an emperor; China wants two of them,—the king of the Centre, a Tartar, and the king of Heaven (Tien Wang), a Chinese. O earth! throne of stupidity.

CHAPTER III.

The glory of Shakespeare reached England from abroad. There was almost a day and an hour when one might have assisted at the landing of his fame at Dover.

It required three hundred years for England to begin to hear those two words that the whole world cries in her ear: "William Shakespeare."

What is England? She is Elizabeth. There is no incarnation more complete. In admiring Elizabeth, England loves her own looking-glass. Proud and magnanimous, yet full of strange hypocrisies; great, yet pedantic; haughty, albeit able; prudish, yet audacious; having favourites but no masters; her own mistress, even in her bed; all-powerful queen, inaccessible woman,—Elizabeth is a virgin as England is an island. Like England, she calls herself Empress of the Sea, Basilea maris. A fearful depth, in which are let loose the angry passions which behead Essex and the tempests which destroy the Armada, defends this virgin and defends this island from every approach. The ocean is the guardian of this modesty. A certain celibacy, in fact, constitutes all the genius of England. Alliances, be it so; no marriage. The universe always kept at some distance. To live alone, to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone,—such is Elizabeth, such is England.

On the whole, a remarkable queen and an admirable nation.

Shakespeare, on the contrary, is a sympathetic genius. Insularism is his ligature, not his strength. He would break it willingly. A little more and Shakespeare would be European. He loves and praises France; he calls her "the soldier of God." Besides, in that prudish nation he is the free poet.

England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made her,—Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together. The Bible opposes Shakespeare.

Certainly, as a literary book, the Bible, a vast cup from the East, more overflowing in poetry even than Shakespeare, might fraternize with him; in a social and religious point of view, it abhors him. Shakespeare thinks, Shakespeare dreams, Shakespeare doubts. There is in him something of that Montaigne whom he loved. The "to be or not to be" comes from the que sais-je?

Moreover, Shakespeare invents. A great objection. Faith excommunicates imagination. In respect to fables, faith is a bad neighbour, and fondles only its own. One recollects Solon's staff raised against Thespis. One recollects the torch of Omar brandished over Alexandria. The situation is always the same. Modern fanaticism has inherited that staff and that torch. That is true in Spain, and is not false in England. I have heard an Anglican bishop discuss the Iliad and condense everything in this remark, with which he meant to annihilate Homer: "It is not true." Now, Shakespeare is much more a "liar" than Homer.

Two or three years ago the journals announced that a French writer was about to sell a novel for four hundred thousand francs. This made quite a noise in England. A Conformist paper exclaimed, "How can a falsehood be sold at such a price?"

Besides, two words, all-powerful in England, range themselves against Shakespeare, and constitute an obstacle against him: "Improper, shocking." Observe that, on a host of occasions, the Bible also is "improper" and Holy Writ is "shocking." The Bible, even in French, and through the rough lips of Calvin, does not hesitate to say, "Tu as paillardé, Jerusalem." These crudities are part of poetry as well as of anger; and the prophets, those angry poets, do not abstain from them. Gross words are constantly on their lips. But England, where the Bible is continually read, does not seem to realize it. Nothing equals the power of voluntary deafness in fanatics. Would you have another example of their deafness? At this hour Roman orthodoxy has not yet admitted the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, although averred by the four Evangelists. Matthew, may say, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without.... And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas. And his sisters, are they not all with us?" Mark may insist: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?" Luke may repeat: "Then came to him his mother and his brethren." John may again take up the question: "He, and his mother, and his brethren.... Neither did his brethren believe in him.... But when his brethren were gone up." Catholicism does not hear.

To make up for it, in the case of Shakespeare, "somewhat of a Pagan, like all poets"[1] Puritanism has a delicate hearing. Intolerance and inconsequence are sisters. Besides, in the matter of proscribing and damning, logic is superfluous. When Shakespeare, by the mouth of Othello, calls Desdemona "whore," general indignation, unanimous revolt, scandal from top to bottom. Who then is this Shakespeare? All the biblical sects stop their ears, without thinking that Aaron addresses exactly the same epithet to Sephora, wife of Moses. It is true that this is in an Apocryphal work, "The Life of Moses." But the Apocryphal books are quite as authentic as the canonical ones.

Thence in England, for Shakespeare, a depth of irreducible coldness. What Elizabeth was for Shakespeare, England is still,—at least we fear so. We should be happy to be contradicted. We are more ambitious for the glory of England than England is herself. This cannot displease her.

England has a strange institution,—"the poet laureate,"—which attests the official admiration and a little the national admiration. Under Elizabeth, England's poet was named Drummond.

Of course, we are no longer in the days when they placarded "Macbeth, opera of Shakespeare, altered by Sir William Davenant." But if "Macbeth" is played, it is before a small audience. Kean and Macready have tried and failed in the endeavour.

At this hour they would not play Shakespeare on any English stage without erasing from the text the word God wherever they find it. In the full tide of the nineteenth century, the lord-chamberlain still weighs heavily on Shakespeare. In England, outside the church, the word God is not made use of. In conversation they replace "God" by "Goodness." In the editions or in the representations of Shakespeare, "God" is replaced by "Heaven." The sense suffers, the verse limps; no matter. "Lord! Lord! Lord!" the last appeal of Desdemona expiring, was suppressed by command in the edition of Blount and Jaggard in 1623. They do not utter it on the stage. "Sweet Jesus!" would be a blasphemy; a devout Spanish woman on the English stage is bound to exclaim, "Sweet Jupiter!" Do we exaggerate? Would you have a proof? Let us open "Measure for Measure." There is a nun, Isabella. Whom does she invoke? Jupiter. Shakespeare had written "Jesus."[2]

The tone of a certain Puritanical criticism toward Shakespeare is, most certainly, improved; yet the cure is not complete.

It is not many years since an English economist, a man of authority, making, in the midst of social questions, a literary excursion, affirmed in a lofty digression, and without exhibiting the slightest diffidence, this:—

"Shakespeare cannot live because he has treated specially foreign or ancient subjects—'Hamlet,' 'Othello,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Lear,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Coriolanus,' 'Timon of Athens,' etc. Now, nothing is likely to live in literature except matters of immediate observation and works made on contemporary subjects."

What say you to the theory? We would not mention it if this system had not met approvers in England and propagators in France. Besides Shakespeare, it simply excludes from literary "life" Schiller, Corneille, Milton, Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Æschylus, and Homer. It is true that it surrounds with a halo of glory Aulus-Gellius and Restif of Bretonne. O critic, this Shakespeare is not likely to live, he is only immortal!

About the same time, another—English also, but of the Scotch school, a Puritan of that discontented variety of which Knox is the head—declared poetry childishness; repudiated beauty of style as an obstacle interposed between the idea and the reader; saw in Hamlet's soliloquy only "a cold lyricism," and in Othello's adieu to standards and camps only "a declamation;" likened the metaphors of poets to illustrations in books,—good for amusing babies; and showed a particular contempt for Shakespeare, as besmeared from one end to the other with that "illuminating process."

Not later than last January, a witty London paper,[3] with indignant irony, was asking which is the most celebrated, in England, Shakespeare or "Mr. Calcraft, the hangman:"—

"There are localities in this enlightened country where, if you pronounce the name of Shakespeare they will answer you: 'I don't know what this Shakespeare may be about whom you make all this fuss, but I will back Hammer Lane of Birmingham to fight him for five pounds.' But no mistake is made about Calcraft."

CHAPTER IV.

At all events, Shakespeare has not the monument that England owes to Shakespeare.

France, let me admit, is not, in like cases, much more speedy. Another glory, very different from Shakespeare, but not less grand,—Joan of Arc,—waits also, and has waited longer for a national monument, a monument worthy of her.

This land which has been Gaul, and where the Velledas reigned, has, in a Catholic and historic sense, for patronesses two august figures,—Mary and Joan. The one, holy, is the Virgin; the other, heroic, is the Maid. Louis XIII. gave France to the one; the other has given France to France. The monument of the second should not be less high than the monument of the first Joan of Arc must have a trophy as grand as Notre-Dame. When shall she have it?

England has failed utterly to pay its debt to Shakespeare; but so also has France failed toward Joan of Arc.

These ingratitudes require to be sternly denounced. Doubtless the governing aristocracies, which blind the eyes of the masses, deserve the first accusation of guilt; but on the whole, conscience exists for a people as for an individual. Ignorance is only an attenuating circumstance; and when these denials of justice last for centuries, they remain the fault of governments, but become the fault of nations. Let us know, when necessary, how to tell nations of their shortcomings. France and England, you are wrong.

To flatter peoples would be worse than to flatter kings. The one is base, the other would be cowardly.

Let us go further, and since this thought has been presented to us, let us generalize it usefully, even if we should leave our subject for a while. No; the people have not the right to throw indefinitely the fault upon governments. The acceptation of oppression by the oppressed ends in becoming complicity. Cowardice is consent whenever the duration of a bad thing, which presses on the people, and which the people could prevent if they would, goes beyond the amount of patience endurable by an honest man; there is an appreciable solidarity and a partnership in shame between the government guilty of the evil and the people allowing it to be done. To suffer is worthy of veneration; to submit is worthy of contempt. Let us pass on.

A noteworthy coincidence: the man who denies Shakespeare, Voltaire, is also the insulter of Joan of Arc. But then what is Voltaire? Voltaire—we may say it with joy and sadness—is the French mind. Let us understand: it is the French mind, up to the Revolution exclusively. From the French Revolution, France increasing in greatness, the French mind grows larger, and tends to become the European mind; it is less local and more fraternal, less Gallic and more human. It represents more and more Paris, the city heart of the world. As for Voltaire, he remains as he is,—the man of the future, but also the man of the past. He is one of those glories which make the thinker say yes and no; he has against him two sarcasms, Joan of Arc and Shakespeare. He is punished through what he sneered at.

CHAPTER V.

In truth, a monument to Shakespeare, cui bono? The statue that he has made for himself is worth more, with all England for a pedestal. Shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work.

What do you suppose marble could do for him? What can bronze do where there is glory? Malachite and alabaster are of no avail; jasper, serpentine, basalt, red porphyry, such as that at the Invalides, granite, Paros and Carrara, are of no use,—genius is genius without them. Even if all the stones had a part in it, would they make that man an inch greater? What vault shall be more indestructible than this; "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Julius Cæsar," "Coriolanus?" What monument more grandiose than "Lear," more wild than "The Merchant of Venice," more dazzling than "Romeo and Juliet," more amazing than "Richard III."? What moon could throw on that building a light more mysterious than "The Midsummer Night's Dream"? What capital, were it even London, could produce around it a rumour so gigantic as the tumultuous soul of "Macbeth"? What framework of cedar or of oak will last as long as "Othello"? What bronze will be bronze as much as "Hamlet"? No construction of lime, of rock, of iron and of cement, is worth the breath,—the deep breath of genius, which is the breathing of God through man. A head in which is an idea,—such is the summit; heaps of stone and brick would be useless efforts. What edifice equals a thought? Babel is below Isaiah; Cheops is less than Homer; the Coliseum is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda of Seville is dwarfish by the side of Cervantes; St. Peter of Rome does not reach to the ankle of Dante. How could you manage to build a tower as high as that name: Shakespeare.

Ah, add something, if you can, to a mind!

Suppose a monument. Suppose it splendid; suppose it sublime,—a triumphal arch, an obelisk, a circus with a pedestal in the centre, a cathedral. No people is more illustrious, more noble, more magnificent, and more magnanimous than the English people. Couple these two ideas, England and Shakespeare, and make an edifice arise therefrom. Such a nation celebrating such a man, it will be superb. Imagine the monument, imagine the inauguration. The Peers are there, the Commons give their adherence, the bishops officiate, the princes join the procession, the queen is present. The virtuous woman in whom the English people, royalist as we know, see and venerate their actual personification,—this worthy mother, this noble widow, comes, with the deep respect which is called for, to incline material majesty before ideal majesty; the Queen of England salutes Shakespeare. The homage of Victoria repairs the disdain of Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth, she is probably there also, sculptured somewhere on the surbase, with Henry VIII., her father, and James I., her successor,—pygmies beneath the poet. The cannon booms, the curtain falls, they uncover the statue, which seems to say, "At length!" and which has grown in the shade during three hundred years,—three centuries; the growth of a colossus; an immensity. All the York, Cumberland, Pitt, and Peel bronzes have been made use of, in order to produce this statue; the public places have been disencumbered of a heap of uncalled-for metal-castings; in this lofty figure have been amalgamated all kinds of Henrys and Edwards; the various Williams and the numerous Georges have been melted, the Achilles in Hyde Park has made the great-toe. This is fine; behold Shakespeare almost as great as a Pharaoh or a Sesostris. Bells, drums, trumpets, applause, hurrahs.

What then?

It is honourable for England, indifferent to Shakespeare.

What is the salutation of royalty, of aristocracy, of the army, and even of the English populace, ignorant yet to this moment, like nearly all other nations,—what is the salutation of all these groups variously enlightened to him who has the eternal acclamation, with its reverberation, of all ages and all men? What orison of the Bishop of London or of the Archbishop of Canterbury is worth the cry of a woman before Desdemona, of a mother before Arthur, of a soul before Hamlet?

And thus, when universal outcry demands from England a monument to Shakespeare, it is not for the sake of Shakespeare, it is for the sake of England.

There are cases in which the repayment of a debt is of greater import to the debtor than to the creditor.

A monument is an example. The lofty head of a great man is a light. Crowds, like the waves, require beacons above them. It is good that the passer-by should know that there are great men. People may not have time to read; they are forced to see. People pass by that way, and stumble against the pedestal; they are almost obliged to raise the head and to glance a little at the inscription. Men escape a book; they cannot escape the statue. One day on the bridge of Rouen, before the beautiful statue due to David d'Angers, a peasant mounted on an ass said to me: "Do you know Pierre Corneille?" "Yes," I replied. "So do I," he rejoined. "And do you know 'The Cid'?" I resumed. "No," said he.

To him, Corneille was the statue.

This beginning in the knowledge of great men is necessary to the people. The monument incites them to know more of the man. They desire to learn to read in order to know what this bronze means. A statue is an elbow-thrust to ignorance.

There is then, in the execution of such monuments, popular utility as well as national justice.

To perform what is useful at the same time as what is just, that will at the end certainly tempt England. She is the debtor of Shakespeare. To leave such a debt in abeyance is not a good attitude for the pride of a people. It is a point of morality that nations should be good payers in matters of gratitude. Enthusiasm is probity. When a man is a glory in the face of his nation, that nation which does not perceive the fact astounds the human race around.

CHAPTER VI.

England, as it is easy to foresee, will build a monument to her poet.

At the very moment we finished writing the pages you have just read, was announced in London the formation of a committee for the solemn celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare. This committee will dedicate to Shakespeare, on the 23d April, 1864, a monument and a festival which will surpass, we doubt not, the incomplete programme we have just sketched out. They will spare nothing. The act of admiration will be a striking one. One may expect everything, in point of magnificence, from the nation which has created the prodigious palace at Sydenham, that Versailles of a people. The initiative taken by the committee will doubtless secure the co-operation of the powers that be. We discard, for our part, and the committee will discard, we think, all idea of a manifestation by subscription. A subscription, unless of one penny,—that is to say, open to all the people,—is necessarily fractional. What is due to Shakespeare is a national manifestation;—a holiday, a public fête, a popular monument, voted by the Chambers and entered in the Budget England would do it for her king. Now, what is the King of England beside the man of England? Every confidence is due to the Jubilee Committee of Shakespeare,—a committee composed of persons highly distinguished in the press, the peerage, literature, the stage, and the church. Eminent men from all countries, representing intellect in France, in Germany, in Belgium, in Spain, in Italy, complete this committee, in all points of view excellent and competent. Another committee, formed at Stratford-on-Avon, seconds the London committee. We congratulate England.

Nations have a dull ear and a long life,—which latter makes their deafness by no means irreparable: they have time to change their mind. The English are awake at last to their glory. England begins to spell that name, Shakespeare, upon which the universe has laid her finger.

In April, 1664, a hundred years after Shakespeare was born, England was occupied in cheering loudly Charles II., who had sold Dunkirk to France for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, and in looking at something that was a skeleton and had been Cromwell, whitening under the north-east wind and rain on the gallows at Tyburn. In April, 1764, two hundred years after Shakespeare was born, England was contemplating the dawn of George III.,—a king destined to imbecility,—who at that epoch, in secret councils, and in somewhat unconstitutional asides with the Tory chiefs and the German Landgraves, was sketching out that policy of resistance to progress which was to strive, first against liberty in America, then against democracy in France, and which, during the single ministry of the first Pitt, had, in 1778, raised the debt of England to the sum of eighty millions sterling. In April, 1864, three hundred years since Shakespeare's birth, England raises a statue to Shakespeare. It is late, but it is well.