COMPOSITION

a. Provenance of Material

In entering upon the study of Gautier's composition proper, it must be noted that the actual literary process will vary with the genre: poetry is to be distinguished from prose, the original piece from the critic's article. So, too, within the imaginative writings, there is division on account of the very nature of the author's subject-matter, for the writer who deliberately places his story in some far-off time, in some distant country, will have to meet a problem of provenance of material differing essentially from that of the literary artist who deals with personal observations. Gautier's recourse to sources, then, and his utilization of material gathered from literary or historical predecessors, become of initial importance in the consideration of his processes of composition in the exotic works. The origin of such material as it is incorporated in his own conceptions, the extent to which the author is willing to document himself, are matters which may well be inquired into, while the question of the use of the material, its relation to the reproduction-in accuracy of recounting, in development, in combination with the imaginative elements contributed by the author-will lead into the midst of the study of his working-process.

Various prefaces to Gautier's short-stories have dealt at some length with his curious faculty for assimilation of the distant. Maurice Tourneur, one of his early bibliographers, finds, for example, that in the pieces which he wrote avowedly after previous models there appears no trace of the plagiarism practiced by his contemporaries; rather,

"Il a promené sa muse des pylones d'Égypte aux arcades de la campagne romaine, des sierras aragonaises aux arches du Pont-Neuf, sans cesser de mériter pour lui-même l'éloge qu'il décernait en 1855 à Henri Leys, moderne continuateur des maîtres allemands de la Renaissance, alors qu'il le définissait, 'non un imitateur, mais un semblable,' et ce qu'il disait de ses propres aptitudes de voyageur on l'appliquerait volontiers à d'autres

"dons qui le rendaient peut-être moins fier. 'J'ai, disait-il, une faculté admirable à me plier sans effort à la vie de différents peuples: je suis Russe en Russie, Turc en Turquie, Espagnol en Espagne

(1).

In similar manner A. de Claye judges of his ability to write

about the past:

"Théophile Gautier ne pastichait rien ni personne. Il avait à ce point le don de l'assimilation qu'on ne saurait, quand il s'agit de lui, parler d'imitation. . . . Que le Nord ou le Midi attirât sa fantaisie vagabonde, que l'Égypte du temps de Cléopâtre ou les ruelles du temps de Louis XV fussent l'objet de sa curiosité toujours éveillée, il était un 'romantique'; et cela fait que, tout en mettant une sincérité d'artiste à entrer dans la peau de ses personnages, il ne dépouillait jamais la sienne" (2).

These general statements of power of assimilation give, however, no very definite idea of the writer's process of composition; it is more interesting to find him actually at work on the acquiring of material. So he requests of Henri Lacroix the correct spelling of a name which enters into an article to be written on a statute of Vercingétorix: "Est-ce Alésia? est-ce Alisia que s'appelle la ville défendue par Vercingétorix, toi qui es savant puisque tu habites la bibliothèque résous la question" (3). In similar manner he asks of a friend of Eugène Déveria some details about this unfortunate artist, in order that he may throw romantic flowers on his grave (4). To the end of his life he seeks expert advice, and in submitting the final proofs of his troublesome Rapport sur la Poésie" he writes:

"Lisez-le la plume à la main. Si vous y trouvez quelque faute ou quelque erreur, corrigez-la; vous me rendrez un vrai service, et j'accepte la rature d'avance. Il y a un nom dont je ne suis pas sûr: le nom du poète breton. Vous qui savez tout, vérifiez cela. Je ne suis pas sur non plus du nom de l'auteur des Légendes de la Vierge. Si vous l'ignorez, biffez la phrase" (5).

If this desire for accurate information is evident in the journalistic activities of the author, it is no less visible in the composition of his works of imagination. The testimony to it is offered both directly and indirectly, by his own records and those of his friends, and also by the results of analysis of the finished work. It is found that his friends contributed data which fell within their provinces of knowledge, and which Gautier then made use of for the development of his exotic tales. To Madame Émile

Girardin, for example, he appeals for expert advice on fashions somewhat out of the ordinary, and he asks her for a "pretentious toilette" for use in Militona: " quelque chose d'atroce et de riche, genre Anglais, pour blonde tirant sur le roux, toilette d'été. J'ai peur de faire une caricature; la réalité doit être plus drôle (6). In the same manner he puts himself in the hands of Marc Monnier for Neapolitan perspective, and in sending him the proofs of Jettatura asks him to look them over for faults of typography, but also to supply possible hôtels from which one may see Vesuvius, etc. (7). It is, however, not only expert personal correction which he desires; documentary confirmation of his own observation is sometimes considered necessary. So, in writing La Juive de Constantine, for which he had gained subject-matter and general setting from his own African travels, Gautier wishes to refer to an illustrated work by the duc d'Orléans for views of the city where he will place his dramatic action (8), and as this piece is of an unusual nature-as it is a melodrama for which the æsthetic and the architectonic have never been fixed-he must, by research in the works of the masters, strive to surprise its secret. Que de fois l'aurore nous a surpris courbé sur quelque œuvre prodigieuse comme Les Ruines de Babylone, Hariadan Barberousse, Robert, chef des brigands et autres pièces admirables ." (9). It is Gautier also who mentions the source of the historical information in his article on the "Club des Hachichins," and one may note here that he follows very exactly the data given by Hammer in the Histoire des Assassins (p. 213-216). There are certain essential differences: the French author does not here deal at length with the pleasures of awakening from the drug (although this side of the subject is taken up more fully by him in the description of the Croix de Berny and in his feuilleton on haschich in La Presse), and, on the other hand, Hammer does not provide him with the details of sensation, with the transpositions, the feelings of lightness, etc., with the reflections on the abolishment of the sense of time, which Gautier includes in his article and which presumably have been furnished him by the

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actual meetings of the Hôtel Pimodan. Personal observation, as opposed to documentary evidence, is probably the chief basis of the Pompeiïan setting of Arria Marcella; if paintings have permitted of his living reconstruction of the times, the details of geography or of living conditions, incorporated in his romance, follow accurately upon an acquaintance with the actual scenes and with the contents of the museums of the day (10). Remnants of the past, in whatever form they are offered, are gladly assimilated by him.

Various critics have studied the provenance of material in Gautier's stories of distant time or place and have found in some a combination of data from personal observations and from documentary sources, in others an almost entire dependence upon the latter. In the Capitaine Fracasse a mingling of material has been pointed out, for example, and while its author's contemporary, Félix Frank, speaks disparagingly of too numerous borrowings from Rabelais for the language (and of borrowings which are not consistently made but are interspersed with returns to contemporary expression) (11), a later critic follows out Gautier's use of observational material acquired during his visit to Gascony in 1844-for details of the country-side and its occupations, for the provincial names, for the "Château de la Misère" itself, of which the prototype must have been his cousin's château de Castillon:

"Quand Théophile Gautier alla le visiter, il menaçait ruine, les portes et les fenêtres tombaient; la baronne d'Ismer, ne pouvant porter remède à ce fâcheux état, s'était cantonnée avec son fils et ses rares domestiques. dans la partie la plus résistante et la moins endommagée. . . .” (12). Gautier's most helpful source for this whole reconstruction, however, appears to have been his "Grotesques," Scarron and SaintAmant, and in this writings Lehtonen finds the exact detail of the selected type of life under Louis XIII which is needed for the accurate creation of the atmosphere of the story. Plot from the Roman comique (reënforced by data from the author's own experience); language from Villon and Rabelais, from Scarron and his contemporaries; many locutions of Georges de Scudéry, Cyrano de Bergerac, Théophile de Viau; above all, the

details of that distant existence which are recorded in the poetry of Saint-Amant (13)-Gautier borrows all. Moreover,

au

"Il a consulté les eaux-fortes de Callot et les gravures d'Abraham Bosse, les mémoires de l'époque de Louis XIII et autres sources purement historiques, ce qui est fort bien. Mais il est allé encore plus loin. Il a aussi tiré profit des auteurs modernes, dont il s'est souvenu moment de la composition et dont il a amalgamé dans son roman des descriptions spéciales, des tournures pittoresques, des images. . . .” (14). In the Pavillon sur l'Eau, on the contrary, the provenance of material seems much less complex: personal and pictorial sources were probably absent, and the translations of Abel Rémusat: Iu-Kiao-Li and the Contes chinois, appear to have furnished Gautier with all the exotic detail desired for his story. These were, as a matter of fact, used freely by him, with a selection and recombination of striking traits, for the creation of the Chinese setting (15).

The Roman de la Momie, again, shows the author's recourse to all types of documentation for his most serious historical or geographical reconstructions. The sources of this novel have been extensively studied from the time when Flaubert, in response to Froehner's attack on his own and Gautier's archæological knowledge, referred to the presentation by the Egyptologist Passalacqua of the mummy whom Gautier called Tahoser (16), up to the very recent investigations of Lunn and Coleman (17). It is hardly necessary to recall what use the novelist made of Ernest Feydeau's Histoire des usages funèbres et des sépultures des peuples anciens: the author himself acknowledges his indebtedness, and Feydeau, in his Souvenirs, deals at length with this collaboration of research and with Gautier's power of animating dry bones furnished him by others. The aid of Feydeau extended beyond the printed word, illustrative material, verbal explanation, and he took the trouble to write out, from his knowledge of Egypt, notes of costumes, etc., which might be of service to his "Master." So, for example:

"Les reines d'Égypte ont souvent tout le corps, à partir du buste, couvert d'une robe d'étoffe légère, couleur lilas tendre, étroite et dessinant bien les formes. Sur cette robe est étendu un réseau de perles longues et roses, formant des croisillons. Entre chaque croisillon, est écrit, sur la robe, en caractères hiéroglyphiques, le nom et les titres du Pharaon! "N'est-ce pas galant?" (18).