position in London. He does not give this suffering expression in his poetry. Occasionally at an earlier period he alluded in a roundabout fashion to the irksome restraints imposed on him by his poverty-in such a poem, for instance, as La Liberté, an idyll in the style of Theocritus, in which the shepherd breaks his flute and shuns the dance and song of the young maidens, rejecting all consolation because he is a slave.1 As a fine specimen of André Chénier's writing take Le Malade, a poem which, like most of his, is made out of almost nothing, yet which produces an unextinguishable impression. In its composition it reminds one of the third scene in the first act of Racine's Phèdre, which seems to have been its far-away model. The mother prays: "Apollon, Dieu sauveur, dieux des savants mystères, Et bien, mon fils, es-tu toujours impitoyable? Ton funeste silence est-il inexorable? Enfant, tu veux mourir? Tu veux, dans ses vieux ans, Tu veux que ce soit moi qui ferme ta paupière ? 1 Sainte-Beuve is evidently in error, when, in his comparison of André Chénier with Mathurin Regnier (in his book on French poetry in the sixteenth century), he attributes the poem La Liberté to a period subsequent to Chénier's residence in London. Becq de Fouquières has proved the improbability of André's having been in London before 1790. C'est toi qui me devais ces soins religieux, Et ma tombe attendait tes pleurs et tes adieux. Ma mère, adieu; je meurs, et tu n'as plus de fils. Tout me pèse et me lasse. Aide-moi, je me meurs, In vain she gives him a healing draught brewed with magic arts by a Thessalian woman. But he speaks again : O coteaux d'Érymanthe! ô vallons ! ô bocage! O vent sonore et frais qui troublais le feuillage, De légères beautés troupe agile et dansante. . . . O visage divin! ô fêtes! ô chansons ! Des pas entrelacés, des fleurs, une onde pure, ... Dieux ! ces bras et ces flancs, ces cheveux, ces pieds nus, Si blancs, si délicats. . . . Je ne te verrai plus ! " When the mother learns that it is of hopeless love her son is dying, she says: "Mais mon fils, mais dis-moi, quelle belle dansante, N'est-tu pas riche et beau ? du moins quand la douleur N'avait point de ta joue éteint la jeune fleur? Dont j'entends le beau nom chaque jour répété, Tais-toi. Dieux ! Qu'as-tu dit? Elle est fière, inflexible; Tiens, prends cette corbeille et nos fruits les plus beaux, Prends mes jeunes chevreaux, prends mon cœur, prends ma vie, Dis-lui que je me meurs, que tu n'as plus de fils. Tombe aux pieds du vieillard, gémis, implore, presse ; Adjure cieux et mers, dieu, temple, autel, déesse ; Pars, et si tu reviens sans les avoir fléchis Adieu, ma mère, adieu, tu n'auras plus de fils. J'aurai toujours un fils; va, la belle espérance Que mon père ait un fils, et ta mère un fille.’" One cannot imagine more simplicity, less attempt at effect, in the solution of such a situation. It was a foundation of this kind which the new Romantic School found to build upon-noble simplicity of language, correct drawing, a Grecian rhythm in all the transitions, the beautiful lines of the bas-relief, pure colour, and austere form. VII DE VIGNY'S POETRY AND HUGO'S “ORIENTALES” THE first author to show the influence of Chénier was one of the most artistically audacious of the school, one of its original leaders-Alfred de Vigny-who as lyric poet was at times very faulty, at times an immaculate master. Chaste, lucid, pure, and austere, there is a quality in his best verse which has led all the critics who have attempted to describe it to employ such figures as the sheen of ivory, the whiteness of ermine, the sailing of the swan. It has the artistic severity, the sober colouring, the conciseness and the fastidiousness which also characterise Chénier's. And De Vigny was evidently afraid that these qualities would be attributed to Chénier's influence. For although no collection of his poetry was published before 1819, he took the trouble in later editions to furnish a number of the poems which seem to bear the clearest marks of this influence, with earlier dates, going even as far back as 1815. But even leaving out of consideration the fact that single poems of Chénier's had been given to the public (in Chateaubriand's Génie du Christianisme and as a supplement to Millevoye's poetical works) still earlier than this, it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that, in spite of the absolute uprightness which as a rule distinguished him, Alfred de Vigny has antedated his poems to give himself an undeserved appearance of complete originality. For the single poems which he published before the first collection in question are far inferior to those contained in it which bear a much earlier date-so inferior that he excluded them from the complete edition of his works. André Chénier's influence upon De Vigny is thus indisputable. The latter assimilated many of the characteristics of the rediscovered master, though he VOL. V. 81 F fragment which begins "Comme un dernier rayon." He was denounced before the tribunal of the Revolution as an enemy of the people, and was condemned to death for having "written against liberty and in defence of tyranny." The day before this happened he had written the lines: "Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zéphyre Au pied de l'échafaud j'essaye encor ma lyre. Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle promenée Dans les soixante pas où sa route est bornée, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupière. Ce vers que je commence ait atteint la dernière, Le messager de mort, noir recruteur des ombres Escorté d'infâmes soldats, Remplira de mon nom ces longs corridors sombres." On the evening of the 7th Thermidor 1794, the eve of Robespierre's fall, which, if it had happened a day earlier, would have saved him, André Chénier mounted the scaffold. As they were being driven to the place of execution, he said despondently to Roucher, the painter, who was guillotined along with him: "Alas! I have done nothing for posterity." Tradition tells that on the scaffold he struck his forehead, exclaiming: "Yet I had something there!" Although André Chénier's prose articles had aroused much attention, even abroad-Wieland sent him greetings, the King of Poland sent him a medal-he won no fame as a poet during his lifetime. He had published only two of his poems, the Ode to David on the occasion of the scene in the Tennis Court, and the ironic Ode to the Chateauvieux Regiment; and from that July day in 1794 when his head was severed from his body, his name was forgotten; the memory of him vanished. Then one fine day in 1819 a firm of Paris publishers |