BOOKS.

FINAL MEMORIALS OF EDGAR QUINET.*

THERE are few more touching figures in the history of con- temporary literature than that of the Roumanian lady who became the second wife of Edgar Quinet, and who, after devoting to him while living twenty-three years of the tenderest care, has for the last fourteen years consecrated herself to the keeping his memory alive. The daughter of an eminent Roumanian patriot, George Asaky, the founder a modern Roumanian literature, she so merges herself into her husband as to speak of her own father as of Edgar Quinet's father-in-law, of her own son—who died young—as Quinet's son-in-law. Nor would it be possible to guess, were it not told us, that she was other than a Frenchwoman, so perfect is her mastery of the French language, so absolute her love for, her absorption in, her adoptive country. Perhaps the most wonderful evidence of the way in which she learnt to identify herself with her husband lies in her account of Quinet's first marriage, of the passionate love which he bore to his first wife, Minna More, of her goodness and her loveliness. It is probably bard for a devoted second wife to be absolutely impartial towards the one who enjoyed the first-fruits of her husband's love. In this case so absolute is the devotion, that you feel the second wife loves the first just because she loved her husband and

• (1.) Edgar Quinet avant 11901. Par Madame Edgar Quinet. 1 vol. 1887.—

alaunEdgar Quinet depuis PErd. Par Madame Edgar Quinet 1 vol., 1889. Paris: Ldry.

was beloved of him. It must be added that the More family appear themselves to have received the second Madame Quinet with perfect cordiality, and that she speaks of them in the most affectionate terms.

But it would be marring the whole intention of the volumes under review to dwell upon their author, and not upon him who is their subject. A considerable interval, it will be seen, has separated the publication of the first, which covers the period 1803-1851, from that of the second, which extends from 1851 to 1875. The latter was not, indeed, intended to appear in the author's lifetime; but she has yielded, and rightly, to the urgency of friends. To a great extent the two volumes serve as a complement to—Madame Quinet herself tells us that they were practically intended as. a continuation of—that which is perhaps the most deeply interesting of all Quinet's works, the Histoire de mes Idees.

For many, at least, of the present generation of readers, it is necessary briefly to retrace the principal details of Quinet's life. Born in 1803, son of a father employed in the Commissariat of the first Napoleon's armies, and of a Protestant mother, Quinet was chiefly brought up at Lyons, but was sent to Paris at seventeen, having been already declared admissible to the- Polytechnic School, which, however, he never entered. He was placed at first at a banker's, but made it a condition that he- should be allowed to study at the same time for the French Bar. He left the banking-house after six months, and carried his legal studies as far as passing his final examination, but does not appear to have ever been admitted as an advocate. In the meantime, one of his leading passions, the literary one, had mastered him. His translation of Herder's Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, with his entirely original " Introduction " to the work, had brought him into relation with some of the leading thinkers of the day. He• had already visited England and Switzerland; in 1827 he was at Heidelberg, received in German society with a cordiality which it would now be impossible for a French- man to find there, and forming (1828) an intimaci with the More family, among the ten daughters of which one- was destined to become his first wife. Meanwhile, his name- as a literary man was sufficiently prominent for him to be chosen out of a hundred competitors as member of a scientific- Commission sent to Greece (1829), the result of which was the publication of a volume on Modern Greece, soon translated into German and Russian. He had hurried to Heidelberg on his- return; on his way back to Paris, he was met at Strasburg by the news of the Revolution of July, 1830. Many of his- friends were now in power, but he began to write in the news- papers, in the Revue des Dear Mondes, recently founded, and by his outspokenness offended several. His father died in 1831, and he then went to Italy for two years. In 1834 he- married Minna More, and spent the next two years in Germany, making an excursion into Belgium. In 1839 he- obtained a professorship at Lyons, the chair being created for• him. His success was brilliant, but after a twelvemonth he threw up his professorship to return to Paris. Here- in 1811 was created for him a new chair, that of the- " Languages and Literature of Southern Europe." Michelet was his colleague, and there in 1843 they carried on their famous campaign against the Jesuits and IT1tramontanes, the result of which in 1846 was the interdiction of Quinet's- lectures, giving him the opportunity for a tour in Spain. In 1847 his beloved mother died. In 1848 the Revolution gave- him back his chair, and his native Department, the Ain, elected him to the Assembly. He was re-elected, and remained a Deputy till the Coup d'Etat of 1851, a few months before- which he lost his first wife. Twenty-two years of exile followed, spent first in Belgium, then in Switzerland. He married again in 1852, and the unremitting tender helpfulness of his. second wife probably did much to prolong his life. Almost every year of exile was marked by the publication of a new work. He refused to avail himself of the amnesty of 1859, though the gradual estrangement thereby from many of his friends who had availed themselves of it made the eleven years of now voluntary exile the bitterest of all to bear. At last the Empire fell, and Quinet re-entered France, to go- through all the trials of the siege of Paris. He was, of course, elected to the National Assembly in 1871, coining in fourth on the list for Paris, though at the time seriously ill. Another serious illness, brought on by the sufferings of the siege, came on in 1872. He was still able to write his last complete work,. L'Esprit Nouveau. Death carried him away (March 27th, 1875), before he had published its successor, Vie et Mort du _Genie Grec.

Of the two volumes before us, the former is perhaps the

more attractive, especially in its earlier pages, which relate to the early and passionate affection of Quinet for his mother, the strange vicissitudes of his education, and through it all the rapid development of his mind ; so that at twenty we find him already publishing (at his own expense, and at the cost of

his chairs and mattress) a politico-social satire, The Tablets of the Wandering Jew, then writing a History of Human Per- sonality, immediately followed by a. work on Political Institu- tions in their Relations to Religion, simultaneously with which he wrote another on Bossuet. At twenty-one, he was writing an introduction to and translating Herder's Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. The latter work he was even able to sell for nearly £100. His literary fecundity was always prodigious, especially having reference to the careful study on which his writings were based. His so-called complete works make up twenty-eight volumes, besides two of

correspondence, and yet the former do not contain the earlier works above-mentioned. As soon as one work was finished, Madame Quinet tells us, another was begun.

Considered merely as a literary man, Qninet's range was enormous, writing now in poetry, now in prose : literature proper, history, language, archteology, philosophy, all supplied him with subjects for works, always noteworthy, masterpieces often, full of high and striking thoughts expressed in a style at once lofty and brilliant. He was passionately fond of music, and played the violin. Natural science occupied him much in his later years, and formed the subject of one of the most striking of his books. As an orator, in his lectures at Lyons and in Paris he aroused the utmost enthusiasm in his audiences. Yet think of him as a politician, and his literary, artistic, scientific, oratorical gifts almost disappear in the steadfastness of his patriotism. To vast masses of his countrymen, who cared nothing for literature or philosophy, Quinet was simply the unbending foe to all tyranny. And yet we must go deeper still to find the true secret of his life. It lay in the purity of his moral character, and above all in his absolute sincerity. Foreigners are apt to consider the French, whatever may be their great and brilliant qualities, as an insincere people, whose

profession and practice have often the very slightest mutual connection. Yet here was a Frenchman who strove all his life long simply to do and to say that which he thought right Our own politicians may well blush before the example of such a life. It is simply impossible to imagine Edgar Quinet deliberately making statements to mislead an assembly of which he was a member; it is impossible not to imagine him turning his back with disgust on any one who did so. Yet this stern sincerity was accompanied by a keen sense of humour. In his early youth he had been for a time under the spell of Cousin, who made much of him, as he was wont to do of any able young men whom he might hope to

use as tools. What can be more delightful than these two anecdotes of him P-

" He was come back from Berlin, where he had had some little difficulties with the police One morning, I come to his door and ring; he opens to me himself, draped in his great white dressing-gown of soft stuff. He walks up and down, and exclaims with a melodramatic voice, Quinet, do you see, the world, mis- fortune, and I, we form a vast trinity.' And whilst continuing to walk up and down with long strides, changing his language, but not his tone, Quinet, lam completely disgusted with martyrdom.' " "When all the world was agitated in favour of the Greeks, the friend of Plato could not remain indifferent. His excitement reached its height, when he learnt Santa Rosa's death in the island of Sphacteria. The day when this news went abroad, on seeing me enter his room, he took my hand, and with tragic voice : Quinet, Santa Rosa has just perished, assassinated in the isle of Sphacteria. Quinet, prepare, be ready, we must set off, you and I, we will go and avenge Santa Rosa.' I, who dreamed of nothing but Greece, transported with delight, finding my utmost wishes realised in the idea of making this journey and under such cir- cumstances, I return home in all haste, and make all preparations for the start. As soon as I was ready, I hastened to M. Cousin's to place myself at his disposal. Again he came himself to open to me, always clad in his white dressing-gown. On seeing me, he gazes fixedly at me, with an air of inspiration lays his hand on my shoulder, and after a long silence, majestically says : Well, Quinet, we will not set off."

Scarcely less humorous is the account of how Cousin, in an interview with Quinet and Michelet, already inseparable friends, after a splendid discourse on the beauty and holiness of self-sacrifice, seized both their hands and exclaimed :—" Yes, my young friends, I see no fairer future for you than that which I am about to trace out for you. You, Quinet, you will undertake, for ten years, a translation of the Commentaries of Olympiodorns. To you, Michelet, I reserve St. Bernard. Here is a mission worthy of you both." It need hardly be added that it was in his own interest that he tried to impose such tasks on his young friends, and that they were both clear- sighted enough not to fall into the trap.

Many extracts of deep interest might be made from these volumes ; but it must suffice to quote Edgar Quinet's last. words :—

" As I was offering him his medicine, he seized my hand, and keeping it in his own, said with grave sweetness : We must be

prepared to suffer Will it be from separation ? In reality we shall be always united, here and elsewhere There,

where there is no more disease, nor sorrow, nor separation ' And with heroic accent he repeated three times : Well, yes, we

shall be united again in eternity,—and in the truth Now I will try to sleep."

As a master of French prose, Quinet will always hold a high rank amongst the brilliant group of nineteenth-century writers. His place is beside Victor Hugo, George Sand, and Lamartine.

Without Hugo's colossal genius, he is free from his glaring faults as he is from the soft prolixity of La,martine. In point of style, it is possible that posterity may rank him above both, and second only to the incomparable author of the Mare an Diable, Consuelo, and the Lettres d'un Voyageur. He had many

other titles to remembrance. He discovered Roumania for Europe, and for France her epics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He anticipated on many points much of the current thought of our day. But above all he was, in a dishonest age, an honest man.