BOOKS.
VAUVENARG1YES.*
A TOUCHING figure in the eighteenth century is that of the young soldier and philosopher, Luc de Vauvenargues. Neither himself nor his work has ever made much impression in Eng- land; his name, not being among the foremost, is little known except by students, and his writings are hardly finished and complete enough to be placed without dispute or doubt among French classics. He holds a very honourable place, however, in the estimation of those who know. Mr. Morley has ex- pressed his appreciation of Vauvenargues in an interesting paper, to be found in the second volume of his" Miscellanies." His life has been written and his works have been edited more than once in France ; his name and fame are now popularised by the quiet and yet enthusiastic memoir which M. Maurice Paleologne has contributed to Messrs. Hachette's series of " Les Grands Ecrivains Francais."
It seems to us that this little memoir is much to be admired. The biographer of Vauvenargues had very few facts to tell of his short and sad life, and a good deal of scope for fine and sentimental writing, if he had chosen to indulge in it. He has not done so. The little book is written throughout in a spirit happily attuned to that of Vauvenargues himself,— grave, gentle, thoughtful. The story of his youth and man- hood, his passion for glory, his few distinguished friendships, his writings with their high object, the disease which carried away that brave spirit so soon,—all this is told very quietly and without exaggeration, and is followed by a careful study of Vauvenargues' philosophy, his conception of man and of life, the causes which account for his genius, the effect of his writings and his character on the time in which he lived. This seems to have been considerable, especially as regards his character. " Ce cceur stoique et tendre," as Marmontel described him, had an influence over some of the brightest minds in France which impresses one's imagination. In his regiment they called him " father ; " and later, when ill-health barred him from all active work, and he could only live with a high and cheerful patience from day to day, his originality and moral power made the same friend say of him: "11 tenait nos times dans ses mains."
The outward facts of Vauvenargues' life are few and simple. He was born in 1715, the son of a Provencal noble; had not much education, never knew Latin or Greek, but gained from a translation of Plutarch that understanding love of antiquity in its best form and spirit, which was the moving influence of all his life. From it sprang his passion for glory, for fame. This, with the high moral ideal which accompanied it, was life itself to Vauvenargues; and he went through his campaigns under Pillars and Belle-Isle with a mind full of thoughts strangely exalted in a frivolous and mocking time. His evenings and his quiet moments were spent in noting down ideas which were afterwards to raise him high among French philosophical writers ; so that Voltaire compares him with Pascal, and his name is mentioned in the same breath with those of La Bruyere and La Rochefoucauld. It seems to us that there is some exaggeration in all this. Vauvenargues was a remarkable figure in his time ; but he died at thirty-one, before experience of life, to say nothing of maturity of talent, could have placed him on the level of such men as these. A poet like Keats or Shelley, as M. Paleologue truly says, may
* Trauroenargues. Par Maurice PabSologue. Paris: Hachette et Oie. 1880. (Lee Grande Ecrivains Francais.)
give his best and die young; but this is impossible to a moral and philosophical writer. Vauvenargues, for his age, was a wonder : this very fact keeps him back from the first rank, the highest place, the full blaze of that fame which he desired so passionately. No doubt, if he had lived, he would have been among the greatest :—" Le jour ob. Vauvenargues a dis- paru, de grandee, de legitimes esperances se sont evanonies avec lui, et nue perte immense a ate consommee."
In the terrible retreat of Marshal Belle-Isle's army from Prague, in the winter of 1742, when the soldiers had to cut their way through a forest, and many died of cold, fatigue, and hunger, Vauvenargues shared fully in the sufferings of his regiment. He had always loved war, "not as art or science, but as a grand passionate drama, in which men's strongest faculties are called out by danger." He went gallantly through his worst campaign, which was followed by a long time in hospital, for in the march his legs were frost-bitten. From this he never quite recovered, though he joined his regiment again, and fought at Dettingen. Soon after this he was nearly blinded by an attack of small-pox ; his legs also caused him great suffering ; and for these reasons he left the Army at twenty-nine, in the year 1744. He was never really well again ; but his active spirit could not rest, and he tried hard to get some small diplomatic post, that he might still serve his country. The difficulty of this, however, was very great. The letters he wrote to Louis XV. and to the Minister Amelot give a vivid glimpse of the inner life of the old regime. He can appeal to nothing but the King's favour. Not having been born a courtier, he has nothing to hope but from the value of his service to the King. He feels himself called to the service " par quelque chose de plus invincible et de plus noble que l'ambition." The result might have been expected,—no answer at all, either from King or Minister. He writes again to Amelot, putting into words the hopeless- ness which weighed on the lives of hundreds of well-born men in France :—" Male, monseignenr, me permettez-vous de vons dire que c'est cette impossibilite morale oil se tronve an gentilhomme qui n'a que du zele de parvenir jusqu'a son maitre, qui fait le decouragement que Ton remarque parmi la noblesse des provinces, et qui eteint toute emulation." Thus Vauvenargues spoke for his order, as well as for himself. Personally, he thought that hard work and service might have brought him at least to the level of those who make their fortune out of pleasure and intrigue. But he was mistaken ; and it was only the friendship and influence of Voltaire which afterwards, when it was too late, gained for him from Amelot the promise of a diplomatic appointment.
By this time his health had so entirely broken down, that any public employment was out of the question. But idleness also was out of the question for Vauvenargues. For the sake of his literary work, and attracted by the affectionate friend- ship of Voltaire, Marmontel, and a few others, he came to Paris, to a small lodging in the Rue du Paon. Here he was happy : alone, but for the visits of his friends, poor but contented, living au jour la journee, and bearing with cheerful, philosophic patience, those bodily sufferings which grew worse day by day. Marmontel wrote of him : " C'est avec lui qu'on apprenait a vivre, et qu'on apprenait a mourir." He tried to carry out his ideals : to think like Pascal, to write like Bossuet, to talk like Fenelon. His aims, it will be seen, were high; and the hard, mocking, shallow spirit of that early eighteenth century, though it found its incarnation in some of his friends, had no attrac- tion for him. If he was not altogether a Christian, he never spoke of religion with disrespect ; his thoughts were too deep and gentle, his mind was too earnest, for any presumptuous unbelief. His doctrine was in some ways very opposite to that of Pascal, whom he loved, for he would have nothing to do with the degradation of human nature, and taught men to believe in themselves, to trust themselves, to look to human character as the source of every noble instinct. He is like a modern teacher in his earnestness that men should think of life even more than of death. " Il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais monrir." M. Paleo- logne compares the mind of Vauvenargues to that of Marcus Aurelius, and also calls him the precursor of Rousseau. Acknowledging all the ideas, the thoughts, or rather, the ways of thinking and of looking at Nature, which are common to the two, we are yet inclined to think that Vauvenargues was something better than "the first sketch of
Rousseau." But this is a study in comparison, too long to be made in the limits of a review. We will only notice that the first part of the following description of the work of Vauvenargues hardly applies equally well to Rousseau :— " Sans illusion stir les faiblesses de l'homme, sans indulgence pour sea vices, it lui a rendu ses vertus, it lui a restitue sea titres de grandeur et de noblesse."
During his short residence in Paris, about a year before his• death, Vauvenargues published a volume in which his works were collected :—Introcluction a la Connaissance de l'Esprit humain ; .Reflexions sur divers Sujets ; Conseils a. un Jeune. Somme; Reflexions Critiques sur divers Poetes ; Fragments ; Meditation sur la Foi ; Paradoxes Wags de Reflexions et de Maximes. The book made no impression on the public ; it was hardly heard of, hardly noticed in the newspapers ; but the praise and admiration of Voltaire must have gone far to com- fort the writer for this neglect. In his kindly and honest criticism, in fact in all his relations with this belle time et beau genie, Voltaire appears in a singularly amiable light. And the kindness or unkindness of Fame did not matter ranch to Var- venargues. His life had long been one of great suffering, borne, as we have said, with the most noble patience. He died on May 28th, 1747, before he was thirty-two, having, as his biographer says, led a brave, serious, and disinterested life in an age of superficial depravity. " Il fant tither d'être bon, de calmer ses passions, de posseder son time," is the advice of Vauvenargues to himself and all who may listen.
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