PREVOST-PARADOL.
THE French Minister who shot himself at Washington last week was a very interesting man. Both in his life and in his death he offered a curious study, especially to Englishmen. He had been so brilliantly successful that he was called "the luckiest
man in Franee," and yet, in what might have seemed the height of his good fortune, he chose to die the saddest of all deaths. By thirty, when most men are still apprentices, Paradol was a leading writer in the Debats, and had spread his name throughout Europe; by thirty-seven, he had won a seat in the French Academy, while far older and abler men still stood undignified by the coveted distinction ; by forty, he appeared on the point of becoming a Minister of State, and he really accepted, almost as a favour, one of the highest poste in the diplomatic service of France ; while, in the near future, he seemed certain to take at least an official place among the statesmen of Europe. Nowhere out of France could such a course be run. In England, journalism leads to dignified -obscurity ; in France it has lead, and may still lead, to office. Thiers first won power as a writer of leading articles ; Guizot was also aided by his talents as a journalist ; and if Armand Carrel had not been shot by M. Emile de Girardin, that. powerful writer would soon have left the editorship of the Constitiutionnel to take the highest place as a Minister of State. Although Prevost-Paradol was equal in ability to neither of these men, he was following their footsteps towards office. When he criticized the Emperor in the Courrier du Dimanche or the Journal des Debats, the fact was often -telegraphed to England as a matter of political importance, and the Paris correspondents of the London papers frequently printed long extracts from his articles. Hence, while only a jour- nalist, he spoke with statesman-like authority. Yet, at first sight, it was difficult to see why. If he wrote with admirable ease, -elegance, and point, so did other Frenchmen who had won no such fame. And thus English critics were tempted to cry out that Paradol was overrated, while eminent French men of letters kept 'them in countenance by whispering at the dinner-table that he was a writer of " second-rate brilliancy." But the very fact that the
• quality of his writing did not explain the degree of his fame or of -his power, only adds to the interest of Paradol as a study. In the first place, he enlisted in the ranks of the Orleanists, -and thus became a member of a small party. Now, as De Quincey pointed out when accounting for the rapidity with which John Foster won his fame, and for the height 'to which that fame grew, the member of a small party has -an enormous advantage over the member of a large. Not only has he fewer rivals, but the whole party feels that its interests are identical with his, and that, in spreading his fame, it is fighting its own battle. So, just as the Baptists lavished their eulogies on the one great essayist of their own sect, the Orleanists lent all their strength to celebrate the services of the one brilliant pen at their -command. Since the writing days of Guizot and Thiers were done, the constitutionalists seemed to enter into a conspiracy in order to .spread the fame and heighten the power of the gifted young man who looked to the exiles of Twickenham for the regeneration of France, and could express his loathing for the man of December -and the system of Imperialism either with the philosophic gravity -of a De Tocqueville, or the epigrammatic lightness and venom of a .Courier. And Paradol, on his part, aided the efforts of his friends by displaying a singular combination of qualities. He was at -once the boldest and the most cautious of Opposition pens ; the most irritating to men in power, and the least alarming to those Orleanist statesmen who did not think their own return ,to power impracticable. Gifted with a delicate faculty of raillery and sarcasm, he criticized the Emperor and M. de Persigny with a mock urbanity which raised a laugh in all the .cultivated salons of Paris. Neither of these eminent personages -can bear ridicule, and M. de Persigny at least was stung to mad- ness by the poisoned darts with which the malicious Orleanist pierced his thin skin. So the Imperialist statesman pursued the young journalist with what might have seemed a personal hatred. Para- dol was fined, and, if we are not mistaken, imprisoned, for de- nouncing the Imperialist policy in a pamphlet on Les Anciens Partis; the Debats was repeatedly warned for publishing his trench- ant criticisms ; and the Courrier du Dimanche in which his friend Alfred Assolant gave him free rein, was first chastened with warn- ings, and finally was suppressed, for permitting him to bring the Empire into contempt by his urbane but merciless irony. Mean- while, cultivated Paris joined in the ridicule of the Empire and whispered its congratulations to Paradol. Meanwhile, also, his fame and power grew with each fresh prosecution, until the Due de Persigny found, no doubt to his intense amazement, that the journalist had become a more important personage than himself.
While implacably hostile to the system of personal government, Paradol, on the other hand, stopped far short of such anti- Imperialists as Ledru. Rollin and Louis Blanc. He had no liking for universal suffrage, although he believed it to be inevitable in France ; nor did he conceal his distrust in a Republic, although he held that form of government to be indefinitely better than the hated system of Imperialism. He belonged to that small band of Frenchmen who place their faith in a constitutional monarchy, and whose views were recently expressed in the Rem des Deux Mondes by M. Renan, with his wonted subtlety of analysis and felicity of style. It was to the British Constitution that he turned for a model. He studied our history with the zeal of a devotee, who thinks that it contains the political secret which his own country has missed. Our Lords and our Commons, our system of limited suffrage, our manner of electing the judiciary, our fashion of conducting prosecutions, and the freedom of our press, were all subjects which he knew more thoroughly than the, great majority of Englishmen. Indeed, the favour with which he viewed our institutions, was more English than that of the English
themselves. But such a temper of mind exactly suited the doctri- naires and the Orleanists of France, who dread the licence
of the mob even more intensely than they hate the Empire.
And, as if anticipating a day when he himself should have to act instead of speak, Paradol wrote his graver essays in the responsible spirit of a statesman. He demanded not destruction, but reform. " Give us," he said, in effect, " trial by jury, a judiciary independent of the executive, a free press, a Chamber elected by the uncontrolled vote of the people, a minority responsible to that Chamber, and, in a word, emancipation from that system of personal government which is the curse of France." Such was also the demand of his leader, Thiers. And so, when the general election brought 011ivier into power with the words " Ministerial Responsibility " on his banner, and when the day of personal government seemed to have reached its end, Thiers could promise the Ministry the support of his powerful voice, and Paradol fancied that he could help the Empire with his pen.
Such, we believe, are the main causes that gave the 0 rleanist writer so conspicuous a position in politics. But he held an almost equally high rank in literature, and, at first sight, it is again difficult to see the reason why. When he was elected an Acade- mician, his name was brought, in accordance with etiquette, to the Emperor, and, repaying with a sneer the many sarcasms which he himself had endured from the new Academician, the master of many legions asked what M. Paradol had written. The sneer was almost justified ; for "the luckiest man in France" owed his election chiefly to the fact that he was, not the most gifted com- petitor, but the best writer among the young Orleanists. M. Guizot, that patriarch of Orleanism, wields so unchallenged a despotism over the Academy, that he can virtually decide an elec- tion ; he it was who chiefly helped to give the Academy that anti- Imperialist character which it wore until the accession of M.
011ivier to office ; and to him it was that Prevost-Paradol stood indebted for a place among the Forty. The election was political rather than literary. The fortunate competitor had written nothing which entitled him to the honour. He had, indeed, published a discourse on history, a study on Elizabeth and Henry IV., studies on the moralists of France, a number of essays on literature and politics, and a crowd of lead- ing articles ; all these fruits of his pen had been marked by fineness and precision of thought, by ample know- ledge, by the sobriety of a cultivated taste, and the charms of a classically beautiful style ; but they left Paradol far short of the literary rank achieved by the rejected competitor, Jules Janin. At the same time, no doubt, he won the vote of many Academicians because he was honestly thought to possess the higher literary claims. He was the very type of the men who secure the suffrages of an academy or any other cultivated clique. The members of such a society seldom permit themselves to share the vulgar enthusiasm for original genius, with its wild, un- tamable freedom, and its disdain for the fetters of academic rule. They worship culture and elegance, the propriety of perfect taste, the moderation of good sense ; they pay greater deference to models of literary form than to de- fiant displays of literary strength. And Paradol united, in a singular harmony, some measure of all to Aca- demic qualities. Devoid of original genius, he was gifted with an intelligence of admirable clearness and balance, on which he had lavished an assiduous culture ; his taste was exquisitely fine, his judgment saved him from the infirmity of excess, he wrote with an air of well-bred urbanity even when his invective was most keen, and he had mastered that most difficult of all literary accomplishments, a supremely beautiful style. Hence Prevost- Paradol took a chief place among lettered men, and was a model Academician of the second class. Hence, also, he was compara- tively unknown to that great French nation which, like all uncultivated hordes, looks only to what a man says, and troubles itself little about the manner in which a thing is said. When he left the coteries of Paris to contest a seat for Nantes, he found that he was comparatively unknown, and the electors rejected him in favour of a man whom he doubtless thought, in the emphatic language of Macaulay, "unworthy to mend his pens." Even in Paris he lacked a book-stall reputation. Three years ago, we asked for his "Essais de Politique et de Litterature " in a shop in the Rue de Rivoli, and, on finding that the volume was not on the shelves, we proceeded to measure the degree of his popularity by going from shop to shop and asking the same question. Yet, although we went to a score of places, the book could not be found. The refined journalist did not write for the bourgeoisie.
Paradol, as we have said, was an interesting man ; his life was interesting, and the interest of his end was tragic. Notwith- standing all its brilliancy, his career had been sadly clouded. While cultivated Paris was applauding " tho luckiest man in France," his wife was stricken down by the saddest of maladies, and a year ago she died without the light of reason. Although suffering from the mightiest of all sorrows, Paradol was forced to continue the dreary task of writing political comments from week to week. Years of work had fretted his deli- cately organized brain, and he longed for rest or ac- tion. He longed for rest with a passionate eagerness which, perhaps, writing-men alone can understand ; he was so disgusted with the treadmill of journalism that, as he said to a friend, he became positively sick when he took a pen in hand ; but he could not lay down the weary instrument of his craft, and the rest for which he sighed he was in this life not to know. He longed for action, for contact with men, for the power of giving effect to his will by the word of command, for the authority to do what he had been merely saying,—longed for action with the passionate eagerness of a man who is conscious of his own great faculties ; who is wearied with crying words of counsel and woe in the market-place to a deaf generation ; and who seeks the opiate and the reality of administrative toil. By disgust at the delicate and exhausting task of literary criticism, Paradol was driven to solicit office, just as other men are driven by like causes into the desert of solitude or of exile. And he fondly thought that, since the Emperor had formally surrendered the iniquitous privilege of personal government, and had given 011ivier power as the head of a responsible Ministry, he might take office without even seeming to sacrifice his convictions. His friend and master, Thiers, told him that he might. So, in an evil hour, he yielded to the tempter, and enlisted among the officials of the Empire. Eagerly welcomed at the Tuileries by the very man whom he had held up to the scorn of France, he found a reward at once splendid and tragic,—the reward of a great diplomatic posi- tion, and of ruin and death. No sooner had he accepted the position of Minister at Washington than he was assailed with bitter reproaches, with cries of renegade and traitor, with taunts that he had sold himself for the splendour of ministerial place, by the crowd of Liberals who hated him because he had been successful, and by the crowd of Imperialists who had felt the whip of his scorn. Treated with insulting rudeness at the Duo de Gramont's by the creatures of Imperialism, he was tortured by the cold looks of his friends, and he felt that he had committed one of those errors which are irreparable. He sailed for America with a sad heart, and, it is said, with the presentiment that death was near him. But it was not until he reached the United States that he saw the full magnitude of his mistake. There he was greeted with the news that the man to whom he had lent the service of his intellect had thrown off the mask of peace, had revealed all the naked wickedness of the nature which perpetrated the coup d'itat, and, by unnecessarily plunging Europe into a war which would bring misery or death to a million homes, had perpetrated the mightiest of all crimes. At the same time, when he called on Mr. Fish, the Secretary of State, he learned, it is said, how profoundly he himself was despised for enlisting under such a chief. Mr. Fish, who was an old friend of the new envoy's, and had shown him generous hospitality during a former visit to the United States, is said to have intimated that, as the representative of France, Paradol would be courteously received, but that, as his friend, he could see him no more. Such a speech, if it was really made, must have sunk deep into the heart of a man who, like all delicately organized natures, was sensitive in excess to the cen- sures of his friends. And what, then, was the betrayed Liberal to do ? Had the fibre of his soul been firmer, he would at once have written a letter of resignation to the Due de Gramont, couched in terms of scathing indignation, and have gone back to Paris, to wage war anew against a base system of government and a baser dynasty. That manly course would have given such dignity and power to his utterances as to make him the most feared, no less than the most hated foe of the Empire, when the nation should recover from the madness of war. But to Paradol the French capital meant a circle of lettered men, many of whom had upbraided him for joining the Imperialist ranks, many of whom had sneered at the speed with which he had changed front, and all of whom would triumphantly say, " We told you so !" To Paradol a return to Paris meant a return to work of which he was sick, and a surrender for long years, or perhaps for ever, of that rest which he had seemed at length to have won, and for which
his enemies said that he had sold his soul. A return to journalism meant a return to toil, and obscurity, and the weariness of hope deferred. And neither from the resources of his own nature, nor of his religious belief, could he draw strength to resist the promptings of despair. He lacked robustness of soul, and his Christianity was that of the artist, who sees what is beauti- ful in the whisperings of faith, but has himself too little faith to know what is true. It is charitably said that Paradol's lucid intellect was at last clouded by insanity, and that in the end he had no command over his actions. At any rate, the luckiest man of France, and not the least brilliant, chose to end his perplexities by a death which, after all has been said by sentimentality, remains a death of cowardice. In moralizing on "la Maladie et la Mort," he himself had once said, " Mourir pour ne rien devoir h. Cesar, mourir pour ne pas respirer l'air souffle par Octave, c'est nest point mourir, c'est echapper h ce qu' on deteste, c'est s'elever au-dessus de ce qu'on meprise ;" but the lofty paganism of that sentiment does not free his own end from a taint of ignominy. Not a great or powerful, but a brilliant and interest- ing man, his death will be memorable as a dark record in the history of letters, and not less memorable as the protest of suicide against a wicked war.
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