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Letter XXIII
Letter XXIII of 24. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
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sur la considération qu’on doit aux gens de lettres.
Ni en Angleterre ni en aucun pays du monde on ne trouvedes établissements en faveur des beaux-arts comme en France.Il y a presque partout des universités; mais c’est dans la Franceseule qu’on trouve ces utiles encouragements pour l’astronomie,pour toutes les parties des mathématiques, pour celles de la médecine, pour les recherches de l’antiquité, pour la peinture, lasculpture, et l’architecture. Louis XIV s’est immortalisé par toutesces fondations, et cette immortalité ne lui a pas coûté deux centmille francs par an.
J’avoue que c’est un de mes étonnements que le parlementd’Angleterre, qui s’est avisé de promettre vingt mille guinées àcelui qui ferait l’impossible découverte des longitudes, n’aitjamais pensé à imiter Louis XIV dans sa magnificence envers lesarts.
Le mérite trouve à la vérité, en Angleterre, d’autres récompenses plus honorables pour la nation: tel est le respect que cepeuple a pour les talents qu’un homme de mérite y fait toujoursfortune. M. Addison, en France, eût été de quelque académie,et aurait pu obtenir, par le crédit de quelque femme, unepension de douze cents livres, ou plutôt on lui aurait fait desaffaires sous prétexte qu’on aurait aperçu dans sa tragédie deCaton quelques traits contre le portier d’un homme en place; en Angleterre, il a été secrétaire d’État. M. Newton était intendantdes monnaies du royaume; M. Congrève avait une charge importante;M. Prior a été plénipotentiaire; le docteur Swift est doyend’Irlande, et y est beaucoup plus considéré que le primat. Si lareligion de M. Pope ne lui permet pas d’avoir une place, ellen’empêche pas que sa traduction d’Homère ne lui ait valu deuxcent mille francs. J’ai vu longtemps en France l’auteur de Rhadamisteprès de mourir de faim; le fils d’un des plus grandshommes que la France ait eus, et qui commençait à marchersur les traces de son père, était réduit à la misère sans M. Fagon.Ce qui encourage le plus les gens de lettres en Angleterre, c’estla considération où ils sont: le portrait du premier ministre setrouve sur la cheminée de son cabinet; mais j’ai vu celui deM. Pope dans vingt maisons.
M. Newton était honoré de son vivant, et l’a été après sa mortcomme il devait l’être. Les principaux de la nation se sont disputél’honneur de porter le poêle à son convoi. Entrez à Westminster,ce ne sont pas les tombeaux des rois qu’on y admire, cesont les monuments que la reconnaissance de la nation a érigésaux plus grands hommes qui ont contribué à sa gloire; vousy voyez leurs statues comme on voyait dans Athènes celles desSophocle et des Platon; et je suis persuadé que la seule vue deces glorieux monuments a excité plus d’un esprit, et a formé plusd’un grand homme.
On a même reproché aux Anglais d’avoir été trop loin dans leshonneurs qu’ils rendent au simple mérite; on a trouvé à redirequ’ils aient enterré dans Westminster la célèbre comédienneMlle Oldfield, à peu près avec les mêmes honneurs qu’on a rendusà M. Newton; quelques-uns ont prétendu qu’ils avaient affectéd’honorer à ce point la mémoire de cette actrice afin de nousfaire sentir davantage la barbare et lâche injustice qu’ils nousreprochent d’avoir jeté à la voirie le corps de Mlle Lecouvreur.
Mais je puis vous assurer que les Anglais, dans la pompefunèbre de Mlle Oldfield, enterrée dans leur Saint-Denis, n’ont rien consulté que leur goût: ils sont bien loin d’attacher l’infamie àl’art des Sophocle et des Euripide, et de retrancher du corps deleurs citoyens ceux qui se dévouent à réciter devant eux desouvrages dont leur nation se glorifie.
Du temps de Charles Ier, et dans le commencement de cesguerres civiles commencées par des rigoristes fanatiques quieux-mêmes en furent enfin les victimes, on écrivait beaucoupcontre les spectacles, d’autant plus que Charles Ier et sa femme,fille de notre Henri le Grand, les aimaient extrêmement.
Un docteur, nommé Prynne, scrupuleux a toute outrance,qui se serait cru damné s’il avait porté un manteau court au lieud’une soutane, et qui aurait voulu que la moitié des hommes eûtmassacré l’autre pour la gloire de Dieu et la propaganda fide, s’avisad’écrire un fort mauvais livre contre d’assez bonnes comédiesqu’on jouait tous les jours très-innocemment devant le roi et lareine. Il cita l’autorité des rabbins et quelques passages de saintBonaventure, pour prouver que l’Œdipe de Sophocle était l’ouvragedu Malin, que Térence était excommunié ipso facto; et il ajoutaque sans doute Brutus, qui était un janséniste très-sévère, n’avaitassassiné César que parce que César, qui était grand-prêtre, avaitcomposé une tragédie d’Œdipe; enfin il dit que tous ceux quiassistaient à un spectacle étaient des excommuniés qui reniaientleur croyance et leur baptême: c’était outrager le roi et toute lafamille royale. Les Anglais respectaient alors Charles I"; ils nevoulurent pas souffrir qu’on excommuniât ce même prince à quiils firent depuis couper la tête; M. Prynne fut cité devant lachambre étoilée, condamné à voir son beau livre, dont le P. LeBrun a emprunté le sien, brûlé par la main du bourreau, et luià avoir les oreilles coupées. Son procès se voit dans les actespublics.
On se garde bien en Italie de flétrir l’opéra et d’excommunierle signor Tenezini, ou la signora Cuzzoni. Pour moi, j’oseraissouhaiter qu’on pût supprimer en France je ne sais quels mauvaislivres qu’on a imprimés contre nos spectacles. Lorsque les Italienset les Anglais apprennent que nous flétrissons de la plus grande infamie un art dans lequel nous excellons, que l’on excommuniedes personnes gagées par le roi, que l’on condamne commeimpie un spectacle représenté chez les religieux et dans les couvents, qu’on déshonore des jeux où de grands princes ont étéacteurs, qu’on déclare œuvre du démon des pièces revues parles magistrats les plus sévères, et représentées devant une reinevertueuse; quand, dis-je, des étrangers apprennent cette insolence,cette barbarie gothique qu’on ose nommer sévérité chrétienne,que voulez-vous qu’ils pensent de notre nation, et comment peuvent-ilsconcevoir ou que nos lois autorisent un art déclaré siinfâme, ou qu’on ose marquer de tant d’infamie un art autorisépar les lois, récompensé par les souverains, cultivé par les plusgrands hommes, et admiré des nations; et qu’on trouve chez lemême libraire l’impertinente déclamation contre nos spectaclesà côté des ouvrages immortels de Corneille, de Racine, de Molière,de Quinault?
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the French text of all twenty-four letters (Garnier edition, 1879, French Wikisource) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
On the Esteem Due to Men of Letters
Neither in England nor in any country in the world are there institutions devoted to the fine arts such as those in France. Universities exist almost everywhere; but only in France do we find these useful incentives for astronomy, every branch of mathematics, the branches of medicine, the study of antiquity, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Louis XIV immortalized himself through all these foundations, and this immortality cost him less than two hundred thousand francs a year.
I confess that one of the things that astonishes me is that the Parliament of England, which took it into its head to promise twenty thousand guineas to anyone who made the impossible discovery of longitude, has never thought to imitate Louis XIV in his generosity toward the arts.
Merit does, it is true, find other rewards in England, rewards more honorable to the nation: such is the respect this people has for talent that a man of merit always prospers there. In France, Mr. Addison would have belonged to some academy and might, through the influence of some woman, have obtained a pension of twelve hundred livres; or, rather, trouble would have been made for him on the pretext that someone had detected in his tragedy Cato a few barbs aimed at the doorman of a man in office. In England, he became secretary of state. Mr. Newton was master of the kingdom's mint; Mr. Congreve held an important post; Mr. Prior was a plenipotentiary; Dr. Swift is a dean in Ireland and is far more esteemed there than the primate. If Mr. Pope's religion does not allow him to hold office, it did not prevent his translation of Homer from earning him two hundred thousand francs. For a long time I saw the author of Rhadamiste in France close to starving; the son of one of the greatest men France has ever had, who was beginning to follow in his father's footsteps, would have been reduced to destitution but for Mr. Fagon. What encourages men of letters most in England is the esteem in which they are held: the prime minister's portrait stands on his own mantelpiece, but I have seen Mr. Pope's in twenty houses.
Mr. Newton was honored in his lifetime and after his death as he deserved. The leading men of the nation vied for the honor of bearing the pall at his funeral. Enter Westminster: it is not the tombs of kings that inspire admiration there, but the monuments raised in national gratitude to the greatest men who have contributed to the nation's glory. You see their statues there as you once saw those of Sophocles and Plato in Athens; and I am convinced that the mere sight of these glorious monuments has stirred more than one mind and helped form more than one great man.
The English have even been reproached for going too far in the honors they bestow on merit alone. People have objected to their burying the celebrated actress Miss Oldfield in Westminster with nearly the same honors paid to Mr. Newton. Some have maintained that they deliberately honored this actress's memory to such a degree in order to bring home to us more sharply the barbarous and cowardly injustice of which they accuse us for casting Miss Lecouvreur's body onto a refuse heap.
But I can assure you that in the splendor of Miss Oldfield's funeral, when they buried her in their Saint-Denis, the English consulted nothing but their own taste: they are far from attaching infamy to the art of Sophocles and Euripides, or excluding from the body of their citizens those who devote themselves to performing before them works in which their nation takes pride.
In the time of Charles I, at the beginning of those civil wars instigated by fanatical rigorists who finally became their victims themselves, much was written against the theater, all the more because Charles I and his wife, the daughter of our Henry the Great, were exceedingly fond of it.
A doctor named Prynne, a man of scruples carried to extremes, who would have thought himself damned had he worn a short cloak instead of a cassock, and who would have wished half of mankind to massacre the other half for the glory of God and the propagation of the faith, took it into his head to write a very bad book against some fairly good plays performed every day, quite innocently, before the king and queen. He cited the authority of the rabbis and certain passages from Saint Bonaventure to prove that Sophocles' Oedipus was the work of the Evil One and that Terence was excommunicated ipso facto; and he added that Brutus, who was a very strict Jansenist, had no doubt assassinated Caesar only because Caesar, who was high priest, had composed a tragedy of Oedipus. Finally he said that all who attended a performance were excommunicates who renounced their faith and their baptism: this was an insult to the king and the whole royal family. The English still respected Charles I then; they would not tolerate the excommunication of the very prince whose head they would later have cut off. Mr. Prynne was summoned before the Star Chamber and sentenced to watch his fine book, from which Father Le Brun borrowed his own, burned by the executioner, and to have his ears cut off. His trial can be found in the public records.
In Italy they take good care not to brand opera with disgrace and excommunicate Signor Tenezini or Signora Cuzzoni. For my part, I would venture to wish that we could suppress certain wretched books published in France against our theater. When Italians and English people learn that we brand with the utmost infamy an art in which we excel, excommunicate people employed by the king, condemn as impious a performance staged in religious houses and convents, dishonor entertainments in which great princes have acted, and declare the work of the devil plays examined by the strictest magistrates and performed before a virtuous queen; when, I say, foreigners learn of this insolence, this Gothic barbarism that people dare to call Christian rigor, what do you expect them to think of our nation? How can they comprehend either that our laws authorize an art declared so infamous, or that anyone dares heap such infamy on an art authorized by the laws, rewarded by sovereigns, cultivated by the greatest men, and admired by nations—and that at the same bookseller's they find an impertinent tirade against our theater beside the immortal works of Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Quinault?
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the French text of all twenty-four letters (Garnier edition, 1879, French Wikisource).
On the Respect Owed to Writers
Neither England nor any other country in the world has institutions supporting the arts like those in France. There are universities almost everywhere. But only France offers such useful support for astronomy, every branch of mathematics, branches of medicine, the study of antiquity, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Louis XIV made his name last forever through all these foundations. And that lasting fame cost him less than two hundred thousand francs a year.
I admit that one thing astonishes me. The English Parliament thought to promise twenty thousand guineas to anyone who made the impossible discovery of a way to determine longitude. Yet it never thought to imitate Louis XIV's generosity toward the arts.
Talent does, it is true, receive other rewards in England, and these bring more honor to the nation. The people respect ability so much that a talented man can always make his fortune there. In France, Mr. Addison would have belonged to some academy and might have obtained a pension of twelve hundred livres through the influence of some woman. More likely, he would have been made to suffer because someone claimed to find a few lines in his tragedy Cato directed against the doorman of a man in office. In England he became secretary of state. Mr. Newton was superintendent of the kingdom's mint. Mr. Congreve held an important office. Mr. Prior was a plenipotentiary. Dr. Swift is a dean in Ireland and is held in much higher regard there than the primate. Mr. Pope's religion keeps him from holding office. It has not kept his translation of Homer from earning him two hundred thousand francs. In France, I long saw the author of Rhadamiste close to starving. The son of one of the greatest men France has had was beginning to follow in his father's footsteps, yet would have been left in poverty without Mr. Fagon. What encourages writers most in England is the respect they receive. The prime minister's portrait hangs above the fireplace in his own study. But I have seen Mr. Pope's portrait in twenty houses.
Mr. Newton received the honors he deserved while alive and after his death. The leading men of the nation competed for the honor of carrying the funeral pall at his procession. Go into Westminster: the tombs you admire there are not the kings' tombs. They are the monuments the grateful nation has raised to the greatest men who helped make it famous. You see their statues there, just as people saw the statues of Sophocles and Plato in Athens. I am convinced that merely seeing those glorious monuments has inspired more than one mind and helped make more than one great man.
People have even accused the English of going too far in honoring talent alone. Some objected when they buried the famous actress Miss Oldfield in Westminster with almost the same honors paid to Mr. Newton. Some claimed that the English deliberately honored this actress's memory so highly to make us feel more keenly the barbaric and cowardly injustice they accuse us of: throwing Miss Lecouvreur's body onto a rubbish heap.
But I can assure you that when the English held Miss Oldfield's splendid funeral and buried her in their equivalent of Saint-Denis, they followed nothing but their own taste. They are far from branding the art of Sophocles and Euripides as shameful. Nor do they exclude from the ranks of their citizens people who devote themselves to performing works that their nation takes pride in.
In the time of Charles I, at the beginning of the civil wars started by fanatical hardliners who eventually became their victims themselves, many people wrote against the theater. They did so all the more because Charles I and his wife, the daughter of our Henry the Great, loved it dearly.
A doctor named Prynne was strict about every little point. He would have thought himself damned if he wore a short cloak instead of a clerical gown. He would have liked half of humanity to massacre the other half for the glory of God and the spread of the faith. He decided to write a very bad book against the quite good plays performed daily, without doing anyone harm, before the king and queen. He cited the authority of rabbis and some passages from Saint Bonaventure to prove that Sophocles' Oedipus was the Devil's work and that Terence was automatically excommunicated. He added that Brutus, who was a very strict Jansenist, must have murdered Caesar only because Caesar, as high priest, had written a tragedy about Oedipus. Finally, he said that everyone who attended a performance was excommunicated and had renounced their faith and baptism. This was an insult to the king and the whole royal family. The English still respected Charles I then. They would not tolerate the excommunication of the same prince whom they later had beheaded. Mr. Prynne was summoned before the Star Chamber. It sentenced his fine book, on which Father Le Brun based his own, to be burned by the executioner, and Prynne to have his ears cut off. The record of his trial is in the public archives.
In Italy, people take care not to disgrace opera or excommunicate Signor Tenezini or Signora Cuzzoni. For my part, I wish we could get rid of certain bad books published in France against our theater. The Italians and English hear that we brand an art in which we excel with the deepest shame. They hear that we excommunicate people paid by the king, condemn as godless a performance put on in religious houses and convents, and disgrace entertainments in which great princes have acted. They hear that we declare plays to be the Devil's work even though the strictest officials have reviewed them and they have been performed before a virtuous queen. When foreigners hear, as I say, of this insolence, this Gothic barbarism that people dare call Christian strictness, what do you expect them to think of our nation? How can they understand either that our laws permit an art declared so disgraceful, or that people dare heap such disgrace on an art permitted by law, rewarded by rulers, practiced by the greatest men, and admired by nations? And how can they understand finding, in the same bookseller's shop, the foolish attack on our theater next to the immortal works of Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Quinault?