Rameau's Nephew and First Satire (Oxford World's Classics) (22 page)

Put in absolute terms, nothing belongs less in the theatre than literature and its affairs. Everything that works and weaves in this circle is so delicate and so weighty that no contentious issue from it ought to be brought before the judgement of the gaping and gawping groundlings. And let no one cite Molière as a case, as Palissot and others after him have done. Genius is not to be prescribed to, it flits sure-footedly like a sleepwalker over the sharpest mountain ridges, from which waking mediocrity comes crashing down at the first faltering step. With what a light touch Molière treated such themes will shortly be elaborated upon elsewhere ... (p. 774)

. . . Palissot’s
Philosophers
was merely an expanded version of the earlier festival play at Nancy (
Le Cercle, ou les Originaux
). He goes further, but he does not see any further. As a limited opponent of a particular situation, he has absolutely no insight into what is important at a more general level, and he produces but a cheap and momentary effect on a limited, partisan audience.

If we move to a higher plane, it does not remain hidden from us that a false semblance commonly accompanies art and learning when they go out into the real world: for they work their effects on everyone present and certainly not just on the best minds of the century. Often the part played by half-educated, pretentious natures is sterile, indeed downright harmful. Common sense is shocked at the false use of higher sentiments, especially when they are confronted directly with harsh reality.

And then again, all retiring people who devote themselves to one sole enterprise enjoy a strange respect which people readily find laughable. These individuals do not easily hide the fact that they set great store by what they spend all their lives doing, and they appear to the man who does not know how to appreciate their efforts, or to show
understanding for their perhaps too keenly perceived sense of their own deserts, to be arrogant, capricious, and full of their own importance.

All of this springs from the enterprise itself, and only that individual would be praiseworthy who would appreciate how to counter such inevitable evils in such a way that the main purpose would not be missed and the higher benefits for the world of society would not be lost. But it is Palissot’s intention to make a bad thing worse, he determines to write a satire to damage, in the public’s opinion, certain identifiable individuals whose image at best lends itself to being distorted, and how does he set about it?

His play is concisely summed up in three acts. The economy of the work is skilful enough and attests a practised talent, only the plot is thin, one finds oneself in the all-too-familiar setting of French comedy. Nothing is new, apart from the bold step of portraying quite unambiguously recognizable individuals of the day.

Before his death an honest burgher had promised his daughter’s hand to a young soldier, but the mother, presently a widow, has become enamoured of philosophy and now intends to bestow her daughter on a member of that profession. The philosophers themselves appear in a repulsive light, and yet in the main they are so unspecifically drawn that one could easily replace them with worthless wretches of any caste or class.

None of them is in any way, by affection, or habit, or anything else, bound to the lady of the house, none of them has fallen a prey to self-deception in respect of her or feels any other human emotion towards her: all that was too refined for our author, although he might have found examples enough to hand in the so-called
Bureau d’esprit
; no, his aim was to make the company of philosophers hateful. They despise and curse their patroness in the crudest fashion. These gentlemen all only set foot in the house in order to win the girl for their friend Valére. They all declare that once this plan has succeeded none of them will cross the threshold ever again. And by such traits of character we are meant to recognize men like D’Alembert and Helvétius! It is, I suppose, conceivable that the maxim of self-interest postulated by the latter may be taken to its logical conclusion and be presented as leading directly to pickpocketing. Finally some jackanapes of a servant comes in on hands and knees with a head of raw lettuce in his mouth, in order to send up the state of Nature which Rousseau portrays as
desirable. An intercepted letter reveals the true attitudes of the philosophers towards the lady of the house, and they are thrown out in disgrace.

So far as its technical merit is concerned, the play was quite able to hold its own in Paris. Its versification is by no means clumsy, and here and there one finds a witty turn of phrase, but it is shot through with an appeal to everything common and vulgar, that artistic ploy of those who are the enemies of excellence, intolerable and contemptible . . . (pp. 776–8)

In the year 1805 I translated
Rameau’s Nephew
by Diderot from the manuscript, which the publisher took away with him with the intention of publishing that as well once the public had taken notice of the translation. The French invasion in the following year, the passionate hatred of that people and their language which this provoked, and the long drawn-out period of misery that ensued prevented the project, which has not to this day been carried out.

However, in 1818, when it was planned to add the complete works of Diderot to the
Collection
of French prose writers and a provisional advertisement to this effect was published, this hidden manuscript was also mentioned, which was apparently known only through a German translation from which the editors gave an account of the content of this strange work in some detail, at the same time translating one or two passages back into French, not infelicitously. While not prepared to consider the work a masterpiece, they still found it worthy of the original pen of Diderot, which probably amounts to the same thing.

The matter was mentioned a few times afterwards, but without further success; finally, in 1821 there appeared in Paris
Le Neveu de Rameau dialogue, ouvrage posthume et inédit par Diderot
, and caused a great stir, as was only fitting. For a time people thought it was the original, until in the end the humorous practical joke of its being a back-translation was discovered.

To date I have not been in a position to make a comparison: but Parisian friends who were the cause of it and who accompanied the person who undertook it every step of the way assert that the work has
turned out well, and would indeed have finished up better still, had the young, talented, and fiery translator stuck closer to the German.

Whether the name of this good man is already well known I could not say, nor do I consider myself at liberty to reveal his identity, although he was good enough to make himself known to me by sending me a copy as soon as the work appeared. (pp. 796–7)

[Epigraph] Vertumnis … iniquis
: ‘A man born when every single Vertumnus was out of sorts’ (Horace,
Satires
, 11. vii. 14; trans. H. R. Fairclough, Loeb edn.). Vertumnus was god of the changing year and could assume any shape he pleased. The reference is, in the first instance, to the mercurial personality of ‘Him’; but it may also refer to ‘Me’. On the relevance of this satire to the text more generally, see the Introduction.

Palais-Royal
: these are the public gardens, then larger than now, situated behind the Palais-Royal. The Allée de Foy, a favourite haunt of prostitutes, was on the east side; the Allée d’Argenson was on the west side of the gardens.

Café de la Régence
: this café, run by Rey from 1745, was situated in the Place du Palais-Royal. It was celebrated as a gathering-place for the best chess-players; Diderot himself used to go there to watch chess.

Cours-la-Reine …Champs-Elysées
: the Cours-la-Reine and the Champs-Elysées were both public spaces then situated outside the city boundaries; both enjoyed dubious reputations after dark.

as it pleases
: Diderot greatly admired the sixteenth-century comic writer Rabelais. His ‘monk’ is Frère Jean des Entommeures from
Gargantua
(1534), but this particular dictum is largely of Diderot’s own invention.

Mérope’s soul
: heroine of Voltaire’s tragedy of that name (1743); Frederick the Great thought it an ‘incomparable tragedy’. Voltaire’s tragedies are now unperformed and scarcely read; but for Diderot’s generation they represented the peak of tragic art, surpassed only by Racine.

Mahomet
: Voltaire’s tragedy
Mahomet
(1742) is a strident attack on religious intolerance. Leaving nothing to chance, Voltaire dedicated the play to the pope.

Maupeou
: eighteenth-century French politics is marked by a power struggle between the
parlements
(judicial bodies in Paris and the provinces, under Jansenist influence) and centralizing royal authority. Maupeou, who became chancellor in 1768, acted decisively to suppress the
parlements
. The philosophes in general, and Diderot in particular, were hostile to Maupeou’s reforms, and therefore uncomprehending of Voltaire, who, against the ‘liberal’ tide, supported Maupeou in a series of pamphlets written in 1771.

Les Indes … ‘Nuit, éternelle nuit’
: Les Indes galantes is an
opéra-ballet
by Rameau. The air ‘Profonds abîmes du Ténare, | Nuit, éternelle nuit’ is sung by ‘Envie’ in the first act of Rameau’s opera
Le Temple de la gloire
(the libretto is by Voltaire); the opera was performed in celebration of France’s victory at the battle of Fontenoy (1745).

Three Centuries … Heritage
: The Three Centuries of Our Literary Heritage (1772), by the Abbé Sabatier de Castres, is a literary history hostile to the philosophes.

Soubise’s coachman
: the Hôtel de Soubise had very large stables where tramps used to sleep; the building now houses the Archives Nationales (in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois).

jacket!
: see frontispiece, p. xxxvi.

‘Come into my cell …’
: a well-known anticlerical song, which begins: ‘Come into my cell, | Follow me, beautiful Ursula; | With voluptuousness | Let us temper our austerity.’

o stercus pretiosum
: ‘O precious manure.’

Concert spirituel
: these were regular concerts of religious music held at the château of the Tuileries (which no longer exists) from 1725. Virtuoso violinists Ludovico Ferrari and Carlo Francesco Chiabrano performed there in 1758 and 1751 respectively.

Allée des Soupirs
: on the west side of the Luxembourg gardens.

she’s eight
: it is tempting here to identify ‘Me’ with Diderot, whose daughter Angélique was born in 1753. She received her first lessons in the harpsichord at the age of eight, i.e. in 1761, the approximate date of a number of the incidents referred to in this work. Angélique went on to become a highly talented harpsichordist.

her little count
: the singer had a long-running affair with the Comte de Lauraguais, which was briefly broken off in late 1761. Diderot announces this news to his mistress Sophie Volland in a letter written from Paris on 2 October 1761: ‘The little Comte de Lauraguais has gone off and left Mademoiselle Arnould’ (
Diderot’s Letters to Sophie Volland
, 96–7).

Friends of Music … angel
: the Concerts des amateurs were a series of regular concerts, founded in 1769, and held at the Hôtel de Soubise.

Le Mercure galant
: Boursault’s play
Le Mercure galant
(1679) was revived in 1753, when Préville enjoyed great success, playing at least five different roles.

nothing but a wit
: a reference to Mme Du Deffand’s famous put-down of Montesquieu’s
De l’esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws
), that it was nothing but ‘de l’esprit sur les lois’ (‘spirit/wit about the laws’).

all else is vanity
: echo of Ecclesiastes 1: 2.

round my neck
: compare what Diderot wrote on 2 October 1761 to Sophie Volland: ‘I can’t continue to live on the incense of posterity. A delicious meal, a touching book, a walk in a cool and solitary spot, a conversation where you open your heart and give your emotions free rein, a strong feeling which brings tears to your eyes, makes your heart beat faster, takes your breath away, and plunges you into an ecstasy, whether it comes from hearing of a generous deed or from the love you feel for someone, health, gaiety, freedom, leisure, comfort; these are the things that make up true happiness. I shall never be happy in any other way’ (
Diderot’s Letters to Sophie Volland
, 97–8).

memory of Calas
: Jean Calas, a Protestant, was unjustly put to death in Toulouse in 1762 for the murder of his son; Voltaire mounted a public campaign for the righting of this judicial wrong, publishing such works as his
Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise on Toleration
, 1763). Calas was finally rehabilitated in 1765, as a direct result of Voltaire’s relentless campaigning. ‘Me’ here contrasts
Mahomet
, the work of art attacking religious intolerance (see note to p. 12 above), with practical action to combat the same evil.

Le Portier … Aretino
: the
Histoire de Dom B … [Bougre], portier des Chartreux
(1741), by Gervaise de Latouche, is one of the classics of eighteenth-century French obscene literature. The ‘positions’ refer to a group of sixteen sonnets by Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) accompanying engravings of sexual positions by the artist Giulio Romano.

jaws snap shut …
: some details of this description recall d’Holbach, as Diderot describes him to Sophie Volland in a letter of 1 November 1760.

Ingenii largitor venter
: (Lat). ‘The stomach, purveyor of genius’: the expression is from Rabelais (
Le Quart Livre
, 1552), and echoes the prologue to Persius’
Satires
.