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The Vogue of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
One would have difficulty in finding a stranger case of the growth and decline of a vogue than that of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau as a lyric poet. Before a single verse of his poems had been published he was being referred to as “Rousseau, fameux poète.” When the first edition of his poems appeared, in 1712, he was in disgrace, in exile, but the poems were avidly read and soon he was being spoken of this way: “le seul poète qui nous reste dans notre siècle” and “il faut avouer que nous n'avons de véritable poète que Rousseau.” And yet the vogue of the so-called “grand lyrique français” has so declined that when the Tuffrau revision of the Lanson manual of French literature appeared (1931), with the announced intention of treating only important figures (“seuls les écrivains de premier plan ont trouvé place dans le manuel”), the hundred or more authors treated did not include Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. He suffered the indignity of not being even mentioned, not receiving a passing reference, not even a footnote.
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References
1 Letter of the marquise d'Huxelles, 28 fév. 1710, quoted by the editor of the Journal de Dangeau, in his notes, xiii, 109.
2 Fénelon said this, according to the Comte du Luc. See the Letter of 3 mars 1712, quoted by Hyrvoix de Landosle, in Revue d'Histoire diplomatique (1910), p. 401.
3 Statement ascribed to the Regent, about 1719, by Brossette. See the Corresp. de J.-B. Rousseau et de Brossette (Paris, 1910), i, 197.
4 Dangeau, in mentioning Rousseau's flight in his journal, also spoke of him as “fameux poète.” See Journal de Dangeau, xiii, 297.
5 The following works had been given public performance, and had been published: Le Café, one-act comedy in prose, 1694; Jason, ou la Toison d'or, opera, music by Colasse, 1696; La Flatteur, comedy in prose, 1696; Vénus et Adonis, opera, music by Desmarets, 1697; Le Capricieux, comedy in verse, 1700.
6 The editor of a pirated Rotterdam edition of Rousseau's poems (Fritsch et Böhm, 1714) speaks (p. 300) of having received from Paris two manuscripts of the poet's works.
7 The letter is undated, but it was written after Rousseau's arrival in Switzerland (Dec. 1710) and before the publication of his works (Jan. 1712).
8 Œuvres de J.-B. Rousseau (Paris: Lefèvre, 1820), 5 vols., v, 4.
9 It is MS. 2326 of the Bibliothèque de Troyes, and is entitled Œuvres du sieur Rousseau et de quelques auteurs modernes (Paris, 1708). This date is not correct; the MS could not have been written before 1710—it mentions the reception of the president de Mesmes into the Academy, an event which took place in 1710. On the other hand, it omits important poems published in the 1712 Soleure edition (Epître aux Muses, Epître à Marot and all of the Odes sacrées) and hence was probably written before that.
10 In a letter to Boutet, 19 fév. 1712. (Œuvres, 1820 v, 13.)
11 The Supplément, published at London 1723, gives an authentic version of the épigrammes libres, but it was published without the author's approval. (See J.-B. Rousseau, Lettres sur différents sujets (Genève, 1749) i, 116.)
12 These are published in Gacon's Anti-Rousseau (Rotterdam, 1712). The first quotation is from pp. 388–389.
13 Ibid., p. 392.
14 Rousseau's letter to Dufresny, protesting the unauthorized publication of his poems, was printed in the Mémoires de Trévoux, oct. 1711, pp. 1767–70.
15 Mercure galant, février–mars 1711, p. 219. The index indicates that the poems given pp. 220–262 are the “recueil de poésies d'un même auteur.”
16 For instance, Rousseau was certainly irritated to see included among his poems a piece called La Marmelade, describing Love annoying a young woman who was making peach marmalade. Even if it was a genuine work of his he would have suppressed it from his published works.
17 As an example: the Epître au comte d'Ayen, as published in the Mercure (fév.–mars 1711, p. 233), contained a scurrilous reference to the abbé Pic.
18 Œuvres (1820), i, li.
19 See P. Darin, Notice bibliographique sur les … Œuvre diverses du sieur R [oussean] publiées sous le rubrique Soleure … 1712 (Paris, 1897).
20 Rotterdam (Fritsch et Böhm, 1712), 2 vols. in-12°. These publishers, with more business sense than delicacy, issued the libelous Anti-Rousseau of Gacon uniform with Rousseau's works.
21 I have examined the Mercure, the Mémoires de Trévoux, the Bibliothèque choisie and the Journal des Savants without finding any mention.
22 These two letters are from a collection of 80 letters of Phillippe de Vendôme to J.-B. Rousseau, found in Paris, Bibl. Arsenal, MS. 7474.
23 Epître à Rousseau, published in the Collection des poètes français (Paris, 1821), xix, part 2, 40. (The poem is undated, but the context makes it seem that it was written after the reception of a volume of Rousseau's poems, and since La Fare died in May 1712, it must have been written early in 1712.)
24 Letter of 24 avril 1715. See Corresp. de J.-B. Rousseau et de Brossette (Paris, 1910), 2 vols., i, 1–2.
25 Letter of 25 nov. 1715. See op. cit., i, 29.
26 Letter of 18 juin 1716 (op. cit., i, 54–55).
27 Published by Tonson and Watts, 2 vols. in-4°.
28 Mémoires de Trévoux, sept. 1723, pp. 1711–12.
29 Letter of 19 août 1723 (op. cit., i, 241). In another letter (op. cit., i, 245–247) Brossette revealed that he had the only copy in Lyon, and that it was in great demand.
30 Letter of 6 nov. 1723. Cited from a collection of 40 letters of Prince Eugene to J.-B. Rousseau, found in Paris, Bibl. Arsenal, MS. 7475. As a substantiation of Eugene's statement that the number of unfavorable critics of Rousseau's works was small we might mention that, according to the publishers Fritsch et Böhm (in their preface in the 1714 Rotterdam edition of Rousseau's works), Gacon's violent attack, the Anti-Rousseau, “n'a pas été bien reçu.”
31 Bibl. Troyes, MS. 2326, pp. 56–57.
32 Œuvres de Voltaire, ed. Moland, xxxiii, 90. This letter has been dated 1723 because it seems to refer to the 1723 edition of Rousseau's works.
33 On this letter's date see Bengesco's Bibliographie de Voltaire, iii, 71, 380, and the Moland edition of Voltaire, xxxiii, 43 ff. It is difficult to accept the date 1716 given by Bengesco and Moland—that is, as far as certain details of the letter are concerned. These details show Voltaire expressing personal animosity to J.-B. Rousseau. The fact that the letter was addressed to La Faye, a man who had publicly beaten Rousseau in 1710, complicates the matter further, for there is no other evidence to show that Voltaire was unfriendly to the poet before their quarrel in 1722. On the contrary. (See Bonnefon's article in the RHL of 1902 on the relations of Voltaire and J.-B. Rousseau.) On the other hand the letter does not refer to any of the poems of Rousseau not published before 1723. Presumably part of the letter was written about 1716 and part in 1722, after the quarrel.
34 Œuvres de Voltaire, ed. Moland, xxxiii, 43 ff.
35 This might be taken as an indication that the letter had been previously published, and as an admission that it had been reworked. (See note 33.)
36 Œuvres de Voltaire, ed. Moland, xxxiii, 279.
37 Œuvres de Voltaire, ed. Moland, viii, 549–600. The later and better-known versions of the work give a less complete and less severe account of Rousseau than that given in the 1733 editions. My references are to the version given in those editions. For further remarks on J.-B. Rousseau given in a manuscript version of the Temple du goût see G. L. van Roosbroeck's article “The original version of Voltaire's Temple du goût,” Romanic Review xxv (1934), 324–341.
38 In addition to the various opinions I have already cited, I might mention that I have counted 12 separate editions (reprints and contrefaçons) appearing between 1712 and 1734.
39 Le P. Brumoy and le P. Tournemine, editors of the Mémoires de Trévoux, were at that time correspondents of Rousseau and were among those engaged in endeavoring to make it possible for the poet to return to Paris.
40 Mémoires de Trévoux (octobre 1734), p. 1770.
41 Op. cit., p. 1779.
42 Op. cit., p. 1782.
43 Le Pour et le contre, v (1734), 294.
44 Op. cit., ix (1736), 185. Other expressions of Prévost's admiration for J.-B. Rousseau are to be found in xi (1737), 106–109, and xii (1737), 328–329.
45 Among other eighteenth-century eulogies of J.-B. Rousseau we might mention the “Lettre sur le grand Rousseau” of Sabatier de Cavaillon (Année littéraire (1754), i, 106–120) and the Eloge de Rousseau of De Maux (Amiens, 1779).
46 Œuvres, ed. Moland, xxii, 233–240.
47 Op. cit., xxii, 252–255.
48 Letter 18 fév. 1737 (op. cit., xxxiv, 216).
49 Letter of 2 janv. 1739 (op. cit., xxxv, 94). Frederick of Prussia was of the same opinion with regard to the Ode à la Postérité. He wrote to Voltaire (27 janv. 1739, éd. Moland, xxv, 141): “J'avais lu le soir, avant de me coucher, une très mauvaise ode de Rousseau, adressée à la Postérité: j'en ai pris la colique, et je crains que nos pauvres neveux n'en prennent la peste. C'est assurément l'ouvrage le plus misérable qui me soit de la vie tombé entre les mains.”
50 Op. cit., xxiii, 359, 375, 406–407, 416–417, 423–424.
51 Op. cit., xxiv, 223, 227.
52 Op. cit., xxiv, 352.
53 See the articles critique, enthousiasme, figure, imagination, style.
54 Evidently Voltaire!
55 Œuvres de Voltaire, éd. Moland, xxxvi, 201.
56 Œuvres de Vauvenargues (Paris: Cité des Livres, 1929), 3 vols., i, 268–270.
57 See the article of Sabatier previously referred to (note 45) and Lebrun's Réflexions sur le génie de l'ode 1756, see Œuvres de Lebrun (Paris, 1811), 4 vols., iv, 293–317, esp. 310–311: “Il est un reproche très ordinaire et très injuste que l'on fait à ce grand homme (Rousseau): c'est de peu connaître le sentiment … En effet, j'ai remarqué que bien des gens nommaient poésie de sentiment tous ces petits vers dépouillés de force et de correction, à travers lesquels percent deux ou trois pensées fadement galantes, et qu'on appelle jolies … Eh! la postérité l'admirera-t-elle moins, pour n'avoir rimé ni impromptus bachiques, ni bouquets pour Philis? …”
58 Réflexions sur la poésie (1760) and Réflexions sur l'ode (1762), both read before the Academy.
59 Œuvres de D'Alembert (Paris, 1805), iv, 122.
60 In 1790 the editors of the Kehl edition of Voltaire seemed to think that by that time everybody realized that Voltaire was superior to J.-B. Rousseau. They ask, “s'il reste encore des gens de lettres qui croient de bonne foi J.-B. Rousseau un poète égal ou supérieur à M. de Voltaire …” (Quoted in éd. Moland, xxiii, 374.)
61 The Année littéraire vi (1760), 167, had attacked D'Alembert's Réflexions sur la poésie of 1760. It reférred ironically to the fact that “Rousseau, le grand Rousseau” was “très peu goûté de MM. les précepteurs et les tuteurs du genre humain.”
62 Œuvres de Voltaire, éd. Moland, xlii, 231.
63 Œuvres choisies de Marmontel (Paris, 1825), ix, 229.
64 Nouv. éd. (Paris, 1816), v, 368–143.
65 And not to the “Duc de Vendôme” as Laharpe entitles it.
66 Op. cit., p. 385.
67 Op. cit., p. 419.
68 Quérard lists over a dozen published between 1790 and 1815.
69 Op. cit., p. 407.
70 Odes, cantates … de J.-B. Rousseau (Paris, 1805), p. xiii.
71 See especially Quérard's La France littéraire.
72 Introd. to Œuvres poêt. de J.-B. Rousseau (Paris, 1823), 2 vols. in-32°.
73 Introd. to Œuvres compl. de J.-B. Rousseau (Paris, 1820), 5 vols. in-8°. and article “J.-B. Rousseau” in Biogr. universelle, vol. xxix (1825).
74 Quoted in Œuvres complètes de Victor Hugo, édition publiée par l'Imprimerie nationale, i (Paris, 1904), 561.
75 In an article entitled “Aperçu historique et littéraire sur l'année 1823,” in Annotes de la littérature et des arts xiv (1824), p. 49.
76 See Chateaubriand's Congrès de Vérone (Leipzig, 1838), i, 267. It is apparent, in the same passage, that Chateaubriand also knew these poems very well.
77 Cours de littérature (Bruxelles, 1840), p. 28.
78 There is little evidence available to show us what the Romantic poets thought of J.-B. Rousseau before 1829. Lamartine, at one period at least, was influenced by him: the poem L'Enthousiasme in Premières Méditations is quite certainly modeled after the Ode au comte du Luc. As for Victor Hugo, early in his career he seems to have known and respected the work of his predecessor. He said of him, for example, “un des auteurs pour lesquels les classiques professent à juste titre (italics are mine) le plus profond respect, c'est, J.-B. Rousseau.”—From a letter in the Journal des Débats in July 1824—quoted in Œuvres complètes, éd. de l'Impr.nat., i (1904), 566.
79 I quote from the reprint in Portraits littéraires (Paris, 1862), i, 128–144. The passage quoted is p. 130.
80 Op. cit., p. 133.
81 Op. cit., p. 142.
82 Op. cit., p. 143.
83 “Cet article … dont l'auteur aujourd'hui désavoue entièrement l'amertume blessante …” op. cit., p. 144.
84 This list includes all editions mentioned in Brunet, Quérard and Lanson.
85 In Vol. iv of his Histoire de la littérature française, 4e édition (Paris, 1867), p. 134.
86 14th edition (1920), p. 641.
87 It is true that in a lecture delivered in 1922 he said, without mentioning the name of J.-B. Rousseau, that he no longer considered lyric poetry absolutely sterile in that period. See Revue des Cours et Conf. xxiv, i (1922), 103.
88 Edition of 1899, i, 48.
89 With the exception perhaps of Faguet. Faguet, in a course given at the Sorbonne in 1899 (printed in the Revue des Cours et Conf. 1899–1900 and reprinted in his Hist. de la Poésie française, vol. vi), judged J.-B. Rousseau severely, but said that he was worth studying.
90 Let us note, however, the judgment of Joseph Vianey, expressed in “La Bible dans la poésie française depuis Marot,” Revue des Cours et Conf. xxiii, 2 (1922), 698–700: “Pendant de longues années, il conserva la réputation d'être le plus grand lyrique de notre pays. Il fallut toute une révolution du goût pour le déposséder de sa gloire. En son temps elle fut légitime.”
91 In the Epître à Huet. His explanation why this was so is curious:
Quant aux autres talents, l'ode, qui baisse un peu,
Veut de la patience; et nos gens ont du feu …
92 Œuvres de Fontenelle (Paris, 1790), v, 223.
93 See, for instance, Voltaire's Temple du goût or Lebrun's Reflexions sur le génie de l'ode. See op. cit., pp. 305–306.
94 It is worth noting that, from the Romantic period on and as the nineteenth century progressed, along with the disappearance of the appreciation of the special harmonic qualities produced by the observance of the classical rules for poetry in stanza form, there disappeared equally the idea of Rousseau's superiority because of his technical skill. This same process is very much less marked in the case of Malherbe.
95 Numerous examples could be given of the vogue of Biblical poetry. See, for instance, the opening lines of the Poétique in Fénelon's Lettre à l'Académie (1715).
96 See Etienne Gros, Quinault (Paris, 1926), pp. 743–750.
97 For instance, the composer Batistin set to music the cantata Les bains de Thomêry, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau knew it by heart and used to sing it, when he was young. See Confessions (Paris: Crès, 1912), i, 241.
98 All of the odes published in the third and fourth books were written in exile.
99 Such as the odes Au comte du Luc, Au comte de Bonneval, Aux princes chrétiens, A Malherbe, and Au comte de Zinzindorff.
100 See D. Mornet's Le Romantisme en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1912), p. 177 ff.
101 This definition did not get into the nineteenth-century dictionaries, but it is that of the literary historians at the end of the century, the definition of Lanson and Brunetière. See Brunetière's Evolution de la poésie lyrique (Paris, 1899), i, Quatrième leçon, esp. 154–155.
102 This idea probably existed long before it was consecrated by the dictionaries. Examples of it are to be found in Racine (“Tous les arts sont poésie.”—éd. Grands Ecrivains, vi, 271) and in Mme de Sévigné. (In speaking of a letter she had received, she said: “Nous y avons trouvé même de la poésie; car vous savez mieux que moi que le style figuré est une poésie.”—éd. Grand Ecrivains, x, 3.)
103 Op. cit., p. 269.
104 Ibid.
105 Œuvres posthumes de Vauvenargues (Paris, 1821), p. 105.
106 Op. cit., ix, 213–229. The quotations from Ossian are given—in translation—on pp. 221–226.
107 One isolated exceptional case is presented by Jean-Marie Chassaignon, who, in his strange work Cataractes de l'Imagination (1779), 4 vols., iv, 54–101, criticized the lyric poetry of J.-B. Rousseau as violently as Sainte-Beuve was to later. The judgments of Chassaignon were, however, in general unusual, not to say eccentric. He considered Jean-Baptiste far more important as a writer of comedies than as a lyric poet. Elsewhere in his work, while criticizing severely Racine and Boileau and other accepted classics, he exalted the merits of Pradon, Chapelain and Danchet.
108 In his Analyse raisonnée de l'histoire de France, for instance, he said: “Pour maintenir nos droits au génie, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, et les deux Rousseau écrivaient.” Œuvres complètes (Paris, 1831), v ter, 453.
109 Op cit., p. 145.
110 Op. cit., pp. 143–144.
111 Op. cit., pp. 130–131.
112 Op. cit., pp. 145–156.
113 Example of arbitrary criticism: Sainte-Beuve echoed Voltaire's disapproval of the lines:
Et les jeunes zéphyrs de leurs chaudes haleines
Ont fondu l'écorce des eaux.
(Ode au comte de Zinzindorjf.)
If he had wanted to praise J.-B. Rousseau, he could, equally well, have praised the metaphor for audacity in a period of poetic timidity.
Example of unjustified criticism: “Il y a de beaux traits, mais ils sont pris.” (p. 143). Of course they were. The classical tradition demanded skillful borrowing from the ancients.