Tartarin de Tarascon. Alphonse Daudet
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brought to his mind a vision of the dethroned monarchs whom he had seen spending their exile in Paris: the Duke of Brunswick, the blind King of Hanover and the devoted Princess Frederica, Queen Isabella of Spain, and others. "This is the work which cost me most effort," Daudet says, and the reason is not far to seek. He had always painted "from life," and the difficulties incident to gaining an entrance into the intimacy of even dethroned monarchs were almost insurmountable. The novelist's acquaintances were appealed to, from house-furnishers to diplomats. The story of the composition of "Les Rois en exil" is an interesting study of Daudet's methods, his inexorable insistence on truth, even to the most minute details.
As usual, the characters are sharply contrasted. Christian, the exiled king of Illyria, is detestably weak; Frédérique, his wife devoting herself completely to the interests of her son, Zara, struggles with the aid of the faithful preceptor, Méraut, to prepare the prince for a throne which he is never to ascend. Of all the characters that appear in Daudet's novels it is perhaps Frédérique whose appeal to the reader is strongest, and Frédérique is almost entirely the product of the author's imagination. We cannot but regret the many visions such as Frédérique which were refused admittance to Daudet's essentially romantic mind by the uncompromising laws of a realism which he had mistakenly accepted as his guide.
The composition of "Les Rois en exil" is defective, but its charm is great. In "Numa Roumestan" (1881) the technique is better. Daudet's first intention was to entitle this work "Nord et midi," his idea being to contrast the north with the south, a theme for which he always had a predilection. Numa is a refined Tartarin; Daudet sends him to Paris, and studies the result. Numa carries all before him by his robust vigor and geniality. The "mirage" effects of the southern sun pursue him to Paris; quick to promise out of the fullness of his hearty enthusiasm, he encourages and disappoints those who trust themselves to him. He deceives his wife, begs her forgiveness with abundant tears, and in a disgusting manner deceives her a second time. The book ends with the picture of Rosalie Roumestan bending over her new-born son. "Will you be a liar too?" She asks. "Will you be a Roumestan, tell me?"
"L'Évangéliste" (1883), a psychological study rather than a novel, is a heartbreaking picture of the inhumanity of religious fanaticism. "Sapho" (1884) is so essentially French in spirit that it can hardly be understood by American readers. Daudet dedicates it "To my sons when they are twenty." It is intended as a lesson, and if naturalistic works ever can carry a lesson this one certainly does. It is a striking picture of the evils of faux ménages. On the whole "Sapho" is disagreeable, yet of the novels it seems to be Daudet's masterpiece, perhaps because it is the most romantic. The truth may be photographed in its most minute realistic details, as in Zola, or it may be colored by poetic fancy; this has happened in "Numa Roumestan" and especially in "Sapho," the two novels of Daudet which appear most likely to live. In "Sapho" there is a tender note which is lacking in "Jack" and in "Fromont jeune et Risler aîné"; Daudet's nature fitted him to inspire pity rather than indignation. And we must remember that while writing "Sapho" he had in mind the future of his own sons. He looks forward, and in hope of a fortunate issue tells frankly, in a kindly manner, a true story which he hopes may be fruitful of good results. If, instead of assuming the rôle of inquisitorial censor, naturalists would show sympathy for erring mankind, if they would look forward with hope instead of fixing their horrified eyes on the present or the past, their judgments would not tend to make us give up in despair, but might encourage and instruct. "Sapho" is the last of the great novels.
"L'Immortel" (1888) is a weak and unjust satire directed against the French Academy. "Rose et Ninette" (1892) is a study of the evils of divorce; "La Petite Paroisse" (1895), the only one of the novels with a happy outcome, is a study of jealousy. In "Soutien de famille" (1898, posthumous) two brothers are contrasted; the older, as a matter of course recognized as the head of the family, is weak, and the younger is the real "prop of the family."
Just after "Sapho" (1884) Daudet's health had begun to decline. Long years of suffering follow, but, although in almost constant pain, the indefatigable worker remains at his desk.
In "Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres" (1888) and "Trente Ans de Paris" (1888) Daudet tells the story of his life and literary activity. It is through these works that we become intimately acquainted with our author, and we are not disillusioned. "Entre les frises et la rampe" (1893) contains studies of the stage and its people.
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Daudet claimed to be an independent,[1] and was indignant when an attempt was made to class him with any school. He was certainly independent in his youth, but in his second period, after the war, he became a realist with Flaubert and Zola and an impressionist with Goncourt.
[Footnote 1: He consistently refused to have his name placed in candidacy before the Academy. In a foreword prefixed to "L'Immortel" he declares: "Je ne me présente pas, je ne me suis jamais présenté, je ne me présenterai jamais à l'Académie."]
It is, however, the southerner in Daudet that remains most pleasing. It is in those works which are directly inspired by his native land of dreams that he is most completely himself, and therefore most charming. It is here that he discloses his kinship with Musset. With all the delicacy of Musset and at the same time a saneness which Musset did not always possess, what might he not have accomplished if he had only continued as he began? Even as it is, the best Daudet is the young Daudet, the brother of Musset. In his so-called great works, the long novels where questions of the day are fearlessly treated yet never solved, the works which are frequently considered his surest claim to immortality, we have an entirely different Daudet, excellent of course, and strong too if you like, but not the Daudet that nature had intended to produce.
Surely it would have been better if he had never gone to Paris, but, like his friend Mistral, had remained in Provence and devoted his essentially poetic genius to an expression of the spirit of the south. His keenly sensitive nature was too delicate for intercourse with the virility of a Zola or the subtlety of a Goncourt. Paris made of him a realist, and the world lost by the transformation.
Daudet's love for his native land was intense. Its images were ever present to him; its poetry haunted him throughout his life. He urged young men ambitious of literary laurels to remain in their native provinces, to draw their inspiration from the soil, confident that something great and beautiful would result. Why did he not take for himself the counsel he so incessantly offered to others? An untiring curiosity which accompanied a remarkable acuteness of all the senses, and an emotional and intellectual receptivity which rendered him quickly and profoundly impressionable, equipped Daudet to express the poetic spirit of the south in its epic as well as its lyric qualities. He was aware of this himself. "I believe that I shall carry away with me," he said, "many curious observations on my race, its virtues, its faults".[1] And in speaking of the "Lettres de mon moulin," the only volume of his works in which his southern nature is given free rein, he says many years after its publication, after he had written his best novels, "That is still my favorite book."
[Footnote 1: Léon Daudet, "Alphonse Daudet," p. 183; read the whole chapter. "En lisant Eugénie de Guérin, je m'écrie: 'Pourquoi n'avoir pas tous vécu chez nous, dans nos coins?' Comme nos esprits y auraient gagné au point de vue de l'originalité au sens étymologique du mot, c'est-à-dire vertu d'origine."--"Notes sur la vie," p. 141.]
Daudet's remarkable power of observation was innate. From his youth he exercised this instinct and carried a notebook in which he set down impressions, studies, and sketches of characters and scenes. These notebooks proved to be of inestimable value to the realist; and the natural inclination to seek the naked truth, to which they bear witness, strengthened the determination of the postbellum Daudet to enter the ranks of the sociological novelists. So far as possible, he borrowed every detail of character and environment from real life; almost all his characters represent real persons whom he studied with a view of using them in his books. Daudet's is a microscopic, notebook realism quite different from the universal verity of Balzac, but there are many pages prompted by an exquisite sympathy or a violent passion in which the indomitable personality of the author breaks through the impassiveness imposed by the accepted masters of the craft. Sadness is the prevailing tone in his work, the sort of sadness that proceeds from pity. Where sadness does not dominate in Daudet, irony takes its place. These two qualities, sadness which is