Text: Lewis Rosenthal, “Poe in Paris,” Manhattan Illustrated Monthly (New York, NY), vol. IV, no. 2, August 1884, pp. 174-179

[page 174:]

POE IN PARIS.

“YOUR literature,” said a witty Parisienne to an American at an afternoon tea one day — ”your literature always seems to me to have been printed on grocery paper and bound in hog-skin. The only genius you have produced is Edgar Poe.” There are three grains of error plus one grain of truth in this pert Parisian estimate of American letters. But the dose will not have been administered in vain, if it induces us for a moment to follow the fortunes of American literature in the French capital, and study and explain the high position which Poe there holds. When I speak of the French capital, I mean France, for, as Gogal once wittily remarked, when Paris takes snuff all France sneezes.

The erratic writer of the “Raven” and the “Tales” is not by any means the only one of our authors who has been received with favor in the gay city on the Seine. A hundred years ago, the philosophers who took snuff and discussed politics in Parisian salons had a very exalted idea of America and the Americans. They fancied that the colonies were a kind of Utopia where liberty, fraternity and equality held universal sway, and where their own philosophic maxims were incorporated in the laws and acted upon by the conduct of the citizens. The fine ladies, too, were never weary of listening to tales about the hardy “rebels,” and appear to have imagined that the woods and villages of the Western republics were peopled with such guileless and simple rustics, as they admired on the canvas of Boucher and on the parchment fans of Watteau. These prevalent notions made the then Parisians welcome with rapture and enthusiasm such tracts, essays, journals, pamphlets as were, from time to time, issued in Boston or Philadelphia. Even before the outbreak of the American Revolution, “Poor Richard's Almanac,” by Benjamin Franklin, had appeared in a French dress, and demonstrated then, and later, by the number of its editions, that the man [column 2:] who could snatch the lightning from the skies could also bring down applause from Frenchmen. To-day many of the political almanacs, so popular in Paris and the provinces, can be traced back to the example set in the last century by the wise and witty Richard Saunders. Liberal politics were the fashion in certain Parisian circles from, say, 1750 to 1789, and during that period, anything that smacked of Plutarch or Rousseau was sure to be the talk of the town, if only for a day or a week.

When, therefore, the “Farmer's Letters,” by John Dickinson, made their appearance in Paris in 1769, the bold doctrines of the Pennsylvania lawyer pleased the subjects of Louis XV. mightily, and elicited from Diderot, among others, the following words: “I know of no work more apt to instruct the nations in their inalienable rights, and inspire them with an ardent love of liberty. The still bolder doctrines of Paine, as published in “Common Sense” and “The Rights of Man,” found even greater favor with the Parisians than the “Letters” of Dickinson. The journalists and the politicians, Brissot, Sieyes and Madame Roland united in a chorus of praise, and the poet Chenier styled the American pamphleteer “the immortal author of ‘Common Sense’ and of that noble work ‘The Rights of Man.’”

“The American Constitutions were then very recently published,” wrote Sir Samuel Romilly in his “Diary” they certainly produced a very great sensation in Paris, the effects of which were probably felt many years afterward.” The Constitutions max have had their effect, and so, too, th< pamphlets of Paine, but their effect, we max safely affirm, was slight, as compared with the influence exerted on Paris by Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence. That great state paper startled Mirabeau in his dungeon, found ardent disciples in Barnave, Brissot and La Fayette, and prompted the members of the Constituent Assembly to [page 175:] adopt their Declaration of Rights. When Dumont said that the French Declaration was an “American idea,” he stated a fact which is corroborated by the printed memoirs of La Fayette, by the pamphlets of the Revolution, and by the speeches delivered in the legislative body. “Let us follow the example of the United States!” cried Mathieu de Montmorency. “They have given a great example to the new hemisphere. Let us give it to the world!”

The eighteenth century influence of American literature in France may be said to have reached its high-water mark about 1790. After that date the fashion changed. Disillusions arose, interests clashed, enthusiasm for America declined. American books still found their way into the dusty alcoves of French libraries, but no longer into the public heart and mind. I pass over the translations of Joel Barlow's works, though these works seem to have made enough stir in 1791 and 1792 to have brought their author the honor of French citizenship. I will not dwell upon the translation of the “Federalist,” issued in 1792, which, with the peculiar French knack of getting proper names wrong, was attributed to “M. Hamilton, M. Madisson et M. Gay.” I will not tarry over the version of the anti-democratic “History of the Principal Republics,” by John Adams, sent forth from a French press in 1794. These latter works, written in a tone which ran counter to the one then in vogue in “Lutetia,” met with little favor and excited little comment.

Paris never again, whether under monarchy or republic, showed the enthusiastic appreciation of American literature which, in the days of Louis XVI., she bestowed on Franklin, Jefferson and Paine. In this century we hear occasionally a faint echo of eighteenth-century praise, but it is only an echo. Beranger and Courrier, De Tocqueville and Laboulaye have all been more or less enthusiastic over our institutions; Philarete Chasles, Xavier Marmier and Th. Bentzon have done what they could to make known our literature in their country. But the enthusiasm has proved but slightly contagious, and the efforts at popularization have been crowned with but indifferent success.

The Parisians of the Third Republic have [column 2:] lost the illusions of their eighteenth century ancestors. They look upon politicians at home and abroad with a more sceptical eye. A poem, a novel, takes the place of the pamphlet and the political speech. Among their vanished dreams is the American Arcadia. Among their lost beliefs is the belief in the superiority of America to Europe. Exclusive, like the Athenians of old, the Parisians of our day are apt to regard all foreigners as barbarians, all foreign products inferior to the home. Bonbon boxes must be stamped with the magic word, “Boissier;” title-pages must bear the recommending imprint of “Paris.” Such being the case, it is not surprising, that purely political writers from abroad should have but little weight in Paris nowadays, and that American literature should not be treated with as much consideration as is accorded the much older literatures of England and Germany. Longfellow, whose “Evangeline,” among his other poems, has been read with greatest interest in Paris, seems to have anticipated his own and his countrymen's fate in literary France when he wrote:

I am perfectly willing to admit that certain American authors have some reputation in certain strata of Parisian society. Children, for instance, who behave themselves at school and make progress in their studies, often receive as prizes Fanny Fem's “Ruth Hall,” or Miss Wetherell's “Le Vaste Monde,” “La Case de l’Oncle Tom,” by Mrs. Stowe, or a French adaptation of Miss Alcott's charming works. The boys of the colleges, the potaches as slang dubs them, devour the romances of Fenimore Cooper with almost the same avidity as they do those of Sue and Dumas. But the author of the “Spy” and the “Pilot,” I [page 176:] fear, often unwittingly makes the confusion of geographical knowledge in the average French juvenile head worse confounded. Many of these youngsters, after reading the “Mohicans” or the “Pathfinder,” fancy that the yell of the Sioux is heard on Broadway, and the tomahawk of Sitting Bull gleams in the streets of San Francisco. Schoolmasters place Irving's “Sketch Book,” issued by Hachette with explanatory notes, on the same shelf that holds the “Vicar of Wakefield.” Physicians and medical students in the Rue de l’Ecole de Medicine are as well acquainted with the special treatises of Hammond and Peaslee as the lawyers in the Rue Cujas are acquainted with the Code of Edward Livingston and the diplomats on the Quai d’Orsay with the “International Law” of Wheaton. The students of the “Pays Latin,” as they ramble under the arcades of the Odeon, occasionally buy a copy of Hawthorne's “Scarlet Letter” or Holmes's “Elsie Vennor” at the bookstalls, and open the pages of “Temps” or the “Revue des Deux Mondes” for a translation of Bret Harte or Mark Twain, of Aldrich or Cable, of Howells or Henry James. The rising and the full-grown journalists of the town now and then speaks a good word for the enterprise of American journalism. The words “reporter “ and “interviewer,” in the French vocabulary, are of transatlantic derivation, though the Parisian bearers of those titles have not a tithe of the energy and skill which characterizes their transatlantic colleagues.

The general tone of the République Française, the organ of Gambetta, was for several years modeled on that of our great dailies; the literary weekly supplements of the Figaro can be traced back to the example of the New York Times, and the push and brightness of the new American paper, published daily in Paris under the English title of the Morning News, and under the French heading, la Matin, give the Parisians an idea of the push and intelligence of the editors, men formerly connected with the New York Herald.

The French translation of the “International Science Series” contains the names of several Americans, and Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, have long ago been admitted [column 2:] to some of the honors of the Institut de France.

The mass of Parisians, however, in despite of these traces of an American literary invasion, have not been, and are not, stirred by our literary men. When Prof. Boyesen mentioned the philosopher of Concord to Victor Hugo, the most eminent Frenchman of our day remarked : “Mr. Emerson? Who is he? I never heard of him.” The gist of the matter is that, like some perfumes, the fame of some of our most prominent writers evaporates before it arrives at the Paris custom-house. The only author of American origin whom the Parisians consider really remarkable — the only one who is as famous in Paris at this moment as Daudet is among us — the only American man of letters who has influenced another man of letters, as, for instance, Richardson influenced Rousseau, or Byron influenced Lamartine, is Edgar Allan Poe, the father in literature of Charles Baudelaire.

A short time after its original publication in the United States, the tale of the “Murders of the Rue Morgue” appeared under different titles in some Parisian papers, was widely advertised by a lawsuit for plagiarism, which one periodical instituted against another, and pleased Eugene Sue sufficiently to induce him to merge some of its incidents in his “Mysteries of Paris.” Isabelle Meunier, prompted most probably by the success of one of Poe's tales, translated some of the others, and in October, 1846, the Revue des Deux Mondes devoted some twenty pages to a critical examination of the Romancier Amlricain, whose originality, pith and power of entertaining it praised in the warmest terms. Notwithstanding all this, the fate of Poe in Paris would have been problematic, had not a young Parisian journalist, then known only by his critiques of the annual Salon, and by some poems contributed to the press, introduced the American writer in excellent style to his colleagues and the public. The Parisian who, by his preface and his translation, did this signal service to Poe was Charles Baudelaire. Attracted toward the American by the incidents of his romantic career, and impressed with the originality of his genius, the Parisian did for the Baltimorean in Paris what Lessing had done for [page 177:] Shakespeare in Germany, what Carlyle did for Richter, Schiller, Goethe in England; what Loeve-Veimirs accomplished for Hoffman in France. He presented him again and again, kept him before the public from 1856 to 1865, pushed him — il la lancé. Baudelaire, in a word, gave Poe his sendoff at the Paris depot of letters.

The introduction to the “Histoires Extaordinaires d’Edgar Poe,” is interesting from two points of view. In the first place, it is an excellent bit of literary criticism. In the second place, it reflects the contemporary Parisian estimate of American literature. Baudelaire regarded Poe as a genius unappreciated by his countrymen, and looked down upon the Americans as money-makers, mercantile plodders, the advocates, not of the pen, but of the yardstick and the scales. In the eighteenth century the Parisians admired the Americans because they were Americans; to-day they acclaim such of our writers as are least like what they conceive Americans to be. In view of this prevailing opinion, Poe was particularly fortunate in finding a man like Baudelaire to interpret his works to the French. The translator understood his original perfectly, and perfectly conveyed the meaning of the original to others. In the “Assassinat de la Rue Morgue,” in the “Scarabee d’or,” in the “Palais Nante,” in the “Chute de la Maison Usker,” we find exactly reproduced the horror, the mystery, the gloom, the exaggeration of the original tales. Baudelaire's sympathy for Poe gave him the key to the treasures of his mind, and by dint of examining, studying, polishing the treasures of that mind, sympathy changed into admiration and admiration into positive idolatry. Baudelaire, here and there, indicates that he considers Poe not only a great poet and romancer, but also a great philosopher.

In a preface to a translation of the “Raven” he says that, “Of all poems this is a singular poem. It turns upon a mysterious and profound word, terrible as the infinite — a word which thousands of set lips have repeated since the beginning of time — ‘nevermore;’” while in “Eureka” he finds an explanation of more moral and physical phenomena than Poe probably dreamt of in his philosophy. There were between these two men, their personalities, their tastes, their [column 2:] works, many striking analogies. Both Poe and Baudelaire had fine aristocratic faces upon which nature, in .pite of the marks of dissipation, had left the trace of poet. Their complexions were tanned by the sun; their eyes were dark and luminous. Of the middle height in stature, they both bore themselves erect, and dressed their slight figures in the most tasteful and unobtrusive patterns of British manufacture. Poe was, according to all accounts, more restive, less dignified than Baudelaire; but both had a certain phlegm in their outward demeanor, and their words came slowly, and were accentuated by few and quiet gestures. The poet of the “Raven,” and the poet of the “Flowers of Evil,” had both passed a wild youth, the one in the Latin Quarter and the East Indies, the other in Baltimore, Richmond, West Point, New York. The life of a soldier at West Point had proved as uncongenial to the one as the study of business methods in the East had been to the other.

The author of the “Bells” might with truth have written the lines of the author of the “Ennemi:”

The Parisian and the Baltimorean both liked elegant furniture, luxurious surroundings, old French books, sweet perfumes; both, unfortunately, were addicted to stimulants. Poe drowned his cares and his reason in whisky and champagne; Baudelaire dreamt the dreams of the hasheesh and opium-eater, and shattered his nerves with the dull, yellowish green of absinthe.

The citizen of the American Republic and the subject of the French Empire were both indifferent to the politics of their respective countries, and never discussed or advocated them. The mysterious, the extraordinary, the imaginative in life interested them both so deeply, that they looked at the world about them, only in so far as it afforded them topics for the exercise of their special tastes and talents. They were, in short, as some one has aptly said, gentlemen who had lost their way in Bohemia. Their literary style presents the same points of similarity as their lives. They weigh [page 178:] words and chisel their sentences, while they express themselves on the most abstract, intangible themes and situations with the accuracy of algebraists and the exactness of geographers. The best pieces by Poe and Baudelaire are short, but finished. The artists believed in the quality of the workmanship rather than in the quantity of the work. A comparison of their poems reveals, too, how their ear delighted in alliteration. Compare the original of the “Raven” with the prose translation:

Reappears in French as:

runs in this wise. It seems almost as strange as to hear Poe pronounced “Poé,” yet that, by the way, is the manner most Parisians pronounce the name.

The poem rises in strength as it approaches the end:

If the analogies between the lives and tastes and work of these writers are singularly striking, the differences are equally so. Baudelaire was much more subjective than Poe, and his “Flowers of Evil,” and his “Prose Poems” are more distinctly the offspring of Parisian soil, than the poems and tales of Poe are plants of an American environment. Then, though Baudelaire adopted Poe's manner of looking into the eccentric, the abnormal, the fantastic, [column 2:] the supernatural, and treating these themes with a mind where imagination and mathematics were strangely commingled, Baudelaire had a bent to the repulsive and a keen eye for the picturesqueness of the nasty. Poe, despite his long residence in the region of the shades, strikes us as eminently human. Baudelaire is cold and critical, and has almost always the sneer and the limp of Mephistopheles. When Poe reflects upon death, he produces a poem like “The Conquerer [[Conqueror]] Worm;” when Baudelaire meditates on the same theme, he thrusts before our noses the disgusting “Charogne.” The Baltimorean, surrounded at different times of his stormy life by loving and lovable women, in his poems took a refined view of the sex. His Sigeia, his Morella, his Lenore, are pure, seraphic creatures.

Baudelaire, son of a city whose coffee-houses are redolent of the dust of the boulevards, hot from innumerable gas-jets, stuffy with the smell of absinthe, musk, and opopanax, looked for his women in those coffee-houses and on those boulevards. His Berthe, his Madone, his Malabraise are nothing but the curiously idealized Parisiennes of his acquaintance.

Both Baudelaire and Poe died young, and in a hospital, the one at forty-six, the other at thirty-eight, and both have left behind the reputation of literary magicians. The American, with his wand, summoned angels and demons; the Frenchman, old men and old women, drunkards and reprobates, the sick and the dying. Baudelaire appeals more especially to the literary gourmet; Poe can be read by this species of reader, and by the general public as well. His polished style, skill in construction of plot, psychological analysis, are sure to please a member of the Academy; while the sensationalism of Poe's tales, their intrigue, their sustained narrative, will hold to the end even the reader of Gaboriau or Xavier de Montepin.

I have thus ascribed Poe's popularity in Paris to the excellence of Baudelaire's introduction and translation; to the inherent qualities of the romancer's works, appealing, as they do, to the actual tastes of the most diverse sections of Parisian society; to the similarity in personality and tastes which [page 179:] Poe bore to the modern Parisian, as exemplified in Baudelaire.

For Poe was in many respects, a Parisian. He was born to live in the environment of an old civilization. He was at home not in the “forest primeval,” ‘mid log huts and uncouth backwoodsmen, but in the Café de la Régence, discussing poetry and sipping chartreuse in the pauses of a game of chess. He would have felt himself happier, I doubt not, in Paris than he did in the New York, Philadelphia, Boston of forty years ago. The fair city on the Seine, with its long boulevards, its graceful bridges, its churches, and Notre Dame supreme among all, its historic associations, its gay throngs under sunlight or gaslight, would have been the fit dwelling site for a man who, like Poe. had the artistic temperament and with polished pen knew so well how to put his impressions on paper. But though in his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe was destined not to dwell in a city that would have been so congenial to him, he lives there to-day. His name has become proverbial for whatever is extraordinary in [column 2:] literature, as is indicated by a phrase you catch now and then in Paris — as “C’est un Poe:” or by the recent allusion Aurelien Scholl made to the artist Willette as the “Edgar Poe du dessin.” Théophile Gautier, in his biographical sketch of Charles Baudelaire, devotes several pages to a consideration of the American author who, as he affirms, certainly influenced his French translator. Gustave Dore has done for the “Raven” what he did for the “Commedia” of Dante and the “Paradise Lost “ of Milton, and now the news comes across the sea that “tout Paris,” which witnessed a dramatization of the “Contes d’Hoffman,” is shortly to witness a dramatization of the “Contes d’Edgar Poe.”

Thus it is that the literature of the United States, which in the eighteenth century was represented on the banks of the Seine by Franklin, one of its most characteristic sons, is, in our time, represented there by Poe, one of the most gifted, if one of the least distinctively national, of American writers.

Lewis Rosenthal.