5 IO 15 20 25 30 Ah! mon fils, c'est l'amour! c'est l'amour insensé Qui t'a jusqu'à ce point cruellement blessé ? Ah! mon malheureux fils! Oui, faibles que nous sommes, Dont j'entends le beau nom chaque jour répété, Tais-toi. Dieux! qu'as-tu dit? Elle est fière, inflexible; Je meurs; va la trouver: que tes traits, que ton âge, Tiens, prends cette corbeille et nos fruits les plus beaux; Prends mes jeunes chevreaux, prends mon cœur, prends ma vie ; Dis-lui que je me meurs, que tu n'as plus de fils. 35 40 Tombe aux pieds du vieillard, gémis, implore, presse; Adieu, ma mère, adieu, tu n'auras plus de fils. - J'aurai toujours un fils; va, la belle espérance De baisers maternels entremêlés de pleurs. LES DERNIERS VERS D'ANDRÉ CHÉNIER Saint-Lazare,1 Quelle Thémis 2 terrible aux têtes criminelles, Des antiques bienfaits quels souvenirs fidèles, 5 IO 15 20 Font digne de regrets l'habitacle des hommes ? Le désespoir!... le fer. Ah! lâches que nous sommes, Tous, oui, tous. Adieu, terre, adieu. Vienne, vienne la mort! Que la mort me délivre ! 25 Ainsi donc, mon cœur abattu Cède au poids de ses maux? Non, non, puissé-je vivre! Ma vie importe à la vertu ; Car l'honnête homme enfin, victime de l'outrage, Dans les cachots, près du cercueil, Relève plus altiers son front et son langage Brillants d'un généreux orgueil. S'il est écrit aux cieux que jamais une épée N'étincellera dans mes mains, Dans l'encre et l'amertume une autre arme trempée Peut encor servir les humains. 1 One of the establishments used as a state prison during the Reign of Terror. 2 Goddess of justice. 30 35 5 10 15 20 25 Justice, vérité, si ma bouche sincère, Si la risée atroce ou (plus atroce injure!) Ont pénétré vos cœurs d'une longue blessure, Qui lance votre foudre, un amant qui vous venge. Sans percer, sans fouler, sans pétrir dans leur fange Ces tyrans effrontés de la France asservie, O ma plume! Fiel, bile, horreur, dieux de ma vie ! Quoi! nul ne restera pour attendrir l'histoire Pour consoler leurs fils, leurs veuves et leurs mères, Frémissent aux portraits noirs de leur ressemblance; Chercher le triple fouet, le fouet de la vengeance, Déjà levé sur ces pervers; Pour cracher sur leurs noms, pour chanter leur supplice! Allons, étouffe tes clameurs ; Souffre, ô cœur gros de haine, affamé de justice. 30 35 Composé le 7 thermidor 1794, au matin, peu d'instants avant d'aller Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zéphyre Au pied de l'échafaud j'essaye encor ma lyre. Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle promenée Dans les soixante pas où sa route est bornée, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupière ! Ce vers que je commence ait atteint la dernière, Le messager de mort, noir recruteur des ombres, Escorté d'infâmes soldats, Remplira de mon nom ces longs corridors sombres . . << Iambes >> 5 MADAME DE STAËL (ANNE-LOUISE-GERMAINE NECKER, Paris, 1766-1817, Paris Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, only child of an eminent banker, was born in 1766. When a mere child her natural precocity was encouraged by meeting, in her mother's "salon," some of the most distinguished men of her time. Her interests soon led her to literature, one of her first literary attempts being her "Lettres sur les écrits et le caractère de Jean-Jacques Rousseau" (1788), with whom she was infatuated and whose influence went with her through life. At the age of twenty she married the baron de Staël-Holstein, Swedish ambassador at the French court, the marriage being purely one of convenience. Like Chénier she at first welcomed the Revolution, but later abhorred its horrors. During the Consulate her "salon" became the center of the faction which stood for constitutional monarchy, and Napoleon exiled her from Paris. In the meantime, in 1800, she had brought out a work in two volumes, entitled “De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales.” She next turned to fiction and published her first novel, "Delphine" (1802), which, like the second, "Corinne" (1807), owes much of its interest to the insight it gives us into the nature of the authoress herself and her views regarding the relation of the individual to society. After her exile from Paris she visited Germany twice, became acquainted with the Weimar circle, and acquired that intelligent appreciation of German life and literature and history, which enabled her to produce her masterpiece, "De l'Allemagne." The first edition, which appeared in 1810, was destroyed by order of Napoleon; the second was published in London in 1813. Her home meanwhile had been her château at Coppet on Lake Geneva, where, though she was in political disfavor with Napoleon, some of her greatest contemporaries sought her out. In 1812 she left Coppet to visit St. Petersburg, Sweden, and England, but returned to France after the fall of Napoleon. She died in 1817. Compared to Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël was a thinker, not an artist; and, though of a sentimental disposition, she had great faith in reason. She was cosmopolitan in her interests; in her "De l'Allemagne " she introduced into France new ideas and ideals, a picture of a new literature, - the irregular, subjective literature of the North. She broadened the horizon of France and led the people away from the absolute ideal which Boileau had set up, and which had held good through the eighteenth century; thus she helped to break down dogmatic authority and rule and made way for the free individualism of the Romantic School. |