Byron, Mme de Stael, Schlegel, and the religious motif in Armance

Comparative Literature, Fall 1994 by Rosa, George M

Mme de Bonnivet further resembles Mme de Stael in that she wishes to pass for a uniquely inspired conversationalist. In her desire to be seen "comme une prophetesse par une foule d'adeptes,"(17) she has persuaded herself that she possesses vatic powers of expression, and while looking intently up at the "plafond de son salon, elle parvenait a se dire: la, dans cet espace vide, dans cet air, il y a un genie qui m'ecoute, magntise mon ame et lui donne les sentiments singuliers et pour moi bien reellement imprevus que j'exprime quelquefois avec tant d'loquence" (110, 89). But Mme de Bonnivet's strained attempts to communicate the ineffable tend to result in mere bombast, exposing her to the same criticism levelled in the Conversations at Mme ae Stal, who was, Byron claims, "very indefinite and vague in her manner of expression. In endeavouring to be new she became often obscure, and sometimes unintelligible" (222). The fustian of Mme de Bonnivet is the more apparent for being offset by the laconism of Octave: "Ses idCes taient vives, claires, et de celles qui grandissent a mesure qu'on les regarde. Il est vrai que la simplicite pleine de noblesse avec laquelle il Octave] s'enoncait lui faisait perdre l'effet de quelques traits piquants; on ne s'en etonnait qu'une seconde apres. La hauteur de son caracttre ne lui permit jamais de dire d'un ton marque ce qui lui semblait joli" (28). This contrast between Mme de Bonnivet and Octave resembles that between Mme de Stael and Byron as defined by Stendhal in "Lord Byron en Italie" (an article detailing the personal impressions the French novelist had formed of the English poet at Milan in 1816). Stendhal describes a Byron as unlike Mme de Stal as Mme de Bonnivet is unlike Octave: "Jamais il [Byron] ne faisait la phrase comme Mme de Stael, par exemple, qu'il venait de laisser a Coppet, et qui bientot nous arriva a Milan. Parlait-on de litterature, Lord Byron etait le contraire d'un acadmicien: toujours plus de pensees que de paroles et nulle recherche de mots elegants" ((Euvres 46:246).

In analyzing the elocution of Mme de Bonnivet, I have been briefly diverted from my investigation of the religious beliefs she espouses. The above quotation suggests a means of approaching that investigation from a new angle. This description recalls a number of historical circumstances that bear directly on Armance. Stendhal first heard of Byron in September 1816 as a result of his contacts with Ludovico di Breme, a Milanese friend of Mme de Stal's who had spent part of the summer frequenting her salon at Coppet.(18) When Breme returned to Milan in late August, he was accompanied by Henry Brougham (see Vigneron 381-82), one of the founders and collaborators of the influential Scottish quarterly, the Edinburgh Review. Stendhal's earliest known references to Byron appear in a letter to Louis Crozet written at Milan on September 28, 1816, in which he enthusiastically announced his discovery of the Edinburgh Review (to which Brougham evidently had introduced him) and of Francis Jeffrey's anonymous article in the Review hailing Byron as the inaugurator of a new era in European poetry.(19) Stendhal promptly adopted this view; in his letter of September 28 to Louis Crozet, he proclaims his allegiance to the Edinburgh Review's version of Romanticism and his repudiation of the Schlegelian (and, by implication, Stalian) one, to which he previously had subscribed (see Del Litto 463-75), but which he now scorned: