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reëstablish him in business, but he preferred to remain poor rather than return to the Bourse. He was now very poor, but he found great comfort in devoting himself with all the ardor of his nature to the cultivation of the poetic art. Yet he suf fered much. "I gave myself up," he says, "to fits of melancholy, so much the more painful that I was no less expansive in my sorrows than I have always been in my pleasures." He attempted dramatic writing, but soon decided that his talents did not fit him for success in this field; he congratulates himself upon this conclusion with his usual willingness to know and to accept the truth of himself. He designed an epic entitled "Clovis," upon a grand scale, which he proposed to meditate. upon until the age of thirty years before commencing to write it. He wrote also some solemn Alexandrines upon such subjects as "The Deluge," "The Last Judgment," and "Meditation." At the age of twenty-two years he wrote a poem in four cantos, entitled "Le Pèlerinage," an attempt to represent the simple pastoral customs of the Christians of the sixteenth century. But he decided that his genius did not lie in the direction of epic or pastoral poetry. It was only as a song-writer-as one of the fiddlers of the literary orchestrathat he could hope to succeed. To the specious temptations of journalism he never yielded.*

About this time Béranger gave much attention to the works of Chateaubriand, which inspired him with great enthusiasm. At one time he became so discouraged with his poverty and his want of success that he seriously proposed to join Bonaparte in Egypt. A friend dissuaded him from this project, and his native gayety and his muse rescued him from melancholy. He abandoned himself to love, wine, and song, celebrating the praises of Lisette and Frétillon, of "Roger Bontemps," "Le Grenier," "Les Gueux," and "Le Vieil Habit." Then, as afterward, he would often sing:

*"Il eût voulu me voire écrire dans les journaux; mais je ne me sentis jar mais de vocation pour ce genre de travail, qui a fini chez nous par dévoretant de jeunes talents, nés peut-être pour un avenir de gloire, et qui d'ailleurs effrayait ma plume paresseuse et ma conscience timorée. Pour m'adonner à une pareille profession, il eût fallu renoncer à mes belles espérances poétiques, à mes rêves c'eût été rendre ma mansarde bien solitaire."-Ma Biographie, p. 93.

"Chantons le vin et le beauté,
Tout le reste est folie." *

In deliberate prose he could say of the same period of his life:

"Oh! que la jeunesse est une belle chose, puisqu'elle peut répandre du charme jusque sur la vieillesse, cet âge si déshérité et si pauvre! Employez bien ce qui vous en reste, ma chère amie. Aimez, et laissez-vous aimer. J'ai bien connu ce bonheur; c'est le plus grand de la vie." †

The poetic system which Béranger was now laboring to develop, and to which he devoted all the resources of his active mind, was founded upon eternal principles of art. For this reason it was not required of him afterward to change but only to perfect it. He says of his inspiration "Le peuple: c'est ma muse;" he explains by declaring, 'When I say people, I mean the crowd-the common people, if you will."§ In taking his inspiration from the heart of the common people, he appealed to those qualities which are inherent in all. From his circumstances, while his poetical style and philosophy were forming, he had little opportunity to study any of the higher classes. It was perhaps best for him that it was so. Certainly he could get a better knowledge of human nature, and more easily learn how to deal with it, from those who are comparatively untanght, and consequently more simple and truthful. The same emotions exist in all, and the general instincts of human nature are everywhere similar. Yet Béranger's studies of humanity were not confined to the common people; he always studied men, and wherever he could find them. He is the poet of humanity in its social aspects. His love of rural nature was well developed, but it seems not to have been a passion with him. He did not attempt a pretentious style of verse, and for attempting so little and doing what he did undertake so thoroughly, he was rewarded eventually with a share of fame which few have ever obtained during life. He says, "I have

*Euvres, t. i. p. 362.

Notice prefixed to the Euvres Complètes of Béranger, editon of 1834.

"Les rêves poétiques les plus ambitieux ont bercé ma jeunesse. Il n'est presque point de genre élevé que je n'aie tenté en silence. Pour remplir une immense carrière à vingt ans, dépourvu d'études, même de celle du latin, j'ai cherché à pénétrer le génie de notre langue et les secrets du style."— Euvres, t. i. p. xv.

§ Préface, 1833.

only taken what others have rejected;" and further, "I espoused the poor fille de joie with the intention of rendering her worthy to be presented in the saloons of our aristocracy; without, however, forcing her to renounce her former relations, for it was necessary that she should remain a daughter of the people from whom she expected her dowry." * This stone, rejected by other builders of rhymes, has become an important and attractive portion of the poetical arch of the century. Ugly and even foul as it appeared to others when lying in the mud of the streets, Béranger discerned its hidden worth, and knew that it only needed cleaning and polishing to be recognized by all as a gem of value.

The early poems of Béranger, which first gave him a name, are not among the best of his works, but, like the youthful publications of Schiller and Goethe-the "Robbers" and the "Sorrows of Werther"-they will always, probably, be among the most popular with the masses. The subjects of these poems and their style of treatment were such as to appeal directly to the heart of the common people of France. Their gay humor is charming. "Le Petit Homme Gris" is a good specimen :

"Il est un petit homme
Tout habillé de gris,

¡Dans Paris.

Joufflu comme une pomme,
Qui, sans un sous comptant,
Vit content,

Et dit: Moi, je m'en;'

Et dit: 'Moi, je m'en;

Ma fois, moi, je m'en ris!'

Oh! qu'il est gai le petit homme gris!" +

*Ma Biographie, p. 188.

"There is a little man

All dressed in gray,
He lives in Paris,

And he's always gay;
He's round as an apple

And plump as a pear;

He has not a penny,

And he has not a care;

And he says, 'I laugh,

And I laugh, and my plan,'

Says he, is, by jingo,

To laugh all I can.'

Oh! what a merry little fat gray man."

uvres, t. i. p. 26.

Similar in style is "Les Gueux." To render attractive persons in the poorest outward circumstances, it is required that they be invested with a merry humor, and treated in a careless and rollicking manner. Burns recognized this fact, and illustrated it in his "Jolly Beggars." To Béranger this style of treatment was quite natural.

"Les gueux, les gueux,

Sont les gens heureux;
Ils s'aiment entre eux,
Vivent les gueux!

Des gueux chantons la louange.
Que de gueux hommes de bien !
Il faut qu'enfin l'esprit venge

L'honnête homme qui n'a rien."*

His two poems "Le Roi d'Yvetot" and "Le Senateur" are the earliest specimens we have of his political satire—a species of writing which afterward added greatly to his reputation and to his troubles. In 1809, Béranger was appointed to a place in one of the bureaux of the Imperial University, with a salary of one thousand francs a year. This place he retained twelve years. He tells us that his reputation began in 1813, at which time he was admitted into the literary circle of the "Caveau," of which he was soon reckoned one of the choicest spirits. From that period his fame steadily increased until the close of his life, and long before he

"Heard the heavens fill with shoutings"

of his name. At this epoch also he began to be admitted into the higher ranks of society. But the temptations of his position, and the flatteries of the great did not spoil him, for he ever retained his naïve simplicity, and his sympathy with the common people. Had his reputation been acquired at an earlier age, it might have been different. Though his father was a stanch royalist, he had early embraced republicanism, and adhered to his sentiments with firmness and sustained them with ardor. On the restoration of the Bourbons, tempting offers were made to him to support legitimacy, but his reply was, "Let them give us liberty in exchange for glory; let them

*Euvres, t. i. p. 42.

render France happy, and I will sing to them without reward."* Lucien Bonaparte had early befriended and encouraged him, and had procured him the pension which he received from the institute. After the downfall of the Napoleonic dynasty, Béranger gave up this pension to the father of Madame Lucien Bonaparte.

His first volume of poems was published in 1815. The result of this was to establish him as the song-writer of the opposition. In 1821, he published two volumes of songs, old and new. This issue comprised ten thousand five hundred copies, and was made on his own account. The sale exceeded his most sanguine expectations, and the result placed him in very comfortable pecuniary circumstances. For this publication he was prosecuted by government and sentenced to an imprisonment of three months and a fine of five hundred francs. He passed his time in his prison of Sainte Pelagie very gayly, he tells us, and here composed some of his best pieces. The progress of his trial was marked by several effusions, one of which is "La Muse en Fuite :"

"Quittez la lyre, ô, ma muse!

Et déchiffrez ce mandat,
Vous voyez qu'on vous accuse
De plusieurs crimes d'état.
Pour un interrogatoire

Au palais comparaissons
Plus de chansons pour la gloire!

Pour l'amour plus de chansons!

Suivez-moi!

C'est la loi,

Suivez-moi de par le Roi."+

His third publication was made in 1825, and his fourth in 1828. The latter subjected him to a fresh prosecution, which resulted in a sentence to nine months' imprisonment and ten thousand francs fine. Prison life, he says, had a charm for him, which was certainly fortunate. He suffered somewhat, he admits, during the first four months of

* Ma Biographie, p. 177.

tuvres, t. i. p. 14.

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