As minds grow increasingly corrupt, as a nation grows older, by virtue of the fact that Nature is increasingly studied and better analyzed, in order for prejudice to be increasingly eradicated, all these things must be made more widely known. This holds equally true for all the arts; ’tis only by advancing that any art moves nearer to perfection; the goal can only be reached by successive attempts. Doubtless we could not have advanced so far in those trying times of ignorance when, weighed down beneath the yoke of religion, whosoever valued the arts risked the penalty of death for his efforts; when talent had as its reward the stakes of the Inquisition. But in the state wherein we live today, let us always start from this principle: when man has weighed and considered all his restrictions, when, with a proud look his eyes gauge his barriers, when, like the Titans, he dares to raise his bold hand to heaven and, armed with his passions, as the Titans were armed with the lavas of Vesuvius, he no longer fears to declare war against those who in times past were a source of fear and trembling to him, when his aberrations now seem to him naught but errors rendered legitimate by his studies—should we then not speak to him with the same fervor as he employs in his own behavior? In a word, is eighteenth-century man therefore identical with the man of the eleventh century?
Let us conclude with a positive reassurance that the stories we are presenting today are absolutely new and in no wise a mere reworking of already oft-told tales. This quality is perhaps not without some merit in an age when everything seems already to have been written, when the sterile imaginations of authors seem incapable of producing anything new, and when the public is offered naught save compilations, extracts, and translations.
Still, we should mention that La Tour enchantée and La Conspiration d’Amboise have some basis in historical fact. We mention this to show the reader, by our candor, how far we are from wishing to deceive him on this score. In this type of fiction, one must be original or refrain from indulging in it.
Regarding the one and the other of these two stories, here is what the reader will find in the sources indicated below.
The Arab historian Abul Kasim Terif ibn-Tariq, whose work is little known amongst our men of letters today, relates the following in connection with La Tour enchantée: “Out of sensual pleasure, the effeminate prince Rodrigue enticed to his court his vassals’ daughters, and abused them. Amongst them was Florinde, the daughter of Count Julian. Rodrigue violated the girl. The girl’s father, who was in Africa, learned of the news from a letter, couched in the form of an allegory, sent him by his daughter. He roused the Moors to revolt and returned to Spain at the head of a Moorish army. Rodrigue is at a loss what to do: his treasury is empty. Hearing there is an immense fortune buried in the Enchanted Tower near Toledo, Rodrigue goes there. He enters the tower, and there sees a statue of Time, which strikes with its staff and, by means of an inscription, enumerates to Rodrigue the list of misfortunes which await him. The prince advances and sees a large tank of water, but no money. He retraces his steps and orders the tower to be sealed. The edifice vanishes in a clap of thunder, and not a trace of it remains. In spite of the dire predictions, Rodrigue amasses an army, wages war for eight days hard by Cordova, and is killed. No trace of his body was ever found.”
So much for the historical facts. If one will now read our work, he will see whether or not the multitude of events wherewith we have surrounded this dry historical event merits our considering the anecdote as properly our own invention.8
As for La Conspiration d’Amboise, let the reader consult Garnier and he will see how little indebted we are to history in this story.
No guide has broken ground for us in the other stories: plot, style, episodes—all are our own invention. It may be said that these are not what is best in our work. No matter; we have always believed, and we shall continue to believe, that ’tis better to invent, albeit poorly, than to translate or copy. The inventor can lay claim to talent or genius, and has at least that much in his favor; what claim can the plagiarist make? I know of no baser profession, nor do I conceive of any avowal more humiliating than that which such men are obliged to make to themselves, namely, that they are totally lacking in wit, since they are obliged to borrow the wit of others.
Regarding the translator, God forbid that we fail to give him his due. But all he does is add to the luster of our rivals; and if only for the honor of the Nation, were it not best to say to these proud rivals: and we too know how to create.
Finally, I must reply to the reproach leveled at me when Aline et Valcour was published. My brush, ’twas said, was too vivid. I depict vice with too hateful a countenance. Would anyone care to know why? I have no wish to make vice seem attractive. Unlike Crébillon and Dorat, I have not set myself the dangerous goal of enticing women to love characters who deceive them; on the contrary, I want them to loathe these characters. ’Tis the only way whereby one can avoid being duped by them. And, in order to succeed in that purpose, I painted that hero who treads the path of vice with features so frightful that they will most assuredly not inspire either pity or love. In so doing, I dare say, I am become more moral than those who believe they have license to embellish them. The pernicious works by these authors are like those fruits from America beneath whose highly polished skins there lurk the seeds of death. This betrayal of Nature, the motive of which ’tis not incumbent upon us to reveal, is not done for man. Never, I say it again, never shall I portray crime other than clothed in the colors of hell. I wish people to see crime laid bare, I want them to fear it and detest it, and I know no other way to achieve this end than to paint it in all its horror. Woe unto those who surround it with roses! their views are far less pure, and I shall never emulate them. Given which, let no one any longer ascribe to me the authorship of J. . . . . .;9 I have never written any such works, and I surely never shall. They are naught but imbeciles or evildoers who, despite the authenticity of my denials, can still suspect me of being the author of that work, and I shall henceforth use as my sole arm against their calumnies the most sovereign contempt.
Villeterque’s Review of Les Crimes de l’Amour
(This article appeared in Le Journal des Arts, des Sciences, et de la Littérature on 30 Vendémiaire, Year IX (October 22, 1800), 2° année, No. 90, pp. 281–284.—Tr.)
A detestable book by a man suspected of having written one even more horrible. I do not know, nor do I wish to know, to what extent this suspicion has any foundation in fact. A journalist has the right to pass judgment on books, and not the right to make accusations. I shall go even further: he ought to feel sorry for him over whose head there hovers so terrible a suspicion, until such time as, having been found guilty, he is denounced for public execration.
In a piece entitled “Reflections on the Novel” which serves as a preface to Les Crimes de l’Amour, the author raises three questions, which he proposes to answer: Why is this kind of literary work called a “novel”? Amongst what people did the novel originate, and what are the most famous examples history has to offer? And, finally, what are the rules one must follow if one wishes to succeed in writing well?
I shall not bother with the first two questions, which have been discussed frequently and in sufficient detail by others, except to remark that the author, in discussing these first two questions, makes a great show of his erudition, which is actually riddled with errors, and prates on irrelevantly about them at great length. I shall move on to what he calls, with respect to the novel, “perfecting the art of writing.”
“It is not,” says the author, “by making virtue triumph that we arouse interest. This is no wise essential in the novel. Nor is’t even the rule most likely to arouse interest on the part of the reader. For when virtue triumphs, the world being in joint and things as they ought to be, our tears cease to flow even, as it were, before they have begun. But if, after severe trials and tribulations, we finally witness ‘virtue overwhelmed by vice,’ our hearts are inevitably rent asunder and, the work having moved us deeply, it must indubitably arouse th
e interest which alone can assure a writer of his laurels.”
Is this not tantamount to reducing into principles the plot of the infamous work which the author disclaims? Do we not run the risk, by simply repudiating and disassociating ourselves from the notoriety connected with the execrable form of this work, do we not run the risk of seeming to embrace its basic premises, which in the final analysis are none other than to portray “virtue overwhelmed by vice”?
Why else would anyone paint scenes in which crime reigns triumphant? Such scenes awaken evil tendencies in the wicked; from the virtuous man, who is ever steadfast in his principles, they provoke cries of indignation; and in him whose heart is willing but whose flesh is weak, they incite despondent tears. These horrible portraits of crime do not even serve the purpose of rendering crime more odious; therefore, they are both useless and dangerous. These calamitous principles are so patently false that even those persons who subscribe to them in private disown them in public.
In the tale entitled Eugénie de Franval, the author declares:
By leaving [crime] in the darkness it seeks, have we not as it were annihilated it? Scandal noised abroad is certain scandal, and the recital of it awakens the passions of those who are inclined toward the same kind of crime.
Here we see the author contradicting his own views, a not uncommon practice when one holds to erroneous opinions.
I was unable to read these four volumes, full of the most revolting atrocities, without a feeling of indignation. Nor does the author’s style in any wise compensate the reader for the disgust inspired by the stories themselves. In the present work, that style is pitiful, constantly lacking in any sense of proportion, teeming with sentences in bad taste, filled with contradictions and trivial reflections. Now and then, in a few pages, one finds a smattering of reflections which are reasonable and based upon principles of justice, but ’tis as though they were tacked onto the work as an afterthought. One feels they do not relate at all to anything which has preceded or to anything that follows.
Nor should the reader believe for a moment that a single crime for every story is sufficient for the author, for such is not the case; he crams them in: ’tis a tissue of horrors. In one tale, a woman is violated by her son, she kills him, subsequently she sends her own mother to the gallows and marries her father. In another, we observe a father who raises his daughter according to the most despicable principles, lives in sin with her, persuades her to poison her mother, etc. And these are examples of what the author is so bold as to term “perfecting the art of writing.”
You who write novels, ’tis no longer in the world around you, in the realm of reality whose events either trouble or embellish life, nor is it any longer in the more complete and perfect understanding of the human heart, that you must look for your subjects. Rather must you delve into the history of poisoning, debauchery, and murder, and draw therefrom. And you must portray villains as being happy—all for the greater glory and encouragement of virtue.
Rousseau, Voltaire, Marmontel, Fielding, Richardson, et al., you have not written novels. You have painted customs, you should have painted crimes. You make virtue appear attractive by proving to us that virtue alone is the way to happiness. You are all wrong. You should show us “virtue overwhelmed by vice”; ’tis thus one instructs and holds the reader’s interest. But you were not among the select few whom Nature has created to paint her; you did not become her “lover the moment she gave you birth.” Nor have you “opened her bosom with fear and trembling, therein to seek your art.” You were not endowed with the “burning zeal to describe absolutely everything,” nor were you blessed with the ability to know how to strike home a dozen times straight and true with the dagger’s blade. In your insipid works, we do not observe mothers strangling their children or children who poison their mothers; nor do we find sons who rape their own mothers. Adieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, Marmontel, Fielding, and Richardson: you will be read no more.
VILLETERQUE
The Author of Les Crimes de l’Amour To Villeterque, Hack Writer1
I have long been of the opinion that insults dictated by jealousy, or by any other motive even more abject, which eventually reach our ears via the foul breath of a hack writer, should have no more effect upon a man of letters than the early morning sounds in the farmyard—the barking and the cackling—would have upon a sensible, peaceable traveler. Consequently filled with naught but contempt for the impertinent diatribe written by Villeterque-the-hack, I would most assuredly not bother my head about replying to it were it not for my desire to alert the public to the constant danger of being slandered at the hands of these gentlemen.
From the stupid account Villeterque gave Les Crimes de l’Amour ’tis obvious he has not read the book. If he had, he would never have put words into my mouth that have never even crossed my mind; nor would he quote out of context isolated phrases—which someone no doubt dictated to him—in order that, by twisting them to fit his purpose, he might give them a meaning they were never intended to have.
And yet, without having read the book (as I have just shown), Villeterque begins by labeling my work DETESTABLE and by CHARITABLY declaring that this DETESTABLE work comes from the hand of a man suspected of having penned one even more HORRIBLE.2
At this point, I challenge Villeterque to do two things he cannot refuse me: 1) To publish not isolated, truncated, and mutilated phrases, but complete passages which prove my book to be DETESTABLE, although those who have read it are in agreement that it is, on the contrary, a work solidly based upon a refined and heightened sense of morality. 2) I challenge him to prove that I am the author of that even more HORRIBLE book.
’Tis only a vile slanderer who thus casts wild aspersions upon a person’s integrity without offering the slightest proof to buttress them. The truly honest man offers proof, cites facts, and refuses to deal in hearsay. Villeterque, however, denounces without proving; he makes a most odious allegation against me but fails to specify what it is. Therefore, Villeterque is a slanderer; what is more, Villeterque is not ashamed to reveal that he is a slanderer even before he commences his diatribe.
Be that as it may, I state and affirm that I have never written any immoral books, and that I never shall. I repeat it again here, not for the sake of the hack writer Villeterque—’twould be seeming to ascribe too much weight to his opinion—but for the sake of the public, whose judgment I respect as much as I despise Villeterque’s.3
After that initial act of generosity, the sixpenny hack broaches the substance of the matter. Let us follow him, if we are not overcome by a feeling of disgust; for ’tis difficult to follow Villeterque without experiencing a feeling of revulsion: his opinions are a cause for disgust, and his writings—or rather his plagiarisms—inspire it. . . . No matter; let us be brave.
In my “Reflections on the Novel,” Villeterque-the-ignoramus assures us that I am guilty of an infinite number of errors, despite all my seeming erudition. Here again should the charge not be backed up by proof? But in order to recognize errors of erudition, one must have a smattering of erudition oneself, and Villeterque, who is soon going to demonstrate that he does not have even a nodding acquaintance with scholarly works, is far from possessing the erudition it would require to prove my errors. Therefore he limits himself to declaring that I commit them, without having the courage to specify what they are. To be sure, this kind of criticism is not difficult, and I am no longer surprised that there are so many critics and so few good works. This is the reason why most of the literary journals, Villeterque’s first and foremost, would be completely unknown if their publishers did not slip them furtively into people’s pockets, like the addresses of those charlatans that are dropped in the streets.
My errors clearly established, clearly proven, as we have seen, by the word of the scholar Villeterque, who none the less does not have the courage to cite a single one, the worthy hack then proceeds to an examination of my principles, and ’tis here he is profound: ’tis here that Villeterque rant
s and raves: the subtlety and sagacity of his reasoning drive all before them; his words are as thunder and lightning, and woe unto anyone who remains unconvinced once Aliboron-Villeterque has spoken!
Yes, learned and profound Vile stercus, I have said before and I say again that the study of the great masters has proven to me that ’twas not through the constant triumph of virtue that a writer could claim to hold the public’s interest in a novel or a tragedy; that this rule, whether it applies to Nature herself or to the works of Aristotle or those of any of our poets, is one whereunto all men must conform for the common weal, without its being absolutely essential in a dramatic work of whatever kind. But what I am expounding here are not my own principles; I am inventing nothing new: read my works and you will see not only that what I am saying here is but the result of the impact upon me of a close study of the great masters, but also that I have not even adhered to this maxim, however excellent or wise I deem it to be. For, in the final analysis, what are the two principal mainsprings of dramatic art? Have all the authors worthy of the name not declared that they are terror and pity? Now, what can provoke terror if not the portrayal of crime triumphant, and what can cause pity better than the depiction of virtue a prey to misfortune? One therefore has either to forego interest or submit to these principles. That Villeterque is not widely enough read to appreciate the truth of this statement, so be it, this will be a source of surprise to no one. It is useless to be familiar with the rules of any art when one’s only ambition is to write soporific bedtime stories, or to copy some insipid tales out of A Thousand and One Nights with a view toward proudly passing them off as one’s own. But if Villeterque-the-plagiarist is unaware of these principles, for the simple reason that he is unaware of practically everything, at least he does not dispute them. And when, for the account of his newspaper, he manages to filch some tickets to a play and, ensconced in one of the seats reserved for the non-paying public, he is treated, in return for his pittance, to the masterpieces of Racine and Voltaire, let him then learn—when, for example, he goes to see Mahomet—that Palmire and Seide both die virtuous and innocent, whilst Mohammed triumphs; let him also be ever mindful that in Britannicus the young prince and his mistress likewise die innocent and virtuous, whilst Nero continues to reign; let him note the same thing in Polyeucte and in Phèdre, and in a great many other dramatic works. And when he has returned home, let him open Richardson and note to what degree the celebrated Englishman sustains a high degree of interest by portraying virtue’s misfortunes. These are the truths whereof I should like Villeterque to be convinced, and if indeed he were, then he would be less cholericly, less arrogantly, less stupidly inclined to levy criticism against those who put them into practice, after the example of our great writers. But the problem is that Villeterque, who is not a great writer, is not even acquainted with the works of the great masters; the problem is that, the moment the axe is removed from Villeterque-the-irascible, the dear man is completely lost. None the less, let us hearken to this eccentric when he speaks of the manner wherein I put these principles into practice. Ah! ’tis on this point the pedant is a pleasure to hear.
The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings Page 14
