The Nickel Man
and Other French Scientific Romances
translated, annotated and introduced by
Brian Stableford
A Black Coat Press Book
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Jacques Boucher de Perthes: Mademoiselle de la Choupillière
Pierre Bremond: The Uraniad or, Aesop’s Judges in Urania’s Court
Ralph Schropp: The Automaton
Louis Gallet: The Death of Paris
Léon Daudet: The Automaton
Georges Espitallier: The Nickel Man
Pierre de Nolhac: The Night of Pius XII
Pierre de Nolhac: A Lovely Summer’s Day
Pierre de Nolhac: Babel at Ferney
Pierre de Nolhac: A Season in Auvergne
Pierre de Nolhac: The Journal of Dr. J. H. Smithson
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
Introduction
The first story in this anthology of French scientific romances, “Mademoiselle de La Choupillière,” was published in a collection of Nouvelles (1832) by the archeologist and paleontologist who signed his works Jacques Boucher de Perthes, although his full name was Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes (1788-1868). It is one of numerous fanciful stories extrapolating ideas inspired by the activities of Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782), the famous builder of automata, whose machines were long gone by the time the story was written but had left behind a legacy of rumor whose marvels were exaggerated by the passage of time.
The anthology contains two other stories in the same vein. The earlier of the two, L’Automate, récit tiré d’un palimpseste by Ralph Schropp, initially published in 1878 and reprinted as a booklet by A. Ghio in 1880, here translated as “The Automaton: A Story Translated from a Palimpsest,” takes up an older legend relating to the manufacture of an artificial human being, crediting the achievement to the 13th century scholar Albertus Magnus. The legend originally related to the magical creation of a “homunculus,” but Schropp updates the supposed method employed to place it in a scientific rather than a supernatural context.
It was reported in 1896 that Léon Daudet (1867-1942) was working on a new novel entitled L’Automate, not long after he had published his first novel, Les Morticoles [literally, The Death-Cultivators; metaphorically, Doctors] (1894). The short story of that title, here translated as “The Automaton,” was presumably originally intended to be the opening section of the novel in question. It was reprinted in the posthumous collection Quinze contes (1948) but probably appeared in a periodical long before then, perhaps being rewritten for that purpose a few years after first being drafted (there is a reference in the story to a book published in 1898). As with the previous item, it draws upon the legend of the homunculus, and, although it retains a supernatural context in the creator’s conviction of diabolical aid, it addresses the question of the possible psychological make-up of the homunculus in a more philosophically-sophisticated manner than Schropp’s tale, with which it forms an interesting contrast.
In between “Mademoiselle de La Choupillière” and the Schropp story, placed there in order to maintain the chronological order of the inclusions, is L’Uraniade, ou Ésop juge à la cour d’Uranie, scènes dialoguées au sujet des hypothèses Newtoniennes: songe scientifique [The Uraniad, or Aesop judges in Urania’s Court; dialogue scenes on the subject of the Newtonian hypothesis: A Scientific Dream] signed Père Brémond, first published by the author in Avignon in 1844, and here translated as “The Uraniad,” which recommends itself for consideration in the context of the history of roman scientifique by virtue of its eccentricity and its determined combativeness. So far as can be ascertained with the current state of search engines, the phrase roman scientifique [scientific fiction] was first used by Élie Fréron (1719-1776), a diehard opponent of Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity, as a pejorative characterization of that theory. In 1844 the term had not yet been adapted for application to new kinds of literary work that appeared in the 1860s, so Brémond’s work is a notable example of literary protest against what he considered to be a roman scientifique in the original sense of the phrase.
We now know, of course, that the criticisms leveled against Newtonian theory by the unorthodox theorists featured in L’Uraniade are utterly mistaken, and one suspects that any modern schoolboy could poke the holes in them that Newton’s defenders conspicuously fail to bring up when invited by the fabulist and ad hoc judge to argue their case—the real individuals on whom those characters are based could undoubtedly have put up a far more robust and devastating show—but that only adds interest to a debate that is interesting not so much in regard to the problems it addresses but in respect of the issues in the philosophy and sociology of science that it raises in the process.
Little seems to be known about Brémond except that his first name was Pierre and that he was a Jesuit, and his supposed magnum opus—or pièce de resistance—criticizing Newton’s theses, which L’Uraniade was written and published to advertise, never did see print. Whether the manuscript that he left on deposit in his local library in Avignon still exists, I have no idea. It is highly unlikely, however, that the earnest work in question could have had the saving graces that allow L’Uraniade to retain some interest above and beyond its status as a literary and philosophical curiosity: its enterprise, its liveliness and its sheer bizarrerie.
Also placed between two of the stories of automata is “La Mort de Paris” by the prolific writer Louis Gallet (1835-1898), which first appeared in 1892 in La Nouvelle Revue, here translated as “The Death of Paris.” It is a slightly offbeat addition to the rich tradition of stories featuring the ruins of Paris, offering an account of how the city and its remaining inhabitants perish from suddenly-accelerated climate change—the advent of a new Ice Age—rather than poking fun at the mistaken conclusions of far-future archeologists. Its conscious affiliation to the tradition, however, adds an extra gloss to what might otherwise have been an ordinary disaster story, equipping it with a delicately ironic elegiac quality. The author was best known for his operatic libretti, and “Le Mort de Paris” has a kind of operatic sweep and flourish about it that suits its theme very well.
In the interests of diversity, the short novel following the Daudet story, L’Homme en nickel, here translated as “The Nickel Man,” is an item of popular pulp fiction, initially published as a feuilleton serial in La Science Française in 1897 and reprinted in book form the same year. It was the work of one of the most prolific contributors to the periodical in question, and it appeared there under the pseudonym “Georges Bethuys,” one of several signatures employed by the military historian and journalist Georges-Frédéric Espitallier (1849-1923) (who also used the pseudonym of “Pierre Ferréol”). Like most of the fiction published in the popular science magazines of the day, it attempts to place scientific notions in the context of a plot that reproduces many of the standard features of the feuilleton fiction of the day, in this case borrowing abundantly from the nascent genre of detective fiction.
One suspects that the puzzle with which L’Homme en nickel confronts the detective who functions as its main protagonist would not have confused Sherlock Holmes for more than a few minutes, and the fact that the reader knows the answer from the very beginning only serves to make the policeman’s deductive powers seem even weaker, but the story tries as hard as it can to make up for that rickety logic with zest and fast-paced movement, in a manner that was to become familiar in pulpish speculative fiction; in consequence, deserves some credit as a pioneering exercise in a hybrid genre that was to become far more sophisticated as it became much more prolific during the 20th century.
The anthology is concluded by five brief stories by Pierre de Nolhac (1859-1936)
, which were reprinted in book form in the collection Contes philosophiques, published by Bernard Grasset in 1932, although they had presumably appeared in periodicals previously. Nolhac was a prolific writer, best known as a historian, although he also had some reputation as a poet, and he wrote very little prose fiction, but what he did write tended to be inspired by his reflections on the way the world was going, informed by the clinical eye of a narrative historian. The speculations embodied in the stories are small-scale and handled with a deft and delicate wit, representing the end of the literary spectrum opposite to that of the unashamedly populist Espitallier, and illustrating the breadth of the spectrum in question.
The translation of “Mademoiselle de la Choupillière” was made from the version of Nouvelles reproduced in Google Books. The translation of L’Uraniade was made from the copy of the 1844 edition reproduced on the Bibliothèque Nationale’s gallica website. The translation of L’Automate, récit tiré d’un palimpseste was made from the copy of the Ghio edition reproduced on archive.org, except for the four pages missing from that version, which were filled in from the Kindle version of the ArchéoSF reprint of 2012. The translation of Léon Daudet’s “L’Automate” was made from a copy of the undated Guy Boussac edition of Quinze contes published in 1948. The translation of “La Mort de Paris” was made from the version in the Kindle edition of Philippe Éthuin’s ArchéoSF anthology Paris futurs (2014). The translation of L’Homme en nickel was made from the feuilleton version reproduced in gallica in the relevant volumes of La Science Française. The translations of the five stories by Pierre de Nolhac were made from a copy of the Grasset edition of Contes philosophiques.
Brian Stableford
Jacques Boucher de Perthes: Mademoiselle de la Choupillière
(1832)
In a great and very beautiful city, which counted, as well as six thousand inhabitants, a sub-prefect, a president, a king’s prosecutor and a lieutenant of gendarmes—in brief, everything that could contribute to utility and pleasure—there lived a curly-haired, clean-shaven, neatly-brushed fop of the species of those who, in the capital as elsewhere, turn around in a single movement for fear of disturbing the economy of their cravat.
A creature of new invention, wearing a corset and forming the intermedium between man and woman, Baron Léon de Saint-Marcel, twenty-six years rich, with a pretty face and an annual income of thirty thousand livres, playing society games and singing a ballad passably, had everything that constitutes a great man in the beautiful city of B***. Thus, he was the favorite of all the mothers who had demoiselles to marry off, and the target of every spinster or widow in want of a husband. There was not a single dinner party, ball, afternoon tea, lunch, picnic in the woods or excursion in a char-à-banc in which he was not obliged to take part.
The Baron was, in consequence, the busiest man in the arrondissement: putting on his morning suit, his midday suit, his evening suit, visits to receive, visits to make—he did not have a moment to himself. If, by chance, he had a few spare minutes, they were scarcely sufficient to read a fashion magazine, or make tender or polite replies—which were always costly, because he needed to consult the dictionary frequently, as much for thought as for style. Having left school early, he had only got as far as the fourth form, in which one does not learn orthography. He was, therefore, not a scholar; nor was he an intelligent man—which mattered little to him, because he believed himself to be both and, as three-quarters of the city also believed it, he enjoyed all the rewards of science and intellect without experiencing any of the embarrassments.
As we have indicated, Léon had illuminated profound passions among the young women of the locale; but as the demoiselles of our days generally have sage and mathematical views, the primary aliment of the conflagration was the Baron’s annual income of thirty thousand livres; he would probably have turned ten times fewer heads had that figure been missing a zero. It is unnecessary to conclude that it was the love of money that made the hearts of those ladies beat—no, people think more nobly than that in the city of B*** , and in any case, to love a rich man is not precisely to love the gold in his cash-box. One loves the proprietor because he is surrounded by all the prestige that makes a person appear lovable: fine clothes, beautiful jewels, lovely furniture; if he does not have all that, one knows that he can have it, or that one could have it for him, which comes to the same thing. That is why, in all civilized countries, the richest futures really are the most beautiful.
Monsieur de Saint-Marcel, whether for moral or political reasons, had not ceded to the seductions of his female compatriots. Although they were generally very nice, he had remained the master of his heart; only one woman had made any impression on him. That was Mademoiselle Louise D***, his cousin, a charming young person who had conceived a sentiment for him that seemed to authorize the projects of the two families. As good as she was beautiful, she possessed exactly what the Baron lacked: intelligence and education; but, her father’s fortune having been successively reduced by unforeseen events, Monsieur de Saint-Marcel’s passion had diminished in the same proportion, and in the epoch of which we are speaking, had fallen almost to zero. In vain, his mother, on her death-bed, had made him promise to contract that marriage; he was no longer looking for anything but an honest pretext to break off the engagement.
One day, he thought he had found it. After a ball at which Louise had danced with an officer of the garrison, he claimed that she had an intrigue with the soldier.
Thus defamed by the man who was the oracle of society, the unfortunate orphan soon found herself rejected by all the mothers and all the daughters for whom she had previously been an object of envy. Her despair was frightful; the ingrate was still dear to her. She fell ill and, instead of feeling sorry for her, her cousin said that she was play-acting. She played well, because she died.
Petty people who calculate nothing and marry like brutes, for the sentiment of simple nature, criticized the charming Léon severely; they considered him a hard and heartless man. People of status, however—which is to say, people with income—approved of the firmness that he had shown, and the innocent victim, dead of grief, was cited as an example of divine justice, which is always pronounced against young women who dance with soldiers devoid of fortune.
Rid of a redoubtable competitor, the demoiselles redoubled their provocative glances and flirtations. Unfortunately, in the arrondissement of B***, the largest landowners, apart from the Baron, had no more than a hundred thousand écus of capital; that is doubtless a tidy sum in the provinces, but it often happens that a pretty girl whose father and mother are thus provided has little sisters and little brothers, an insupportable rabble for a brother-in-law; or, if she has few or no co-inheritors, the parents are young and do not seem at all inclined to give pleasure to their son-in-law for a long time.
Léon had not, therefore, been able to fix the irresolution of his own wishes; he contented himself with those of all hearts, without granting any of them, which guaranteed him the continuation of politenesses, smiles, diners, compliments, handshakes, and even love letters—for a few sensitive individuals, whose only dowry was their virtue, ventured as far as that.
In that epoch, the arrival was seen in the superb city of B*** of one Monsieur de La Choupillière, a former émigré, former tradesman, former député, former prefect, former chamberlain and former gentleman of the chamber, for the moment simply a malcontent, but still a Comte and worth a million.
Everyone knew what the Comte had been, but no one understood the Comte at all. He was a man like no other, who gave the impression, absolutely, of a human machine. His gestures were regular and compassed, like those of a pendulum, or those of an actor trained in the royal school of declamation. Always on time, to the minute, nothing made him deviate from his route or his habits, and if by chance he made a false step, one might have thought that it was in the place where he intended to make it. He was often very taciturn, and not for anything in the world would anyone have caused him to unseal hi
s lips, because when he began to talk, it was necessary for him to continue throughout a time that he seemed to have determined in advance, and, interruptions and incidents notwithstanding—including, sometimes, the departure of his listener—he carried on talking. His movements were firm and rectangular, as if moved by a spring, and his cycles seemed to be organized on the same principle. His voice, whether by dint of having spoken as a député, announced as a chamberlain, protested as a malcontent or sworn fidelity as a prefect, was exactly as sonorous as the mechanism of a turnspit.
The Comte was a widower; he had an only daughter who was absolutely the same model as her father—which does not happen often, but which ought to be the case invariably, for the facility of family recognition and the convenience of genealogists.
Mademoiselle Colombe seemed at first glance to be the antiphrasis of her name. Nothing in her physique was reminiscent of a dove. With regard to morality we cannot speak, but, leaving all resemblance aside, Mademoiselle de La Choupillière was pretty nonetheless, and very pretty, especially in the light, for her eyes were slightly ringed and her complexion slightly lustrous—certain signs by which one can recognize ladies of high society and the wearing effect of long plays, waltzes, gallops, and, in sum, all the nocturnal recreations slightly injurious to the general effect. However, the beautiful hair of the heiress, her pearly teeth, her forehead, neck, arms and hands whiter than alabaster, her nymph-like figure and her exceedingly tiny feet soon made one forget what the freshness of her coloration lacked. If nature was not present, at least there was art, taken to full perfection.
Mademoiselle de La Choupillière’s intelligence, of which she was said to have a great deal, was of absolutely the same genre as her face; everything appeared to have emerged from the hand of the same maker. When she spoke, one believed one was reading a correctly-written book; when she sang, the ears were filled agreeably, but it was the song of a Barbary organ; one would have liked less precision and more soul. Her dancing was analogous; it was the elegant translation of her father’s leaps and bounds. In brief, the entirety of her person seemed to be the finished work of which the Comte was merely a sketch.
The Nickel Man Page 1
