Voyages to the Moon and the Sun — Reading Notes

taly when the pamphlet was published. The gist of the pamphlet is as follows:

One Brioché exhibited a marionette show near one end of the Pont-Neuf. Among the troup was a live monkey.

Cyrano came along, and some thirty or forty lackeys, waiting for the puppet show, began to hustle him and to make fun of his singular appearance; one of them actually flipped him on the end of his nose. Out came that deadly rapier in a flash, and the intrepid little "fiery whoreson," rushed at them, driving the whole mob of them before him. Brioché's monkey, "making a leg" for a _sou_, got in Cyrano's way and the gallant swordsman, not unnaturally mistaking it for one of the rabble, pierced it effectually with his rapier. Brioché brought an action against Cyrano to recover fifty _pistoles_ damages.

"Bergerac defended himself like Bergerac, that is, with facetious writings and grotesque jokes. He told the judge he would pay Brioché like a poet, or 'with monkey's money' (_i.e._ laugh at him); that coins were an article of furniture unknown to Phœbus. He vowed he would immortalise the dead beast in an Apollonian epitaph."

It is possible that Dassoucy was merely parodying the battle of the Porte de Nesle; none of the facetious writings referred to is extant; but they may have perished with the elegy Le Bret saw Cyrano writing in the guard-room and the _Story of the Spark_ and Cyrano's _Lyric Poems_.

The third anecdote attached to this period relates to the actor Mondory or Montfleury, the latter of whom is satirised in Cyrano's letter _Against a Fat Man_. The 1695 edition of the _Menagiana_ gives the story as follows:

"Bergerac was a great sword-clanker. His nose, which was very ugly, was the cause of his killing at least ten people. He quarrelled with Montdory, the comedian, and strictly forbade him to appear on the stage. 'I forbid you to appear for a month', said he. Two days later Bergerac was at the play. Montdory appeared and began to act his part as usual; Bergerac shouted to him from the middle of the pit, with threats if he did not leave, and for fear of worse Montdory retired."[15]

[Footnote 15: _Menagiana._ 1695. Quoted by Remy de Gourmont. The reader will remember Rostand's use of this anecdote.]

The year 1645 in several respects opens a new phase in Cyrano's life. His mother was dead, he began to suffer from poverty--due to gambling it is said--and contracted a disease. There is a mystery about the death of Cyrano de Bergerac and the "_maladie_" which preceded it. M. Lachèvre has discovered a document showing the payment of four hundred _livres_ to a barber-chirurgeon by Cyrano and, from circumstantial evidence we need not repeat, M. Lachèvre asserts that this was venereal disease. If so, the moral philosopher created by Le Bret disappears as completely as the delicate lover invented by Rostand.

It is a remarkable fact that Cyrano did not make a serious appearance in print until the year before his death, 1654. He wrote earlier and published prefaces and commendatory poems; he scribbled a few pamphlets and libels during the Fronde; but his reputation as a writer during his lifetime must have been based on the circulation of his writings in manuscript. The letters were not published until 1654, but they must have been written much earlier; _The Pedant Outwitted_ does not seem to have been played, and _The Voyage to the Moon_ was circulated in manuscript for some years before it was published.

The fact is we know very little about the last ten years of Cyrano's life. Abel de Cyrano died in January 1648 and the poet's share of the inheritance rescued him at least for a time from the poverty into which he had fallen. In February 1649 there appeared an anti-Mazarin pamphlet in verse, entitled _Le Ministre d'Etat Flambé_, signed D. B. This was followed by several prose pamphlets directed against Mazarin: _Le Gazetier des Interressé_, _La Sybille Moderne ou l'Oracle du Temps_, _Le Conseiller fidèle_. Some have denied that these were Cyrano's work; others are convinced to the contrary. If he did write them he soon changed his political opinions; for in 1651 he published his pro-Mazarin _Contre les Frondeurs_. One biographer thinks Cyrano was bribed by Mazarin to change his politics; another biographer thinks that since Cyrano undoubtedly wrote for Mazarin he could never have written against him.

There is a legend that about this time Cyrano visited England, but there is no confirmation of this.

Hitherto Cyrano had been too independent to enter the service of any nobleman. We have noticed his refusal of the offers made him by Marshal Gassion. Subjection to the whims of some wealthy person of note was a misery endured by many authors of the 17th century; Cyrano de Bergerac avoided it as long as he could, but about the end of 1652 he entered the service of the duc d'Arpajon. Saint-Simon in his usual contemptuous way calls this nobleman "Un bonhomme"; he was a good soldier, religious, vain and probably not very intelligent. Under his patronage Cyrano's works were printed in two handsome quartos in 1654. They contained _The Death of Agrippina_, _The Pedant Outwitted_, and _The Letters_. There was a dedication to the duke and a charming sonnet to his daughter. The success of these writings was considerable and their popular vogue lasted at least half a century.

The death of Cyrano de Bergerac is surrounded with mystery. He was only thirty-five when he died. Was this early death the result of a disease, as M. Lachèvre asserts; or was it, as other commentators say, the result of a blow on the head from a falling beam? If he were hit by a piece of timber, was this an accident, or was it revenge? Had Cyrano's very free philosophical speculations anything to do with it? It is impossible to answer these questions definitely; each commentator has replied to them according to his own prejudices.

The accident, if there were an accident, happened early in 1654. For some unknown reason Cyrano was turned out of the Hôtel d'Arpajon about this time. In June 1654 Cyrano was received into the house of M. des Bois Clairs, with whom he remained for fourteen months until a few days before his death. He then begged to be moved to a house at Sannois, belonging to his cousin Pierre de Cyrano, where he died on the 28th of July 1655. He was not buried in the convent of the Filles de la Croix as the reference books say (this was his brother Abel), but in the church of Sannois. He was converted to Christianity on his death-bed, presumably by his sister, who was a nun, and his friend Le Bret, the canon. A document is in existence stating that "Savinien de Cyrano, escuier, sieur de Bergerac," died a good Christian; it is dated the 28th of July 1655, and signed by the parish priest, who owned the curious name of Cochon. That Cyrano, like most of his contemporaries, yielded to a death-bed repentance is probably true; it is equally true that he spent most of his life as a free-thinker.

Among Cyrano's military friends were two senior officers, M. de Bourgogne (_mestre de camp_ of the Prince de Conti's infantry) and Marshal Gassion. They of course would know him simply as a brave soldier in a company of dare-devils. More intimate soldier friends, of a rank approaching his own, were Cavoye, brother of the celebrated Cavoye killed at Lens; Hector de Brisailles, ensign in the Gendarmes de Son Altesse Royale; Saint Gilles, captain in the same regiment; Chasteaufort, whom Cyrano may have parodied in _The Pedant Outwitted_. He also knew Le Bret's brother, a captain in Conti's regiment; Duret de Montchenin and de Zeddé "braves de la plus haute classe", and de Chavagne.

Le Bret also mentions the Comte de Brienne, M. des Billettes, M. de Morlière.

The Comte de Brienne was the son of Louis XIII's minister; he was a secretary of state, then an Oratorian; and he died mad. Gilles Fileau des Billettes, brother of the Abbé de la Chaise, was "one of the most learned men of his day." Adrien de Morlière was a famous genealogist. Longueville-Gontier, also mentioned by Le Bret, was a "Conseiller au Parlement". Cyrano appears to have been friendly with the translator, Michel de Marolles, who has recorded in his Mémoires the fact that Cyrano sent him copies of _The Death of Agrippina_ and _The Voyage to the Moon_.

After these respectable gentlemen we come to a more varied group of Cyrano's friends, most of whom are not mentioned by Le Bret, but who interest us more. Some of them were perhaps picked up in taverns; others he met in the course of his studies; others were congenial men of letters.

Three especially influenced Cyrano in his serious studies, particularly in philosophy and physics, and confirmed his natural tendency towards rationalism and scepticism by furnishing him with the knowledge and arguments he lacked. Chief among these was the celebrated Gassendi, who was born in 1592 and died in the same year as Cyrano, 1655. Gassendi was trained as an Aristotelian, but drew away from the school and followed with special interest the researches of Galileo and Kepler. He opposed Descartes. He is principally remembered for his revival of Epicurus, of the Epicurean physics and morals, and of Lucretius. Three translations of Lucretius were made as a result of his influence, one by Molière, one by Chapelle, one by Dehénault (all three friends of Cyrano) and, remarkably enough, all three of these translations have disappeared. Gassendi exerted a considerable influence over all the intellectual freethinkers of his age, and Cyrano de Bergerac was especially indebted to him. Gassendi's exposition of the Epicurean theory of atoms, his own ideas about "calor vitalis" and "anima mundi", will be found freely copied in _The Voyages_; while Gassendi's favourite principle "nihil in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu" made a deep impression upon Cyrano's mind.

Gassendi's lessons in physics were supported in Cyrano's memory by his friendship with Jacques Rohault (1620-75). Rohault was a mathematician, a pupil of Gassendi, but strongly influenced by Descartes. He wrote a treatise on physics which has so much in common with the fragments of Cyrano's treatise and the ideas expressed in _The Voyages_ that at one time Rohault was supposed to have plagiarised from Cyrano. It is now almost conclusively proved that the opposite is true.

It is difficult to say what relations Cyrano had with the elder La Mothe Le Vayer (1583-1672). We know that he met his son at Gassendi's lectures. Old Le Vayer was a famous sceptic and in many ways a remarkable personality. Like many sceptics he lived to be immensely old, was highly respected for his erudition and, though he never seems to have been worried by the clergy, was the reverse of orthodox. His position in 17th-century Paris is interesting; he was one of the very few survivors of the great Humanist movement of the 16th century, and, as such, carried with him an air of enthusiasm, learning and freedom which must have been very stimulating in days when learning had been interrupted by civil disturbances and the stifling influence of the Catholic reaction was increasing.

A learned controversy has shaken a large amount of dust over the "problem" of Molière's relations with Cyrano. It has been denied that Molière studied under Gassendi, that he plagiarized two scenes from Cyrano's Comedy. It seems more probable that both are true.

Jean Dehénault (1611-1682), another literary friend of Cyrano's, was a melancholy sceptic, consistently unsuccessful in life; he wrote a certain amount of verse and a prose piece, which had the honour of being attributed to Saint-Evremond.

Bernier, Chapelle, Lignières, Dassoucy, Tristan l'Hermite, Royer de Prade were also among Cyrano's friends.

François Bernier (?-1688) became a doctor, travelled in the East and is remembered by his still readable _Philosophie de Gassendi_. Chapelle (1626-1686) wrote a _Voyage_ in collaboration with Bachaumont and furnished Sainte-Beuve with material for a delightful _Lundi_. François Payot, Chevalier des Lignières (1628-1704), was chiefly concerned in the Porte de Nesle episode. He was a minor poet of the epigrammatic kind; Boileau called him "le poète idiot de Senlis." There is a book on him by M. Magne. Dassoucy was one of the innumerable burlesque poets of the time, for whom Cyrano wrote a preface and a madrigal; later they quarrelled and libelled each other. Tristan l'Hermite (1601-1655) was "an epicure of the cabarets, a hare-brained duellist, a gambler, a libertin, a beggar"; as a youth he was exiled for killing a man. Cyrano praises him as the greatest man of the age! Finally, Royer de Prade and Henry Le Bret were Cyrano's oldest and most faithful friends. Henry Le Bret was the son of Nicholas Le Bret; born 1617; soldier, lawyer, then priest; canon in 1659. He lived to be ninety-three. De Prade was a historian and tragic poet, known to his friends as "le Corneille Tacite des Français". Cyrano wrote a preface to the 1650 edition of de Prade's works and the latter wrote a sonnet on _The Voyage to the Moon_.

THE LIBERTIN QUESTION

To write of Cyrano de Bergerac and not to mention the "libertin question" is to shirk a difficulty. A "libertin" in French means a free-thinker in religion, generally but not necessarily, a man of free or even criminal morals. It is particularly applied to a whole mass of sceptical or at any rate non-Christian French writers of the 17th century. To draw an English parallel: Marlowe, Greene in his unregenerate days, Rochester, Sedley, even Wycherley and Hobbes would be libertins; but Hume and Gibbon would be philosophes.

The father of the libertins was Montaigne; great, adorable Montaigne, whose divine common-sense emerges from the churning floods of metaphysical quiddities and the gross clouds of popular errors like a glittering marble rock. _Super hanc petram_ the French libertins founded their temple of incredulity, but from lack of unanimity the edifice remains incomplete. It is the habit of official commentators to insist upon the Stoic element in Montaigne. It is there, because Montaigne had absorbed the wisdom of the Ancients; but one might as legitimately insist upon the Epicurean or the Sceptical aspect of his book. That, at least, is what the libertins did. They took the sceptical wisdom of Montaigne and tempered it with the mirth of Rabelais. Sometimes the wisdom was not very apparent and the mirth was very Rabelaisian. Sometimes the mixture was happy. Molière was a libertin; so were Saint-Evremond and his friend Ninon de L'Enclos and the cardinal de Retz and Théophile and Saint-Amant and Boisrobert and Cyrano and Chapelle and scores more. The degree of "libertinism" runs from the mere sparkle and freedom from cant of Molière and the fastidiousness of Saint-Evremond to the brutal orgies of the "goinfres" and the criminality of Claude le Petit, who was burned for blasphemy, murder and sodomy. Cyrano began towards the brutal end and developed towards the gentler standard.

There are two current theories of libertinism. One is particularly espoused by M. Frédéric Lachèvre, the erudite editor of the Libertins, whose work is indispensable to a correct understanding of this period of French literature. This theory refuses the libertins coherence of thought or any real intellectual importance. It puts aside as "sceptiques" those writers whose polite manners and respectable morals make it difficult to disparage them, and concentrates upon those whose lives show dubious or even criminal episodes. From an immense mass of facts and skilfully arranged historical conjectures this critic argues that the libertins are not to be considered as honourable and talented men seeking truth, but as undisciplined egotists, lacking coherence of thought and seriousness of purpose; who attacked institutions from vanity, who cultivated sedition and irreligion because by proclaiming such ideas they became involved in that stir of publicity for which paltry vanity craves.

The other theory regards the libertins as expressing more or less coherently a great trend of thought in French intellectual life, as the heterodox tradition of France, as an exuberant product of the French critical spirit. This spirit shows itself not in works of formal criticism alone, but in a general temper of the mind, a disposition to examine institutions and ideas critically, a readiness to laugh at what had seemed terrible or oppressive, to jest down tyranny with a bawdy song; a spirit co-existent with French literature, already strong in the 13th century, when England intellectually was a mere Norman province. The chansons de geste and the tales of chivalry are parodied in satirical fabliaux; courteous love is mocked by innumerable voices; the crusades are barely over and the great cathedrals still unfinished when Rutebeuf writes:

"Papelart et Béguin Ont le siècle honni."

We see a Louis IX set off by a Joinville--don Quixote and Sancho Panza 350 years before Cervantes. François Villon follows Charles d'Orléans; Rabelais is the contemporary of Calvin; Racine is followed by Voltaire. The précieux movement is followed by the burlesque; the hard thought of Voltaire by the softness of Bernadin de Saint-Pierre; the Romantics by the Naturalistes. The heterodox tradition from Le Roman de Renart (12th century) and the Fabliaux (13th century) can be traced throughout French literature to Anatole France and Remy de Gourmont. French literature is like a great double stream which constantly winds and branches out and reabsorbs side channels. We can see the 17th-century libertins as an episode in a great intellectual struggle and Cyrano de Bergerac as a minor, but not unimportant, actor, in that episode. In any case Cyrano is not an exception in French literature in spite of a few eccentricities; he is one example of a perfectly recognizable intellectual type and so far from being the complete "original" he is made out to be, he has little to offer which cannot be found in his contemporaries and immediate predecessors.[16]

[Footnote 16: F. T. Perrens, _Les Libertins en France au XVII^e Siècle_, is an interesting book.]

THE WORKS OF CYRANO DE BERGERAC

The extant writings of Cyrano de Bergerac are: (1) A few poems, including the libel on Mazarin; (2) Three or four political pamphlets (doubtful); (3) _Entretiens Pointus_; a set of quibbling jokes; (4) Three sets of Letters; (5) A prose comedy, _Le Pédant Joué_; (6) A verse tragedy, _La Mort d'Agrippine_; (7) _Les Estats et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil_; (8) _Traité de Physique_, fragmentary.

The first three are unimportant. The best of Cyrano's few short poems is the sonnet to Jacqueline d'Arpajon. The political pamphlets interest the researcher and are not certainly Cyrano's. The _Entretiens Pointus_, or _Merry Conceited Jests_ are verbal quibbles and jokes, supposedly memories of conversation in the Gassendi group.

With the letters we come to the first of Cyrano's works of literary value and are at once met with a difficulty which makes the study of Cyrano's work so troublesome. Whenever there exists a MS. of any of his writings the differences between this and all the printed editions before that of Gourmont (1908) is so considerable that in many cases the whole intention of the work is different. Most of the passages omitted in the printed editions are philosophical or satirical arguments or sarcasms directed against the Church and religion and were omitted in the 17th century for obvious reasons. No editions of Cyrano show the MSS. texts prior to 1908; the editions of Gourmont and particularly of Lachèvre have shown us a different Cyrano.

The Cyrano created by Gautier and Rostand was, of course, a chimera; but there was something curious in his work which gave some support to the theory that he was mad or at least very eccentric. He was not mad, he was simply heavily censored. Essential words, sentences, paragraphs, whole pages were omitted; always modifying the meaning, sometimes making it absurd.