Mémoires

“ It may be doubted whether she does not somewhat exaggerate the discomforts of her position and her sense of them. In her lack of illusions she was a child of the 18th century. Sainte-Beuve says that the most fit time for the reading of the Mémoires is the late autumn, under the trees of November. But her book is an extremely amusing one to read, as well as not a little instructive. The humours of the “court of Sceaux” are depicted as hardly any other society of the kind has ever been. ”

“ Histoire de la mode en France; la toilette des femmes depuis l’époque gallo-romaine jusqu’à nos jours (1874, with 12 plates; new ed., 1880, with 21 coloured plates) . His Mémoires du peuple française (1865–1873) and La France et les Français a travers les siécles (1882) at least have the merit of being among the first books written on the social history of France. ”

“ He was buried in the Grand Bé, an islet in the bay of St Malo. Shortly after his death his memory was revived, and at the same time exposed to much adverse criticism, by the publication, with sundry mutilations as has been suspected, of his celebrated Mémoires d’outre-tombe (12 vols., 1849–1850) . These memoirs undoubtedly reveal his vanity, his egotism, the frequent hollowness of his professed convictions, and his incapacity for sincere attachment, except, perhaps, in the case of Madame Récamier. ”

“ They form an invaluable document for the study of the psychology of the Revolution; for in spite of their considerable literary art, they are artless in their revelation of the mental and moral state of their author, a characteristic type of the honest, sentimental, somewhat hysterical and wholly unbalanced minds nurtured on the abstractions of the philosophes. The first complete edition of the Mémoires de Louvet de Couvrai, edited, with preface, notes and tables, by F. A. Aulard, was published at Paris in 1889. ”

“ Etudes sur Virgile, 1825) we should mention the Mémoires historiques et militaires sur Carnal, which he based on the papers left by the “Organizer of Victory” (1824) , the Discours du Général Foy (1826) and a Hislaire de la guerre de la Péninsule also inspired by Général Foy (1827) . ”

“ La Grace (1720) and Religion (1742) , his most important work, are inspired by a sincere piety, and are written in verse of uniform clearness and excellence. His other works include epistles, odes, among which the Ode sur l’harmonie (1736) should be mentioned, Mémoires (1747) of Jean Racine, and a prose translation of Paradise Lost (1755) . Louis Racine died on the 29th of January 1763. ”

“ Chateaubriand, who was in Paris at the time, showed his courage and independence by immediately resigning his post. In 1807 he gave great offence to Napoleon by an article in the Mercure de France (4th of July) , containing allusions to Nero which were rightly taken to refer to the emperor. The Mercure, of which he had become proprietor, was temporarily suppressed, and was in the next year amalgamated with the Décade. Chateaubriand states in his Mémoires that his life was threatened, but it is more than possible that he exaggerated the danger. ”

“ He was one of the first members of the Academy of Sciences founded at Paris in 1666. He died at Paris on the 12th of May 1684. The first volume of the Histoire et mémoires de l’Académie (1733) contains many original papers by him upon a great variety of physical subjects, such as the motion of fluids, the nature of colour, the notes of the trumpet, the barometer, the fall of bodies, the recoil of guns, the freezing of water, &c. ”

“ After all, the great end of biography is not to be found, as some would seem to imagine, in a series of dates, or in a collection of gossiping anecdotes and table-talk, which, instead of lighting up and vivifying the features, hang as a cloud of dust upon the portrait; but it is to be found in an analysis of human genius, and in the developement of those elements of the mind, to whose varied combinations, and nicely adjusted proportions, the mental habits, and intellectual peculiarities of distinguished men may be readily referred. ”

“ Four ways there are of telling a curious world that endless story of the past which it is never tired of hearing. History, memoir, biography, and the diary run back like four smooth roads, connecting our century, our land, our life, with other centuries and lands and lives that have all served in turn to make us what we are. ”

“ Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life. I have lived without dreaming that I should ever take a fancy to write the history of my life, and, for that very reason, my Memoirs may claim from the reader an interest and a sympathy which they would not have obtained, had I always entertained the design to write them in my old age, and, still more, to publish them. ”

“ Having already compiled our Historical Memoirs, which, as we conceive, are a valuable addition both to political and moral philosophy, we have now determined to follow it up with the present work, which has been prepared on the same system as the former, and for the same class of readers, but more particularly for those who are in high stations of life. ”

“ To attempt an analysis of the Memoirs now laid before the public would be utterly impossible, so romantic are the narratives, so thrilling the horrors, so powerful the descriptions, so continuous the thread of its history. As a piece of Autobiography, it has many and singular characteristics, which stamp it at once as one of the most interesting and peculiar narratives ever penned, replete with astonishing incident and instructive moral. ”

“ We get it, especially, not from the history of the theorist or the statistician, but from the actual, naïve, human record to be found in memoirs, in popular literature, in architecture, painting, sculpture, and music, in the industrial arts, in every unforced product of the mind. ”

“ In all I have written I have sought carefully to work into my dialogue each word and sentence recorded of the individual, every available trait or peculiarity of character to be found in contemporary memoirs, every tradition that has come down to us.
To be true to life has been my object. ”

“ It is conceded by all, that biography is a most important species of history. Through its agency, men who have been distinguished for merit, talent, or any peculiar virtue, are remembered, and, though they may be personally lost to us, yet the good influence they exerted [Pg 10] during their lives, is made to continue for our benefit. The biography of any eminent individual must be, in some degree, a chronicle of the times in which he lived, and thus, though the production may be of the most humble character, the pages of history are enriched, and the records of the past perfected. ”

“ Yet our memory of direct impressions is only the smallest part of what we know. Outside that bright area comes knowledge of a different order—the knowledge brought to us by other people. Outside our immediate personal memory there comes this wider area of facts or quasi-facts told us by more or less trustworthy people, told us by word of mouth or by the written word of living and of dead writers. This is the past of report, rumour, tradition, and history—the second sort of knowledge of the past. ”

“ Until that time comes, dear reader, you yourself must supply the X-ray of insight. If you can learn to do that, you will find history and biography the most interesting of studies. Biography is, of course, the basis of all history, since history is merely the record of man's failures and successes; and, read thus, it is a wonderful and inspiring thing, for the successes so overtop the failures, the good so out-weighs the bad. ”

“ I show you the wrong side of events which history does not display: history exhibits only the right side. Memoirs have the advantage of presenting both surfaces of the texture: in this respect they depict the whole complexion of humanity better, by exposing, as in the tragedies of Shakespeare, low and exalted scenes. ”

“ Hence, biography written in a true spirit, while something quite different from history, is, nevertheless, an important supplement and aid to it, throwing light into its dark corners, and explaining its obscurity. For the historian, in the spirit of the painter or poet, must dispense with all the minutiæ of detail which would interfere with the effect of his conception. ”

“ Memoirs, recollections, anecdotes of the Bar or of the Academy are much more interesting, and may be valuable as throwing sidelights on history, but still only amuse and help to kill the time of which we forget the value. ”

“ The true conception of biography, therefore, as the faithful portrait of a soul in its adventures through life, is very modern. We may question whether it existed, save in rare and accidental instances, until the 17th century. The personage described was, in earlier times, treated either from the philosophical or from the historical point of view. ”

“ In the first place, a connected chain of histories, from the earliest times to the present day, with a selected list of contemporary memoirs and biographies, would throw a guiding gleam of light on thousands who are wandering, dark and aimless, in a labyrinth of 'masterpieces.' In this enquiry system is essential. ”

“ Their pictures and engravings enable us to take part in their domestic life, see how they dress, observe their attitudes and follow their movements. Through their literature, philosophy, scientific pursuits, gazettes, and correspondence, we can reproduce their feeling and thought, and even enjoy their familiar conversation. The multitude of memoirs, issuing during the past thirty years from public and private archives, lead us from one drawing room to another, as if we bore with us so many letters of introduction. ”

“ Circumstances of various kinds, and particularly ill-health, have thus put me, although a writer, into the position of a reader; and have made me ask myself, as I collected these fragments of my former studies, what can the study of history, particularly of the history of art and of other manifestations of past conditions of soul, do for us in the present?
All knowledge is bound to be useful. ”

“ Thus if any writer attempts to do what I have done myself—namely, to examine or depict in books of widely different kinds such aspects and problems of life—social, philosophical, religious, and economic—as have in turn engrossed his special attention, he may venture to hope that a memoir of his own activities will be taken as representing an age, rather than a personal story, his personal story being little more than a variant of one which many readers will recognize as common to themselves and him. ”

“ History, so called, gives an account of mankind in the collective sense; Biography gives an account of each man individually. Let us now turn our attention to the latter, and see what lessons of truth await us there, remembering that Biography requires the same careful study that History does. In all countries, and in all ages, we find lovers of mankind, eager to benefit their suffering brethren, and teaching such truths as their knowledge made them aware of. ”

“ In diction and style, the marks of the true historian are frankness and truth, lucidity and simplicity. The preface should be in proportion to the subject. “The body of the history ... is nothing from beginning to end but a long narrative; it must therefore be graced with the narrative virtues—smooth, level, and consistent progress, neither soaring nor crawling, and the charm of lucidity.” “Brevity is always desirable.” ”

“ For beyond writing materials and a tireless forearm there are in the manufacture of memoirs only two essentials: one must live during an interesting period of the world’s history and one must from time to time meet, or at the very least see, a variety of well-known persons. ”

“ As we reflect, we anxiously look around us for some tradition—some time-stained chronicle—some age-worn record—even the faintest and most unsatisfactory legend, upon which to repose our credulity, and relieve the inquiring solicitude of the mind. ”

“ Behind us lies a night of fearful gloom, unillumined by the light of written records, of picture memorials, of aught which can give a certain idea of the past. A few stray streaks of light, in the form of tradition, of oral poetry, of carved records, are the only guides we have. ”

“ The faculty, by which we repeat our impressions in the first manner, is called the MEMORY, and the other the IMAGINATION. It is evident at first sight, that the ideas of the memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination, and that the former faculty paints its objects in more distinct colours, than any which are employed by the latter. When we remember any past event, the idea of it flows in upon the mind in a forcible manner ”

“ It is difficult to know what to admire most—the clearness of perception, the precision of the statement, the strictness of the logic, the aptness of the illustration, or the argumentative skill with which the whole is marshalled and presented. As a piece of induction, the memoir is a model of its kind, and as an exercise in “the scientific use of the imagination” it has few equals. ”

“ We need to keep our historical memories not only fresh but true. For, in the words of the great historian, with the remembrance of whom I began these lectures: ‘The healthy nation has a memory as well as aspirations involved in the consciousness of its identity ”

“ Who better than the writer of the Essays could have painted a series of miniatures of the courts of Elizabeth and James?
When at last the political upheaval of this century compelled men to leave, whether in histories, or memoirs, or biographies, a record of what they had themselves experienced, the character attained to its full importance and excellence. ”

“ The kind that mostly issues in biography is the practical temperament. Poets have the shortest memoirs, and the most uninteresting. The politician, the philanthropist, the general, make the best, the most graphic Lives. ”

“ They are not bare records of fact, like the Chronicles; imagination enters into their scope; non-human, miraculous incidents are allowable; their content is not a matter for faith or factual record; they may be called historical fiction, which, broadly taken, corresponded to actual events, and typified the national strivings and ideals. ”