New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-28
Some Lovers in the Romantic
Period in France.
THE PASSIONS OF THE FRENCH Ro-
MANTICS BY Francis Gribble Witt
twenty portraits. svo, pp- vxi' SO
Charles Scr!bner's Sons


Charles Scribner's Sons
One Of the chapters IN this DOCK DC
gins with the following words: Alex
andre Dumas is said TO have told an un-
known lady, who told newspaper hiai''
who put the story in the Figaro eia'
4. was he who introduced Juliette TO VIC
FOR lingo" Mr.. Gribble usually has oet-
Ter authority to go upon in his Do
rraphical sketches, but the latter never
fheless leave the impression that tney
are oompacted chiefly of tstue- IL Is
rather sickening tattle, IN some respects
hut ON the other hand 1t Is often very
amusing. MI. Gribble is clever writer
who has put together so many pages OF
gossip about the indiscretions or ceie-
brated people that he has at last de-
yeloped a certain manner OF ms OWL
not precisely formula. but hshI
ha-1nlessly entertaining way Of relating
more or less impossible Incidents HIS
heroes and heroines on the present occa-
sion are clearly an impossible crew, for
all that some Of them possessed genius
and wrote their names high In the an
nails Of French achievement But just
because they were brilliant folk, and led
busy. picturesque lives, one fingers SYM
pathetically enough over the history OF
what they were pleased to regard as ad-
ventures Of the heart. Adventures OF
the senses these were. really, but your
French romanticist. in the time OF revolt
against convention alike in life as In
art. was never wont TO underestimate
tte Significance Of his emotional expert
ences. For one thing, his interrogations
of his ego were almost uncannily devoid
Of humor-
II is. indeed, little odd that Mr..
Gribble should nowhere reveal any con-
seriousness OF the essentially humorless
character Of the proceedings he de-
scribes Perhaps by dint Of long alb
sorption in the records here summarized
he has lost something Of his own sense
Of proportion and so fails ID perceive
the absurdity frequently cropping out
in the relations of his lovers He in
dulges now and then in a cynical smile,
but that is all. Evidently he does not
see that there was something preposter-
Gus about the passions dealt with in
this book. In one case, to be sure. that
of Victor Hugo, he studies the facts in
the proper light and shrewdly exposes
the Hugo legend. turning inside out the
poets pretensions TO noble birth, ex-
traordinary precocity and so on, and
pitilessly holdings up TO scorn his init
macy with Nine. Drouet. In the main, he
takes just a shade too seriously love
affairs which no glamour Of literary dis
tinction can free from a certain vulgar
faint If he has any excuse for thinly
philosophical treatment of these cpl
sodes as illustrating the great movement
of revolt. il lies in the fact that with
the French Romantics art and amatory
intrigue We're, without question, mex
tricably mixed. Paul ct Virginie'' was
10 doubt written in a measure, out of
personal experience. Bernardin de
Sa!ut-Pierre put himself into his work.
- did Lamartine. and you can read
uIainly enough in some of the pages OF
alfred de Vigny the influence Of his in
fatuation with Marie Dorval- But this
is quite another matter from saying
that without their love affairs these and
realize the works which to-day make
their fame, and while Mr.. Gribble does
not by any means press that point, the
mere writing of his book implies an
ascription to those affairs Of an impor-
lance TO which they are scarcely en-
titled.
One takes them, rather, as examples
of an amazing license. Of a mood spell
sng a kind of topsy-turveydom. Il could
not last Mankind in all probability is
subject to the same fits that overlook
Nj Gribble's astounding sentimental
lists. vet for some possibilities at least
the door would seem 70 have been shut
upon the world in which they lived.
l5ere. for example. is a characteristic
passage from the career Of Bernardin
de Saint Pierre:
He went On 10 Amsterdam, with hardly
g penny in his pocket. and the stars II
1heir courses fought Tor him. certain
Amsterdam. and Bernardin had ones
worked under q schoolrnaster of that name
Perhaps. he thought, there might ne some
relationship between the two men.
4, turned out that the Two men were
Brothers. It also turned out that NJ. Mus
Tel, a journalist and editor OF the Gazette
er's friend and willing TO do his best fol-
him. and able 10 make him a practical
and buslnesslike offer. He smoked a pipe
with him in a summer house at the END
or his garden, was pleased with him. in
+roduced him to the ladies Of his family
and came out plump with his gen
erous proposal: Il have sister-in-law,
he said. and ] have a newspaper | con
ITla the fortunes Of both Of them You
Rad better marry the one and become sub
editor Of the other. Your salary shall bt
one thousand ducats year.
He had other adventures as piquant
as this one-people We're always propos-
ing TO marry him-and, in fact. we
should mention here that Mr. Gribble's
hook includes much more than the re-
cital of tender vows exchanged. Gath
ering I'D many odds and ends as he goes
along. he very amusingly sketches not
only loves but careers His account OF
Rernardin de Saint Pierre. for example
is capital little monograph. Still, th5
sentimental issue is never very far off
and. as We have already limited, Mr.
C;ribble is hardly to be blamed for giving
il so much weight when we see how in
cessantly itsobtruded itself in ali circles
and with what gravity il was discussed
syen in quarters nominally averse TO the
philanderer Take the acquaintance o.
pelphine Gay with Alfred de Vigny
She met him at dances from time Il
time. admired the handsome and sympa