'Si ton doigt y souligne un mot frais, un mot tendre, Son miel avec ton lait dans mon âme a coulé, Ta bouche, à mon berceau, me l'avait révélé.'—Vol. i. p. 77. Brizeux, as his biographer remarks, has often introduced his mother, who seems to have been a very superior woman, into his verses; but, while other poets have personified some ideal parent, and hyperbolically celebrated an unreality, he did not absorb all the virtues of the maternal creation into the image he designed to represent, but he wrote of his mother as of a living, breathing woman, whom others also might learn to know and love, a 'Something not too bright and good When eight years of age, Brizeux was sent to a school kept by M. Lenir, curé of Arzannô, a real Breton village, and presenting a strange contrast to Lorient. Of Arzannô the poet's account would be— 'How could I name thy very name, Nor wake my heart to notes of flame?' It is situated about five miles from Kemperlé, between Lorient and le Faouet, and is now included in the department of Finistère. It is the chef-lieu of the canton, but is entirely composed of the dwellings of peasants. Nothing modern has found an entrance there; it retains the ancient language, manners, and customs of Brittany; and the very country itself has its special physiognomy. The two rivers, the Scorf and the Ellé, so dear to a Breton heart, flow at some little distance from the place. The rector's very parsonage has its distinctive characteristics. But we will allow the biographer to speak for himself: 'Ce qui est bien breton surtout,' says M. Saint-Réné Taillandier, c'est le presbytère et la vie du recteur au milieu de ses paysans. M. Sainte-Beuve, à propos de Jocelyn, mettant en scène cette famille de pasteurs et de vicaires chantés par les poëtes ou poëtes eux-mêmes, comme il y en a de si gracieux exemples en Angleterre, ajoute ces mots :- "La vie de nos curés de campagne en France n'a rien qui favorise un genre pareil d'inspiration et de poésie. S'il avait pu naître quelque part, c'eût été en Bretagne, où les pauvres clercs, après quelques années de séminaire dans les Côtes-du-Nord, retombent d'ordinaire dans quelque hameau voisin du lieu natal. M. Brizeux nous a introduits parmi ce joyeux essaim d'écoliers qui bourdonnait et gazouillait autour des haies du presbytère chez le curé d'Arzannô." Arzannô, comme on voit, est déjà un lieu consacré dans l'histoire de la poésie; on le citait, il y a vingt ans, à côté du délicieux Auburn de Goldsmith, et de ce village de Grunau, où Voss, l'auteur de Louise, a placé son vénérable pasteur. Le poëte qui fera la célébrité d'Arzannô y arrive aujourd'hui tout enfant, il va vivre comme un clerc auprès du curé, il portera l'aube blanche, il chantera la messe dans le chœur, et c'est là, entre le presbytère et les champs de blé noir, entre l'église et le pont Kerlô, que naîtra sa poésie, vraie poésie du sol, naïve, rustique, chrétienne et merveilleusement encadrée dans un paysage d'Armorique.'-Vol. i. pp. xvii. xviii. The good curé seems to have been, in many respects, a type of the old Breton clergy. His pupils, as well as all those that have had relations with him, speak of him as an excellent and superior man. Under a rustic exterior, there breathed a lively, keen spirit, endowed with many natural gifts, and a soul overflowing with goodness and simplicity. He had been educated at S. Sulpice, and, at the very period when the revolutionary powers liberated the students from their engagements, he determined to enter into Holy Orders. During the Reign of Terror, he was in constant danger of losing his life. Pursued from place to place, and compelled to remain hidden in the villages of Cornouaille, he became paysan avec les paysans.' There he was not idle. He had a passion for teaching; and, when wandering from village to village, without a home, and unable to exercise the functions of his sacred office, he found pupils in the farms, and lanes, and fields of Brittany. When the First Consul had the churches re-opened, M. Lenir was appointed head of a college which had just been established at Kemperlé; but he did not remain there long. He was presented to the cure of Arzannô, whither several of his pupils followed him. Many of these afterwards distinguished themselves in various spheres. Late in life, when the good curé's sight failed him, and his body became paralysed, he went to reside with his sister-in-law, and one of his nieces acted as reader to him. First, she would read the breviary, and then long passages from his favourite authors, Cæsar and Virgil; and the aged scholar still found delight in translating and explaining passages to those around him. But let M. SaintRéné Taillandier again speak: Enthousiaste et spirituel dans la conversation, il était brave en tout, brave d'esprit et de corps. Bien qu'il se livrât sans cesse avec une familiarité expansive, jamais on ne surprenait en lui quelque chose de commun; dans ses moindres actes, comme dans ses sentiments et ses paroles, il y avait toujours une dignité naturelle. Joignez à cela des allures élégantes, faciles, et vous jugerez quelle influence un tel homme devait avoir sur des enfants qu'il ne quittait presque jamais. Dieu et ses écoliers, c'étaient là toutes ses pensées. La vie matérielle lui était complétement indifférente; il n'y pensait qu'à l'occasion des pauvres ; car il était charitable à tout donner. Si on lui adressait quelque observation à ce sujet : "Je n'ai connu personne, disait-il, qui se soit ruiné à faire l'aumône."-Vol. i. p. xx. Such was the first instructor to whom the widowed Madame Brizeux entrusted the care of her son. At the age of twelve, Brizeux quitted the good old priest, and entered the college of Vannes. This was in 1816. The previous year Napoleon had effected his escape from Elba, and once more bidden defiance to all the European powers. It is well known how the students of the college, during that memorable year, sallied forth one morning, to the number of three hundred and fifty, after attending early mass in the cathedral of Vannes, to fight for their religion, their lawful king, and the white lilies of France; and how, joined by some old chouans, they engaged in a bloody battle near Auray with the bleus, whom they worsted. The adventures and exploits of these young men were recorded some twenty years ago by M. Rio, in his charming work, La petite Chouannerie, ou Histoire d'un College Breton sous l'Empire, and more recently by Mrs. Wilbraham, in her interesting story, The Young Breton Volunteer.' The lofty aspirations, the chivalry and the gallantry of these fils des géants de la Vendée, were still a living reality in the college of Vannes; and impressions and feelings were there imbibed by Brizeux, which neither time nor place, nor difference of position, could ever obliterate. The deeds of the youthful band form the subject of one of Brizeux's most admirable poems, Les Ecoliers de Vannes,' which is included in his Histoires Poétiques. In 1819, Brizeux, then sixteen years of age, left Vannes, and entered the College of Arras, of which a great-uncle of his, M. Sallentin, was Proviseur. There he remained three years. Brizeux has immortalized in his verses each of the places where he received his education. He has sung the praises of the worthy curé d'Arzannô 'Humble et bon vieux curé d'Arzannô, digne prêtre, without forgetting, at the same time, his schoolfellows, Albin, Llô, Daniel : 'Loïc du bourg de Scaër, Ives de Kerhuel, Tous jeunes paysans aux costumes étranges, Portant de long cheveux flottants, comme les anges.' He remembered the College of Vannes in the Ecoliers de Vannes,' mentioned above; and he has sung the College of Arras in Le Vieux Collége,' one of the best pieces of his Ternaires. In 1822 Brizeux returned to Lorient, where he remained some two years in an attorney's office. He then went to Paris to study law. His arrival in the French capital synchronized with the establishment of a new and famous literary school in France. Two years before, Lamartine's Méditations had appeared, and Victor Hugo had just published his Odes et Ballades. The Globe newspaper, though still in its infancy, had given a powerful impulse to the arts, to poetry, and to philosophy. It was then, as Brizeux often subsequently avowed, that he first felt the inspiration-no superficial or evanescent inspiration-of the Muse; and Paris seemed to call forth and expand all the true poetic feeling which nature had given him, and which his past life had so pre-eminently tended to foster. He was by no means remarkable for the application with which he pursued the study of law. He had intimate relations with the chief of the romantic school; with Hugo, De Vigny, and Sainte-Beuve he became well acquainted; instead of diligently following the cours of the Ecole de Droit, he spent his time in visiting museums and libraries, and in attending the lectures of Cousin, Andrieux, and others then in the height of their fame; until he finally decided upon abandoning altogether the study of law, and devoting himself to a literary life. Some of the literary connexions formed by Brizeux at this period do not seem to have been unattended with danger, if not to the poet, at least to the man; and even his faith appears to have been momentarily imperilled. In his article on Brizeux, M. de Pontmartin says:: 'L'éducation, la virilité poétique de Brizeux dut s'achever dans des conditions, sinon mortelles, au moins dangereuses pour cette foi simple et robuste qu'il avait vue entourer son berceau sous les traits d'une mère, d'une patrie et d'un maître. Seulement et c'est là une distinction capitale si l'homme, en lui, ne fut pas inaccessible au doute, le poëte resta chrétien. On ne le vit pas tomber, comme M. de Lamartine, dans une religiosité sans dogme et sans culte ; comme M. Hugo, dans un naturalisme superbe où l'œuvre absorbe l'ouvrier; comme M. de Musset, dans cette poësie mêlée de blasphèmes et de sanglots qui forme l'inimitable accent de Rolla. Son âme put vaciller; sa muse ne se cramponna qu'avec plus d'amour aux vieux murs de ses églises bretonnes, vêtues de plantes sauvages dont il avait respiré le parfum. Si l'on osait accoupler une image sacrée à un souvenir. païen, on pourrait dire que le Christianisme de Brizeux reprenait ses forces, comme Antée, en touchant sa terre natale. Chaque fois qu'il revenait de fait ou d'idée dans sa Bretagne, il embrassait du regard, avec un redoublement de tendresse, ces visages vénérés et bénis, ces costumes primitifs, ces traits de physionomie et de caractère, ces mœurs gardiennes des croyances, ces croyances protectrices des mœurs, ces croix, ces autels, ces sanctuaires.'. Brizeux's first work was a little comedy, entitled Racine. It is founded on the well-known incident said to have occurred at the third representation of Racine's Plaideurs, and which is amusingly related in a letter of Racine's friend, M. de Valincour, to the Abbé d'Olivet. Racine was performed at the Théâtre Français, on the 27th September, 1827. It is not without some clever sketches and animated dialogues; but it also abounds in striking flaws in composition and artistic defects. Portions of the dialogue remind one of Andrieux. There is no similarity whatever between it and any of the author's subsequent works. Brizeux thought little of Racine afterwards; it is not included in the poet's complete works; and, indeed, copies of it have become exceedingly rare. Brizeux, at this period, did not know his own powers. He in vaca was but gradually learning their nature and extent, and, as his biographer says, il se cherchait encore lui-même. During the whole of his residence in Paris, he regularly, once a year, tion time, visited his mother, the revered curé of Arzannô, and the Marie who was as the guardian spirit of his poetic life. The sweet influences and associations connected with them had, indeed, for a short time been neglected, but they were too deeply entwined in the hidden depths of his very being to remain long forgotten. They will now shine forth in his writings, and shed on them true beauty, grace, and tenderness. Let us again quote M. Saint-Réné Taillandier : 'Un jeune homme, né en Bretagne, a été élevé dans un village du Finistère. Il a eu pour maître un vieux curé, pour condisciples de jeunes paysans. Il a grandi au sein d'une nature à la fois douce et sauvage, courant travers les bois, connaissant tous les sentiers des landes, ou passant de longues heures au bord des fraîches rivières de sa vallée natale. La piété de son éducation, sous la discipline du prêtre, s'associait librement à toutes les joies naïves d'une existence agreste. Une jeune paysanne, enfant comme lui, ornait d'une grâce plus douce encore cette nature tant aimée. Plus tard le jeune homme a quitté son pays, il est entré dans une vie toute différente. Le voilà dans sa chambre solitaire, à Paris, triste, inquiet de l'avenir, occupé de philosophie et d'art, comparant les voies discordantes d'un siècle troublé à l'harmonie que sa première enfance recueillit sans le comprendre. Ce contraste, mieux senti de jour en jour, devient un poëme au fond de son cœur. Il fixe tous ses souvenirs dans une langue souple et harmonieuse, et il écrit ce livre, ce recueil d'élégies, d'idylles agrestes, décoré du nom de l'humble paysanne. Rien de plus frais ni de plus original: à la suave douceur des sentiments s'unit la franchise des peintures; des scènes pleines de réalité et de vie servent de cadre à ce qu'il y a de plus pur, le poëme de l'enfance et de la première jeunesse.'—Vol. i. pp. xxxi. xxxii. The biographer here refers to the poem called Marie, which has made Brizeux's name famous. Happy, indeed, are the poets who derive their inspirations from such scenes as Brizeux, and whose memories are of that holy nature which imparts freshness and purity to the writings which survive the recollection even of the individual! In this sense 'speech is transitory, but writing is eternal.' In 1840, a Marie was published anonymously, in 1831. third edition, with many corrections and additions, appeared with the author's name. During these nine years, Brizeux had learned, and felt, and studied much. A few weeks after the publication of Marie, he went to Italy with M. Auguste Barbier, author of Les Iambes, and gathered great and varied information during a somewhat prolonged sojourn at Florence and Naples. The August following he departed again for Italy, and visited Rome. On his return to France, he remained some months at Marseilles; and here occurred an event in Brizeux's life which must not be forgotten. M. Ampère was delivering a series of lectures before the Athenæum of that city, when he was transferred to the Collége de France. On leaving Marseilles |