To Repair the Ruins: Reading Milton

10. Milton, Cromwell, and Napoleon in Chateaubriand and Hugo

255 10 Milton, Cromwell, and Napoleon in Chateaubriand and Hugo Joan Blythe Like Milton, Chateaubriand (1768–1848) and Victor Hugo (1802– 85) responded passionately to an age of revolution. Although both Chateaubriand and Hugo lived through several revolutions, those that cast the longest shadow over the nineteenth century were the French Revolution and the Napoleonic coup d’état of 1799. Enlightenment thinkers prior to the French Revolution, as well as writers and political figures dealing with its aftermath —Napoleon not least—invariably had to come to grips with the English precedent and with the figures of Milton and Cromwell. Foremost among the numerous nineteenth century French writers obsessed with Napoleon and influenced by Milton are Chateaubriand and Hugo. What Hugo in his poem “Lui” says about Napoleon—“His image without cease fires my thought”1 —might also have been said by Chateaubriand, who, like Hugo, spent a lifetime 256 Joan Blythe trying to come to terms with this flawed and terrifying as well as stupefyingly grand Vesuvius of a man who fueled both their creative passions. The first line of “Lui,” “Always he, he everywhere ,” in effect may summon up thoughts of Milton as well as of Napoleon, for both Chateaubriand and Hugo kept returning to Milton as an inspiring type (le génie), and they kept drawing upon his writings for literary and political ideas. Early on, Hugo expressed his fervent wish to be Chateaubriand “or nothing.” It is said that both wanted to be Napoleon;2 for a certainty, at least early in their careers, both also wanted to be Milton.3 With Milton as model, they aspired to have an influential political voice as well as a commanding literary reputation. As Chateaubriand and Hugo strove to realize these ambitions, Milton and Cromwell figure importantly at crucial junctures in their literary careers, junctures bound up with their engagement with Napoleon. Milton’s Second Defence of the English People was an important text for both Chateaubriand’s 1811 discours, written as a requirement for induction into the French Academy, and for Victor Hugo’s epic drama Cromwell of 1826–27.4 Just as Milton’s Second Defence both defends the principles of liberty upon which the English republic had been founded and admonishes Cromwell to remain steadfast to these ideals, Chateaubriand and Hugo’s writings consistently celebrate principles of political liberty. With direct statement or by implication , they chastise rulers of the time for betraying what they believe had been founding ideals of the French Revolution. Near the end of the last act of Cromwell, realizing Milton has made a palpable hit in their verbal duel over the poet Davenant’s fate, the Lord Protector bursts out in exasperated admiration: There’s logic worthy of a poet, yes! Phrases an arm in length; bombastic soul! You’d govern and reprove your governors, You who pass all your time forcing poor words Into strange metre!5 (Cromwell 5.13) Milton, Cromwell, and Napoleon in Chateaubriand and Hugo 257 Cromwell’s lines accord with Chateaubriand’s and Hugo’s aspirations to be political players as well as literary lions. Milton’s “aim from the beginning” of his Second Defence was “to create a readership which will not remain satisfied with the literary or political status quo,”6 a goal these two giants of nineteenth century French literature likewise shared. Evaluating the historic Cromwell as well as Milton’s relationship with him was one way Chateaubriand attempted to come to terms with his own varying responses to Napoleon. Although “liberty” serves as a mantra for both Chateaubriand and Hugo, each configures the concept from different perspectives . Hugo, a generation Chateaubriand’s junior, uses the figure of the Lord Protector in Cromwell mainly to shadow forth praise of Napoleon and to evoke nostalgia for the emperor’s reign in contrast to the monarchical evils typified by the Bourbon king, Charles X (1824–30). By contrast, Chateaubriand, virtually an exact contemporary of Napoleon, instances in various writings Cromwell and Milton primarily as a means to criticize, implicitly or explicitly, the ongoing and past political actions of the emperor of the French, particularly his suppression of liberty of the press.7 Chateaubriand’s mostly negative responses to Napoleon, which occur during his reflections on Cromwell and Milton, are stronger when taking into consideration that in his emotional core Chateaubriand was a monarchist who despised Cromwell for the excesses of the English revolution that...