Mémoires et Journal, 1777-1867 (review)

Jean-Pons-Guillaume Viennet (1777–1868) is one of those public figures who traversed the nineteenth-century literary and political worlds, observed it all from up close, knew everyone, but left no trace in posterity. Viennet, a Voltairian liberal, pursued three careers: as a (respectable) officer, an (inconsequential) centre-left deputy, and a (mediocre) author who tried his hand at every genre, from poetry to tragedy, melodrama to fables. Every evening he went out into le monde. And when time allowed he wrote memoirs and voluminous journals that cover six decades of public life in the capital's highest circles. The book under review is the first complete edition of Viennet's memoirs and journals, duly annotated by Raymond Trousson, who also contributes a detailed introduction. Neither Saint-Simon nor La Bruyère, Viennet has not left us observations of deep sociological or psychological insight. The moving description of Guizot attending to his dying son night after night, the picture of Louis-Philippe reading English newspapers rather than French ones, the sketches of Charles Nodier or general Bugeaud: such moments of sentiment, acumen or wit are rare in this dry, detailed text. Written for 'posterity', Viennet's journals nonetheless offer scholars a trove of information about the era. The reader's curiosity will determine which entries prove most interesting. Some will gravitate towards the descriptions of Napoleonic battles (and carnage), the 'political dramas of the Palais Bourbon', and the post-1830 'chasse aux places' (pp. 855, 726). Others will privilege the accounts of assassination attempts and revolutions or the obituaries of leading intellectual and military figures (Napoleonic officers are particularly well-represented). Others yet will prefer the reviews of plays and artistic salons; the jousting with Hugo and other Romantics; the pilgrimage to Rousseau's tomb; or the accounts of debates and 'affaires' (about the Pantheon, an 1821 conversion of Protestant schoolgirls, the rights of authors, etc.). Viennet's literary 'tribulations' and dashed ambitions offer yet another window into the era's brutal and unforgiving literary field (p. 199). This is no journal intime. Viennet eludes introspection and says little, beyond his desire for literary glory, about his personal and domestic life, his friendships and passions, his sentiments and fears, or even his readings. He devotes a lone paragraph to his marriage and only discusses the 'illustrious victims' of the 1832 cholera epidemic (p. 834). Still, what Viennet does convey —or seek to represent —is the painful isolation of a lucid yet uncharismatic man, who sought to chart a centrist course around patriotism and a constitutional monarchy during an era of turmoil, political partisanship and 'insults, lies, calumny' (p. 858). Viennet did not refrain from expressing his convictions —and he paid the price for such honesty. At the end of his life, accolades duly rewarded his longevity. But they could neither compensate for decades of mockery ('Mr. Vieux Niais') nor mitigate his hollow feeling that, had his compatriots shunned political illusions and chosen his moderate lucidity instead, France would have been spared much suffering.