position in the world of letters was generally recognized, and had
brought him the distinctions and rewards which France has it in her
power to bestow. In 1840 he was appointed one of the conservators of the
Mazarine Library. In 1845 he was elected to the French Academy. He lived
on terms of intimacy with men of all parties, and with the highest in
every party. He moved in the _elite_ of Parisian society, accepting
rather than claiming its attentions, but fully sensible of its charms.
All these circumstances combined to prolong, in his case, that season
when, though the fruit has formed, the blossoms have not yet fallen,
when the mind still yields itself to illusions as if loath to be
disenchanted. His sincere admiration for the genius of Chateaubriand did
not blind him to the monstrosities or the littlenesses by which it was
disfigured. But should he rudely break the spell in the presence of the
enchanter? should he disturb the veneration that encircled his decline?
should he steel himself against the gracious pleadings of Madame
Recamier, and throw a bomb-shell into that circle of which no one could
better appreciate the seductive repose? He chose rather to limit the
scope of his judgment, to look at the object solely on its attractive
side, to postpone _reservations_ which would have had the effect of a
revolt.
Yet the extent of his concessions has been much exaggerated. No
extravagant laudations ever fell from his pen. Moreover, his gradual
emancipation, so to speak, is apparent in his writings,--in the last
volumes of his "Port Royal" and in the later "Portraits." It was
facilitated by the waning power displayed in the productions of some
with whom he had been closely associated. It was suddenly completed by
an event of which the momentous and wide-spread consequences are still
felt,--the Revolution of February, 1848.
M. Sainte-Beuve has given a curious account of the immediate effect of
that event upon his own external circumstances and position. Some
lurking irony may be suspected,--a disposition to reduce the apparent
magnitude of a great political convulsion by setting it in juxtaposition
with its more trivial results. But as the narrative is characteristic,
and contains some passages that throw light upon the author's habits and
sentiments, we give it, very slightly abridged, in his own words. It is
prefixed to a course of lectures on Chateaubriand and his literary
friends, delivered at Liege in 1848-49.
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