SAND George (1804-1876)

Autograph MANUSCRIT, Impressions et souvenirs n° 23. In the woods, January 10, 1873; 39 pages in-8. On Napoleon III who has just died. Napoleon III died on January 8, 1873. On January 10, 1873 (this date is written at the head of the manuscript), Sand went for a walk in the woods; she notes in her diary: "Napoleon III died yesterday - last hour. Telegram in the newspaper this morning". The feuilletons of Impressions et souvenirs de Sand were published in Le Temps from August 22, 1871; the first 22 (until December 11, 1872) were published in a collection by Michel Lévy in 1873. The continuation of the feuilletons of Le Temps, including this first one, "Dans les bois", was published, with some other texts, in the posthumous collection Dernières pages (Calmann-Lévy, 1877). The manuscript, in brown ink on the front of the pages, presents numerous erasures, readable under the large strikethrough, and interlinear additions. The final apostrophe is rewritten on a bequest, pasted on the original version (the very last lines are missing). The text begins with a walk in the woods and a study of botany: "The weather, always admirable, allowed us to return to the woods. I was curious to define the scabiosa, which still blooms there in the middle of January. And I did not define it. It offers characters which do not agree with the exact description of any species registered in the nomenclatures, and, as I do not have the pretension to make a new species of it, as it is probably of the most vulgar, I am forced to attribute the anomalies which it presents to me to the anomalies of the season, which gives it an inopportune blooming "... Etc. But she did not take the pen to speak about botany; in her walk, she thought of NAPOLÉON III who had just died, but this "fatal man" had not existed for three years. She evokes her correspondence with the prisoner of Ham, whom she will find again at the Elysée: "I was completely abused by him and, then, believing myself played, I did not want to see him again. [But I continued to write to him when I hoped to save a victim, to comment on his answers and to observe him in all his acts. I convinced myself that he had not wanted to play anyone; he played everyone and himself. He believed in what he said [...] With the exercise of absolute power, this illusion of playing heads or tails with events became a monomania, and the quiet and patient fatalism took on all the appearances of strength and skill. The skill was nil. The man was naive under his restrained and thoughtful air. He did not pose like his uncle. He had not learned to drape himself in the ancient toga. He was small, stooped, withered, and did not try to appear majestic. [...] A man of erroneous principles, he governed a nation that lacked principles and that put a romantic ideal of prosperity in the place of true civilization, success and luck in the place of right and justice"... It evokes Victor HUGO launching "his anathemas to Napoleon the small. But the great romantic poet did not have here the sufficient sense of reality. His masterpiece will remain as a literary monument, it has no historical value. [...] He believed himself the instrument of Providence, he was only the one of the chance. The party, at first minimal and suddenly immense, which carried him to the summit of the power was not even a party [...] It was a swarm of adventurers at first, and then a meeting of interested parties speculating on the adventure, and then the sudden infatuation of the masses, disgusted of a republic in dissolution "... Etc. And she concludes this portrait, "reconstructed while walking in the woods", as a republican: "I believe that there would finally be to recognize that the best of the men can be the most disastrous of the sovereigns, that to hand over the destinies of all to only one is the most culpable and the most insane act that can commit a civilized people. Ah! we are Frenchmen of the 19th century, and we still want to pay us "children of the miracle": Henri V, the future savior; "men of the destiny", Napoleon the struck down; emperors with a mission, Napoleon the harmful! Let us continue! After Waterloo and Sedan, there are still abysses [to rest from our glories, our splendors and our celebrations. These very last lines are missing at the end of the manuscript]."