Tableaux de Siège: Paris, 1870-1871

by Théophile Gautier

Tableaux de siè Paris, 1870-1871 / Théophile Gautier
Date de l'édition 1871
Sujet de l' Paris (France) -- 1870-1871 (Siège)
Bibliothèque Charpentier

Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF.
HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.
Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables.
Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérêt scientifique ou historique.
Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu.

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395 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2012

About the author

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic. In the 1830 Revolution, he chose to stay with friends in the Doyenné district of Paris, living a rather pleasant bohemian life. He began writing poetry as early as 1826 but the majority of his life was spent as a contributor to various journals, mainly for La Presse, which also gave him the opportunity for foreign travel and meeting many influential contacts in high society and in the world of the arts, which inspired many of his writings including Voyage en Espagne (1843), Trésors d'Art de la Russie (1858), and Voyage en Russie (1867). He was a celebrated abandonnée of the Romantic Ballet, writing several scenarios, the most famous of which is Giselle. His prestige was confirmed by his role as director of Revue de Paris from 1851-1856. During this time, he became a journalist for Le Moniteur universel, then the editorship of influential review L'Artiste in 1856. His works include: Albertus (1830), La Comédie de la Mort (1838), Une Larme du Diable (1839), Constantinople (1853) and L'Art Moderne (1856)

Reviews

[NDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mostly interesting and enjoyable book. Theophile Gautier seems to have stayed in Paris while it was besieged in 1870-71, first by the Germans and subsequently by the Communards. He sketches some of the striking scenes of the first siege…balloon launches of the mail which was the only way to communicate with the outside world, snow sculptures on the ramparts created by noteworthy sculptors, the disappearance of cats, dogs, rats, and even sparrows from Paris as food shortages became severe, the suffering of the animals in the Paris zoo, the untimely death of promising artist/sculptor Henri Regnault (age 27). He even gives a detailed account of how the Venus de Milo was removed from the Louvre for safekeeping, and how it was nearly destroyed (by the Communards). For the apostle of the ‘art for art’s sake’ school of thought, the mindless destruction of irreplaceable artworks seems to be the one Unforgivable Sin of the Communards. I can imagine him saying, ‘Shoot them all.’

It’s probably worth noting that in my own studies of French lit, French history, and my travels in France, the Communards were always presented as fundamentally well-intentioned, perhaps occasionally given to ‘excess’, and that their treatment at the hands of the new national government was an atrocity. The wall where many of them were shot is something of a lefty shrine in Paris. I think it’s fair to say that they were the Taliban of their day. To imagine that they were a harmless early incarnation of the “soixante-huit-tardataires” of more recent memory is just typical lefty whitewashing of history. I’m with Gautier on this; they deserved what they got.

In any case, my knowledge of the chronology of events that winter was initially quite lacking (thanks to my college professors…), and it wasn’t at first clear to me when, in Gautier’s account, the siege had passed from German hands to that of the communists. A reader would do well to brush up quickly on that chronology. It seems clear that the latter did much more damage, most of it wanton and vicious, destruction for destruction’s sake, to Paris than did the Germans. Gautier never gets in to politics, probably wisely, and never ponders how France and Paris got themselves into this stupid situation. The closest he gets to political matters is his call at the end for the rest of France to put the past behind it and re-embrace Paris as its own true heart.

My biggest criticism of the work concerns his rather lengthy passages in the middle where he visits Versailles and rambles endlessly about how it had changed from the days of Louis XIV. It does not seem to have been noticeably damaged by either the Germans or the Communards, so my suspicion is that Gautier didn’t have enough material for a whole book, so he threw this in as filler.

In any case, this book a worthy read if you’re interested in history.