¹ G. Boas, The Happy Beast (Johns Hopkins Press, 1933); H. Hastings, Man and Beast in French Literature of the 18th Century, Johns Hopkins Series in Romance Literatures and Languages, xxvii (1936); L. Cohen-Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine (Oxford University Press, 1941); H. Busson, “La Fontaine et l'âme des bêtes,” Revue d'Histoire Littéraire (1935-36); Busson and Gohin, La Fontaine, Discours à Madame de la Sablière, critical edition (Paris: Droz, 1938). The influence of French writers in England is discussed by Dix Harwood in his Love for Animals and how it Developed in Great Britain, Columbia University Dissertation (1928). The present essay is a part of a study of French animal literature in the 19th and 20th centuries.

² The “loi Grammont” dates from July 6, 1850. A society for the prevention of cruelty to animals was organized in Paris April 3, 1846. See below, note 6, for references to the earliest expression of arguments popular in the eighteenth century.

³ Victor Hugo was very outspoken in his pity for animals in the long, fervent pages on cruelty to be found in Alpes and Pyrénées. That was in 1843. He antedated two of his poems in defense of animals, probably to indicate that his humanitarian feelings were active in 1838. (Cf. Les Contemplations, Grands Ecrivains edition, i, lxi; ii, 111-115, 264.) This action bears some relation to an evaluation of Lamartine's influence: 1) it reveals a contemporary's awareness of the appearance at a certain time of new life in an old theme, kindness to animals, and 2) it is a tacit admission of its importance through the desire to share in the revival.

⁴ Lamartine never tried to raise the beast to the level of man, or to degrade man. The effect of his view of the unity of nature, or pantheism, or “unanism,” whichever it be called, is to relate man's life more closely to that of the world as a whole. Cf. notes 13, 18.

⁵ Mércure de France, Feb. 1, 1940.

⁶ It must be remembered that the printed word throughout the ages speaks for and to only a small percentage of mankind, that much which was thought and felt was never written; yet we feel confident that the books of the past offer a fair notion of the chief concerns of men through the centuries and of their greater or less consciousness of moral isuses. In all ages men have been interested in animals and have written about them. Many of the ideas about animals expressed in France from the 16th century on had appeared in the Bible, the lives of the Saints, the literature of Greece and Rome. Brief accounts of their early existence will be found in Boas: op. cit.; in Hastings: op. cit., Introduction, p. 9, pp. 11-12, 179-182, 242-243. In the eighteenth century the ideas, the long arguments which preceded the foundation of the moral principle of kindness to animals, were repeated in a veritable chorus, for the most part in the works of philosophers, to a much lesser degree in poetry.

⁷ At the turn of the century there was a strong vegetarian movement in England and Germany, a weak one in France. It has been difficult to ascertain whether Lamartine was a vegetarian in practice. Charles Alexandre tells of his living as a Brahman, giving his best food to his pets. (Souvenirs sur Lamartine [Paris: Charpentier, 1884], p. 407.) Des Cognets says meat was rare at the family table. (La Vie intérieure de Lamartine [Paris: Mércure de France, 1913]). In an article in the Muse Française (1925), pp. 418-428, on Lamartine's vegetarianism, Des Cognets claims that he was converted to this diet after his trip to the Orient in 1832, at which time he was introduced to the literature of the Hindus, “Il s'est fait ermite vers la cinquantaine et, converti à la sobriété, sous l'influence des Hindous et des Mahométans, il est devenu sobre comme l'habitant du désert” (p. 427). Lamartine, himself, gives a different picture. Mémoires inédits (1790-1815), (Paris: Hachette, 1881), pp. 27-28: here Lamartine says he was raised on a vegetarian diet and suffered when he first went away to school and had to eat meat. In the Confidences (N. Y.; Appleton, 1849), pp. 33-34, there is a long, vivid account of his mother's teaching: “Ma mère était convaincue, et j'ai gardé à cet égard ses convictions, que tuer les animaux pour se nourrir de leur chair . . . est une des plus déplorables et des plus honteuses infirmités de la condition humaine; . . .” He then describes a visit with her to a slaughter house. In the Cours familier, ii, 348, is a dramatic attack on meat eating and the merciless butchering of innocent animals. The suggestion that horses be used for food leads the poet to predict that soon dogs will be included in the fare of mankind. The one precise statement of his own practice in the matter is in the Confidences: “Bien que la nécessité de se conformer aux conditions de la société où l'on vit m'ait fait depuis manger tout ce que le monde mange, j'ai conservé une répugnance raisonnée pour la chair cuite . . .” (pp. 33, 34).

⁸ Cours familier (Paris, 1856-69), xxiii, 85. Correspondance (Paris, Hachette, 1873), i, 32-33, 292; ii, 161; iv, 42.

⁹ See the accounts mentioned in note 7, also H. de Lacretelle: Lamartine et ses amis (Paris, Dreyfous, 1878).

¹⁰ From Raphaël.

¹¹ In the Cours, iv, 382, Lamartine says that after nature, religion made him a poet.

¹² See particularly: “Hymne du Matin,” “Pensée des Morts,” “Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude,” “Hymne de l'Enfant à son Reveil.” See also “La Vigne et la Maison.”

¹³ In some rare cases Lamartine expressed unmistakably pantheistic ideas, as when he wrote in La Mort de Socrate (1823):

Et qu'enfin dans le ciel, sur la terre, en tout lieu

Tout est intelligent, tout vit, tout est un Dieu.

This is quoted by M. Citoleux, Poésie philosophique du 19e siecle (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1906), p. 263, who shows that Lamartine's thought varied very much on this subject and that, in spite of his once saying, “all is God,” he really did not identify Creator and creation, which true pantheism does. (Cf. Citoleux, p. 50, pp. 285-287.) In Les Contemporains (Paris, 1898), vi, M. Lemaître notes the same confusion and contradiction in Lamartine's pantheistic thought.

¹⁴ In “Milly” the poet describes a visit to his childhood home. Like all men he finds memories flocking evoked by familiar sights and sounds. The ideas and emotions to be read into this poem are richer than might be expected and reveal the early experiencing of emotion toward animals. Even the creatures form a bond with the past, when they must have meant very much to him. He wants nothing to change the atmosphere of the place from that which it has eternally in his heart. “Tout s'y souvient de moi, tout m'y connaît, tout m'aime.” And in his wish he paints the magic world of fascinating details which are the life and joy of a young child. Rather than see a selfish stranger in his home he would see it in ruins, but with flowers growing in the walks, a lizard asleep in the sun, a nightingale singing in the garden, doves and sparrows nesting where innocent children used to be. When the human family has left the home, the creatures, humbler members of it, remain and preserve its spirit intact. Here, as elsewhere, Lamartine almost seems to turn away from imperfect man to animals and birds whose innocence, goodness, and beauty are familiar to him, which here are his childhood and which harmonize with all his memories. He dreams of being buried here where the birds his sister introduced into the region will sing in his last sleep. Raphael (1849) may be compared with the poem, “Milly,” for it contains very similar moods. Swallows are the only companions of the lonely Raphaël during his last days. “On voyait que son âme repoussée ou sevrée des hommes, s'était réfugiée dans les animaux.” In his suffering he turns to animals for comfort and finds it. The swallows are also used here for their power to evoke memories of a past which the hero feels they share with him. In this way Lamartine brings the creatures into man's life, reminding him that they are always living beside him through the years and changing scenes and in a sense belong to him and all that occurred in the time which has gone.

¹⁵ Voyage en Orient, Œuvres Completes (Paris, 1867), Vols. 6-7. Vol. 6, p. 56, wild horses; p. 175, birds; pp. 234 ff., Arabian horses; pp. 363-364, a pet jackal, “charmant animal . . . que je défendrais, comme une part de ma vie, au péril de mes jours.” Vol. 7, pp. 16, 218-219, intelligence of Arab horses; pp. 26-27, “l'oeil des chevaux arabes est une langue toute entière. . . .”

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 234-235. “Il faut le voir . . . la tête entre les jambes, secouant sa longue crinière noire comme un parasol mobile. . . .” In the Cours, ii, 170, the poet criticizes Buffon's manner of description, but his own here is the same style.

¹⁷ Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 442. The Turks live at peace with all the animate creation: trees, birds, dogs. In the streets one sees water dishes for dogs, and some men bequeath funds to support animal pets after their death. This was known long before Lamartine's time. Montaigne in his essay on cruelty refers to it and writes words which might be likened to Hindu kindness toward all which lives, and even inanimate objects. “Mais quand je rencontre parmy les opinions plus moderees les discours qui essayent à montrer la prochaine ressemblance de nous aux animaulx, et combien ils ont de part à nos plus grands privileges, et avecques combien de vraysemblance on nous les apparie, certes, i'en rabats beaucoup de nostre presumption, et me demets volontiers de cette royauté imaginaire qu'on nous donne sur les aultres creatures. Quand tout cela en serait à dire, si y a il un certain respect qui nous attache, et un general debvoir d'humanité, non aux bestes seulement qui ont vie et sentiment, mais aux arbres mesmes et aux plantes. Nous debvons la iustice aux hommes, et la grace et la benignite aux aultres creatures qui en peuvent estre capables: il y a quelque commerce entre elles et nous, et quelque obligation mutuelle. Ie ne crains point à dire la tendresse de ma nature, si puerile, que ie ne puis pas bien refuser à mon chien la feste qu'il m'offre hors de saison, ou qu'il me demande. Les Turcs ont des aulmosnes et des hospitaulx pour les bestes.” Essais (Paris: Lefevre, 1823), ii, 399-340. Voltaire had some knowledge of the Indian philosophy of transmigration, universal charity, and abstinence from meat, Essai sur les moeurs, article “Inde.”

¹⁸ M. Citoleux sets down the facts concerning the first real knowledge of Hindu philosophy and literature in France in the first half of the nineteenth century. He then attempts to ascertain how much Lamartine knew about it and how early he made its acquaintance. From Lamartine's correspondence Citoleux judges that he first read translations of Hindu poems between 1833 and 1834. When, in the Cours familier, Lamartine described his first discovery of Hindu poems, he gave no clue as to the date. Citoleux says that if Lamartine knew V. Cousin's lectures on Indian philosophy of 1829, he made no use of their analysis of it. From the Védas (1854), of B. Saint-Hilaire, he drew only translations for the articles of the Cours, ignoring completely the commentaries which pointed out the inferiority of Hindu religion to the Christian on the grounds it led to pantheism. In the articles of the Cours, besides presenting “résumés” and translations, Lamartine attacked the doctrine of perfectibility, supporting his views by the Indian doctrine of suffering and expiation. M. Citoleux concludes that Lamartine's knowledge of Hindu literature was limited to d'Eckstein's translations in Le Catholique, to conversations with d'Eckstein, to B. Saint-Hilaire's Les Védas, to Hastings and Wilkins's translation of the Bagavagita, and to Chezy's translation of Sacountala. While writing Jocelyn, and La Chute d'un Ange, he had the Mahabharata and Ramayana in mind, although he had planned his long poems very early in his career. The Indian doctrines which most appealed to him were mysticism, nonviolence, and expiation: metempsychosis he never accepted as a principle of philosophy, and pantheism he detested.

There has been considerable interest in the question of Indian influences on Lamartine. For instance M. Lemaître, in Les Contemporains, vi, 146, writes: “J'ai fait une découverte, en feuilletant l'Histoire de la littérature hindoue, du poète excellent et de l'irréprochable bouddhiste Jean Lahor, c'est que la moitié des Harmonies de Lamartine sont tout simplement des hymnes védiques. Non qu'il ait imité les Védas; il est même fort probable qu'il ne les connaissait point au moment où il écrivait les Harmonies. Cet homme d'Orient (vous vous souvenez qu'il croyait fermement à ses origines orientales) a retrouvé cela tout seul.” In the interesting comparisons of short passages which reveal the pantheistic element in Lamartine's thought there are unquestionable similarities in idea and vocabulary. There is also something closely related to Christian thought in Lamartine. It seems that it would be hardly possible to determine exactly the origin of Lamartine's emotion when he contemplated the world. It is perhaps safe to say that it was personal, that it was nourished by the religion in which he was raised, and later intensified by the mysticism of the Eastern religion. Both Citoleux and Lemaître are agreed that Lamartine's thought was already formed before he discovered Hindu literature.

On the other hand, M. Louis Buzzini in an article in the Nouvelles Littéraires, September 20, 1930, claims that Lamartine knew a great deal of Hindu literature because it was available in translations. He produces no proof, however, that Lamartine read these translations and commentaries. Doubtless he based his claim that, “L'Inde, outre ses chefs d'œuvre, avait donc révélé à l'Oriental Lamartine, poète religieux par excellence, la charité envers la nature entière,” upon the statement by Lamartine in the Cours, Entretien iii, “L'Inde m'avait révélé une plus large charité de l'esprit humain, la charité envers la nature entière” (p. 220). Insofar as this concerns kindness to animals, it would be wholly incorrect to conclude that Lamartine learned it from the Hindus. All the evidence indicated that he was already a humanitarian; and his humanitarianism is such that one could easily ask whether he was not influenced rather by Wordsworth (Hart-Leap Well, Tribute to the Memory of a Dog, etc.). There is no conclusive proof of this, however.

In his Lamartine and Romantic Unanism (Columbia University Press, 1940), Mr. Albert George discusses Hindu influence upon Lamartine and comes to the conclusion that his philosophy was more likely the result of Platonic ideas, French eighteenth century philosophy, and contemporary French searching for the absolute, and for some unifying principle.

¹⁹ The doctrine of metempsychosis probably lay behind the doctrine of non-violence. The Védas prescribed animal sacrifice and such sacrifices exist even today. See Sir Ch. Eliot: Hinduism and Buddhism (London: Arnold, 1921), i, lvi-lvii. The epics also speak of meat eating. Pity for animals is foreign to the ancient Hindu philosophy, and the Brahmans followed the principle of non-violence from a desire to remain pure of the stain of the world. Thus in the beginning it had its roots in self-interest. See A. Schweitzer, Les Grands penseurs de l'Inde (Paris: Payot, 1936), chapter 5. The Janist sect made non-violence, or “ahimsa,” a supreme commandment, and through them the principle acquired a higher ethical quality. Bouddha took from Janism the doctrine of “ahimsa” and founded it upon pity; although he called for avoidance of injury rather than for positive action to alleviate animal suffering.

²⁰ The account quoted in note 7 on vegetarianism was written in 1849. Undoubtedly colored in retrospect, all its details recall previous outbursts and especially that of Mercier in the Tableau de Paris (1783). The fact that he wrote about the slaughter house so late does not disprove his early indoctrination.

²¹ Citoleux: op. cit., p. 306.

²² Cours, Vol. i, Entretien iii, pp. 208-211, the ecstasy; pp. 212-220, episode of the deer.

²³ Hunting is a sport which seems incompatible with kindness to animals. It can only be said that, apparently, people who werekind to animals hunted and kind people hunt today without any qualms. In France disapproval of hunting is to be found in Montaigne, in the Correspondance of Grimm and Diderot (Nov. 1756); in the Encyclopédie, article, “Chasse” by Diderot, In Beaurieu: Elève de la Nature, 1771 edition, iii, 177; in Roucher: Les Mois (1777), ii, ix; in Delille: L'Homme des Champs (1800), (Œuvres [Paris: Michaud, 1824], vii, pp. 224-227).

²⁴ Mahabharata, Calcutta, Bharata Press, 10 vols (1895). Vol. 10, Mahaprasthanika Parva, section 3.

²⁵ Guillemin, H.: Le Jocelyn de Lamartine (Paris, Boivin), p. 51, gives dates of composition of different parts of the poem. It was composed between 1832 and 1835; the passages on the dog and the “laboureurs” were written in the fall of 1835.

²⁶ Composed in the fall of 1835.

²⁷ Cours, vii, 38. Cf. also v, 182, 190, the character of Didier's four oxen. Cf. also G. Sand, La Mare au Diable.

²⁸ Œuvres (Paris: Gosselin, 1842), Vol. iv, epoque 3, p. 120.

²⁹ Cf. Pierre Loti: Livre de la pitié et de la mort (Paris: Levy, 1891), pp. 49-50. “J'ai vu souvent, avec une sorte d'inquiétude infiniment triste l'âme des bêtes m'apparaître au fond de leurs yeux; . . . J'ai peut-être eu plus de pitié encore pour ces âmes des bêtes que pour celles de mes frères, parce qu'elles sont sans paroles et incapables de sortir de leur demi-nuit, surtout parce qu'elles sont plus humbles et plus dédaignées.”

³⁰ Œuvres, iv, 121.

³¹ Ibid.

³² Jocelyn, Œuvres, iv, 277-278.

³³ Essai de psychologie, 1754-1755, viii. In England in the eighteenth century the immortality of brute souls was conceded or defended by several persons: John Hildrop, Soame Jenyns, Copel Berrow, Richard Dean, Anna Seward.

³⁴ This recalls St. Francis of Assisi.

³⁵ A touching thing is the spectacle of the dog consoling man and of the animal trusting a human being. The poet envisages an ideal relationship between the two, and its nature is clear in the lines from La Chute d'un Ange (1838), where non-violence is preached and beast intelligence and soul are defended.

Ne les enchaînez pas serviles et farouches.

Avec des mors de fer ne brisez pas leurs bouches,

Ne les écrasez pas sous de trop lourds fardeaux,

Qu'ils vous lèchent la main et vous prêtent leur dos. (Œuvres [Paris: Gosselin, 1842], v, viii, 242.)

³⁶ Cours familier, iii, 196.

³⁷ Ibid., iii, 223-224.

³⁸ Ibid., vi, 427-428. Cf. also “Milly” and “Raphaël” for a tendency to turn from man to seek solace in the company of animals.

³⁹ Ibid., i, 250. It is very fully described here: the lark, cricket, wind are poetic because they stir emotion.

⁴⁰ Méditations Poétiques, Grands Ecrivains Edition, “Des destinées de la poésie” seconde préface, p. 387.

⁴¹ Cours familier, ii, 170.

⁴² While discussing Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Audubon, Lamartine makes the prediction, which has certainly been fulfilled, that the time is coming when there will be a closer union of science and literature. (Cours, ii, 170.) In the 18th volume of the Cours familier (pp. 221 ff.) there is a long discussion of Aristotle à propos of natural history. In this section Lamartine deplores the fact that Aristotle and Buffon described the bodies of animals and neglected what he calls “la partie intellectuelle de leurs moeurs.” He continues by saying that if he had the talent and financial backing necessary, he would like to undertake a great work in which he would sing the praises of the Creator, “nous oserions entreprendre cette oeuvre et chanter ainsi le cantique plus complet de la création, le spiritualisme de l'histoire naturelle.” There follows a long appreciation of the virtues and devotion of animals in which he claims they choose between desire and duty; there is another attack on animal mechanism. Mechanists, he says, “proclament l'athéisme, non de Dieu, mais des sentiments et des idées.”

⁴³ Giono: Que ma joie demeure (Paris: Grasset, 1935), p. 82.

⁴⁴ The attitude represented by Lamartine and other enthusiastic humanitarians was not shared by all contemporaries. It is apropos to note again that Lamartine, although humanitarian, enjoyed hunting and also ate meat. Few people have avoided such contradictions. Today we do not consider ourselves immoral or inhuman because we profess kindness to animals and yet hunt, slaughter, and eat animals.

⁴⁵ Y. Florenne, Mércure de France, Dec. 1, 1939, p. 262.

⁴⁶ Ibid., Feb. 1, 1940.