SOURCE: King, Russell S. “Romanticism and Musset's Confession d'un enfant du siècle.” Nottingham French Studies 11, no. 1 (May 1972): 3-13.

[In the following essay, King acknowledges that La Confession d'un enfant du siècle is a decidedly Romantic work featuring Musset's projection of the post-Napoleonic social malaise in France and comments on the novel as it analyzes a young libertine who succumbs to a lack of faith in his society and its ideals.]

Musset published his only novel, La Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle, in 1836. Professor Grimsley is right to complain that the work is too infrequently examined for its intrinsic literary merits.¹ Readers and critics have tended to concentrate on two aspects of this work. Firstly they have seen the novel in an autobiographical light, comparing the hero with Musset himself and the heroine with George Sand, emphasizing similarities and discrepancies between the real relationship and the version of the novel, measuring it against the other accounts of the celebrated liaison. Secondly students of the Romantic movement have limited their study to Chapter Two of the first book, which had already been published separately in the Revue des Deux Mondes on 15 September 1835 and which gives a clear analysis of the mal du siècle interpreted largely in a historical context.

In this article I propose to ignore almost totally the biographical aspect and concentrate on the nature of the Romantic mal du siècle. I hope to show that the historical explanation of the Romantic malady, fascinating and plausible though it is, only partially explains the malady of the hero as he is presented in the novel which follows.

Despite the richness and frequency of the imagery, the analysis of the Romantic mal du siècle in the first twenty pages of the novel is clear and explicit. The writers and poets of 1830 had been born at the height of Napoleon's career. “Les mères inquiètes avaient mis au monde une génération ardente, pâle, nerveuse” (p.1).² Their childhood had been a time of excitement amidst the turmoil. “Et pourtant jamais il n'y eut tant de joie, tant de vie, tant de fanfares guerrières, dans tous les coeurs” (p.2). After 1815 France was exhausted and desired only peace and sleep:

De même qu'un voyageur, tant qu'il est sur le chemin, court nuit et jour par la pluie et par le soleil, sans s'apercevoir de ses veilles ni des dangers; mais, dès qu'il est arrivé au milieu de sa famille et qu'il s'asseoit devant le feu, il éprouve une lassitude sans bornes et peut à peine se traîner à son lit: ainsi la France, veuve de César, sentit tout à coup sa blessure. Elle tomba en défaillance, et s'endormit d'un si profond sommeil, que ses vieux rois, la croyant morte, l'enveloppèrent d'un linceul blanc. La vieille armée en cheveux gris rentra épuisée de fatigue, et les foyers des châteaux déserts se rallumèrent tristement.

(pp. 3-4).

What was there now for the youth to do? They had been bred for war and had dreamed of Moscow and the Pyramids:

Ils n'étaient pas sortis de leurs villes; mais on leur avait dit que, par chaque barrière de ces villes, on allait à une capitale d'Europe. Ils avaient dans la tête tout un monde; ils regardaient la terre, le ciel, les rues et les chemins; tout cela était vide, et les cloches de leurs paroisses résonnaient seules dans le lointain.

(p. 4).

The only occupation which remained for them was to enter the Church, like Stendhal's Julien Sorel. Political involvement, the intoxication felt in the pursuit of liberty, brought back memories of 1789 and the Terror, and the young men knew that in the immediate future any attempts to pursue some ideology would be doomed to failure. This was the lesson of July 1830. Faith in monarchy and religion, gradually eroded during the eighteenth century, collapsed more or less with the revolution, the Terror and Napoleon. It is this collapse of faith and the failure to replace the ancient values which lie at the source of Musset's view of the French Romantic age. Voltaire, whom he attacks at the end of the first book, as he had done three years earlier in “Rolla,” is symbolically blamed for the void which so many felt within them and in their lives. What was a young man to do but turn to a life of debauchery, using sensual pleasures to fill or disguise the void:

Un sentiment de malaise inexprimable commença donc à fermenter dans tous les jeunes cœurs. Condamnés au repos par les souverains du monde, livrés aux cuistres de toute espèce, à l'oisiveté et à l'ennui, les jeunes gens voyaient se retirer d'eux les vagues écumantes contre lesquelles ils avaient préparé leurs bras. Tous ces gladiateurs frottés d'huile se sentaient au fond de l'âme une misère insupportable. Les plus riches se firent libertins; ceux d'une fortune médiocre prirent un état, et se résignèrent soit à la robe, soit à l'épée; les plus pauvres se jetèrent dans l'enthousiasme à froid, dans les grands mots, dans l'affreuse mer de l'action sans but.

(pp. 10-11).

Not only did the political situation contribute to the steady erosion of faith, but the literature of the period, too, particularly from abroad, infected the youth of France, the major culprits being Goethe and Byron. Why, Musset wonders, could poets no longer write of happiness?

Que ne chantiez-vous le parfum des fleurs, les voix de la nature, l'espérance et l'amour, la vigne et le soleil, l'azur et la beauté? Sans doute vous connaissiez la vie, et sans doute vous aviez souffert, et le monde croulait autour de vous, et vous pleuriez sur ses ruines, et vous désespériez.

(p. 13).

These aspects, though, are merely the individual elements which are to be seen in a historical context. This is the point which Musset stresses most emphatically on four occasions. The period, presumably the Restoration and July Monarchy, was a period of transition, during which the institutions and values of the past had been overthrown but temporarily put together again, though with little conviction. The future was still a distant dream:

Le siècle présent, en un mot, qui sépare le passé de l'avenir, qui n'est ni l'un ni l'autre et qui ressemble à tous deux à la fois, et où l'on ne sait, à chaque pas qu'on fait, si l'on marche sur une semence ou sur un débris.

(p. 7).

L'astre de l'avenir se lève à peine; il ne peut sortir de l'horizon; il reste enveloppé de nuages, et, comme le soleil en hiver, son disque y apparaît d'un rouge de sang, qu'il a gardé de 93. Il n'y a plus d'amour, il n'y a plus de gloire. Quelle épaisse nuit sur la terre! Et nous serons morts quand il fera jour.

(p. 15).

Towards the end of the second chapter, Musset summarizes this historical view which has, it seems, become one of the most celebrated definitions of the French Romantic mal du siècle:

Toute la maladie du siècle présent vient de deux causes; le peuple qui a passé par 93 et par 1814 porte au coeur deux blessures. Tout ce qui était n'est plus; tout ce qui sera n'est pas encore. Ne cherchez pas ailleurs le secret de nos maux.

(p. 20).

This interpretation is plausible, clearly described, and usually taken as an explanation of much of Musset's pessimism. When it is applied to the novel which it introduces, its validity must in some measure be questioned.

The question of faith, however, or rather lack of it, is consistent with the historical explanation. Octave, the hero, does not believe; he has never been taught to believe. There are, at times, suggestions that Octave is groping to regain, or perhaps, gain for the first time, his faith:

O Dieu! je l'ai vue là sur ses genoux, les mains jointes, inclinée sur la pierre. … Je la soulevai dans mes bras. “O mon unique amie! m'écriai-je, ô ma maîtresse, ma mère et ma soeur! demande aussi pour moi que je puisse t'aimer comme tu le mérites. Demande que je puisse vivre; que mon coeur se lave dans tes larmes; qu'il devienne une hostie sans tache, et que nous la partagions devant Dieu.”

(pp. 212-213).

He is unable to pray himself, but he can ask Brigitte, his mistress, to pray for him. Without faith, which extends far beyond a simple faith in God, but a faith in goodness, hope, and life itself, Octave's life becomes empty, vain, a process leading to ever deeper disillusionment. Towards the end of the novel the hero pathetically asks:

A quoi bon? pourquoi tant de luttes? qui donc est là-haut qui regarde et qui se plaît à tant d'agonies? qui donc s'égaye et se désoeuvre à ce spectacle d'une création toujours naissante et toujours moribonde?

(p. 310).

Octave suggests that he was born in a century in which faith no longer existed. The previous century had already achieved its goal, as Musset suggests here and in “Rolla,” before the hero Octave was born: “Et toi Jésus, qui l'as sauvée, pardonne-moi, ne le lui dis pas. Je suis né dans un siècle impie, et j'ai beaucoup à expier. Pauvre fils de Dieu qu'on oublie, on ne m'a pas appris à t'aimer” (p. 313). Faith seems impossible to Octave. When he desperately turns for guidance to the Bible, he simply finds further reason for doubt, as did Vigny in his poem Le Mont des Oliviers. When Octave later turns to Christ for comfort, it is the suffering of Christ, particularly on the Cross, which partly explains the attraction.

Octave, unlike his friend Desgenais, requires faith of some sort. Faith in God is now replaced by faith in love. There is something almost religious in the love Octave has for his first mistress and later for Brigitte: “Ma Maîtresse, créature que j'idolâtrais …” (p. 22). “Je sentais la piété de son sourire” (p. 139). “Notre amour montait à Dieu” (p. 172). “C'était un culte que j'avais pour Brigitte” (p. 233). This vague, almost mystical love which he feels for his mistresses occupies his whole world:

Je sentais que mon amour était ma perte, mais que vivre sans elle était impossible.

(p. 28).

Je n'avais vécu que par cette femme; douter d'elle, c'était douter de tout; la maudire, tout renier; la perdre, tout détruire. Je ne sortais plus, le monde m'apparaissait comme peuplé de monstres, de bêtes fauves et de crocodiles.

(p. 38).

L'espace renfermé entre les quatre murs de votre jardin est le seul lieu au monde où je vive; vous êtes le seul être humain qui me fasse aimer Dieu. J'avais renoncé à tout avant même de vous connaître.

(p. 157).

It is love which brings Octave closer to God with its intensification of feeling which, somehow, is perhaps to be interpreted as a reflexion of divine love: “Vivre, oui, sentir fortement, profondément, qu'on existe, qu'on est homme, créé par Dieu, voilà le premier, le plus grand bienfait de l'amour.” (p. 147).

Even Desgenais acknowledges the religious aspect of love, but dismisses it as an illusion, an unattainable ideal:

L'amour, c'est la foi, c'est la religion du bonheur terrestre; c'est un triangle lumineux placé à la voûte de ce temple qu'on appelle le monde. Aimer, c'est marcher librement dans de temple, et avoir à son côté un être capable de comprendre pourquoi une pensée, un mot, une fleur font que vous arrêtez et que vous relevez la tête vers le triangle céleste.

(p. 50).

There is doubt, though, in the novel whether Musset or his hero, Octave, really consider love as a reflection of divine love, or a replacement for divine love which no longer is possible. Perhaps it is merely a means of escape from the misery, drabness and futility of his existence. There are suggestions elsewhere in Musset's writings that in fact this last interpretation is the right one.

Desgenais, who represents the voice of experience and reason in Musset himself, seems to share essentially the same yearnings as Octave, but experience has taught him that perfection in this world is impossible, for all, even life itself, is illusion. For this reason he prefers prostitutes and accepts physical love for what it seems to be.

La perfection n'existe pas; la comprendre est le triomphe de l'intelligence humaine; la désirer pour la posséder est la plus dangereuse des folies. … L'insensé veut posséder le ciel; le sage l'admire, s'agenouille et ne désire pas. La perfection, ami, n'est pas plus faite pour nous que l'immensité. Il faut ne la chercher en rien, ne la demander à rien, ni à l'amour, ni à la beauté, ni au bonheur, ni à la vertu.

(pp. 40-42).

One may consider Octave, and Musset, as idealists in that they seem to be in search of perfect love. However, it is important to remember that Musset makes his hero a young man of nineteen at the beginning of the novel when he is betrayed by his mistress. There is consequently something rather adolescent in his love, which has little or no firm basis in experience or knowledge. His idealism is adolescent. Like Musset's own experience at a young age, Octave's despair springs from wounded vanity: “Ce que je ne pouvais concevoir, ce n'etait pas que ma maîtresse eût cessé de m'aimer, mais c'était qu'elle m'eût trompé” (p. 26). Jealousy and vanity count for as much as the disillusionment felt when he discovered the imperfection of his love and the worthlessness of his mistress.

Of course, one of the reasons for the failure of Octave and Desgenais to retain their faith in love as a substitute for religious faith is that they have no faith at all in the women they choose to love. The mistress who betrays Octave earlier in the novel is a young widow who is “fort libre”. Octave is so concerned with his own reactions that her attempt to justify herself is limited to one paragraph. His egocentricity prevents him from ever understanding the female point of view. He appears neither interested in her nor in her love for him. He seems interested only in his own love. Desgenais warns him against confusing the wine with the intoxication it produces: but this advice makes little difference to Octave, for he appears to confuse the two. In the second part of the novel, in which the hero does all he can to destroy the love he has finally won, Octave seems to be punishing Brigitte firstly for his past disappointments which he suffered at the hands of another woman, and secondly because she ceases to be compatible with the strange sort of love which he desired.

The most important aspect of the Confession is the ambivalence of Octave's spiritual, platonic love. Below the surface there are signs that the novel is very much in the tradition of the libertine novel of the previous century, and that the hero, and one often suspects the same of Musset, is more interested, despite all, in sexual love and cerebral titillation than in platonic love.

When we first meet Octave, in Part I chapter iii, he is attending dinner after a fancy dress ball, in the company of his fashionable friends, and excited because he is about to spend the night with his mistress:

J'étais à table, à un grand souper, après une mascarade. Autour de moi mes amis richement costumés, de tous côtés des jeunes gens et des femmes, tous étincelants de beauté et de joie; à droite et à gauche, des mets exquis, des flacons, des lustres, des fleurs; au-dessus de ma tête un orchestre bruyant, et, en face de moi ma maîtresse, créature superbe que j'idolâtrais.

(pp. 21-22).

Five pages later we learn in an aside that Octave, since his first disappointment, has been in love many times. We also discover early in the narrative that nature for him serves principally as an aphrodisiac. “Le spectacle de la nature ayant toujour été pour moi le plus puissant des aphrodisiaques” (p. 34). So one begins to suspect that in fact Octave, even before the discovery of his mistress's infidelity, was more excited by the sexual aspect of the relationship. Just as at the beginning of the story we are introduced to an Octave happy because his mistress has invited him to spend the night with her. …

There are further suggestions in the novel which reveal an Octave excited by the sight of any woman:

Dans quelque lieu que je fusse, quelque occupation que je m'imposasse, je ne pouvais penser qu'aux femmes; la vue d'une femme me faisait trembler. … Mais il en résultait que toute idée de plaisir des sens s'unissait en moi à une idée d'amour; c'était là ce qui me perdait. Car, ne pouvant m'empêcher de penser continuellement aux femmes, je ne pouvais faire autre chose en même temps que repasser jour et nuit dans ma tête toutes ces idées de débauche, de fausses amours et de trahisons féminines, dont j'étais plein. Posséder une femme, pour moi, c'était aimer; or je ne songeais qu'aux femmes, et je ne croyais plus à la possibilité d'un véritable amour.

(pp. 59-60).

This is not the only reference to such an obsession. Later when he lifts the sheet to behold a naked Brigitte he is equally, and quite naturally, excited: “A cette vue, tous mes sens s'émurent. Etait-ce de douleur ou de désir? Je n'en sais rien” (p. 305). Earlier he was excited, too, at the sight of Brigitte undressing: “Je rentrais alors dans la chambre et je trouvais Brigitte se disposant à se déshabiller. Je contemplais avidement ce corps charmant, ces trésors de beauté, que tant de fois j'avais possédés” (p. 254).

On other occasions too, Musset seems to stress the actual possession. When Octave decides to console himself with a waitress, he makes her undress partly, then sets about lighting the fire and recreating the atmosphere of an evening he has spent with his first mistress. At the end of Part III, originally intended as the end of the narrative, sexual possession is considered the ultimate in human happiness: “Celui-là mourra sans se plaindre: il a possédé la femme qu'il aimait” (p. 174).

It is not surprising that, in the second part of the novel, Octave's debauchery should come to the fore, driving him to destroy what he loved and cherished most. He boasted of being a rake. The analysis of Octave's debauchery is explained, apparently, because of the total faith Octave has in love, faith in anything else being impossible in the age he lived in. When this faith is betrayed, and love, like all else, is shown to be an illusion, his cynicism leads to the uncontrollable desire to destroy the love which he seemed to cherish. However, one might very well question whether Octave ever really believed in some pure, overwhelming kind of love which gave life, his life, meaning and occupation. One may conclude that Octave, like Perdican in On ne badine pas avec l'amour, was always a potential rake. …

… [We] begin to approach the standpoint of Lorenzaccio, where debauchery and evil are seen to be fundamental forces in mankind which time and a little experience suffice to bring to the surface. In other words, Octave is a libertine, but, at nineteen, he is still an apprentice libertine.

Like all Musset's heroes, Octave is a special case, but a special case which is not necessarily a product of Musset's own time. Fundamentaly there is something universal about the writer, as Baudelaire suggests when he wrote that “Alfred de Musset, féminin et sans doctrine, aurait pu exister dans tous les temps et n'eût jamais été qu'un paresseux à effusions gracieuses.”³

The first, most surprising admission, at the beginning of the narrative, is that Octave had not suffered at all until the day he discovered the treachery of his mistress. “J'ai à raconter à quelle occasion je fus pris d'abord de la maladie du siècle … J'avais alors dix-neuf ans; je n'avais éprouvé aucun malheur ni aucune maladie; j'étais d'un caractère à la fois hautain et ouvert, avec toutes les espérances et un coeur débordant” (pp. 21-22). What then, one may wonder, was the reason for the long analysis of the Revolution and Empire into which the generation of 1830 had been born? He was happy and full of hope then till this fatal day.

There are ample suggestions that Octave's mal, though, like Musset's own, did in fact have an almost physical manifestation and probably origin, including, for example, nervous disorders and fevers:

Tant les nerfs de mes orteils étaient crispés.

(p. 24).

La fièvre me reprit avec une telle violence, que je fus obligé de me mettre au lit.

(p. 29).

Une grande faiblesse s'empara de moi; j'étais épuisé de fatigue. Je m'assis dans un fauteuil; peu à peu mes idées se troublèrent; je portai la main à mon front, il était baigné de sueur. Une fièvre violente faisait trembler tous mes membres.

(p. 152).

Et mon mal empirait sans cesse. … J'avais, au milieu de mes folies, de véritables accès de fièvre qui me frappaient comme des coups de foudre; je m'éveillais tremblant de tous mes membres et couvert d'une sueur froide.

(pp. 226-227).

At frequent intervals Octave refers to his experience and case as an illness, using terms like mal and maladie. He speaks of his “coeur si malade” (p. 99). Brigitte tells him that he is nothing more than an “enfant malade, défiant ou mutin” (p. 212).

The common characteristic which binds together almost all Musset's heroes, Rolla, Fantasio, and Lorenzo, is that they are all idle young men, with apparent potential and talent, but no ambition or ability to find an outlet for their superior gifts. They are unemployed and unemployable, yet they hanker after some occupation which might give their lives a semblance of purpose and some stability. When Octave is betrayed, he comes face to face with the emptiness of his idle life:

Que faire à présent? Je n'avais point d'etat, aucune occupation. J'avais étudié la médecine et le droit, sans pouvoir me décider à prendre l'une ou l'autre de ces deux carrières; j'avais travaillé six mois chez un banquier avec une telle inexactitude, que j'avais été obligé de donner ma démission à temps pour n'être pas renvoyé. … Mon seul trésor, après l'amour, était l'indépendance.

(p. 33).

He refuses to listen to any suggestion that he might find some useful occupation: “Lorsqu'on me parlait d'une autre occupation, je ne répondais pas” (p. 37). Reproaches from Brigitte have no effect on him: “Je m'arrêtais à tout moment pour me jeter aux genoux de Brigitte, qui me traitait de paresseux, disant en riant qu'il lui fallait tout faire et que je n'étais bon à rien” (p. 234). At the end of the novel, Octave has found nothing to replace the faith he had in love, and the sense of heroism he feels in his final sacrifice will not sustain him for long.

Octave is not so much a romantic hero, but he plays at being one. The influence of the earlier tales of Byron, particularly Lara, which Musset admired, is in evidence in this novel. Often in the Confession one may detect a false, posturing stance adopted by the hero, who seems to watch himself act out his role of a suffering, betrayed hero and lover:

Je criais à faire retentir toute la maison, et en même temps les larmes me coupaient parfois la parole si violemment, que je tombais sur le lit pour leur donner un libre cours.

(pp. 27-28).

Tantôt je lui peignais ma vie passée sous les couleurs les plus sombres, et lui donnais à entendre que, s'il fallait me séparer d'elle, je resterais livré à une solitude pire que la mort; je lui disais que j'avais la société en horreur, et le récit fidèle de ma vie, que je lui avais fait, lui prouvait que j'étais sincerè.

(p. 161).

At times the note struck seems a false one. For example when Octave discovers his betrayal, he at first wants to possess her once more and then kill them both (p. 28). When his friend Desgenais asks him if it is his first mistress, he cries out melodramatically that it is his last (p. 30). He later wants to be like the wounded bull in the ring which is left to retire to a corner and suffer and die in peace (p. 39). There are frequent references throughout the book to weeping willows, a tree which is associated with Musset himself and his grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetary. At the end of the novel Octave withdraws to leave Brigitte and Henri Smith together, and he will be free to continue to suffer alone. There are certain adjectives which become almost predictable: “profond désespoir” (p. 32), “profonde tristesse” (p. 120), “tristesse inexprimable” (p. 52), “affreuse tristesse” (p. 64).

What is indeed surprising about this novel is that the posturing seems an act signifying nothing in particular. In “Rolla,” Fantasio and Lorenzaccio, the heroes all choose roles to play for some reason or other, and the role is a product of the psychological and metaphysical side of the hero himself. But Octave, preoccupied with watching himself acting out his role, comes to few metaphysical conclusions. Is it perhaps because he is cast in the role of lover, unlike the others mentioned above? In the second part of the novel, Octave merely examines why he seems bent on destroying what he loves, and why he wishes to become or appear a rake. He does not examine the force of evil latent in mankind in the way that Lorenzo does. Nor does he have the lucidity of Fantasio who knows that the post of court jester is merely a mask to disguise the futility not only of his existence but of all existence.

Octave is essentially a weak person. He blames his youth for his predicament: “La grande raison qui m'empêchait de guérir, c'était ma jeunesse” (p. 59). One of the attractions of Brigitte is that she is older, and can act as a mother, whom Octave has apparently never known: “O ma maîtresse, ma mère et ma soeur” (p. 212).

The major sign of his weakness, if it is weakness, is his constant reference to fate and to forces outside him to explain his conduct. It seems that he probably does not believe in fate in any religious sense, but it is a useful way of explaining what appears inexplicable: “Je ne sais quelle force désespérée m'y poussait” (p. 28); “Laissez-moi croire … qu'un bon ange est quelque part, qui unit parfois à dessein les faibles mains tremblantes tendues vers Dieu” (p. 54); “Il faut me laisser à ma destinée” (p. 61); “Pourquoi m'ôter le seul rayon de soleil que la Providence m'ait laissé?” (p. 157); “Ce fatal amour qui me dévore et qui me tue” (p. 168); “Faire le mal! tel était donc le rôle que la Providence m'avait imposé!” (p. 299). In Lorenzaccio, Musset also uses providence partly as a picturesque way of suggesting something which is psychologically too complex for the hero to understand, partly because he does not wish to penetrate the psychology of his heroes to any greater depth.

The other psychological explanation to which Musset resorts, as he does in many of his writings, is that each man is really made up of two different men pulling in opposite directions. This reflects, no doubt, an influence of Musset's own autoscopia, a kind of hallucinatory experience in which one can see a projection of oneself outside of oneself: this is an experience which perhaps inspired the famous “Nuit de Décembre.” Octave concludes that he comprises two men, “un homme qui riait et un autre qui pleurait” (p. 101). It is only in this light that he can begin to understand the vacillations between extreme joy and depression: “Je m'etais couché sur cette parole avec des transports de joie, mais, en sortant de chez moi, j'éprouvai, au contraire, une tristesse invincible” (p. 166). His life seemed to alternate between good and bad days: “Pendant longtemps les bons et les mauvais jours se succédèrent presque régulièrement; je me montrais alternativement dur et railleur, tendre et dévoué, sec et orgeuilleux, repentant et soumis” (p. 198).

It is also possible to consider Octave and Desgenais, in the early part of the novel, as two projections of the author, a device used by Musset elsewhere in Les Caprices de Marianne. In On ne badine pas avec l'amour Musset puts as much of himself in the heroine as in the hero. In Lorenzaccio, one may consider many of the characters, including Lorenzo himself, Philippe Strozzi and Julien Salviati, as projections of their author. In the Confession, Desgenais represents in some measure the voice of experience, reason, and subdued cynicism. When, in the second part of the novel, Octave comes to share many of his views, Desgenais disappears from the scene.

In some respects Octave is an early decadent, just as Musset foreshadows many of the writers of the later part of the century. Octave has no faith in the present, and never thinks of the future. “Notre siècle n'a pas de formes. … En sorte que nous ne vivons que de débris, comme si la fin du monde était proche” (p. 35). When he sees the weather as a reflection of his own mood, it is a mood of desolation and death which it reflects: “C'était par une de ces sombres soirées où le vent qui siffle ressemble aux plaintes d'un mourant; une pluie aiguë fouettait les vitres, laissant par intervalles un silence de mort” (p. 39).

Experience is seen in terms of art, particularly literature. It is not so much that life is an imitation of art, as it became later in the century, but life and experience are always seen, unfavourably, in comparison with art. Octave, like René and all the early romantic heroes, has read voraciously, giving them, as Chateaubriand notes, a second-hand experience and desires which reality could not satisfy. Desgenais criticizes Octave for wanting a kind of love which is found only in old novelists and poets. Octave compares his orgies and experiences with those of the Roman Empire and Petronius and finds them wanting. He reads Virgil in the country. On his first encounter with Brigitte he discusses literature and music. It is therefore not so much that art replaces life for Octave, but art has a greater reality for the passive, sensitive hero, and stands in the way to his enjoyment of real experiences, leaving him constantly in need of more inaccessible remedies and sensations.

It is in some measure in this light that Octave's attraction to suffering is to be explained. When he is wounded in a duel, he feels a kind of pleasure at the sight of his blood. His mistress gave him a medallion to which he attached claws which would hurt and scar him: “Ces clous, qui m'entraient dans la poitrine à chaque mouvement, me causaient une volupté si étrange, que j'appuyais quelquefois ma main pour les sentir plus profondément. Je sais bien que c'est de la folie; l'amour en fait bien d'autres” (p. 37). Later when he is falsely courted by another woman who endeavours to win him by posing as a fellow-sufferer, he is almost conquered. When he falls in love with Brigitte it is the contrast between her serene beauty accompanied by suffering, not her own but that of an ill woman she is tending. It is this juxtaposition of beauty and suffering which appeals to Octave. No sooner is their love shared than Octave tries to destroy it, because failure and suffering are the only states with which he is able to live. As he himself realizes, he is trifling with suffering: “Tu badines avec la souffrance” (p. 216). Perhaps the many examples of sadism and the tendency to cultivate suffering are to be considered as a desire to punish himself for his failings in real life.

What is most noticeable therefore is the gulf which separates the historical explanation of the mal du siècle and the actual portrait of Octave. Octave never hankers after the excitement of the Napoleonic wars. He is uninterested in politics. He seems neither to support nor oppose the Restoration or July monarchy. His glorification of love and mysticism have an only apparent religious significance, for the Confession is in part a disguised libertine novel with a contemporary idealistic, mystic veneer. The metaphysical crisis is less profound than in Lorenzaccio and “Rolla,” and the result of the hero's inability to find some worthy stable love. The mal du siècle derives from a combination of the hero's weaknesses: weakness in his human relations, weakness in his ability to persevere in anything for long. The novel does not relate these manifestations of his weakness to the age in which Octave lived.

The age was indeed and age of declining faith, but for Octave to blame the age for his particular failures is but a further sign of his weakness. It is weakness which is the key to all Musset's heroes. Nonetheless, the Confession is a Romantic novel, a typical product of the Romantic age, with a hero who belongs to the same family as Werther, René, and countless others. But this is not sufficient to justify Musset's historical explanation of the romantic mal du siècle.

Chapter Two promises an analysis of a young man who has no faith in his age, his society, its ideals, a young man paralysed by this lack of faith, a hero we detect to a certain extent in Lorenzaccio and Fantasio. In the Confession we are shown a young apprentice libertine involved in his first two liaisons, who decides that life is futile because his love-affairs are short-lived, and because he is an idle, rather weak young man.

Notes

1. Ronald Grimsley, “Romantic Emotion in Musset's Confession d'un enfant du siècle”, Studies in Romanticism, Volume IX, Spring 1970, Number 2.

2. All page references are to the Garnier edition of the novel. A new edition with a preface by Claude Duchet, 1968, has the same pagination.

3. Baudelaire, Œuvres Complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, p. 682.