[In the following essay, Berrong asserts that Flaubert depicted a myth of the creation of language in his Salammbô.]

Of all the French novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century, certainly none was more concerned with form than Gustave Flaubert. His correspondence is filled with such remarks as: “Je cherche … le dessin” (12:617; to Louise Colet, 11/12/47); “Tout dépend du plan” (13:165; to Colet 1/2/52); “Nous avons trop de choses et pas assez de formes” (13:323; to Colet 6/4/53); “L'ordre des idées, voilà le difficile” (13:474; to Colet 19/3/54); etc.¹ While working on Madame Bovary he complained about “la vieillesse de toutes les formes connues” (13:289-90; to Colet 29/1/53). It would seem fairly clear that Flaubert felt the need for a definite structure, an “ossature,” on which to build his narratives.

At the same time, Flaubert became ever more convinced that the language he had at his disposal had grown old and worn, to the point where it was insufficient for the creation of a great work of art. To Mlle Leroyer de Chantepie he wrote: “l'Art est long, presque impossible même lorsqu'on écrit dans une langue usée jusqu'à la corde, vermoulue, affaiblie et qui craque sous le doigt à chaque effort” (13:661; 18/2/59). As a result, Flaubert felt, it was necessary to create a new language, to “donner aux gens un langage dans lequel ils n'ont pas pensé” (13:642; to Ernest Feydeau, 24/10/58).

Flaubert's preoccupations with form and the creation of a new language seem to have fused in Salammbô. It would appear that Flaubert developed an entire myth about the origin of language, and then used this myth to provide a basic structure for his second novel.

Salammbô opens in chaos. Gathered together on the grounds of Hamilcar's estate, the Mercenaries employed by the Carthaginians during the First Punic War proceed to consume vast quantities of wine and become ever more drunken and disorderly. Their very gathering is a linguistic confusion: “On entendait, à côté du lourd patois dorien, retentir les syllabes celtiques bruissantes comme des chars de bataille, et les terminaisons ioniennes se heurtaient aux consonnes du désert, âpres comme des cris de chacal” (S, 29).² The more the men drink, the more distinctions break down: “ils imitaient le cri des bêtes féroces, leurs bonds”; “ils s'enfonçaient la tête dans les amphores, et restaient à boire, sans s'interrompre, comme des dromadaires” (S, 31); etc. Even the most basic of differences, that between male and female, begins to collapse: “quelques Lydiens portant des robes de femmes dînaient en pantoufles et avec des boucles d'oreilles” (S, 29); “quelques [Lacédémoniens] s'avançaient comme des femmes en faisant des gestes obscènes” (S, 32); etc. At its height, this celebration becomes a scene of complete chaos, of total undifferentiation.

During this chaos of total undifferentiation, Spendius appears, emerging from an ergastule [underground prison] like a child from the womb (S, 32). With his first appearance, he establishes himself as a man of language: “parlant grec, ligure et punique, il remercia encore une fois les Mercenaires [who had freed him from the ergastule]” (S, 32). Subsequently Flaubert associates him with language over and over; he is presented as “le fils d'un rhéteur et d'une prostituée” (S, 49), “plein … de paroles” (S, 56), someone who can speak rapidly “en cinq langues diverses” (S, 60), etc.

With his first appearance, Spendius also establishes himself as a force of division, that which splits the undifferentiated mass and keeps its halves apart. At this first appearance, “il les [les Mercenaires] félicita du banquet, tout en s'étonnant de n'y pas apercevoir les coupes de la Légion sacrée” (S, 32). The Mercenaries, previously absorbed in the pleasures of the banquet, immediately call for the special cups and, when these are denied them, begin to grow hostile to the Carthaginians.

Spendius continues to keep the two forces divided. When Giscon tries to placate the Mercenaries for the absence of the cups, Spendius (as he later reveals [S, 173]) sends Autharite forward to threaten the Carthaginian general “en gesticulant avec deux épées nues” (S, 33). “Le général … le frappa sur la tête de son lourd bâton d'ivoire: le Barbare tomba. Les Gaulois hurlaient, et leur fureur, se communiquant aux autres, allait emporter les légionnaires” (S, 33-34).

Spendius continues his divisive manoeuvres when attempts are made at reconciliation. Salammbô, descending the palace stairs, momentarily calms the turmoil with her song, and then pours Mathô a cup of wine “pour se réconcilier avec l'armée” (S, 39). Seeing this, Spendius again sends Autharite forward: “[Le Gaulois] le [Mathô] frappa sur l'épaule, tout en débitant d'un air jovial des plaisanteries dans la langue de son pays” (S, 39). Spendius, ever in control of language, promptly offers to explain Autharite's words and actions: the Gaul was congratulating Mathô on his upcoming marriage to Salammbô, Spendius claims, “car chez [les Gaulois], lorsqu'une femme fait boire un soldat, c'est qu'elle lui offre sa couche” (S, 39). Narr'Havas, chief of the Numidians, a protégé of Hamilcar to whom the latter has promised Salammbô in marriage, promptly explodes against the Mercenary chief: “[il] tira un javelot de sa ceinture, et appuyé du pied droit sur le bord de la table, il le lança contre Mathô” (S, 39). Mathô retaliates, hurling a massive table at Narr'Havas, and the division between the two forces is further assured.

Throughout the first part of the novel, Spendius continues to maintain a rift between the Mercenaries and the Carthaginians. When Hannon comes out of the city in order to appease the now-hostile Mercenaries (who have encamped outside Carthage's walls while waiting to receive payment for their service during the war), Spendius mistranslates the Suffete's speech (Hannon addresses the Mercenaries in Punic, which they cannot understand). “Vous avez tous entendu les horribles menaces de cet homme,” Spendius begins (S, 60), and when he sees that the Mercenaries are willing to accept his (mis)translation of Hannon's words, he continues: “il vous a appellés lâches, voleurs, menteurs, chiens et fils de chiennes,” etc. (S, 61). At Spendius' words, the Mercenaries become enraged, sacking the Suffete's luxurious entourage and forcing him to flee unceremoniously back to Carthage.

Subsequent attempts at reconciliation are similarly thwarted by Spendius. The Mercenaries promise to return to their homes if the Carthaginians agree to meet certain demands. “Le Grand-Conseil aurait faibli, peut-être, sans une dernière exigence plus injurieuse que les autres: ils [les Mercenaires] demandèrent en mariage, pour leurs chefs, des vierges choisies dans les grandes familles. C'était une idée de Spendius. … Cette prétention de vouloir se mêler au sang punique indigna le peuple; on leur signifia brutalement qu'ils n'avaient plus rien à recevoir. Alors ils [les Mercenaires] s'écrierèrent qu'on les avait trompés; si avant trois jours leur solde n'arrivait pas, ils iraient eux-mêmes la prendre dans Carthage” (S, 80-81).

When Giscon arrives with money to pay the Mercenaries their wages, Spendius wanders through the Mercenary camps claiming that the Carthaginians really intend to massacre them (S, 82-83). Giscon tries to quell this unrest and complete payment of the wages, but Spendius strangles his interpreters so that the Carthaginian general can no longer communicate with the Mercenaries (S, 84). In every instance that the Carthaginians attempt a reconciliation, Spendius impedes their efforts, using language or preventing the Carthaginians from using it, until finally the two sides are irrevocably at war.

Thereafter Spendius' divisive manoeuvres concern not the Carthaginians, but Mathô. While the Mercenaries and the Republic are sufficiently estranged, Mathô, once he has seen Salammbô, thinks about nothing but returning to her so that they can be united. When Spendius leads the Chief of the Barbarians through the aqueduct into the confines of Carthage, he at first succeeds in diverting Mathô's efforts, drawing him away from Hamilcar's daughter to steal the zaïmph in the temple of Tanit. Once he has achieved that aim, however, he can no longer control Mathô, and instead must follow him as the Barbarian seeks out Salammbô in her chamber. The young girl's fear and call for help prevent Mathô from arriving at the union with her that he desires, however, and it is Spendius who leads him hurriedly away (S, 102).

Not surprisingly, Spendius' last actions center on words. Having been trapped in the “Défilé de la Hache” along with 40,000 of the Barbarian troops, Spendius eagerly volunteers to serve as one of the ten “ambassadors” that Hamilcar agrees to receive. “C'est moi qui parlerai!” he cries (S, 281), and indeed “il parla pendant longtemps [devant Hamilcar]” (S, 282). The Carthaginian general is too powerful to be affected by words, however, and orders the “ambassadors” to be crucified. Spendius is nailed to the highest cross, the first to be attacked by hungry vultures (S, 292).

As these passages suggest, Flaubert seems to make Spendius something of a “personification” of language. With him, Flaubert appears to indicate that language is born of chaos, a chaos that is particularly defined as the breakdown of differences. One of language's primary functions, however, seems to be to make distinctions in this chaos, to divide the undifferentiated whole into separate and distinct parts. Language/Spendius maintains these distinctions by keeping the newly-established parts apart, by holding them at a distance one from the other. As Jean Rousset has noted, Salammbô is “un roman qui répugne aux contacts, au nom d'une primauté des distances.”³

When language (i.e., Spendius) disappears, it is not surprising that distinctions vanish and all returns to one great, undifferentiated whole. As Spendius and his fellow “ambassadors” expire on the cross, the other Barbarian soldiers all die, either of starvation in the “Défilé de la Hache” (S, 300) or at the hands of Hamilcar's soldiers after having been driven from Tunis (S, 300). Only Mathô survives, and he is captured by the Carthaginians to serve as a final sacrifice on to whom they can heap all their accumulated hatred for the Mercenaries. With Mathô's death, however, there will be no differentiation, since one half of the originally sundered whole will have been totally destroyed, leaving only the other half, which will then constitute an entire, as yet undivided whole. Indeed, as Mathô is led to his death, images of confusion, chaos, and undifferentiation arise: among those present for the sacrifice are “les Kedeschim aux paupières peintes, symbolisant l'hermaphrodisme de la Divinité, … parfumés et vêtus comme [des femmes]” (S, 306); “il devait y avoir pendant la nuit une grande prostitution” (S, 306); etc.⁴

In this situation, language (described by Saussure as significantly differentiated sound) ceases to exist, giving way to sound without differentiation. “Souvent une seule syllabe,—une intonation rauque, profonde, frénétique,—était répétée durant quelques minutes par le peuple entier” (S, 309). “Alors, depuis le golfe jusqu'à la lagune et de l'isthme jusqu'au phare, dans toutes les rues, sur toutes les maisons et sur tous les temples, ce fût un seul cri; quelquefois il s'arrêtait, puis recommençait; les édifices en tremblaient; Carthage était comme convulsée dans le spasme d'une joie titanique et d'un espoir sans bornes” (S, 311). Flaubert's myth of the origin of language has come full circle. As, at its creation from chaos, language established distinctions in the undifferentiated whole, so, at its collapse, there is a return to the undifferentiated chaos out of which it arose. And as the myth completes its circle, drawing to a close, the novel, which found its form in the myth, comes to an end.

Though the myth and the novel have reached a conclusion, the same is not true for this essay, since it remains to suggest the origin and significance of this myth of language for its creator, Gustave Flaubert. “Mythic criticism” has become particularly popular during the last quarter-century, with such critics as Northrop Frye and René Girard exerting great influence on scholars of many persuasions. These critics and these scholars have offered a variety of explanations for the presence of mythic structures in works of literature (racial memory, subconscious continuation, etc.), but certain ones seem to be particularly likely in the case of Salammbô.

To begin with, Flaubert may very well have acquired the foundation for his myth of the origin of language from his extensive reading about ancient civilizations. As he wrote to Jules Duplan, he had “ingurgité” a hundred volumes about Carthage in preparation for the writing of his second novel; in fifteen days he proceeded to “avaler dix-huit tomes de la Bible de Cahen” (13:596; 22/7/57).

More specifically, Flaubert's second novel itself gives evidence that its author was familiar with myths of origin that greatly resemble his own. Speaking to Salammbô, Schahabarim, the high priest of Tanit, at one point recounts:

“Avant les Dieux, les ténèbres étaient seules, et un souffle flottait, lourd et indistinct comme la conscience d'un homme dans un rêve. Il se contracta, créant le Désir et la Nue, et du Désir et de la Nue sortit la Matière primitive. C'était une eau bourbeuse, noire, glacée, profonde. Elle enfermait des monstres insensibles, parties incohérentes des formes à naître et qui sont peintes sur la paroi des sanctuaires.

“Puis la Matière se condensa. Elle devint un oeuf. Il se rompit. Une moitié forma la terre, l'autre le firmament. Le soleil, la lune, les vents, les nuages parurent; et, au fracas de la foudre, les animaux intelligents s'éveillèrent. Alors Eschmoûn se déroula dans la sphère étoilée; Khamon rayonna dans le soleil; Melkarth, avec ses bras, le poussa derrière Gadès; les Kabyrim descendirent sous les volcans, et Rabbetna, telle qu'une nourrice, se pencha sur le monde, versant sa lumière comme un lait et sa nuit comme un manteau.”

(S, 71-72)

At the center of the Temple of Tanit “l'Omniféconde,” Mathô and Spendius observe wall decorations that suggest a similar originary myth:

Alors une lumière éblouissante leur fit baisser les yeux. Puis ils aperçurent tout à l'entour une infinité de bêtes, efflanquées, haletantes, hérissant leur griffes, et confondues les unes par-dessus les autres dans un désordre mystérieux qui épouvantait. Des serpents avaient des pieds, des taureaux avaient des ailes, des poissons à têtes d'homme dévoraient des fruits, des fleurs s'épanouissaient dans la mâchoire des crocodiles, et des éléphants, la trompe levée, passaient en plein azur, orgueilleusement, comme des aigles. Un effort terrible distendait leurs membres incomplets ou multipliés. Ils avaient l'air, en tirant la langue, de vouloir faire sortir leur âme; et toutes les formes se trouvaient là, comme si le réceptacle des germes, crevant dans une éclosion soudaine, se fût vidé sur les murs de la salle.

(S, 96-97)

Flaubert does not seem to have derived the structure of his myth of the creation of language solely from his readings about ancient civilizations, however. As the importance of sex in the literary workings-out of this myth suggest, Flaubert may also have extrapolated it from his own ideas concerning the relationship of coitus and literary creation. For Flaubert, sexual activity was inimical to the production of literature. To Ernest Feydeau he wrote: “Mais prends garde d'abîmer ton intelligence dans le commerce des dames. Tu perdras ton génie au fond d'une matrice” (13:659; 2/59); etc. A propos of Salammbô in particular, he wrote: “J'entends de vivre comme je fais: 1^o à la campagne les trois quarts de l'année; 2^osans femme (petit point assez délicat, mais considérable …)” (13:665; to Feydeau 7/59). While he works on Salammbô, he writes to Mlle de Chantepie, “je vis comme un moine” (13:620; 23/1/58); etc. For a variety of reasons, some biological and some theoretical, Flaubert regarded sex and literary creation as mutually exclusive.⁵ Literature—and hence language—could be created only when he was separated (i.e., differentiated) from females, only when he remained free from the confusion and chaos associated in Salammbô with coitus. On the other hand, after he had finished a novel, Flaubert would spend several weeks in Paris for what was, among other things, a “sexual spree.” As he wrote to Feydeau after completing Madame Bovary, “pour me remonter le moral, je vais me livrer, dans le sein de la capitale, à des débauches monstrueuses …” (13:618; 12 or 19/12/57). When literature and language had run their course, Flaubert would return to the “undifferentiated chaos” of sex to regain strength, to be revitalized, so that new language and a new work of literature could spring forth. It is easy to see how such a view of literary creation could have contributed to the previously-outlined myth of the origin of language.

There is yet a third possible source for Flaubert's myth of the creation of language, one which is particularly relevant to Salammbô. Throughout his correspondence, Flaubert expresses an intense horror at the breakdown of social distinctions. To Louise Colet he wrote: “89 a démoli la royauté et la noblesse, 48 la bourgeoisie et 51 le peuple. Il n'y a plus rien, qu'une tourbe canaille et imbécile. Nous sommes tous enfoncés au même niveau dans une médiocrité commune” (13:412; 9/53); and elsewhere: “les règles de tout s'en vont … les barrières se renversent … la terre se nivelle” (13:233; 4/9/52). Faced with the progressive democratization of society, Flaubert reacted with a growing hatred of the masses (13:320; etc.) and cries for a new aristocracy (13:412; etc.) … of which he envisioned himself to be a charter member, of course.

While expressing his dislike (and fear) of this gradual disintegration of class differentiation, of this apparent move to social undifferentiation, Flaubert did also, on very rare occasions, indicate that he saw in this increased contact with the “barbarians” (as he referred to the proletariat) a chance for aging Western civilization to become revitalized, to regain some of its lost vigor. To Louise Colet he wrote: “Nous avons peut-être besoin des barbares. L'humanité, vieillard perpétuel, prend à ses agonies périodiques des infusions de sang. Comme nous sommes bas! et quelle décrépitude universelle!” (13:230; 1/9/52). While Flaubert dreaded social chaos and saw it as inimical to his literary efforts, he also suspected that from it the creator could emerge (if he emerged) renewed and revitalized, charged with the strength and force to be gained by contact with “the other,” the masses.

Flaubert's concern with social differentiation and chaos and its relation to language is particularly evident in Salammbô. Though at least one critic has claimed that the novel has no relation to the class conflicts of Flaubert's own era,⁶ it is difficult not to see in the Carthaginians and the Mercenaries representations of (Flaubert's view of) the nineteenth-century French bourgeoisie and proletariat. The Carthaginians are repeatedly described as avaricious (S, 41, 110, 127, 136, 158, 196, etc.), merchants who trade to make money but who can never bring themselves to part with that money when there is need to protect the Republic. The Mercenaries, on the other hand, are often referred to as “Barbarians,” a term that Flaubert uses in his correspondence to describe the masses. These “Barbares” are particularly fond of committing sacrilege by defiling the sacred and the beautiful (S, 35, 294), a desire which Flaubert often attributed to the proletariat.⁷ In Salammbô, Flaubert would therefore seem to suggest that language is born not simply out of some general chaos, but out of social undifferentiation. Language can only operate, however, as long as class distinctions are maintained, as long as the masses (the Mercenaries) are prevented from joining with (and overwhelming) the rest of society, sending everything back into chaos. (On the other hand, of course, from that chaos might spring a new, revitalized language.)

The preceding analysis of Salammbô would seem to indicate that Flaubert had worked out this myth of the origin and functioning of language to a fairly full and conscious extent. No allusion to or exposition of it is to be found in his correspondence, however, either in the letters contemporary with the composition of Flaubert's second novel or in those written earlier or later. This is particularly strange in light of the fact that Flaubert often goes on at length to his correspondents about his views on literature. Nor does Flaubert ever make such extensive use of this myth of the origin of language in other literary works, never again—as with Salammbô—structuring an entire piece around it. He does return to it occasionally in some of his later novels, however. At the end of his penultimate novel, La Tentation de Saint Antoine, Oannès, “le contemporain des origines,” recalls his awakening in the following terms:

J'ai habité le monde informe où sommeillaient des bêtes hermaphrodites, sous le poids d'une atmosphère opaque, dans la profondeur des ondes ténébreuses,—quand les doigts, les nageoires et les ailes étaient confondus, et que des yeux sans tête flottaient comme des mollusques, parmi des taureaux à face humaine et des serpents à pattes de chien.

Sur l'ensemble de ces êtres, Omorôca, pliée comme un cerceau, étendait son corps de femme. Mais Bélus la coupa net en deux moitiés, fit la terre avec l'une, le ciel avec l'autre; et les deux mondes pareils se contemplent mutuellement.

Moi, la première conscience du Chaos, j'ai surgi de l'abîme pour durcir la matière, pour régler les formes; et j'ai appris aux humains la pêche, les semailles, l'écriture et l'histoire des dieux.⁸

Here writing (the common link between language and literature) is born out of the chaos of undifferentiation.

In Bouvard et Pécuchet, Flaubert's last novel, the two title characters devote much of their time to attempting to understand or create certain systems of classification (i.e., differentiation). Whether trying to distinguish the various types of clouds, to find the different parts of the body, to grow a garden with various vegetables, or whatever, they always fail, however. In despair they cry: “les ressorts de la vie nous sont cachés,” or elsewhere: “il y a … un Beau indestructible … dont nous ignorons les lois, car sa genèse est mystérieuse.”⁹ The two men's attempts to follow or create these various systems of differentiation seem to fail, in part, because they do not have access to the origins from which the systems sprang. In this sense, they echo a Flaubert of many years before who wrote: “Le but; la cause! Mais nous serions Dieu, si nous tenions la cause …” (13:587; to Mlle de Chantepie 6/57).

Flaubert was acutely convinced that the language he had at his disposal had grown old and worn, no longer strong or vital enough for the creation of great works of literature. This conviction must have preoccupied him sufficiently for him to develop a myth about the origin/creation of (a new) language, because in Salammbô he seems to present an elaboration of such a myth. In his second novel and through this myth, Flaubert shows language being born from chaos and undifferentiation … especially social undifferentiation. Though he saw in such fusion of the classes during his own time a chance to partake of the vital energy that was part of this union—and hence, one would suppose, a chance to obtain a new, vigorous language—Flaubert was so terrified by the idea of such chaos—which would mean the temporary cessation of all language and linguistic efforts (like writing)—that he never proposed (much less worked for) it with any force. As a result, he may have come to see himself as someone who, like Bouvard and Pécuchet, could only spin out his days creating one feeble, failed project after the next, because he was unable (or unwilling) to enter into the destructive but vital chaos out of which language, in Flaubert's myth, is born.

Notes

1. All quotations from Flaubert's correspondence are taken from the Oeuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert (Paris: Club de l'Honnête Homme, 1971-1975), 16 vols. This is the first unexpurgated edition of the correspondence. (Flaubert's correspondence occupies tomes 12-16 of this set.)

2. All quotations from Salammbô are taken from the edition published by Garnier-Flammarion (Paris, 1964).

3. Jean Rousset, “Positions, distances, perspectives dans Salammbô,” Poétique, 6 (1971), p. 149. Those familiar with modern linguistic theory might be struck by certain similarities. Ferdinand de Saussure, whose Cours de linguistique générale (1916) provided the basis for much modern linguistic theory, argued that the primary quality of language is differentiation. Sound becomes language only when the speaker begins to make significant differentiations in it and the listener learns to distinguish these differentiations. In his “deconstruction” of Saussure's work, L'Ecriture et la différence (1967), Jacques Derrida has gone on to maintain that language is not only differentiation, but also deferral; it is the separation of things in time and space. (A footnote is no place to provide an intelligent summary of Derrida's work. The reader interested in learning more about it should tackle Derrida's essay itself.)

4. Readers familiar with “la nouvelle critique française” will be struck by another series of similarities here, this time to the work of René Girard. In La Violence et le sacré (1972) and subsequent studies, Girard has developed a theory of the origin of social structure that may be summarized roughly as follows: Sometime “in the beginning” all differentiation between men collapsed, leading to great violence. In the midst of this violence, one individual was arbitrarily turned upon and killed. By transferring to this scapegoat the blame for all the violence that they had experienced, men were able to expel violence from their midst and establish a series of distinctions that allowed for the creation of social order. Whenever these distinctions begin to break down, violence will recur, and society will repeat the initial murder of an arbitrary victim (scapegoat) to restore social order/differentiation. (Again, the reader interested in pursuing the similarities between Flaubert's myth of the origin of language and Girard's theory of the origin of social order should consult La Violence et le sacré.)

5. He was not alone among his contemporaries in this matter. For similar ideas in Balzac, cf. Josué V. Harari, “The Pleasures of Science and the Pains of Philosophy: Balzac's Quest for the Absolute,” Yale French Studies, 67 (1984), pp. 135-163.

6. Cf. for example: Georg Lukács, “Salammbô,” in Flaubert, ed. Raymond.

7. In fact, one very much leaves Salammbô with the impression that in his second novel Flaubert arranged to pit his two great enemies—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—against each other so that he could cause them to torture each other. Carthage wins, of course (Flaubert hated the bourgeoisie, but he feared as well as hated the masses), but not until both sides have experienced terrible, excruciating suffering.

8. Gustave Flaubert, La Tentation de Saint Antoine, ed. Jacques Suffel (Paris: Garnier, 1968), p. 177; my italics.

9. Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard et Pécuchet, ed. Alberto Cento (Paris: Nizet, 1964), pp. 339, 411.