The Confession of a Child of the Century | Page 2

unhappy Italian experience. It is an ambitious and deeply
interesting work, and shows whither his dread of all moral compulsion
and self-control was leading him.
De Musset also wrote some critical essays, witty and satirical in tone,
in which his genius appears in another light. It is not generally known
that he was the translator into French of De Quincey's 'Confessions of

an Opium Eater' (1828). He was also a prominent contributor to the
'Revue des Deux Mondes.' In 1852 he was elected to the French
Academy, but hardly ever appeared at the sessions. A confrere once
made the remark: "De Musset frequently absents himself," whereupon
it is said another Immortal answered, "And frequently absinthe's
himself!"
While Brunetiere, Lemattre, and others consider De Musset a great
dramatist, Sainte-Beuve, singularly enough, does not appreciate him as
a playwright. Theophile Gautier says about 'Un Caprice' (1847): "Since
the days of Marivaux nothing has been produced in 'La Comedie
Francaise' so fine, so delicate, so dainty, than this tender piece, this
chef-d'oeuvre, long buried within the pages of a review; and we are
greatly indebted to the Russians of St. Petersburg, that snow-covered
Athens, for having dug up and revived it." Nevertheless, his bluette, 'La
Nuit Venetienne', was outrageously treated at the Odeon. The
opposition was exasperated by the recent success of Hugo's 'Hernani.'
Musset was then in complete accord with the fundamental romantic
conception that tragedy must mingle with comedy on the stage as well
as in life, but he had too delicate a taste to yield to the extravagance of
Dumas and the lesser romanticists. All his plays, by the way, were
written for the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' between 1833 and 1850, and
they did not win a definite place on the stage till the later years of the
Second Empire. In some comedies the dialogue is unequalled by any
writer since the days of Beaumarchais. Taine says that De Musset has
more real originality in some respects than Hugo, and possesses truer
dramatic genius. Two or three of his comedies will probably hold the
stage longer than any dramatic work of the romantic school. They
contain the quintessence of romantic imaginative art; they show in full
flow that unchecked freedom of fancy which, joined to the spirit of
realistic comedy, produces the modern French drama. Yet De Musset's
prose has in greater measure the qualities that endure.
The Duke of Orleans created De Musset Librarian in the Department of
the Interior. It was sometimes stated that there was no library at all. It is
certain that it was a sinecure, though the pay, 3,000 francs, was small.
In 1848 the Duke had the bad taste to ask for his resignation, but the

Empire repaired the injury. Alfred de Musset died in Paris, May 2,
1857.
HENRI DE BORNIER de l'Academie Francaise.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A CHILD OF THE CENTURY

BOOK 1.


CHAPTER I
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PART I
CHAPTER I
TO THE READER
Before the history of any life can be written, that life must be lived; so
that it is not my life that I am now writing. Attacked in early youth by
an abominable moral malady, I here narrate what happened to me
during the space of three years. Were I the only victim of that disease, I
would say nothing, but as many others suffer from the same evil, I
write for them, although I am not sure that they will give heed to me.
Should my warning be unheeded, I shall still have reaped the fruit of
my agonizing in having cured myself, and, like the fox caught in a trap,
shall have gnawed off my captive foot.
CHAPTER II

REFLECTIONS
During the wars of the Empire, while husbands and brothers were in
Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic
generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war,
thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing
their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would
appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the
ground and remount their horses.
The life of Europe centred in one man; men tried to fill their lungs with
the air which he had breathed. Yearly France presented that man with
three hundred thousand of her youth; it was the tax to Caesar; without
that troop behind him, he could not follow his fortune. It was the escort
he needed that he might scour the world, and then fall in a little valley
on a deserted island, under weeping willows.
Never had there been so many sleepless nights as in the time of that
man; never had there been seen, hanging over the ramparts of the cities,
such a nation of desolate mothers; never was there such