“La Rebelle : les Aventures de la Jeune George Sand” mini-série de Rodolphe Tissot avec Nine d'Urso, Aymeric Fougeron, Oscar Lesage, Yoann Blanc, Barbara Pravi, Louisiane Gouverneur, Vincent Londez, Megan Northam, Astrid Whettnall, Jonathan Turnbull, Grégoire Oestermann, Jonas Wertz, Marie Oppert, David Kammenos, Fabrizio Rongione, Philippe Torreton, Jacques Bonnaffé, Anton Csaszar, Lorenzo Lefebvre, Émilien Diard-Detoeuf, Louis Berthelemy, Mickaël Lumière et les jeunes Oscar Tresanini et Sasha Lemaitre Crémaschi, mars 2025.
17 septembre 1863 : mort du poète et romancier Alfred de Vigny ➽ http://bit.ly/Alfred-Vigny Défenseur du faible et du vaincu, flétrissant la tyrannie, n’ayant jamais adoré le succès, le poète attacha son nom à la renaissance poétique qui signala les premières années de la Restauration, tandis que le prosateur écrivit des pages généreuses, élevées, et composa un chef-d’oeuvre
Very interesting quote from Gustave Flaubert about Napoleon and the Empire:
"When you observe life with a little attention, you see cedars as being a little less tall and bushes somewhat higher. All the same, I don't like the habit some people have of disparaging great enthusiasms or minimizing sublime impulses that surpass nature. Thus Vigny's book, Servitude et grandeur militaires, shocked me a little at first glance because I saw in it a systematic depreciation of blind devotion (the cult of the Emperor, for example), of man's fanaticism for man, in favor of the abstract, dry idea of duty, a concept I've never been able to grasp and which does not seem to me inherent in human entrails. What is noble in the Empire is adoration of the Emperor, a love that is exclusive, absurd, sublime, truly human. That is why I have little understanding of what la Patrie, the fatherland, is for us today."
Letter to Louise Colet, [Rouen], [December 11, 1846]
[1] — mon pied infatigable est plus fort que l'espace (c'est de Vigny)
[2] — - - mais après, ça ne colle pas : — le fleuve aux grandes eaux se range quand je passe
[3] — comme quoi ces auteurs ne tiennent pas sur la longueur
Vigny Castle is located in the town of Vigny in the Val-d’Oise department of France. The castle was built in 1504 for French Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, Prime Minister to King Louis XII. The house of Amboise was considered a wealthy family of influence. Four of d’Amboise’s nine brothers were bishops. The castle is also referred to as the Château de Vigny and changed ownership many times throughout its history. Built in the neo-gothic design the castle is 37,000 square feet and boasts six turreted towers and a dungeon. The castle is accessed by two bridges. The moat that once surrounded the castle is now a water feature. The castle sits on 44 acres with two outbuildings, which includes a professional kitchen and bakery. The property also houses an orangery, two greenhouses, and stables. The castle fell into ruin and was renovated and rebuilt in the troubadour style in 1867. The square tower and chapel were added in 1888. A purple iron door serves as the main entrance. The interior is opulent with carved fireplaces, stone walls, wooden carvings, tapestries, beautiful chandeliers, and beamed ceilings. Vigny Castle was listed as a historical monument in 1984. Photo credit: Sebastien Lory.
There is one thing I discovered while reading “The Consecration of the Writer” that I really want to read now! It is a whole series of poems by Vigny that tell one story...
Too bad it was never printed in it’s entirety while it’s writer was alive (because going up against the Catholic Church? Ouch!) ;_;
“ ...Not that he was not tempted. He was of his time, and he glimpsed, like so many others the end of Evil and the great reconciliation. It is true that the "mysteries" he published do not much give this impression... The fragments that remain contain "Les Reproches de Satan" in which the Devil no longer appears as the tempter of innocence arguing for obscure and marvelous delights but as an accuser of the tyrant-God; he refuses to submit to the Almighty's arbitrariness and preaches a sort of heroic pride of the creature. Other fragments show the Rebel, redeeemed at the end of time, and with Evil abolished, reclaiming his place in heaven: this is the future romantic outline of more than one End of Satan... ...But it is a great scandal to proclaim the Evil One to be innocent, and one may quail at taking so bold a step. "I have just written accursed verses," he writes to Emile Deschamps, "...they make me fear excommunication... you will guess I am speaking of 'Satan' which is almost finished. I am going to blacken the ending to save myself." “
I really want to read this now! O_O
Oh Wait...
(Well, at least I may have read the Space AU XD )
And I can read other stuff by Vigny!
The full passage about it is under the cut because Warning: Very Long. I’ve put in a few paragraph breaks to help soften the Wall of Text, and may have made a few mistakes, but I’ve tried to transcribe accurately.
...Not that he was not tempted. He was of his time, and he glimpsed, like so many others the end of Evil and the great reconciliation. It is true that the "mysteries" he published do not much give this impression. "Eloa" and "Le Deluge"show souls that are too pure, too loving, victims of a higher law: Eloa, who intends to glorify love in heaven and who thinks she is obeying this divine exhortation when she tries to save Satan, sees herself helplessly abandoned to the seducer; Emmanuel and Sara perish in the waters of the flood because each refuses to be saved alone if it meant renouncing the other...
...But his drafts and sketches of "mysteries" betray a thought that is more complex. We have seen that he was planning a "Satan" of which numerous fragments and sketches have survived, and from which "Eloa" as it was printed seems to have been taken. As a project it precedded "Eloa"; and if on occasion it became identical with the latter poem in Vigny's mind, the project nevertheless outlived "Eloa". The fragments that remain contain "Les Reproches de Satan" in which the Devil no longer appears as the tempter of innocence arguing for obscure and marvelous delights but as an accuser of the tyrant-God; he refuses to submit to the Almighty's arbitrariness and preaches a sort of heroic pride of the creature. Other fragments show the Rebel, redeeemed at the end of time, and with Evil abolished, reclaiming his place in heaven: this is the future romantic outline of more than one End of Satan.
Thanks to the character of Eloa, who reappears in these fragments, not even the theological promotion of the Feminine as agent of redemption, which was the obsession of the heresiarchs of these times, is lacking. Much has been written about Vigny's thought in this group of texts.
At the bottom, the three types of Satan - seducer, rebel, redeemer - are not irreducible to one another; they reproduce, with a positive value, the traits orthodoxy combines to create the single figure of the Demon: perversity, pride, and guilty conscience. The sympathetic interpretation of these traits obviously signifies an identification of the satanic and the human; that is a refusal, if not of God, at least of the traditional representation of the divine order. The redemption of Satan puts an end to this representation...
...But it is a great scandal to proclaim the Evil One to be innocent, and one may quail at taking so bold a step. This is what Vigny seems to have done in only publishing, out of his entire project, this "Eloa", a poem of demonic seduction, whose argument conforms to dogma. He knew very well that by concluding the poem with Eloa's perdition, and in showing by this end all the preceeding seductions of the demon in their true light, he rejoined orthodoxy. "I have just written accursed verses," he writes to Emile Deschamps, "...they make me fear excommunication... you will guess I am speaking of 'Satan' which is almost finished. I am going to blacken the ending to save myself." To blacken the ending - that is to ruin Eloa - is to avoid the heresy of rehabilitating Satan; but by the same stroke, Vigny also avoided the characteristic optimism of this heresy which went quite against the grain of his nature.
The pieces describing the End of Satan are made to rehabilitate, along with Satan, God himself. He who Damns, along with the Damned: the dark side of Christianity disappears entirely in such a euphoric light.
