Alfred De Musset

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) You Never Can Tell (written 1836; first performed 1848, year of the Spingtime of the Peoples) à Original title (in French): Il ne faut jurer de rien (literally: “You don’t have to swear to anything”) à Quotations from our translation of the play appear in bolded pink font. About Alfred de Musset ¶ Four characters dominate You Never Can Tell (whose title is also commonly translated as Never Say Never): Aristocratic Bourgeois (Upper) Class (Middle/Merchant) Class Van Buck, a successful cloth merchant who Older Generation Baroness de Mantes emigrated to Paris, France, from Antwerp, Belgium Younger Cecile de Mantes, the Valentin, Van Buck’s 25-year-old nephew and Generation baroness’s daughter ward ¶ PLOT SUMMARY: Skeptical about women’s faithfulness in love, Valentin initially resists his uncle Van Buck’s urgent demands that he cease his partying lifestyle and secure a wife. Although he eventually agrees to attempt to woo Cecile, his efforts are reluctant. Slowly— and to their mutual surprise — Valentin and Cecile find that they like each other. In the end, the two agree to marry, effectively bringing together the middle classes and the upper classes. Reversing her prior attitude, Cecile’s snobbish mother reconciles to and even supports this outcome. ¶ Born and educated in Paris, the son of a bourgeois (i.e. middle-class) government official, Musset showed considerable academic promise but failed to commit to any of the college majors he attempted: medicine, law, art. Given his lack of a degree, he began his professional life as an office clerk for a heating contractor. ¶ Musset’s attempts to become a literary author yielded mixed results. Manifesting Romantic conventions and concerns, his debut work — a book of narrative poems titled Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie (1830; “Tales of Spain and Italy”) — received a positive reception, an encouraging outcome given that he was just 18 and 19 when he composed the poems. ¶ However, his first play, La nuit vénitienne (1830; “The Venetian Night”), failed miserably as a theatrical performance, prompting him to focus on closet dramas (i.e. plays intended to be read, not performed). In fact, several of his plays were eventually staged and enjoyed success. ¶ Towards the end of his relatively short life, Musset held librarianships at two French government ministries (Interior and Education). Furthermore, in 1852, he was elected to the Académie Française, the prestigious, Paris-based body that governs the French language. ¶ In 1878, writing in English, the American author Henry James included a study of Musset as the first chapter in his influential work of literary criticism, French Poets and Novelists. James noted that Musset “spent his whole life in Paris, and his friends lived in Paris near him.” ¶ Our focal play, You Never Can Tell, opens in Paris, although after Act 1, Scene 1 the action shifts to a rural castle —the Castle of Mantes — probably near Mantes-sur-Seine (now called Mantes-le- 1 Jolie), a town on the River Seine, around 30 miles west of Paris, famous for manufacturing woodwind instruments. ¶ We might say of the castle that it is in the countryside (or “the provinces”) but not of the countryside. By the end of the play, the baroness seems to be letting go of her big-city prejudices. The penultimate scene sees her not in the castle but “in the woods” as a “storm is passing,” a locale suggestive of the Natural Sublime. ¶ Henry James asserts that, across the arc of his adult life, Alfred de Musset “did nothing in the sterner sense of the word. He was inactive, indolent, idle” (emphasis original). He describes his early literary focus or “business” as “talk[ing] about love” so as “to proclaim its pleasures and pains with all possible eloquence.” ¶ Respecting Musset’s plays, James concludes, “They are thoroughly sentimental [i.e. centered on affectivity].” The American critic holds that such dramas as You Never Can Tell “[put] before us [i.e. the readers or audience-members] people [i.e. characters] who convince us that they really feel.” At one juncture in You Never Can Tell, Valentin praises a letter he has received from Cecile because it exhibits “feeling”: “Yes, there is feeling in those few lines, something … courageous.” ¶ Musset’s most acclaimed play remains Lorenzaccio (1834), a revenge tragedy inspired by an infamous event in Italian politics: the 1537 murder by Lorenzo of his cousin Alessandro, Duke of Florence. Both men were members of the Medici family. ¶ In Musset’s version of the story, Lorenzo becomes depraved; and some critics have drawn comparisons to how Musset developed a reputation for drinking and promiscuity. Henry James put a perhaps forgiving spin on Musset’s fast lifestyle: “It takes certainly a great deal of life to make a little art! In [Musset’s] case … that little [in the form of worthwhile literary works] is exquisite” ¶ In You Never Can Tell, Van Buck criticizes his nephew’s “damned poker games” and other “extravagances” that demonstrate a weak work-ethic. He deems the young man a “rake” — that is, an immorally licentious man. ¶ Musset was invited to contribute to the Revue des Deux Mondes (“Review of the Two Worlds”), a monthly magazine founded in 1829 and still published today. (Indeed, You Never Can Tell first appeared in print in its July 1, 1836, edition.) ¶ In 1833, at a dinner that the magazine organized, Musset met the highly influential female novelist and playwright George Sand, with whom he conducted a two-year romantic affair that scandalized Parisian society. Musset composed You Never Can Tell in 1836, shortly after breaking up with Sand. ¶ In general, Musset’s affairs with women were intense but short. Some biographers claim that a bad experience of being dumped by an older female lover when he was still a young man left him psychologically unwilling (or perhaps unable) to make long-term commitments to — or fully trust — women. As we shall see, in You Never Can Tell, the 25-year-old Valentin offers several narratives to his uncle about untrustworthy women: some from literature; one from his own life experience when “sixteen, just out of school.” ¶ Also in 1836, Musset released a semi-autobiographical novel, La Confession d’un enfant du siècle (“Confession of a Child of the Century”) seen as a commentary on the disillusionment and cynicism prevalent in French society after the demise of Napoleon. 1848: Springtime of the Peoples ¶ Napoleon’s regime ended in 1815, primarily as a result of his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815) by British forces under the Irish general Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of Wellington). After that, France experienced a distinctly unsettled political period. ¶ Since the French Revolution, which began in 1789, France’s bourgeoisie (middle classes) had been active in opposition to the country’s elite strata, especially the landowning aristocracy. 2 ¶ As increasing industrialization, mercantilism, and urbanization caused the bourgeoisie to expand in numbers and economic importance during the early nineteenth century (i.e. 1800s), that coterie became more and more frustrated by the aristocracy’s continuing to dominate the French political scene. ¶ Even by 1848, only landowners — who were largely aristocrats — were permitted to vote; they constituted just 1% or so of the overall French population. ¶ In 1848, bourgeois frustrations boiled over. In February of that year, a popular movement overthrew the then king of France, Louis Philippe I, and created the French Second Republic. Historians refer to this action as the February Revolution of 1848. ¶ The Second Republic proved insufficiently progressive for many, so in June 1848 members of the bourgeoisie (i.e. the middle classes) and the laboring classes joined together in Paris to stage an insurrection, known as the June Days Uprising, in which around 10,000 people were injured, some fatally. Estimates put bourgeois participation at around twice that of laborer participation. ¶ On June 22, 1848, the first ever night that You Never Can was presented as a stage play — at the Comédie Française theater in central Paris — the June Days Uprising began. No additional performances would be held for several years. ¶ Karl Marx wrote an article about the Uprising in which he claimed that it constituted the first time that the French bourgeoisie had genuinely “assailed the existing [aristocrat-dominated] order” — in other words, made a real impact vis-à-vis lessening the political power of the elite. ¶ In You Never Can Tell, the Van Buck family represents the bourgeoisie, while the Baroness of Mantes represents the aristocracy. ¶ After France’s February Revolution of 1848, which gave rise to the Second Republic, middle-class groups across much of Europe organized to produce revolutions and insurrections of various kinds in support of greater political power. In an unprecedented wave of activist protest — known as the Springtime of the Peoples, 1848 — they pushed for the goal of democratic rights under nation-state regimes. ¶ Multiple examples can be adduced, including uprisings in Prussia and several other microstates in what would become the German Empire. ¶ Successes achieved by 1848 uprisings included the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands; the abolition of absolute monarchy in Denmark; and the establishment of a federal nation-state out of the cantons (provinces) within Switzerland. ¶ Such changes in Europe would have a knock-on effect, especially as regards influencing political change in several South American countries. ¶ In You Never Can Tell (1836), Musset highlights the class tensions that, come February and June of 1848, were to erupt on the streets of Paris. For most of the play, the Baroness de Mantes exhibits a snooty attitude towards Van Buck (an immigrant, Paris-based cloth merchant) and his man-about-town nephew and ward, Valentin van Buck.

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