PARIS OF MAXIME DU CAMP: THE WRITER-PRIEST BECOMES REPORTER

PHILIP RAND

In the 1840s, it seemed hardly likely that Maxime Du Camp, who professed, like his friend , to worship art and to despise the bourgeoisie, would come to sing the praises of capital and technology as saviours of the city and humanity itself. Indeed, Du Camp insisted, in his unpublished notes, that he had never seriously considered any vocation but that of the literary artist. Yet in 1867, he undertook a study of the material functioning of the city of , which led to a six-volume description of the capital and the life of its inhabitants, as observed through the activities of the city’s administration. Paris: ses organes, ses fonctions et sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle is a highly ambitious and original study of the Paris of the Second Empire. In Paris, capital and technology play a major role. This apparent about-face of Du Camp is not, however, as surprising as it may first seem. Flaubert and Du Camp would soon come to recognize their differences in outlook. Du Camp was always most interested in the matters of this world, downright ambitious according to not a few critics and too impatient to create through painstaking efforts the perfect work of art.1 He was inclined to produce volumes of factual descriptions, of choses vues, especially from accounts of his travels to the Middle East, notable for the meticulous nature of their descriptions of what he had seen. The best known of these was Le Nil, Egypte et Nubie published in 1851, describing a trip to Egypt with Flaubert. The practical-minded Du Camp had, in fact, made the trip possible, as a fact-finding archaeological mission, thanks to his connections with government authorities who subsidized the mission.2 The study of cities, at that point, did not seem to interest the author. His travel accounts were recollections of adventures, scenes of local colour and catalogue-like descriptions of monuments. While Du Camp busied himself

1 Maxime Du Camp, Lettres inédites à Gustave Flaubert, eds Giovanni Bonaccorso and Rosa Maria Di Stefano, Messina, 1978, 349. 2 J.M. Carré, Voyageurs et écrivains français en Egypte, Le Caire, 1832, 83-84.

170 Philip Rand with compiling his factual material, Flaubert absorbed atmosphere and impressions that could be put to aesthetic use in his novels and short stories. Le Nil is purportedly the first printed volume to be accompanied with photographs and Du Camp’s interest in photography would be important in his formation as a writer. Here we already find something to differentiate him from the advocates of pure art and from Baudelaire, who perceived in the new photography a threat to artistic creativity.3 An event which, in my view, was of primary importance in the works of Du Camp, was his meeting with an engineer named Charles Lambert, which took place during this trip to the Middle East. A follower of the Saint- Simonian movement, Lambert was instrumental in converting Du Camp to the Socialist ideas that would influence him deeply at least up to the advent of the of 1870.4 Saint-Simonianism was a curious mixture of transcendental and materialistic values. Its followers performed rituals, wore particular garments, worshipped the powers of the hereafter, and possessed many other characteristics of the devotees of a religious cult. Yet they believed that salvation would be attained mainly through the proper use of science, technology and capital. Indeed, many Saint-Simonians were engineers, trained at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.5 According to Saint-Simonian doctrine, human life was at present out of harmony with the transcendental order, but action by intelligent human beings could transform the social order of the entire world so that men and women could live productive and harmonious lives. Crucial to the achievement of this new order was the breaking down of traditional but irrational ideas and practices, such as social distinctions based on class and sex, and such as belief in the justice of waging war. As in all the versions of socialism that proliferated in the first part of the century, Saint-Simonianism held, too, that each member of a society must find a role consonant with his or her talents and abilities. Education was of primary importance in preparing

3 Charles Baudelaire, “Le Public moderne et la photographie”, in “Salon de 1859”, Curiosités esthétiques: L’Art romantique et autres Oevres critiques de Baudelaire, Paris, 1962, 313-20. Baudelaire criticizes the contemporary fashion of admiring art as “la reproduction exacte de la nature”, associating this form of realism with the “irruption” of industry in art. Industry in turn being associated with ideas of progress, the poet comments, “la poésie et le progrés sont deux ambitieux qui se haïssent d'une haine instinctive” (192). This is not to say that the poet objects to Le Nil, since he acknowledges the contribution of photography to sciences such as archaeology. On the other hand, aware of Du Camp’s enthusiasm for progress, he dedicates his poem Le Voyage to Du Camp and ironically comments in a letter that it is “à faire frémir les amateurs du progrès” (see note to Le Voyage in Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, Paris, 1961, 429). 4 Pierre Bonnefon, “Maxime Du Camp et les Saint-Simoniens”, Revue d’histoire Littérarie de la , 17 (1910 ), 710. 5 Sébastien Charléty, Histoire du saint-Simonisme (1825-1864), Paris, 1931.