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Updated: May 14, 2025
In one direction at least, Alfred de Vigny was a true innovator, in the broadest and most meritorious sense of the word: he was the creator of philosophic poetry in France.
Like Alfred De Vigny, he dwelt in a "tour d'ivoire" that faced the west and for him the sunrise was not, but O! the miraculous moons he discovered, the sunsets and cloud-shine! His notes cast great rich shadows, these chains of blown-roses drenched in the dew of beauty.
Two broad backs bent under bulging loads; an infant's wail; a knock at the Red Cross Door but that was nearly eight months before. The Poste de Secours was closed for the first time since Madame de Vigny and her three young infirmières had come to Noyon. Two women stood without, one plump and bareheaded, the other aged and bent, with a calico handkerchief tied over her hair.
The three novels that compose the volume 'Servitude et Grandeur militaire' are, in this respect, models of romantic composition that never will be surpassed, bearing witness to the truth of the formula followed by De Vigny in all his literary work: "Art is the chosen truth."
It is by this character of universality, of which all his writings show striking evidence, that Alfred de Vigny is assured of immortality. A heedless generation neglected him because it preferred to seek subjects in strong contrast to life of its own time. But that which was not appreciated by his contemporaries will be welcomed by posterity.
He was the spoilt child of the age frivolous, amorous, sensuous, charming, unfortunate, and unhappy; and his poetry is the record of his personal feelings, his varying moods, his fugitive loves, his sentimental despairs. Le seul bien qui me reste au monde Est d'avoir quelquefois pleuré, he exclaims, with an accent of regretful softness different indeed from that of Vigny.
"Sit down, my dear," again to Madame de Vigny. "Those barbarians didn't leave me many chairs, but here is one, and this box will do for these young ladies." She herself remained standing, a stout old body in spite of her eighty years. Her blue eyes were clear and twinkled with fun, and she had a mischievous way of smiling out of the corner of her mouth, displaying two teeth.
For that reason the choice of subjects is extended from the Middle Ages in France to the Middle Ages in other countries, for instance, Germany, whence Victor Hugo derives his drama Les Burgraves. The poets select foreign matter, Alfred de Vigny treats Chatterton and Musset Italian and Spanish themes. Romanticism becomes ethnographical. Its second distinguishing mark is tempestuous violence.
This prose is, in 'Les Confidences, too often but the paraphrase of his verses, which were themselves become, toward the last, paraphrases of his feelings." Amends are made to Lamartine on another occasion, when, citing some recent French sonnets, he says: "Neither Lamartine nor Hugo nor Vigny wrote sonnets. The swans and the eagles, in trying to enter this cage, would have broken their wings.
The angel of the asylums and of little children in his celestial sadness could not be disavowed by the angels of Klopstock, nor by that of Alfred de Vigny." "Li Crecho" was recited by the author at the inauguration of the Infant Asylum of Avignon, the 20th of November, 1851, and forms part of the sheaf of poems entitled "Li Flour de Sauvi."
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