The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 10 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (essential reading TXT) 📖

France for Constantinople. His special province was to study the dogmas and doctrines and to obtain official attestations concerning the articles of the Orthodox (or Greek) Christianity which had then been a subject of lively discussion amongst certain Catholics, especially Arnauld (Antoine) and Claude the Minister, and which even in our day occasionally crops up amongst “Protestants.”[FN#200] Galland, by frequenting the caf�s and listening to the tale-teller, soon mastered Romaic and grappled with the religious question, under the tuition of a deposed Patriarch and of sundry Matr�ns or Metropolitans, whom the persecutions of the Pashas had driven for refuge to the Palais de France. M. de Nointel, after settling certain knotty points in the Capitulations, visited the harbour-towns of the Levant and the “Holy Places,” including Jerusalem, where Galland copied epigraphs, sketched monuments and collected antiques, such as the marbles in the Baudelot Gallery of which P�re Dom Bernard de Montfaucon presently published specimens in his ”Pal�ographia Gr�ca,” etc. (Parisiis, 1708).

 

In Syria Galland was unable to buy a copy of The Nights: as he expressly states in his Epistle Dedicatory, il a fallu le faire venir de Syrie. But he prepared himself for translating it by studying the manners and customs, the religion and superstitions of the people; and in 1675, leaving his chief, who was ordered back to Stambul, he returned to France. In Paris his numismatic fame recommended him to MM. Vaillant, Carcary and Giraud who strongly urged a second visit to the Levant, for the purpose of collecting, and he set out without delay. In 1691 he made a third journey, travelling at the expense of the Compagnie des Indes-Orientales, with the main object of making purchases for the Library and Museum of Colbert the magnificent. The commission ended eighteen months afterwards with the changes of the Company, when Colbert and the Marquis de Louvois caused him to be created “Antiquary to the King,” Louis le Grand, and charged him with collecting coins and medals for the royal cabinet. As he was about to leave Smyrna, he had a narrow escape from the earthquake and subsequent fire which destroyed some fifteen thousand of the inhabitants: he was buried in the ruins; but, his kitchen being cold as becomes a philosopher’s, he was dug out unburnt.[FN#201]

 

Galland again returned to Paris where his familiarity with Arabic and Hebrew, Persian and Turkish recommended him to MM. Thevenot and Bignon: this first President of the Grand Council acknowledged his services by a pension. He also became a favourite with D’Herbelot whose Biblioth�que Orientale, left unfinished at his death, he had the honour of completing and prefacing.[FN#202] President Bignon died within the twelvemonth, which made Galland attach himself in 1697 to M. Foucault, Councillor of State and Intendant (governor) of Caen in Lower Normandy, then famous for its academy: in his new patron’s fine library and numismatic collection he found materials for a long succession of works, including a translation of the Koran.[FN#203] They recommended him strongly to the literary world and in 1701 he was made a member of the Acad�mie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

 

At Caen Galland issued in 1704,[FN#204] the first part of his Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes traduits en Fran�ois which at once became famous as “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.”

Mutilated, fragmentary and paraphrastic though the tales were, the glamour of imagination, the marvel of the miracles and the gorgeousness and magnificence of the scenery at once secured an exceptional success; it was a revelation in romance, and the public recognised that it stood in presence of a monumental literary work. France was a-fire with delight at a something so new, so unconventional, so entirely without purpose, religious, moral or philosophical: the Oriental wanderer in his stately robes was a startling surprise to the easy-going and utterly corrupt Europe of the ancien r�gime with its indecently tight garments and perfectly loose morals. “Ils produisirent,” said Charles Nodier, a genius in his way, “d�s le moment de leur publication, cet effet qui assure aux productions de l’esprit une vogue populaire, quoiqu’ils appartinssent � une litt�rature peu connue en France; et que ce genre de composition admit ou plut�t exige�t des d�tails de moeurs, de caract�re, de costume et de localit�s absolument �trangers � toutes les id�es �tablies dans nos contes et nos romans. On fut �tonn� du charme que r�sultait du leur lecture. C’est que la v�rit� des sentimens, la nouveaut�

des tableaux, une imagination f�conde en prodiges, un coloris plein de chaleur, l’attrait d’une sensibilit� sans pr�tention, et le sel d’un comique sans caricature, c’est que l’esprit et le naturel enfin plaisent partout, et plaisent � tout le monde.”[FN#205]

 

The Contes Arabes at once made Galland’s name and a popular tale is told of them and him known to all reviewers who, however, mostly mangle it. In the Biographie Universelle of Michaud[FN#206] we find:—Dans les deux premiers volumes de ces contes l’exorde �tait toujours, “Ma ch�re s�ur, si vous ne dormez pas, faites-nous un de ces contes que vous savez.” Quelques jeunes gens, ennuy�s de cette plate uniformit�, all�rent une nuit qu’il faisait tr�s-grand froid, frapper � la porte de l’auteur, qui courut en chemise � sa fen�tre. Apr�s l’avoir fait morfondre quelque temps par diverses questions insignificantes, ils termin�rent en lui disant, “Ah, Monsieur Galland, si vous ne dormez pas, faites-nous un de ces beaux contes que vous savez si bien.” Galland profita de la lecon, et supprima dans les volumes suivants le pr�ambule qui lui avait attir� la plaisanterie. This legend has the merit of explaining why the Professor so soon gave up the Arab framework which he had deliberately adopted.

 

The Nights was at once translated from the French[FN#207] though when, where and by whom no authority seems to know. In Lowndes’

“Bibliographer’s Manual” the English Editio Princeps is thus noticed, “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments translated from the French, London, 1724, 12mo, 6 vols.” and a footnote states that this translation, very inaccurate and vulgar in its diction, was often reprinted. In 1712 Addison introduced into the Spectator (No. 535, Nov. 13) the Story of Alnaschar ( = Al-Nashsh�r, the Sawyer) and says that his remarks on Hope “may serve as a moral to an Arabian tale which I find translated into French by Monsieur Galland.” His version appears, from the tone and style, to have been made by himself, and yet in that year a second English edition had appeared. The nearest approach to the Edit.

Princeps in the British Museum[FN#208] is a set of six volumes bound in three and corresponding with Galland’s first half dozen.

Tomes i. and ii. are from the fourth edition of 1713, Nos. iii.

and iv. are from the second of 1712 and v. and vi. are from the third of 1715. It is conjectured that the two first volumes were reprinted several times apart from their subsequents, as was the fashion of the day; but all is mystery. We (my friends and I) have turned over scores of books in the British Museum, the University Library and the Advocates’ Libraries of Edinburgh and Glasgow: I have been permitted to put the question in “Notes and Queries” and in the “Antiquary”; but all our researches hitherto have been in vain.

 

The popularity of The Nights in England must have rivalled their vogue in France, judging from the fact that in 1713, or nine years after Galland’s Edit. Prin. appeared, they had already reached a fourth issue. Even the ignoble national jealousy which prompted Sir William Jones grossly to abuse that valiant scholar, Auquetil du Perron, could not mar their popularity. But as there are men who cannot read Pickwick, so they were not wanting who spoke of “Dreams of the distempered fancy of the East.”[FN#209]

“When the work was first published in England,” says Henry Webber,[FN#210] “it seems to have made a considerable impression upon the public.” Pope in 1720 sent two volumes (French? or English?) to Bishop Atterbury, without making any remark on the work; but, from his very silence, it may be presumed that he was not displeased with the perusal. The bishop, who does not appear to have joined a relish for the flights of imagination to his other estimable qualities, expressed his dislike of these tales pretty strongly and stated it to be his opinion, formed on the frequent descriptions of female dress, that they were the work of some Frenchman (Petis de la Croix, a mistake afterwards corrected by Warburton). The Arabian Nights, however, quickly made their way to public favour. “We have been informed of a singular instance of the effect they produced soon after their first appearance. Sir James Stewart, Lord Advocate for Scotland, having one Saturday evening found his daughters employed in reading these volumes, seized them with a rebuke for spending the evening before the ‘Sawbbath’ in such worldly amusement; but the grave advocate himself became a prey to the fascination of the tales, being found on the morning of the Sabbath itself employed in their perusal, from which he had not risen the whole night.”

As late as 1780 Dr. Beattie professed himself uncertain whether they were translated or fabricated by M. Galland; and, while Dr.

Pusey wrote of them “Noctes Mille et Una dict�, qu� in omnium firm� populorum cultiorum linguas convers�, in deliciis omnium habentur, manibusque omnium terentur,”[FN#211] the amiable Carlyle, in the gospel according to Saint Froude, characteristically termed them “downright lies” and forbade the house to such “unwholesome literature.” What a sketch of character in two words!

 

The only fault found in France with the Contes Arabes was that their style is peu correcte; in fact they want classicism. Yet all Gallic imitators, Tr�butien included, have carefully copied their leader and Charles Nodier remarks:—“Il me semble que l’on n’a pas rendu assez de justice au style de Galland. Abondant sans �tre prolixe, naturel et familier sans �tre l�che ni trivial, il ne manque jamais de cette elegance qui r�sulte de la facilit�, et qui pr�sente je ne sais quel m�lange de la na�vet� de Perrault et de la bonhomie de La Fontaine.”

 

Our Professor, with a name now thoroughly established, returned in 1706 to Paris, where he was an assiduous and efficient member of the Soci�t� Numismatique and corresponded largely with foreign Orientalists. Three years afterwards he was made Professor of Arabic at the Coll�ge de France, succeeding Pierre Dippy; and, during the next half decade, he devoted himself to publishing his valuable studies. Then the end came. In his last illness, an attack of asthma complicated with pectoral mischief, he sent to Noyon for his nephew Julien Galland[FN#212] to assist him in ordering his MSS. and in making his will after the simplest military fashion: he bequeathed his writings to the Biblioth�que du Roi, his Numismatic Dictionary to the Academy and his Alcoran to the Abb� Bignon. He died, aged sixty-nine on February 17, 1715, leaving his second part of The Nights unpublished.[FN#213]

 

Professor Galland was a French litt�rateur of the good old school which is rapidly becoming extinct. Homme vrai dans les moindres choses (as his �loge stated); simple in life and manners and single-hearted in his devotion to letters, he was almost childish in worldly matters, while notable for penetration and acumen in his studies. He would have been as happy, one of his biographers remarks, in teaching children the elements of education as he was in acquiring his immense erudition. Briefly, truth and honesty, exactitude and indefatigable industry characterised his most honourable career.

 

Galland informs us (Epist. Ded.) that his MS. consisted of four volumes, only three of which are extant,[FN#214] bringing the work down to Night cclxxxii., or about the beginning of “Camaralzaman.” The missing portion, if it contained like the other volumes 140 pages, would end that tale together with the Stories of Gh�nim and the Enchanted (Ebony) Horse; and such is the disposition in the Bresl. Edit. which mostly favours in its