SUNDRIES: An eighteenth century newsletter

LINKS: The (partially) translated Encyclopedia; Napoleon's site

THE OLD REGIME POLICE BLOTTER: Suicides (II)

Last week I quoted Grimm's idea that suicide was something of a fashion in France in our time. Apparently, Bachaumont (see below) shared this idea, though he seems to regard it as an English import. The risk that it will serve as an example hovers over these three items.

A SWEDISH MODEL

Though a Swede who committed suicide in Germany, Robeck seems to have made an impression in France (and I would guess all through Europe.)

Jean Robeck, Swede, born in 1672, after having made his last arrangements and left to one of his friends the sum required to print a manuscript, disappeared, going to bury himself in an unknown retreat, then nine years later boarded a boat at Bremen, and threw himself in the Weser, in 1739. Professor Franck, following the wish of Robeck, published his work, which was nothing more than an apology for suicide, but added notes, refuting it: 'Joh. Robeck Exercitatio philosophica de morte voluntaria philosophorum et bonorum virorum, etiam judaeorum et christianorum'; 1736." [The note does not explain why the publication date precedes his death.]
Grimm, Correspondance Litteraire, January 1774 (n. 342)

THE TWO DRAGOONS OF ST. DENIS

The two notes left by these friends gave their act a cool philosophical cast. Grimm adds a note further on however saying that both were "noted on police registers in a less than honorable manner for their conduct and their morals." Does this arch remark imply that they were homosexual? If so, this suicide of two young men - Bourdeaux, not yet twenty, and Humain ('Human'), twenty-four - may have had a more passionate, and painful, cause.

Since the example of the famous Robeck, a suicide has not been committed with more sang-froid, with more gaiety, than that of two young dragoons who killed themselves on Christmas Day, in an inn in Satin-Denis, near Paris. They had gone there the evening before asking for supper and a place to sleep. In the morning, having paid their bill, they go walking in the town. At noon, they return, dine in their room on a brioche and wine. They come back down, and ask for a second bottle with some paper. Sometime after, noise is heard in the house; the innkeeper goes up to their room, finds the door locked from the inside, his knocks useless; then, frightened, he sends for officers of the law, who come to his place. The two dragoons are found dead, each at one end of a table, from the shot of a pistol they have put in their mouth. Two pieces of writing found before the dragoon from Belzunce, show all the tranquility which they maintained up to the last moment.

'TO M. DE CLERAC
OFFICER OF THE DRAGOONS OF THE REGIMENT OF PICARDY
AT GUISE IN PICARDY

'During your story at Guise, you seemed to honor me with your friendship; it is time that I thank you. I believe I have told you several times, in our conversations, that my current situation displeased me: this admission was sincere, but not precise. I examined myself more seriously, and I realized that this disgust spread over everything, and that I was equally surfeited with all possible states, of men, of the entire universe, of myself; from this discovery it was necessary to reach a conclusion.

'When one is weary of everything, one must renounce all. This is not a long calculation, I have done it without calling on geometry; in a word, I am about to cast off this patent of existence which I have owned for almost twenty years, and which has weighed upon me for fifteen.

'At the moment that I write, a few grains of powder is going to break the springs of this mass of moving flesh which our proud fellows call the king of beings.

[He covers some practical details.]

'Farewell, my dear lieutenant; be faithful to your love for Saint-Lambert and for Dorat. For the rest, flit still from flower to flower and continue to carry off the nectar of all learning as of all pleasures....

'When you receive this letter, at most twenty-four hours will have passed since I will have ceased to be, with the most sincere esteem, your most affectionate servant,

BOURDEAUX,
'Once student of schoolmasters, then aide-chicane, then monk, then dragoon, then nothing.'

A second letter, signed by both, contains more practical details, as well as some thoughts on suicide and this comment: "We have tasted every pleasure, even that of obliging our fellow men; we could still procure others, but all pleasures have an end, and this end is what poisons them."

Grimm follows these items with several pages discussing suicide, including the remark that he admires Cato, Petronius and Socrates but that "all these great examples of an heroic death take away nothing of the esteem I have for life" and later this quote from a valet in Grasset's "Sidney":

Today we're badly off; we'll be better tomorrow;
Whatever state we're in, there's nothing like being.

Correspondance Litteraire, January 1774 (341-345)

A DANGEROUS EXAMPLE

Bachaumont's coda here brings to mind modern warnings against certain Internet sites promoting self-destructive behavior.

June 16, 1775 - Two Englishman killed themselves here recently, and seem to have come to strengthen themselves in this mania, which the French brought from their country, and of which they today give the example. But a more interesting event of this kind of thing, and which is talked about in Paris, is the heroic audacity of a well known young courtesan, named Mlle. de Germancé. In a fit of jealous despair, seeing herself abandoned by the lord of Flamanville, officer of the guards, with whom she was madly infatuated, on whom she had long showered caresses, she could not resist her pain. She could not find among the blooming youth surrounding her and courting her, any mortal to replace him in her heart, or to console her for her loss. She coldly decided to remove herself from all the pleasure of the life she enjoyed and last week she took enough opium to put her to sleep forever. Before undertaking this operation, she wrote a very touching letter to the traitor, in which she announced this fatal news, and told him he must consider himself the cause of her death; that she would no longer be alive when he received the note; that nonetheless if her loss inspired any pity in him, she demanded that he come to her place and hear her last sighs. This military man regarded this epistle as a joke; he did not want to go to his lover's house, but sent one of his friends, who found her too truly in the arms of medicine, busy trying to bring her back to life. After 14 hours of efforts, the effect of the poison was stopped. She recognized her unreasonable behavior, and appeared yesterday at the vauxhall of Torré, more charming, more engaging than before. One can imagine the sensation her story has caused. What is unfortunate is that she is telling all her friends that death is nothing; that the method she chose is very pleasant; that at the moment of falling asleep, one feels the most delicious sensations. This moral, spread among the courtesans and petit-maitres of Paris, can cause a thousand similar incidents.
Bachaumont, Memoires Secretes No 8 (79-80)

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