Jacques Cazotte

thumb|right|Jacques Cazotte
Portrait by [[Jean-Baptiste Perronneau]]. Jacques Cazotte , born with Dijon the October 7th 1719 and dead guillotine with Paris on the Place of the Carousel the September 25th 1792, is a French writer.

Biography

He makes his studies with the college of the Jésuites of Dijon, then settles with Paris, where he publishes his first works, the Leg of cat in 1741 and the Thousand and one twaddle in 1742. He is employed in the administration of the marine and envoy in 1747 with the Martinique as controller of the Windward Islands. He withdraws himself then with Pierry, close to Épernay, to devote itself to his literary tastes. In 1763, it publishes the Adventure of the pilgrim , a short apologue denouncing the hypocrisy of the court, then in 1772 the Devil in love , which is worth to him to be regarded as one of the pioneers of the French fantastic literature. By writing Voltairiade in 1783, it criticizes the philosophy of the Lights.

At the end of its life, it enters the order of the Martinistes and is pointed out by its exaltée piety. It takes party against the French revolution, which it sees like a gigantic incarnation of Satan, and it is stopped after August 10th 1792. It was going to be cut the throat of at the time of disastrous the days of September, when his/her daughter, who had been locked up with him in her prison, saved it by covering it with her body. It left prison then, but, begun again a few days afterwards, it perishes on the scaffold.

Jacques Cazotte: an author illuminist?

Temptations illuminists

Jacques Cazotte would not have had strictly speaking a relation with the Illuminés before writing the '' Diable in love '', this same if a certain mystical thought near to the illuminism always seems to have accompanied it. Indeed, Cazotte composed the Diable in love in 1772 and became member about the martinists only in 1781. Some of its later works, of which for example continuation of the Thousand and One Nights (1788) testify to this experiment by their mystical and esoteric dashes and their Gothic set of themes. On this subject, one can notice that Cazotte belonged to the School of Lyon and that it always had a critical glance over its century, and particularly on the spirit of the Lights and the philosophers. Here an extract of its correspondence which testifies some: “Do not call your adversaries demagogs; call them philosophical, it is the greatest insult which one can say to a man and one will ask some repair day and for justice of it”.

Also let us note that Cazotte would have had prophetic hallucinations: that brought back in the Memories of the Toothing-stone in is an good example. However can't we ask to us whether the narration of this episode would not be simply one mystification of the Toothing-stone?

Moreover, Cazotte seems neither to have had dogmatic intentions nor to have taken part in collective work of Illuminés martinists (which, seems it, aimed at a collective social action): it would have been rather made, according to their ideas, a particular and personal code of conduct.

Moreover, it is advisable to notice the importance of the influence of the martinists on the French revolution. Cazotte not being absolutely in favor of such a movement, it did not support the doctrines illuminist as a whole and even “dreamed” to offer a temporary asylum to the king in his correspondence of 1791. It indeed perceived the French revolution like the largest incarnation of Satan. Thus one suspected it of co-operation with the royalist plot of the Knights of the Dagger and which it was translated in front of the revolutionary tribunal. Its sentence, the guillotine, was pronounced by one illuminated martinist…

After having escaped with this first judgment, Cazotte had new prophetic visions about its next arrest. September eleven a man comes to seek it, this man and all the facts which follow would correspond exactly to its vision; September twenty-five at nineteen hours it is carried out on the place of the Carousel.

Presence of some fundamental topics of the illuminism in the literary work of Cazotte

Hostility against the philosophy of the Lights

The spirit and the letter

The illuminism has as a fundamental subject the distinction between the spirit and the letter, the light and the materiality. Deprived of the light of the spirit, the letter is meaningless and consequently of life. The spirit is opposed to the letter which belongs to the multiplicity. Thus the Bible contains all secret science: to interpret the texts by taking account only of the dead letter, it is to refuse the direction which the crowned words generally presented in allegorical forms and symbolic systems contain. To this opposition between the letter and the spirit the abyss separating the truth from the error corresponds, because the first is one, the second belongs to the multiplicity. The devil as a divider is the separator which generates the number: if the world is hateful, it is because of its character of multiplicity. Into the unit which reigned in the beginning the fall thus introduced division plurality; this is why the heart of the man aspires to the unit. The distinction between the spirit and the letter characterizes the position of the illuminism vis-a-vis the religions which, insofar as they diversify, belong to external dimension, consequently to the world, and nourish not spirit but of the letter. It is thus necessary to return to an interior religion, since the spirit can be received only inside with the difference of the letter which acts only outside. The interior universe and its vastness concern the creative grace. The man as an image of God is directed towards his destiny of deification. It is because it is spirit which it carries God in him, and which God can be born in him at the moment even where it is born as a God. If it adheres to the letter, i.e. with external dimension and the flesh, all becomes for him confusion. The man carries in him his sky and his hell, which do not constitute places located in space but belong to be it even. The sky symbolizes freedom, the light, the love, the unit; the hell is night and multiplicity. This dichotomy is present through several topics:

Shade and light:

The Diable in love watch a relation complexes between the shade and the light. On several occasions the devil/Biondetta attracts Alvare by its false physical lights (” on this face shining”) or spiritual while trying to teach to him truth distorts it. Alvare as for him on several occasions seems contaminated by these false lights: “the brilliance of my crew dazzles a little the guard in front of which we reviewed”. However, the light also recalls it to the reason, in particular when it is found in the church and in front of a bright monument of which the sight “illuminates” Alvare, or after the fainding of the devil when light of day seems to bring back it to the life; this topic points out the second Revelation of Cazotte when “a ray of the purest light rested on face”. The shade, as for it, is a circumstance favourable with the “infernal” discoveries: the place of the evocation of the devil is “a place so obscure that no light could penetrate” and “seeking the peace of the spirit in the continual agitation of the body”, Alvare is carried out towards the darkness of its wardrobe to be able épier Biondetta who appears “dazzling”.

Unit and multiplicity:

This topic is characterized first of all by the unit of the truth and the multiplicity of the error. Alvare is often balances some between its spirituality and its passions, and it is the first which triumphs. The material world gives the impression of the multiplicity on several occasions: “the swirl of the recreations of the city”, “the crowd and the variety of the objects shock me instead of me to distract”. The Révélations of the author continue this illustration: he indeed shows us the king, representative of God on ground, vis-a-vis a multitude of imprécateurs, a “family of Cromwell”, whereas its worship and that of God “cannot separate”, which shows the indivisibility of the truth. It is then the incarnation of the devil itself which gives birth to the multiplicity. The devil, when it appears in Portici, brings abundance and profusion of material comfort, multiplies its appearances (camel, bitch, page, harpist…) and its activities (” the page multiplies”). Thereafter, Biondetta will seem an omnipresent being: “I could not drive out it vagueness of the air if it likes it to be held to with it invisible me to obsess”, and it brings “thousand” passions to Alvare. This multiplying demon is also represented in the Révélations where it seems a hydre with “so much of heads”, and as a “alarming effigy is under thousand various emblems”.

Spirit and matter:

Alvare is, at the beginning of the history, basically anchored in the material world: he devotes himself to the women, the plays, alcohol as with “philosophy” but its spirit being unaware of aspires inevitably to knowledge. A spirit being unaware of is better, according to Soberano, that a spirit enlightened by the false lights of the “doctrines”. Alvare, which “guessed this raised sphere”, will constitute the” schoolboy” of Soberano: it will be able to bind with the “spirits” which inform the men. But after the evocation of the devil it is indeed towards the matter that Alvare will be turned: thanks to the devil it will be able to satisfy its physical appetites (food - as within the framework of the banquet of Prophecy, women, money); Bernadillo the warn besides: “at your age one wishes too much to leave time to reflect and one precipitates his pleasures”. As for Biondetta, she insists on several occasions on the nuisances caused by the incarnation and Alvare seems to be, by its vocation always with the research of the spirit by not being satisfied matter: “you speak about love, you present of it the image, you poison the idea of it”. Moreover, this last requests Biondetta to really reach higher knowledge. In the Revelations , the matter still carries in it the diabolic entity. “The animal (...) rises element, theater of storms”: the harmful effect, the multiplicity, confusion result directly from the matter. However a being born of the matter can be only empty of spirit and thus of direction, the men adore this divinity of the letter whereas it is necessary to privilege interior dimension, the spirit. As in the Prophecy where Cazotte speaks about an external religion which will be dedicated to the reason, to which one will build temples, the interior religion is only and the single true one.

Correspondences and the theory of the opposites

For Swedenborg and later for Blake, of the correspondences exist between the material world and the spiritual world. This law of the correspondences is found at Böhme which drew it from alchemy, and for which “Everyone external, visible, with all its creatures, is a similarity in figure of the interior spiritual world” ( Of will signatura rerum ). It was taken again by the majority of the followers of the Illuminisme. Böhme still spoke about the theory of the opposites according to which any thing comprises a double aspect, positive and negative: “In Ja und Nein bestehen Dinge ale” (All things consist of yes and not). It is not which allows the revelation of yes. These opposites are expressed in the light and darkness, the life and death, hatred and the love, the hell and the sky, etc

We have in the Diable in love several examples with correspondence between the material world and the spiritual world. Thus, during the scene of the collation and the song of Fiorentina, the material world is an illusion and at the bottom of him Alvare knows it: “I forgot almost that I was the creator of the charm which charmed me”. Further, one can notice a correspondence between the bed which cracks, the diagrid which crumbles and the doubt, the chaos which invades the spirit of Alvare which is partly allured by Biondetta. In the same way, the color of abatement and melancholy on the aspect of Biondetta corresponds to the frame of mind of Alvare which is tired of the plays, of the loves and which has just been exceeded by “a stream of abuse and threats” of Olympia. In its dream, Alvare sees his/her mother and tells him its adventure, this one sees the danger; the hand of Biondetta pushes Alvare in the chasm, another hand withdraws it and it is found in the arms of his mother: this scene can be put in parallel with the “reality” of the history. Indeed, Alvare initially will fall into the pit from Biondetta before being seized again and finding the way of God via his mother. Moreover, this dream is concretized to some extent when the young Danish dog of Alvare separates it from Biondetta when it was going to embrace it. But one can as note as, when Alvare in the church believes to recognize his/her mother led to the tomb by two “geniuses”, that corresponds with the fact that Alvare to some extent yielded to temptation devil since it intends to marry Biondetta. This dream will cause a start of conscience at the protagonist. In the same way, the upset spirit of Alvare pulled about between passion and its religious will to present Biondetta to his/her mother before marrying it would result in the great number of difficulties encountered on the way (contrary sky, unpleasant muleteers, testing way,…) while when Alvare understands that the attitude of Biondetta in the barn is only one comedy manipulator, the sky is cleared up: “the sky was cleaned, and soon the clearness of the moon announced to us that we did not have anything any more to fear disorder of the elements”.

Of many passages of the Diable in love refers to the theory of the opposites. One can also raise, in My dream of the night of the Saturday to Sunday of front Midsummer's Day 1791 , the fact that Cazotte, observing the sky, summarizes the situation of the events by this beautiful antithesis: “it was of a beautiful pale and very spangled azure; while I appear it in my memory with other skies which I had seen in the jumble, it was disturbed by a horrible storm”. Lastly, in the History of Maugraby , the multitude of the birds which piaillent contrast with the silence of will hara solitary (this could recall the attitude of Soberano to the beginning of the Diable in love ). The attitude of Maugraby is also borrows oppositions: the attention which it pays towards the child Habed-it-Rouman and torment that it inflicts with will hara, with the men in the dungeon. The topic of the antithesis between the sun ray of justice and darkness whose the crimes are wrapped appears once again.

Creation and evolution

Creation does not occur ex nihilo but proceeds by emanation. The evolution of the world is upward, it leaves the stone, private of life, to lead to God; God is at his place in the man and the man is at his place as a God. They take part one and the other and one by the other in the new creation of the world. If the man is sick, makes a fault, or refuses his vocation, the world is paralyzed. When the man is cured or directed in a way right the dynamism of the life reappears. If the man is unaware of himself, he is unaware of cosmos: it thus required there of a perfect self-knowledge to make cover with cosmos its lost beauty.

At the beginning of the Devil in love , Alvare acknowledges itself nothing to know of its own spirit. However, he “guessed this high sphere”: the man by his vocation is intended for the higher spheres. Later, while having called upon the devil, it will come from there to doubt on the identity of the real creator of the universe present. The devil, has apparently the capacity to him to reveal the matter ex nihilo (marble the living room, girandoles,…) : all that is only illusion… In its Revelations , Cazotte illustrates perfectly the theories illuminists of cosmology: “It seems that then the soft hope comes to fill for him the immense space which separates this sublunary sphere from the stay where puts back on its inébranlable basis the throne of the Eternal. It is more only in its eyes only shine the fires strewn on this veil with azure, which embraces the horizon from one pole to another: these celestial fires pass in its heart; the gift of the thought becomes that of the genius. It enters in conversation with the Eternal himself: nature seems to be keep silent not to disturb this sublime maintenance”.

A populated universe of symbols and spiritual elements

Omnipresence of the Trinity:

In the Devil in love , Alvare calls with three recoveries Béelzébut, the girandoles of crystals have each one three candles, Fiorentina sings an arietta which finishes the third act of the opera, the moon “darted all its rays in room of Alvare through three crossed” and “the three planchent which supported diagrid fall with crash”, three ices reflect Biondetta, it is at three o'clock in the morning that Alvare is withdrawn after having lost with the play, Alvare was born one May three at three o'clock in the morning. In the same way the Révélations of Cazotte are three and it mentions “the sublime trio of the cut the throat of martyrs” (Langoiran, Pannetier, Dupuy). Lastly, in the History of Maugraby , the child takes three feathers on the head of will hara, one notes the presence of three deputies charged to announce to the prince the need for seeking everywhere Birminvanska and advertisement will hara it which it does not have any more but three faculties the free ones (the sight, the sense of smell, hearing).

the recourse to the magic and the occult sciences:

The recourse to the magic and the occult sciences is important in the Devil in love: indeed this work bases on invocation of spirits (practical occults coming very close to even heresy) while making allusion to other occult sciences like, for example, use of texts, of words being able to generate true dependences (see the oaths that Alvare with Biondetta pronounces), astrology (with the Egyptian women) which is stated in a relatively hermetic form. Moreover, one notes an allusion in some terms of the Cabal (when Biondetta announces that it is a sylphid). Finally the character of Gift Quebracuernos is not without recalling (being given his etymology: break horns) that of a priest exorcist, specialist in demonology (it disentangles the actions of the devil perfectly).

Posterity

A contemporary judgment

Judgment of the Mail of the South on Cazotte, September 2nd, 1792 (Cazotte will be guillotine on September 25th).

Mr. Cazotte, that with which them Colonies of Santo Domingo and Martinique owes their misfortunes, is subjected to sworn today charge; he wrote in Martinique: “Strike down the patriots; burn the town of Saint-Pierre, if it is needed, to reduce the rebels”. This Cazotte, which one found several letters in papers of Mr. Laporte, is the author of Olivier pretty poem, the Devil in love, Richardet, and several tales and fugitive parts, in which one always notices spirit, and sometimes of the reason. For some time its head was disturbed by the systême enlightened, that he had embraced in transport of a exaltée imagination. It is easy in its letters to recognize a martinist; he often quotes the apocalypse, and he employs only the expressions symbolic systems which form the language of the amateurs of the occult science; it is not astonishing that similar men dream only madness, they live an ideal world, it is easy for them to change it with the liking of their hopes and their systêmes.

the Prophecy of Cazotte

Jean-François of the Toothing-stone, (1739-1803), the prophecy of Cazotte

Works

Devil in love; Lost and recovered Honor; Rachel or the beautiful Jewish one

Partial source

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