They order this matter better in France

My eye was caught, while scanning the new acquisitions shelves in the London Library by Lana Asfour’s Laurence Sterne in France.  I was immediately entranced – whilst I have never read Tristram Shandy, I read and loved A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy in 1978, just after leaving university.  It is a slight, but utterly delightful book, the first sentence of which I often quote – but it had never occurred to me to wonder what the French made of it.  I suppose I had thought Sterne too English, too eccentric, too parochial even, for the French to be interested – but Asfour tells me how wrong I am.

Sentimental Journey was published at the very end of Sterne’s life, in 1768, dying just a few weeks afterwards.  It purported to be by Mr Yorick – so no heavy associations there, then – and was an immediate success, and spawned both imitators and, perhaps, a whole new way of looking at the world, in a sentimental way – though that word does not quite mean what we use it for now, meaning more a concentration on the feelings and motivations of individuals.  The work of Sterne did not, perhaps, set the pattern for the English novel on its long journey of greatness, but it may have enriched the mixture greatly.  But back to that famous first sentence, and its consequences:

“They order”, said I, “this matter better in France.”

“You have been in France?” said my gentleman, turning quick upon me with the most civil triumph in the world.  “Strange!”, quoth I, debating the matter with myself, “That one and twenty miles sailing, for ‘tis absolutely no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights – I’ll look into them” : so giving up the argument  - I went straight back to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches – “the coat I have on”, said I, looking at the sleeve, “will do” – took a place in the Dover stage ; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning  - by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of droits d’aubaine[i].

Now that is how to travel – a dozen shirts and no planning.  And he has lots of fun adventures, many of a slightly hilarious and farcical sort, with occasional Pickwickian overtones (Dickens must, surely, have known and loved this book?), but often with a very serious discussion under the élan and the laughter.  The whole is written in a light, easy style, in the first person and with much dialogue and soliloquy, and being (unlike Tristram Shandy) a notably slight work of only 120 pages or so, is well worth anyone’s attention. 

I would draw to your attention his classification of travellers – the idle, the inquisitive, the lying, the proud, the vain, and the splenetic – and the idle travellers (are we not all idle travellers?) he says travel from inevitable necessity, infirmity of body, or imbecility of mind.  Take your choice!  And before I leave Sterne himself,  let me quote his reaction on meeting a fellow countryman in an inn:

As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I retired to my room.

So what did the French make of Sterne?  Well, after a difficult start – Tristram Shandy was harshly criticised by French intellectuals – they seem to have taken him to their hearts, in both a literary and a personal sense.  Sentimental Journey was praised for its cultural sympathy – and (my free translation of some eighteenth century French):

Sterne’s humour does not affect his ability to consider all that wounds humanity, and to show the most tender sensibilities.

Asfour claims that the word sentimental did not previously exist in French, but was introduced in an early translation by Frénais, and the word and the attribute provided to at least one French critic “the moral structure of the work, holding together an otherwise disordered narrative and compensating for its irregularities”.  Sterne was well known in France, and his many idiosyncrasies much loved, but perhaps the greatest compliments paid were the many other ‘sentimental journeys’ that appeared in French, including a false posthumous continuation, an equally spurious volume by his nephew, Yorick, and even a musical comedy, Sterne à Paris in 1799!  I wonder if there has been an example of a French author so taken into English literary life?

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[i] The law provided for all the effects of foreigners who died in France – save the Swiss and the Scotch – to pass to the King of France.

Comments

[glo]

I had never heard of Laurence Sterne and "they order this matter better in France" before.
I'll try to get hold of the book and read it as it appears to be a nice book to bring along for a travel too. In doing so, I am glad I'll get finally a chance to understand perfectly the word "sentimental" then as I have a real problem at grasping its effective meaning - when you say that you don't like sentimentality, I don't know what you mean exactly!
I can recall absolutely no French author involved in English literary life; many have lived in England (mainly London) to escape hardship/war/taxes(!) but I am not sure they really got involved in local literary circles.

[Cornflower]

There's a lot about Sterne in Adam Thirlwell's "Miss Herbert". There he quotes Craig Raine on "Sentimental Journey": "this novel is all about knowing which girl to pick up" (see your title and the book's first line..) Thirlwell goes on, "It was an unambiguous novel about ambiguity - a story of sexual tourism where the narrator pretended that it was a story about morality. All the joy of the writing was in this disjunction - between what seemed important, and what was actually important." This may partly explain why Sterne was lionised in France?

[Harriet]

Never read Tristram Shandy? Oh please do! and yes I am back and cannot resist your blandishments so am off to write something right now.