Alexandre the Magnificent
A life of romance, a life for romance
-Daniel Bermond, French Journalist
If Balzac is a world, Stendhal an
intellect and Hugo an inspiration, Dumas is a body, a giant's body in action, large,
sweaty, often arbe-chested. There was something of the musketeer in him, not so much in
his presence, which he lacked, as in an appetite for life that he manifested in all
circumstances—and his life! A life of romance, as wild as his books.
Son of one of Bonaparte's generals, who in
turn was the son of a rich colonist from Sait-Domingue and a black slave, Alexandre Dumas
belonged to that generation of romantics fed on the milk of the revolutionary and imperial
epic, who were always tempted, because they had not experienced the sound and the fury, to
recreate in their books, plays and poems.
With his swarthy colouring and mop of frizzy
hair, revealing his origins—Dumas did not pass unnoticed in the Parisian salons of
the 1820s. He moved in the best circles which he charmed by his wit, met Hugo, Nerval,
Gautier and Vigny, who shared his ideals, and became a close friend of the Duke of
Orleans, becoming first one of his secretaries and then his librarian. Even so, the
revolution of 1830 did not see him standing beside his august employer, but in the ranks
of the republicans, hostile to any form of monarchy, and on the barricades with the most
extremist insurgents.
An inveterate sensualist:
The man was made that way, swash-buckling,
gallant, sacrificing himself, fighting duels at the slightest provocation, an inveterately
jolly fellow who wrote constantly. He had boundless energy, tied to his desk in the
evenings but, by day, fluttering from one salon to another, unfaithful to the women he
loved, leaving a trail of illegitimate children in his wake, the most famous of whom was
to be the first, Alexandre Dumas fils (9 the younger), born in 1824, author of La Dame aux
camelias.
Undoubtedly, in the end his political ideas
lost their edge and the radicalism of his youth became more moderate. Was this for the
ransom for the literary and worldly success he then experienced? Nonetheless, in 1848 he
was still acclaiming the restored Republic. He even believed he could play a role in a
France which had once again thrown a king off his throne. He stood as a candidate at the
legislative election., but the meager support he obtained ( 0.11% of the vote!) persuaded
him to give up all public activity for ever, or at least in his own country. For the love
of liberty still burned within him and led him, in the early 1860s, to Naples and Sicily,
in the footsteps of Garibaldi, the condottiere of Italian Unification, whom he supplied
with arms and with whom he founded L'Independente, the newspaper of the Red Shirts.
Until the end, Alexandre Dumas was to appear
fiery in his approach to life, eager to devote himself without restraint not only to
causes that moved him but to pleasure. In Monte-cristo castle, an extravagant neo-Gothic
building with a Moorish interior which he had built in the forest of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, he held feasts and masked balls in an orgy of
magnificent food and entertainment of all sorts.
Dumas never did things by halves, he had to
have everything that instant, to the point that he didn't understand that you couldn't
have the same dishes in the depths of Chechnya, where he landed in 1858 with an entourage
of dogs and mistresses, as in Paris. Nor, certainly, should it be forgotten that he wrote
a voluminous dictionary of cooking, informed by his own experience at the stove and a
voracious appetite.
What about his work amid such all-consuming
activities? The books are there, many of them, abundant—copious, one is tempted to
say, like the meals he loved—above all else the output of a dedicated worker, capable
of developing several plots simultaneously within the framework of one novel and of
writing endlessly to make up for time spent entertaining pretty women.
We are all astounded by this facility to
undertake almost simultaneously, or in quick succession, The Count of Omonte-Cristo and
The Three Muskeeters, La Reine Margot and Twenty years after, Joseph Balsamo and La Dame
de Monsoreau, The Countess of Charny and The Viscount of Bargelone, novels serialized in
popular dailies, like La Presse and Le Constitutionnel, some which he later adapted for
the stage.
A genius for the dramatic:
For Dumas was primarily a play-Wright. It was
a play, Henri Ill et sa cour which, in 1829, propelled him to the front of the literary
stage, a year before the famous battle over Hugo's Hernani. And it was again through the
boards that he assured his later success, particularly with Antony and La Tour de Nesle.
So it is not surprising that the dialogue in
his novels reads like lines written for the stage. They have their vivacity if not
literary quality and are not always above criticism. But, in his defence, did Dumas have
time to refine his manuscripts? To pay his ever present debts, he was forced, exactly like
Balzac, to write as fast as possible to keep up the pace of the daily serialized books
paid three francs a line. Moreover, it is no secret that he resorted to services of one or
more "'ghost writers"', of whom the best known, Auguste Maquet, was himself a
prolific, though mediocre, author.
It remains no less true that Dumas, popular
novelist par excellence, had genius for the dramatic and that his works were and are still
familiar all over the world, a popularity rarely achieved. One look at the website of the
Societe des amis d'Alexandre Dumas, confirms the continuing popularity of a writer whose
work is still read and re-read. Even the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, has been quoted
as saying that Monte-Cristo was the perfect novel, a judgement confirmed by a single
statistic. With more than three hundred film and television adaptations, Dumas is far and
away the most common source of literary inspiration for directors, and not only in France.
From Melies Les Mousquetaires de la reine, in
1903, to Stephen Herek's The Three Musketeers, in 1993, the character of d'Artagnan never
fails to fire the imagination... Too bad if history is badly mangled. His wit is familiar,
much in the manner of this lover of intrigue and womanizer: " Historical truth is a
girl you may rape on condition you give her beautiful children". Was it not
legitimate that, on the bicentenary of his birth, July 24th , 1802, France, this autumn,
at last received the ashes of this mater of swashbuckling romance at the Pantheon?
Label France: n47. July 2002. Embassy of
France in Kathmandu.
Democracy and Governance
Dr. Larry Diamond, Stanford University,
USA
The purpose of this short essay is to explore
the relationship between democracy and governance. Good governance has many dimensions:
economic prosperity; social justice and fairness; public liberty but also public order;
coherent government capable of coping with a changing world; and other social goals. Good
governance is not identical to democracy—it is more than that and less than that. But
there is some overlap in the two concepts.
What is the relationship between
democracy and good governance?/ In the short run, democracy is no guarantee of good
governance. It certainly does not guarantee that there will be political order and
domestic peace and tranquility in a time of very acute uncertainty, as all periods of
transitions are. Democracy may even encompass some decline in order and predictability
initially, at least until the norms and obligations of democratic citizenship are
internalized. Neither can democracy assure the good society. It does not guarantee
economic prosperity and full employment. It does not guarantee social justice and equality
or environmental quality or that people will treat one another decently. This is trues
because all of these goods rest heavily on other factors—on the policies that are
pursued by whatever government is in power, on the values, norms and habits of the people
and their attitudes towards work, education, family, and community, and on the
cohesiveness of the social order.
This means that democratic activists should
not over-promise what democracy can offer. Democracy must be pursued first and foremost as
an end in itself and seen as desirable for the benefits it offers of political freedom,
the protection of individual and group liberty, the right to participate in decisions that
effect one's life, and the preservation of human dignity.
But what about the long run?/ The historical
record of the past two centuries suggests that democracy is the form of government perhaps
most conducive to an enduring, legitimate political order. It is conducive because it
provides the means for aggrieved groups to redress their grievances peacefully through a
legal and constitutional process. It is also more conducive to economic growth and
prosperity because it provides for the free and pluralistic flow of information and ideas,
for secure legal guarantees for private property and investments of capital, and for a
sociopolitical climate of freedom and competition that fosters risk taking, innovation,
savings, investment, exchange and hence, economic growth.
Moreover, history also suggests that
democracy is more conducive that other types of government to the enduring improvement of
social justice. Through the workings of a free and pluralistic media, injustice is exposed
and voice is given to victims of deprivation, inequality, and discrimination, who then
have the right to organize politically as well as the legal means to seek redress.
This points also to the value of democracy as
a force for the maintenance of political and social order. Order is not, of course, a
priority above all others, but it is an essential precondition of social advance. Social
systems that preserve social and political order must be based on the rule of law. Actions
by the state and of its officials must be governed by fair and predictable rules that are
widely understood and accepted as legitimate and that can only be changed by some
deliberate constitutional process.
Good governance also requires good policies.
Happily, the experience of so many countries around the world offers the peoples of the
Soviet Union lessons about the thrust of such policies:; an emphasis on primacy of market
mechanisms, open exchange, an individual incentives for achieving economic growth. The
concept also entails a limited but effective role for the state in regulating and
facilitating economic activity. And good policies seem almost universally to decentralize
political power and decision making as much as possible in order to give local communities
a stake in the resources and decisions that affect their lives.
The challenge confronting all societies is,
of course, how to chart the course from here to there, from antidemocratic decay to
democracy and good governance. One of the strictest lessons of the political transitions
of the last two decades is that steps to open up participation in political affairs are
connected directly and indirectly with steps to open up the economy. Different societies
have found different answers to which should be the first priority and how much of a lag
between the two can comfortably be accommodated. What, then, is the relationship between
economic reform and political reform?
First liberalization and democratization are
perfectly compatible with the painful restructuring associated with economic reform, but
they certainly are no guarantee of the success of such reforms. Indeed, one can argue that
democracy is necessary to carry out the profound economic reform associated with the
transition from state socialism because it is the only way to generate some consensus
about new policies and the only way to expose the exhausted political legitimacy of the
obstructionist old guard.
The coalition essential to the second model
may have four components. The first is a "policy pact", an agreement among all
major parties on the broad direction and principles of economic restructuring no matter
what the difficulties; this generally requires some sharing of power. The second element
is a "political pact", in which political parties agree to renounce demagogy and
narrowly based pol
0JThe coalition essential to the second model
may have four components. The first is a "policy pact", an agreement among all
major parties on the broad direction and principles of economic restructuring no matter
what the difficulties; this generally requires some sharing of power. The second element
is a "political pact", in which political parties agree to renounce demagogy and
narrowly based pol
0J have massive dislocating consequences, and
its victims will need a broad safety-net of relief measures and emergency assistance if
their support of national compromise is to be obtained.
Many societies, however, have their way to
consensus and political compact despite huge obstacles, and one can draw encouragement
from the intensity of democratic ferment in the Soviet Union today. The fundamental
question for Soviet citizens today is whether they want to achieve the benefits of
economic reform with democratization or risk the consequences of economic reform by a
strong hand. This risks have proven great, even catastrophic, in countries like the Soviet
Union with a historical penchant for authoritarian rule. If Soviet citizens and leaders
chose the authoritarian option, it will be a heavy blow for human dignity and development
in the Soviet Union, and for the democratic prospect worldwide. Moreover, it will diminish
significantly the prospect that the peoples of this vast disintegrating state might
actually achieve, through the new political structures they create, the good governance
that is—for the first time in seven decades—within their reach.
Reproduced from our own paper dated
December 6, 1995; Vol 12 N 42. Chief editor. |
