ショーリュー
理性の限界と自己欺瞞
Chaulieu learns how slight is the constructive power of reason at the death of his great friend, La Fare. Reason is helpless in the face of grief: "J ’appelle à mon secours. Raison, Philosophie, Je n’en reçois, hélas! aucun soulagement. A leurs belles leçons Insensé qui se fie! Elles ne peuvent rien contre le Sentiment. J’entends que la Raison me dit que vainement Je m’afflige d’un mal qui n’a point de remede, Mais je verse des pleurs dans le même moment, Et sens qu’a ma douleur toute ma vertu cede." Only a man who tries to transcend his quality of man can imagine that it is possible to live by reason alone. This is both foolish and unnatural. Reason alone is not enough to make life bearable. Equally vital to man are the emotions, imagination, and, above all, self-deception. ショーリュー曰く、葦である人間は悲劇のもとでは無力である。よってショーリューは自己欺瞞を求めるのである。
The theme of self-deception is one that recurs constantly in all Chaulieu’s writing. In his letters to Mile. Delaunay, he shows that he is acutely aware all the time that his relationship with her is the result of a conscious effort towards selfdeception. The same idea is repeated in a poem to her: "Au seul plaisir d’aimer j’abandonnai mon coeur: Je te parlois d’amour; tu te plus à m’entendre: Les jours étoient trop courts pour nos doux entertiens; Et je connois peu de vrais biens Dont on puisse jamais attendre Le plaisir que me fit la fausseté des miens." He does not love her; he knows she cannot love him, but the game must go on. Without it, there is nothing. It is this consciousness, this act of getting outside himself and seeing his life as it really is, that gives Chaulieu his particular physiognomy as a letter-writer and as a lyric poet. He conveys to his reader all the poignancy of his fear of nothingness and of his desperate attempt to escape from it. In his poetry, Chaulieu treats the same theme with as great seriousnes as in his letters, but with a more serene acceptance of the facts. The Epicurean philosophy is preoccupied not with truth, but with happiness. All means of achieving happiness are legitimate, provided they do no harm to anyone else. The right use of reason leads to lucidity, and lucidity shows the world as it is. But, Chaulieu cries out, "Pourquoi noircir ma pensée De ces tristes vérités? Laissons revenir en foule Mensonge, erreurs, passions: Sur ce peu de temps qui coule Paut-il des réflexions?" If happiness is to be achieved only by self-deception and wilful error, Chaulieu is willing to sacrifice all intellectual honesty, all clarity of thought, the ideas that seem the most important to him, to this end. He knows, for instance, that no answer can be given to the question of whether there is personal survival after death. His reason tells him that survivalI is at best unlikely, and that man is probably reabsorbed into the Great Unconscious when he dies. But if a man is made happier by believing that he will continue to live after his death in this world, why not encourage this belief? "J’aime mieux me prêter à l’humaine folblesse; 'Et, de l’opinion respectant le bandeau, Croire voir les Enfers, mais ne les voir q u ’en beau, (...) Ainsi, libre du joug des paniques terreurs, Parmi l’émail des prairies. Je promene les erreurs De mes douces rêveries (...)" Chaulieu realizes that his whole life may well be a tissue of evasions and, self-deception, and he himself describes it as such in his first Sur la Mort. Surely God cannot blame him for having tried to be happy, and He must forgive him for believing "que tant de cruautés Puniroient un peu trop la douceur d’un mensonge" Chaulieu does make the effort, once at least, to conquer his need for self-deception, and to live by reason. He sends away Imagination, his "reine aimable des mensonges", and tells her to leave him to follow Reason in his old age. But he quickly repents of his haste, realizing that he cannot live without his "mère des erreurs": "Non, Déesse; je m’égare: Reste toujours avec moi. Quoi que le Sort nous prépare. Nous le bravons avec toi. L’amertume du Calice Par toi se change en douceurs; Et les bords du précipice Par toi sont semés de fleurs." And he describes the many ways in which Imagination has enabled men to achieve things that without her aid they would never have been able to do.
By far the most outstanding of the Epicurean poets in Chaulieu, the man whom Voltaire called his master. He was the acknowledged leader of the Epicureans of the Temple. (...) His thought was more truly Epicurean in the strictly philosophical sense of the word than one would have expected in a light poet.