19th-century France
19世纪的法国
Children of the revolution
大革命的孩子们
Jul 31st 2008
From The Economist print edition
ROBERT GILDEA, Oxford University’s fearsomely erudite professor of modern history, has chosen a large canvas-and a wonderful title. What a pity that he fills it with so much detail that the picture loses shape. His thesis is that through a succession of revolutions, in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871, France, a country divided by language, class, ethnicity, ideology and religion, finally achieved a sense of common purpose and identity in time to confront Germany in the “Great War” of 1914 and become a great power once more. Five “key generations”, Mr Gildea writes, were responsible for this tortured evolution.
学识渊博的牛津大学当代史教授罗伯特•吉尔达这次选择了一张宽大的”画布”，还有一个绝佳的选题。然而十分不幸，由于充斥了过多的细节，他的这幅画作走形了。他的主题是关于法国大革命的。他认为，由于语言、社会阶层、种族、意识形态和宗教的不同，法国因此成为一个四分五裂的国家。然而在经历了1789年、1830年、1848年和1871年一系列革命运动之后，法国国内最终明确了共同的目的，实现了身份的认同。从而在1914年的”伟大战争”中同仇敌忾，抗击德军，再次步入大国行列。吉尔达在书中写道，在这一饱受煎熬的演变过程中，总共有五代人起了关键的作用；他将这每一代人都称为”关键的一代”。
Maybe so, but having emphasised the change of generations the good professor then ignores it. Instead, for page after page, names, dates and places come so thick and fast that they conspire to confuse. Pity the reader with no knowledge of France or its history: Mr Gildea makes early reference to the Legitimists and Orleanists but defines these rival royalists only in chapter nine-and never gets round to defining the anti-revolutionary and pro-monarchy insurgents known as the chouans.
些许如此，但是作者在强调了这五代人的变迁之后就将这一点忽略了。取而代之的，是连篇累牍的姓名、日期和地名。这些信息接踵而至、十分密集，令读者难解其意。吉尔达对不了解法国或法国历史的读者心怀同情，于是辅一开篇，他就对正统王权拥护者和波旁王朝奥尔良旁系的支持者这两个历史名词做出了注释。但对反对保皇党的人仅在第九章给出了定义，而且始终没有对反对革命和被称为”朱安党人”（chouans）的支持君主制的革命者下过定义。（注：法国历史上西部各省的农民游击队，1793年奋起反对巴黎的共和政府，反对强行征兵和压服教士。党名源于布列塔尼语，意为”叫枭”，据说这是他们首领J.科特罗的绰号。）
Yet it would be unfair to write off this book altogether. For one thing Mr Gildea is a historian always worth reading-witness the perceptive analysis of France under Nazi occupation in his 2002 book, “Marianne in Chains”. Indeed, his new book’s diagnosis of the ills of 19th-century France is a compelling令人信服的，有说服力的 reminder that the social strains in today’s France have deep roots.
然而就此认为这本书毫无价值亦有失公允。一方面，吉尔达作为一名历史学家，其作品始终具有可读的价值–2002年他撰写了一本关于纳粹占领之下的法国的专著《铁索之下的法兰西》（Marianne in Chains），书中的分析见解独到，这便是一例。（注：Marianne系1789年法国革命之后，人们赋予法国的一个拟人化的名字）的确，在他的新作中他对19世纪法国社会的种种弊病做出了令人信服的诊断，让人意识到今日法国所存在的各种社会紧张局面是有着深刻的历史根源的。
But the bigger reason to persevere is Mr Gildea’s talent, not least特别，尤其 in using the literature and theatre of the day, for social commentary. On the role of women, for example, he has two fine chapters (the first he calls “Le Malheur d’être femme”, a clever allusion to Germaine de Staël’s novel, “Delphine”, and to the French translation of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “The Wrongs of Woman”). Anecdotes from fact and fiction illustrate not just the plight of women from the peasantry and working class, but also the difficulties of women of the aristocracy who were married off to philandering husbands just like their lower-class sisters, for the sake of inheritance and family advantage. There are similarly acute-often entertaining-observations on class and religion, and an interesting examination of anti-Semitism, including the Dreyfus affair, that could well have had a chapter to itself.
但是让人继续对其抱有希望的更重要的原因在于吉尔达的才华，尤其是他运用现在的文学和戏剧来进行社会评论。譬如，他用了两章的篇幅对女性角色的问题做了细致到位的分析：第一章题为”作为女人的不幸”，此处他非常聪明的暗指了斯塔尔夫人的小说《黛尔芬》以及玛丽•伍斯托克拉夫所著的《妇女之苦》法文译本。依据事实和杜撰的种种轶事不仅说明了工人、农民阶层的妇女的苦难境地而且也揭示了贵族妇女的种种困难处境。为了遗产和家族的利益，她们同处于社会底层的姐妹们一样，被迫委身于淫乱胡为的的丈夫。对于社会阶层和宗教，作者亦具有类似的敏锐的观察力，且其内容常常引人入胜；作者对反犹太主义，包括德雷福斯事件也做了有趣的研究。这一研究完全可以独立成章。（注：Alfred Dreyfus 德雷福斯，1859－1935，犹太血统的法国陆军军官，曾被法国军事当局诬告出卖国防机密给德国而被判处终身苦役；1899年，在舆论压力下，被政府宣告无罪）
In the end, does Mr Gildea prove his thesis? He argues persuasively that by 1914 “the grande patrie of the French nation had come to coexist harmoniously with the petites patries to which French men and women were so attached” and that French had become “the lingua franca in public places” in place of France’s numerous regional dialects and languages. The economy had also “embraced agricultural and industrial modernisation without doing irreparable damage to its social structure”.
吉尔达在书的最后有没有证明他的论题呢？他的论证带有劝说性。他认为到1914年，”法国人十分专注的‘小家园’已同法国这个‘大家庭’和谐共处了”。法语已经取代了诸多地区方言成为”人们在公共场合交际的共同语”。经济上”接受了农业和工业的现代化，且没有对社会结构造成不可修复的损坏”。
One intriguing thing is Mr Gildea’s choice of Charles Péguy (a poet who was republican and socialist, but also Catholic “and attached to the values of old France”) to conclude his argument. Péguy died in 1914, proudly but stupidly, standing up before the machineguns of the advancing Germans in a war that “left a million and a half bodies on the battlefields of France and Belgium to defend the French Republic and French nation”. The nation had indeed been defined-but at a terrible cost.
一个有趣的事情便是吉尔达选择了用夏尔•贝玑来结束他的论点（夏尔•贝玑，诗人，共和主义者、社会主义者，同时也是天主教徒。他”十分看重法国民谣的价值”）。夏尔•贝玑死于1914年。他死的很光荣，可是也很愚蠢。在一场战争中，面对向前推进的德军，他站起来，直面他们的机枪。那场战争”旨在保卫法兰西共和国和法国的国土；它造成了150万人丧身于法国和比利时的战场”。的确，国家被保住了，但是代价惨重。
Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914
By Robert Gildea
Allen Lane; 540 pages; £30. To be published in America by Harvard University Press in September
译者：zhs2046 http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=13077&extra=page%3D1