André Gide, Eugène Rouart, and le retour à la terre
241
on agricultural matters.
14 This proved to be the start of an adventure
which would run and run, and would inspire an important part of
Gide’s novel L’Immoraliste.
15
After a fact-finding visit in August 1896 Rouart proposed to
Gide that he should come back to La Roque with one Marie-ÉmileErnest Claudel, an alumnus of l’École nationale d’Agriculture de
Grignon, a graduate of 1887, who by 1896 had become a member of
the teaching staff: “répétiteur-préparateur d’agriculture et
d’économie”. Eventually a date was agreed for the visit of this
“grignonnais très calé”.
16 Now, whereas Michel in L’Immoraliste is
confronted by Charles, a young man of 17, just finished a placement
on a model farm, for whom he forms an attachment of a nature he is
reluctant to acknowledge, it should be pointed out that Claudel had
graduated nine years previously and was aged around forty at the time.
So what L’Immoraliste owes to Claudel therefore is a strictly technical
perspective on the management of an agricultural enterprise. Rouart
himself, fresh out of Grignon in 1897, worked his placement on a
model farm in the summer of 1897 – and from there he was to accompany Claudel on an inspection visit to La Roque in July 1897.
17 As for
the attraction that in the novel, the young Charles exerts on Michel, to
the extent of actually clouding the latter’s better judgement in respect
of his impetuous ideas on farm management, doubtless it was Rouart’s
ill-considered enthusiasm, as well as his contagious personal charm,
which contributed to these other aspects of the novel’s plot. On reading Gide’s novel in June 1902, Rouart, still full of advice on how best
to run La Roque, would nonetheless protest: “je ne fais en rien mon
petit Charles” (GR, II, p. 116).
Following the publication of L’Immoraliste, Gide was to recall in a letter of 27 November 1902 what Rouart and Claudel between
them had contributed to the situation of one farm in particular, the rent
___________________________
14 Letter to Paul Valéry, 19 May 1896, in André Gide - Paul Valéry, Correspondance,
ed. by Robert Mallet (Paris: Gallimard, 1955), p. 266.
15 See Jacques Copeau, Journal 1901-1948 (Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1991); repr. by
Éditions Claire Paulhan, 2000, vol. 1, 1901-1915, p. 199, 31 mai 1905: “Les sources
de L’Immoraliste: La Roque – exploitation d’une ferme sur le conseil de Rouart”.
16 Letter to Valéry, 14 September 1896, in André Gide - Paul Valéry,
Correspondance, p. 276.
17 André Gide, Journal 1887-1925, ed. by Éric Marty (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque
de la Pléiade, 1996), p. 263.
241
on agricultural matters.
14 This proved to be the start of an adventure
which would run and run, and would inspire an important part of
Gide’s novel L’Immoraliste.
15
After a fact-finding visit in August 1896 Rouart proposed to
Gide that he should come back to La Roque with one Marie-ÉmileErnest Claudel, an alumnus of l’École nationale d’Agriculture de
Grignon, a graduate of 1887, who by 1896 had become a member of
the teaching staff: “répétiteur-préparateur d’agriculture et
d’économie”. Eventually a date was agreed for the visit of this
“grignonnais très calé”.
16 Now, whereas Michel in L’Immoraliste is
confronted by Charles, a young man of 17, just finished a placement
on a model farm, for whom he forms an attachment of a nature he is
reluctant to acknowledge, it should be pointed out that Claudel had
graduated nine years previously and was aged around forty at the time.
So what L’Immoraliste owes to Claudel therefore is a strictly technical
perspective on the management of an agricultural enterprise. Rouart
himself, fresh out of Grignon in 1897, worked his placement on a
model farm in the summer of 1897 – and from there he was to accompany Claudel on an inspection visit to La Roque in July 1897.
17 As for
the attraction that in the novel, the young Charles exerts on Michel, to
the extent of actually clouding the latter’s better judgement in respect
of his impetuous ideas on farm management, doubtless it was Rouart’s
ill-considered enthusiasm, as well as his contagious personal charm,
which contributed to these other aspects of the novel’s plot. On reading Gide’s novel in June 1902, Rouart, still full of advice on how best
to run La Roque, would nonetheless protest: “je ne fais en rien mon
petit Charles” (GR, II, p. 116).
Following the publication of L’Immoraliste, Gide was to recall in a letter of 27 November 1902 what Rouart and Claudel between
them had contributed to the situation of one farm in particular, the rent
___________________________
14 Letter to Paul Valéry, 19 May 1896, in André Gide - Paul Valéry, Correspondance,
ed. by Robert Mallet (Paris: Gallimard, 1955), p. 266.
15 See Jacques Copeau, Journal 1901-1948 (Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1991); repr. by
Éditions Claire Paulhan, 2000, vol. 1, 1901-1915, p. 199, 31 mai 1905: “Les sources
de L’Immoraliste: La Roque – exploitation d’une ferme sur le conseil de Rouart”.
16 Letter to Valéry, 14 September 1896, in André Gide - Paul Valéry,
Correspondance, p. 276.
17 André Gide, Journal 1887-1925, ed. by Éric Marty (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque
de la Pléiade, 1996), p. 263.