Jersey As It Is: The Preface - Part 2

This Friday I begin a blog in which I have transcribed a translation of an essay called "Jersey as It Is", published in 1844, as the result of a winning entry by F. Robious de La Trehonnais which won first prize in the competition of the Jersey Emulation Society.

This preamble gives the background by Auguste Luchet. Auguste Luchet (22 April 1806 – 9 March 1872) was a 19th-century French playwright, journalist, novelist and writer.

He became a journalist at Le Temps, then joined the Journal de Paris and took an active part to the July Revolution of 1830, which earned him a five-year exile in Belgium, then in Jersey. And in 1844, he commended this essay to Jersey people during this exile.

Auguste Luchet

Jersey As It Is: The Preface - Part 2
by Auguste Luchet

IT is, generally speaking, a bold attempt on the part of a stranger to come before a people who have no knowledge of him, recommending a work written for them by another who is to them a stranger also ; and, therefore, the few following pages might well prove to be without effect and valueless, if the production to which they refer had not already commended itself in this place, as much by the extracts which have been published from it, as by the flattering distinction with which a Society, young though it be, yet rich in science and benevolence, has invested it.

The book of M. de la Trehonnais had not, in truth, need of patronage from any one, the people of Jersey have adopted it beforehand as a work written in love to their island and belonging to them. The medal of the Society of Emulation has, so to speak, conferred the right of citizenship on its author ; but if it had been otherwise,-had it been necessary to seek the patronage of someone, it were easy for him to have found it far more powerful and exalted. 

But, a Frenchman by birth and by name, the author is reminded that here he had a countryman, a brother of the soil and of the sun, and taking him by the hand he is desirous that their names should appear before the public fraternally interwoven. This is a sentiment honourable to both.

Here, then, is a good book : aye, and better than that, a good action also. This work will prove to the people of Jersey, far more than numberless speeches, how much men of heart and mind hold themselves above the mean, the petty jealousies existing between people and people, between nation and nation ; hatreds, pretendedly national, which dishonour the sacred name they thus dare to prostitute to them. 

The people of Jersey will see by this production of a stranger, as well as by what they know of the stranger who has the honour to write these lines, that if the filthy scum of two great countries, veiled like crime in the darkness of night, is washed, wave after wave, on their hospitable shore ; this filth, repudiated, disowned by the nations self purged of it, has not prevented emigrations more pure from arriving, voluntarily or by compulsion, as to a flourishing asylum which the constitution of this island holds open for all misfortune. 

They will perceive that a nation should not, any more than provisions, be judged of by a few rotten samples ; and that the common sewers of London and Paris are not the waters of the Thames or the Seine. 

We apprehend it would have been a task of difficulty for a native of this happy island to have found, more truly than M. de la Trehonnais, colours taken from the skies wherewith to paint its wonders ; or in sentiments more sweet; poetry more charming ; reflections more noble, respectful, or chaste, to set forth its interests, its inhabitants, and its institutions. 

The Jersian himself had proved a less effective painter, because he would have been less faithful: filial love is ever disposed to flatter a little, even where it is not entirely blind. The Jersian might have uttered a panegyric without undue warmth I am well aware, but necessarily inevitably partial. Here, we have a prolonged and friendly burst of enthusiasm,-of admiration,-of acknowledgment to God, uttered by a soul entirely unprejudiced, filled with affection and sincerity, in contemplation of a spot which, to him, appears as an exception on the face of the globe; fixed, like a magnificent lesson of Providence, between two great nations, each in her turn the mistress of the world,-under the eye, within the grasp of both, as though to teach them that the happiness of man consists neither in submission nor dominion ; a paradise, planted by angels in the midst of the waves ; a society unique, which knows neither the aristocrat nor the pauper,-those devouring ulcers of all communities; a family of fifty thousand freemen, to whom the words master and slave are alike unknown, which has no troubles but its little dissentions, mostly fugitive and transitory, as indeed there must be in all families to diversify and animate their existence,-divisions which would all be extinguished, we have no doubt, were the hour of danger ever to strike for the common welfare. 

It is the sanctified joy of a benevolent and philanthropic state of mind, saddened with the studies of ancient and modern history, written as they are in lines of blood, at the sight of this little nook of earth which owes nothing to any one,-where the labourers are gardeners, the merchants loungers,-where the money is of paper, -where power is a temporary and gratuitous office,-at twenty leagues from England which owes thirty thousand millions, and five leagues from France which devours two thousand millions, of francs every year ! 

But this admiration, this rapture, this pleasure possesses, however, nothing which can stifle in the author the stern and serious voice of reason. Young, we have called him, but enlightened, devoted from his infancy to the severest studies ; the poet in him closes not the eyes of the philosopher, and instruction, advice, and criticism occupy in his book the places which most become them. It is necessary, generally, to suspect those who represent everything as good, as much as those who find fault with all as evil. 

The one as the other sees through a false medium ; for, in the history of mankind, as well as in the works of Nature, absolute good, as absolute evil, is scarcely possible. 

Everywhere the ocean has its unfathomable abysses, the heaven its storms, men their passions. In the rose-perfumed chalice the insect finds wherewith to renew the venom of its sting : beneath the embroidered velvet of the meadow the reptile whets his tooth to kill,-the toad hides his hideous form.

But with M. de la Trehonnais, blame, reproof, reprimand are mild, affectionate, and fraternal as is the praise, A good conscience, a love of justice and of truth have dictated all alike. I am, then, proud and thankful that he has selected me to affix my unhappy and proscribed name to the frontispiece of this work. 

It is for having dared to tell the truth respecting the circumstances and men of my own country that, driven by the force of those circumstances, and by the hatred and revenge of those men, I am come, like the just man cast into the sea in a tempest by the dissolute crew, whom his presence overburdened, to embrace the tutelary threshold of Jersey. 

I have readily, therefore, and ardently embraced this opportunity of rendering in my turn homage to that saviour-soil to which so many political shipwrecked mariners have fled to escape the death of their body, or their liberty. I feel my heart surcharged with gratitude in responding to the generous appeal of a young man, who, with exquisite delicacy of feeling, comes to me and says,-" Brother, accept the consolation which I bring you. Poor forgotten exile, amongst the millions of France there are still those who love thee, and think upon thee ! "

And, again, there is another reason which has contributed to render the commission which I this day accomplish flattering to me, and, with myself, I am sure the people of Jersey will find therein a just motive for self-congratulation. 

This book is the first work of M. de la Trehonnais. For the natural and moral beauties of this island was it reserved to furnish the author with his maiden inspirations,-for that youthful association which has so honourably rewarded him was it reserved to stimulate-to encourage him-to give them to the day. Jersey will have had the honour of this debut; and it is something, I say it proudly, is the literary maidenhood of such a man as M. de la Trehonnais. 

This book, a first nosegay of leaves and flowers, gathered from a sapling so green, so healthy, promises at a future day gustful sumptuous fruit. We are not perhaps sufficiently aware of all that is to be respected-of all that is solemn in the production which thus falls first, fearful, trembling, unspotted, dazzled, of the rich mind of a thoughtful man, so gifted by Nature and by education. This is not, -let everyone be convinced of it,-one of those painful abortive elaborations, dead even in their birth, which for a moment illumines the name of some new man, but on which the night of oblivion afterwards drops its everlasting wings. 

It is a hidden casket, into which no profane glance has ever yet penetrated, which is all at once thrown open, rent by the abundance of its own riches, and throwing abroad in all directions rays of light sparkling with pearls and precious stones. The time afterwards arrives to employ in that which remains, his discreet distribution, his harmonious and judicious operation : the author becomes great,-he rises, he reigns ; then is his cradle sought for, and those who have received his first homage call it to remembrance with emotions of pride. As for me, I shall always remember with delight, that I have assisted at this baptism of a poet of my country. 

AUGUSTE LUCHET. Jersey, 1st July, 1843.