Erasmus & Gueudeville: Master & Translator.

In Praise of Folly

Gueudeville was one of those refugees of the late 17th century  who wrote and translated books to earn a living. His detractors soon portrayed him as ready to do anything to buy himself a loaf of bread – or rather, a pint of wine.

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ERASMUS & GUEUDEVILLE,

Master & Translator.

In Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus, is a masterpiece of the Renaissance. When I read it for the first time, I felt like infected by a virus, turning page after page, restlessly  giggling; Folly had had the better of me. Erasmus was a moralist who feared not to the explore the darkness of Man. “This book," says his French translator Gueudeville in the Preface of the 1745 edition (Amsterdam), "is a declaration of war on Man.” Call me a masochist if you please, I decided to find more about Erasmus. 

I had heard about Erasmus' Colloquies, but reading not Latin—poor me!—, I was to look for a French edition. I got a hold on the 1720 edition (Leide) and found out it had been translated from Latin by the same Nicolas Gueudeville. Starting to read it, I tried to convince myself for a while that I had the fun of my life. Erasmus depicts different characters of his time through short dialogues—full of wit and irony? Some are indeed. But I soon had to admit that this book was not matching my expectations. I was puzzled by the lack of fierceness of the author and grew quite suspicious towards the numerous engravings that illustrate the text. “Without any historical consideration," as I later read in the forewords of Develay’s translation, "the artist took the liberty to dress Erasmus’ characters with 18th century’s clothes.” So far from Holbein’s drawings joined to In Praise of Folly! In fact, it resembles a pale imitation, and that was no better omen to me. I started to wonder: what was the input of Gueudeville in this work? Had he respected the original, or tried to spread his own message using the name of a respected author, as he once did with Le Baron de Lahontan? In a word, was Gueudeville trying to fool me just because I can’t read Latin? Damn, this is something I was not ready to accept, even from a long time dead man.

Translation has become a sacred art. It was not so in the early days when publishers and translators would openly cut off the weak parts of any book, just to make it easier to read.  It was no big deal, they proudly mentioned it in their forewords—it was even used as a marketing tool. That’s probably why I was so quick at suspecting Mr. Gueudeville. I had so far respected him for being involved in many interesting projects, including his translations of In Praise of Folly and Utopia by Thomas More. I knew he had also written an exciting follow-up to the Voyages du Baron de Lahontan dans l’Amérique Septentrionale (1703). Mr. Lahontan was sent to Canada in the late 17th century where he clearly got fascinated by the local Savages. Some accused him of speaking his own mind when he had an Indian saying about the death of Christ: “God, in order to please God, made God die.” This inspired Gueudeville who decided to write an imaginary dialogue between the Baron and an Indian, entitled Dialogue de M. le Baron de Lahontan et d’un sauvage de l’Amérique (1728). It enabled him to freely criticize the Catholic doctrine but also to become a precursor of the myth of the good Savage—as opposed to the corrupt man living in society—that would later make Jean-Jacques Rousseau famous. It took some time before people realized it was a hoax. Leibtniz himself, as reported, thought Lahontan was the true author of this dialogue.

I started to read a few biographies of Gueudeville. Obviously, he was no recommendable man. He was born in Rouen, France, in 1652, and he started to study religion before entering the Congregation of Saint-Maur aged 17. Though a brilliant student, he had to run away from the wrath of his superiors after uttering some heretic theories—aaaah, here we are! He soon became a Latin teacher in Rotterdam, Holland, where he turned Calvinist. He eventually settled in Leyde where he started to earn a living by writing and translating books. Mr. Gueudeville was clearly not a wealthy man, the Dictionary of Mr. Feller even states that he “died out of misery.” To Mr. Feller, Gueudeville was just an up-to-no-good so-called writer, who had given lengthy and dull translations of In Praise of Folly and of Utopia (More).  His style, he writes, was emphatic, low, full of vulgar expressions, obscene—in a word, perfectly fitting the rabble. It is true that Mr. Gueudeville was not afraid to use derogatory words such as merdard, and that Mr. Fauche, in his 1777 edition (Neuchatel) of In Praise of Folly, confessed that the original translation of Gueudeville was a little bit rude, and that he had tried to correct it as much as possible. Nevertheless, Mr. Feller was an Abbot, deeply and stubbornly opposed to Voltaire and the philosophers of his time. I guess it was a compliment to be insulted by such a man. But even Chaudon & Delandine despised Gueudeville in their Historical Dictionary—in fact, Feller’s article is almost stolen word for word to Chaudon’s—and he was giving lessons of moral). As far as Gueudeville’s translation of Plaute’s Comedies is concerned, Chaudon writes: “The text is drowned under a flow of pestilence.” The man himself? “A villain, who, being tired of drinking wine, spent the last years of his life drinking strong liquor.” Jump from the frying pan and end up in the fire!

I’ve also learnt to be suspicious towards the established writers of the 18th century—including those who wrote dictionaries. They were experts in the art of flattering and usually chose their targets, sparing the powerful while harassing the weak. Gueudeville was guilty of being, first of all, a Protestant. Worst than that, a former Catholic who had betrayed his faith and his King—and not any King, but the great Louis XIV. He published, from 1699 onwards, the famous Esprit des Cours de l’Europe, a periodical Gazette. Chaudon laughs: “It was written by a man who had never seen the Cabinet of a Minister.” He knew enough to upset le Comte d’Avaux, anyway, who had the publication suppressed because France was often offended by it (Chaudon). The relationship between France, Holland and books is very interesting. Louis XIV twice tried to conquered Holland in the late 17th century, in vain. Religion was also at the heart of the matter, mostly because the revocation of the Edits de Nantes by Louis XIV forced thousands of learnt and sometimes wealthy men to migrate to Holland where they soon started to fight back—mostly through forbidden books, publicly disapproved and secretly sought-after. Holland became the center of an illegal trade. Everyday, dozens of pirate books were entering France—and as many forbidden writings. Some established French publishers put out books using the name and address of some imaginary Dutch printer. People became acquainted to those editions of poor quality, with less attractive bindings and suffering from many misprints. Whenever a Ducth printer honestly put out a book—which happened—, he had to let it be known. In the 1720 edition of the Colloquies (Leide), Pierre Vander Aa wrote: With Privilege and with a 3,000 florins fine to all counterfeiters, at the bottom of the title page.

Gueudeville was one of those refugees who wrote and translated books to earn a living. His detractors soon portrayed him as ready to do anything to buy himself a loaf of bread—or rather a pint of wine. About his huge Atlas Historique (7 in-folio volumes), Chaudon says it was written by hunger and thirst. His criticism of Fenelon’s Télémaque was also officialy considered a partial work of hate—it was in fact appreciated by many readers and some say Fénélon even corrected his book after some of Gueudeville’s remarks. No matter what our man was doing, as a Protestant, a traitor to his country and an enemy to his King, he was a villain who deserved nothing but disdain. But who could criticize Erasmus, or Thomas More, two geniuses of the Renaissance who remained faithful to their Catholic faith? It was safer to fight Gueudeville’s translations of their works – and turned them into crimes of lease-majesty. In 1875, Victor Delavay put out his own translation of Erasmus’ Colloquies. The forewords read: “This curious work has been relatively neglected over the years, partly because of the absence of a French translation, as we can not give this name to the mis-shaped essay given by Gueudeville (1780, 6 in-12 volumes) which Querard calls, in his France Littéraire, a misrepresentation rather than a translation.” Thanks to Delavay’s edition, I realized that this ugly drunkard of Gueudeville had, from the back of a filthy Dutch tavern, given to the world the most terrible translation of this masterpiece. No wonder I was disappointed at the Colloquies! I then thoroughly compared several dialogues of both editions... only to find out that Gueudeville’s translation was almost identical to Develay’s—or I should say the contrary? So, who was the ugly liar  after all? In fact, Erasmus’ book is not that entertaining for one reason, he had just written those discussions to exercise his Latin. He had no intention to print them. Had he reduced their number and, sometimes, their length, he could have equaled the quality of In Praise of Folly—some discussions on war, travels or religion are dreadfully caustic. But he did not and Chaudon says: “His Colloquies do not match Lucien’s nor Fontenelle’s; they are mostly read for their Latinity rather than for their contents.” Well, that’s something no one can accuse me of.           

           

I soon got reconciled with Gueudeville, and even drank a pint of wine to his forgotten—and unjustly despised—Dutch memory. The wrath of his enemies could have inspired one of Erasmus’ colloquies, or even a passage of In Praise of Folly. I even got reconciled with the Colloquies, finding some bitter-sweet dialogues that do sound like a declaration of war on Man, after all. And Mr. Feller, Chaudon, Dandeline and Delavay have demonstrated in their time that it is always useful to declare that type of war to Man.

© Thibault Ehrengardt