tempted, out of honesty, to doubt whether
there was anything specifically French in a
pronounced French reaction to Dickens.
Apart from Paris, the only places in Fran
ce that were of importance to Dickens
were, on the one hand, the few cities he
visited on his way to Italy in 1846, and
notably Avignon of which he left a pictu
resque account in his Pictures from Italy
and on the other hand the Northern area of
Boulogne-sur-Mer and its surroundings.
Dickens spent two complete summers,
with his whole family and many British
guests, in two of the houses owned by the
delightful M. Beaucourt-Mutuel; his sons
were sent to a school much patronized by
the British intelligentsia of the time. And a
village located six or seven miles south of
Boulogne, Condette, possesses a 'Chalet
Dickens', a Dickens house in miniature,
where it is now certain that Ellen Ternan
resided for several years before 1865, with
her mother, and was frequently visited by
Charles Dickens in that place, also owned
by M. Beaucourt, now in reduced circum
stances. The attraction of 'Nelly', as Dic
kens called Ellen Ternan, was very power
ful, no doubt; and Dickens went to see her
in a variety of places in and around Lon
don, as often as he could, for many years.
Yet, it may not be mad chauvinism on a
Frenchman's part to suggest that the fact
of Nelly's retreat being on French soil
acted as an added incentive to Dickens for
constantly hopping across the Channel as
he did, to the point of behaving almost
like a commuter between Gad's Flill and
Condette.
The question of Dickens's French friends
is a more difficult one. Ele had unquestio
nably a large circle of acquaintances,
including wellknown people, such as Vic
tor Hugo, Lamartine, Émile de Girardin
and a number of others. Yet Dickens does
not appear to have formed real friendships
in France as he did in the United States
with Cornelius Felton, for instance, or
with the Fields ménage later. Or, again, as
he did in Lausanne (but mostly with En
glish expatriates). He was obviously on
terms of mutual esteem with M. Beaucourt
in Boulogne, but the man was after all his
landlord and thus the relationship was not
purely disinterested or worthy of the noble
name of friendship. One might speak of
friendship of a kind in the case of the
Comédie Franqaise actor Philoclès
Régnier; but, having studied their corres
pondence in detail, I found that there were
more protestations than profound affection,
at least on Dickens's side. Dickens came
closer to really affectionate relationships
with French, or at least French-speaking
acquaintances encountered outside France:
the de la Rues, of course, in Genoa; anot
her actor, Charles Fechter, and Alfred
count d'Orsay, both of whom, at different
times and for different reasons, seem to
have dazzled Dickens. Let us not forget
that Dickens's son Alfred was christened
Alfred Tennyson d'Orsay Dickens, and
thus started in life with the encumbrance
of that terrifying battery of names. That
may be part of the reason why Alfred did
not make a success of his existence. D'Or
say, however, may well be regarded as
Dickens's most genuine French friend.
The history of French translations of Dic
kens's novels is very complex and in part
obscure. It begins at an early date, in
1838, when a garbled version of Pickwick
Papers, prepared by one Eugénie Niboyet
and ingeniously but illegitimately entitled
Le Club des Pickwistes, saw the light of
print. Between Niboyet and, say, myself,
whose latest contribution came out in
1991, over a century and a half elapsed;
hundreds of individuals were involved, and
thousands of editions appeared. It is of
course out of the question to trace that
long history in its entirety; that should be
the task of one chapter of the International
Guide to Dickens Studies initiated by Ada
Nisbet in 1969.
For the time being, however, I wish to
restrict myself to a few choice examples.
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