DICKENS IN FRANCE
Sylvère Monod
Charles Dickens was very fond of France.
That has long been a wellknown fact. It
has been abundantly and brilliantly confir
med by the latest biography of the nove
list, Peter Ackroyd's monumental twelve-
hundred page masterpiece. Dickens was
literally dazzled by Paris when he saw our
capital for the first time on his way to
Italy. He said that its brilliancy made his
eyes ache. He returned to France again
and again.
Among the most significant episodes of
Dickens's lifelong and affectionate relati
onship with France his two protracted
stays in Paris occupy an important place
and perhaps even come foremost, but the
later visit in the course of which he gave
readings at the British Embassy also
produced a vivid impression on his mind.
He sometimes asserted that his Paris
audience of 1863 was the best he had ever
had; that Parisians reacted more promptly
to the slightest nuances of his narrative,
description or dialogue than any other
group known to him. He had particularly
enjoyed the fact that members of the
audience in Paris were still applauding and
cheering him while driving away from the
embassy in their coaches. Admittedly, he
did not say how many in his audience on
that memorable evening were genuine
Parisians or Frenchmen; there must have
been a plentiful sprinkling of members of
the large English colony who then lived in
France. It takes a pretty considerable
knowledge of the English language to
appreciate public readings of literature,
and Dickens's language is not particularly
accessible nor have the French as a nation
ever been particularly gifted for foreign
languages. We tend to be, like the foreign
guest at Mr Podsnap's dinner-party, 'alwiz
wrong'. On the other hand, an English
audience in Paris might be especially de
lighted by that visit from their most distin
guished and talented countryman to the
outpost of progress they were trying to
establish. In any case, Dickens's public
readings were a huge success everywhere,
and that is the only occasion when one is
Alwiz wrong
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