Nemoville Read online

  Nemoville

  and Other French Scientific Romances

  translated, annotated and introduced by

  Brian Stableford

  A Black Coat Press Book

  Table of Contents

  Introduction 4

  Emerich de Vattel: Voyages in the Microcosm, by a modern disciple of Pythagoras 19

  Alfred Bonnardot: Archeopolis 30

  René du Mesnil de Maricourt: All the Way! The Commune in 2073 51

  Alphonse Brown: The Tell-Tale Insects 87

  Claude Manceau: A Professional Scruple 129

  Georges Bethuys: Cataclysm 140

  C. Paulon: A Message from the Planet Mars 164

  C. Paulon: The Blue Laboratory 181

  Emma-Adèle Lacerte: Nemoville 202

  Pierre Mille: Three Hundred Years Hence 277

  José Moselli: The Eternal Voyage; or, The Prospectors of Space 294

  José Moselli: The Planetary Messenger 319

  Introduction

  This is the fifth anthology of stories relevant to the early development of French speculative fiction that I have assembled for Black Coat Press, following News from the Moon (2007), The Germans on Venus (2009) The Supreme Progress (2011) and The World Above the World (2011).1 It continues the work of filling out a representative cross-section of the works done in that genre in the 19th and early 20th century.

  The first story included, “Voyages dans le microcosme, par un Disciple Moderne de Pythagore,” here translated as “Voyages in the Microcosm, by a Modern Disciple of Pythagoras,” appeared in the collection Poliergie, ou mélange de littérature et poésie [Polyergy: Medley of Literature and Poetry] (1757). It is a very marginal precursor of the French genre of roman scientifique (scientific fiction or scientific romance), and really belongs to an earlier genre, being one of numerous satirical contes philosophiques inspired by Voltaire. It extrapolates the use of changes of scale pioneered in the latter’s Micromégas (1752) in an interesting fashion. There is a weak sense in which it is the ancestral text of modern microcosmic romances, but it still cleaves to the mystical neo-Platonic notion of the microcosm/macrocosm dichotomy, in which the former term (human being) is supposedly reflected in the entire universe (the “Great Man”), and it is actually more interesting as a pioneering venture in the exploration of the “inner space” of the human psyche than as a mere exercise in viewpoint shrinkage. Its Swiss author, Emerich de Vattel (1714-1767), produced several other exercises in a similarly lively and eccentric vein, including an early exploration of the hypothetical world-view of ants and a tongue-in-cheek prospectus for an “elixir de livres” [elixir of books].

  Alfred Bonnardot’s “Archeopolis” was reprinted in his collection Fantaisies multicolores [Multicolored Fantasies] (1859), but most of the stories in that collection were first published in a periodical called the Abeille impériale between 1855 and 1857, and the dating of “Archeopolis” strongly suggests that it was written in 1857. That predates the boom in the popularization of science that took place in France in the 1860s, and which gave rise to a corollary boom in fiction, occasioning the first popularization of the term roman scientifique (primarily in connection with the early work of Jules Verne). “Archeopolis” might not have been sufficiently widely read to serve as a significant inspiration to very many writers in the nascent genre, but it certainly laid down an important template in its early pages, which describe Paris in ruins being picked over by future antiquarians. Indeed, that image became something of a key fascination for French writers, recurring in Alfred Franklin’s Les Ruines de Paris en 4875 (1875), a translation of which I hope to include in the next anthology in this series; Edmond Haraucourt’s Traversée de Paris (1904), which I intend to include in an imminent collection of translations of Haraucourt’s generic work; and Henri Allorge’s Le Grand Cataclysme (1922)2, to name but a few.

  As might be inferred from the story, Alfred Bonnardot (1808-1884) was a notable antiquarian himself, at least in the realm of books; he wrote the first significant text-book on the repair and restoration of old books, which remained standard for many years—one of two books of his to be translated into English in the 19th century, the other offering an extended tongue-in-cheek character sketch of a Parisian bibliophile. His fiction is almost all humorous, with a certain satirical bite, and “Archeopolis” is no exception, save for its remarkable imaginative range. Although Paris has not yet fallen into ruins, the latter part of the story contains some remarkable prophetic hints in its brief but telling analysis of the reasons for its fall, as a result of the social decadence of the early 21st century.

  “Archeopolis” and the third story in the collection, La Commune en l’an 2073: au bout du fossé!, here translated as “All the Way:3 The Commune in 2073,” published under the signature R. de Maricourt in 1874, both illustrate the difficulty that early authors of futuristic fiction had, in that the only available literary license that they had readily available for exploring possible futures was to embed the relevant image in a visionary dream. That stratagem carries the obvious penalty of giving the conclusion of the story an inevitably bathetic effect, but even if the let-down itself could be excused, it is very often the case that the dreamer wakes up just at the point when the story is reaching its most interesting phase, building a crescendo of complication that the formula relieves the author from the responsibility of thinking through.

  Bonnardot had, in fact, done what he had set out to do once he had explained the ruination of Paris and reached his climactic joke about the potential misunderstandings of archaeology, but Maricourt’s story gives every indication of having been envisaged as a more extensive work, with which the author lost patience and from whose further development he simply chickened out. Had he not done so, the story might be now far better known, as one of the earliest to feature a humanoid automaton—what was later to become known as a robot. Like Bonnardot, Maricourt provides some very striking futuristic imagery, especially in the context of his description of a grotesquely overpopulated Paris in which the streets have been reduced to mere gutters because the houses are so densely packed, and all travel is necessarily by air. Although he scrupulous acknowledge the fact that he had borrowed one of his key images from a skit in the English Cornhill Magazine, his elaborate development of what was simply a passing mention in the Cornhill piece, of the extremes to which a society devoted to the principle of equality might have to go, is both amusing and scathing.

  “R. de Maricourt” was one of the versions of his name used as a signature by Comte René du Mesnil de Maricourt (1829-1893), who was already well-known in 1874 as an unusually versatile writer, having made his debut as a novelist with Lucie, épisode de l’histoire (1860). Marcien, ou le Magicien d’Antioche (1866) similarly treats an episode of ancient history not far removed from the raw material of the Golden Legend from a sternly realist viewpoint, but the novel that immediately preceded his skeptical reaction to the Paris Commune of 1871 was Une femme à bord (1873), a contemporary romance set in Brittany and dedicated to Flaubert. In later life, Maricourt acquired a certain reputation as a scholar of the occult, although even contemporary reviewers observed that Souvenirs d’un magnétiseur (1884) was a work of fiction lightly disguised as a memoir. Like Bonnardot—with whom he was almost certainly acquainted—Maricourt was actually more interested in archeology, and published serious non-fiction in that field.

  In 1889, when Louis Figuier took over the editorship of the popular science magazine La Science Illustrée, he soon began running feuilletons as a regular feature under the rubric of roman scientifique, beginning with a short story by Jules Verne and continuing with reprinted works by such authors as Louis Boussenard, Albert Robida and “Charles Epheyre” (Charles Richet), as well as original works by authors who had previously published in the field, such as Alphonse Brown and Albert Bleunard. The first piece of fiction he published—Joseph Montet’s “Le Triomphe de la science,” one of several stories of the period poking fun at early attempts by the food industry to develop cheap substitutes for standard natural products—did not appear under that heading, being labeled as a fantaisie humoristique [humorous fantasy], but all the rest did.

  At the end of 1889, Figuier published the first original work in his series—the first of three serials by the popular Vernian writer Alphonse Brown. “Les insectes révélateurs,” here translated as “The Tell-tale Insects,” was the shortest of the three serials, and something of a departure from the normal pattern of Brown’s work, attempting to combine a blatant exercise in the popularization of science (entomology in this instance) with a story-arc borrowed from Edgar Allan Poe—a powerful influence on French imaginative fiction in the latter half of the 19th century. The resultant hybrid is not entirely successful, but it is an interesting literary experiment. The longest of Brown’s serials for La Science Illustrée is available in a Black Coat Press translation as City of Glass (2011)4, and that volume contains an extensive introduction to the author and his work, which there is no point in repeating here. I hope to translate the remaining item for the next anthology in this series.

  Not long after Figuier began running feuilletons as a regular feature of La Science Illustrée, the other leading magazine of the same sort, La Science Française, followed suit. The editor of La Science Française, Émile Gautier, published one story of his own in La Science Illustrée, “Le Désiré” [the name of a hypothetical submarine], but he does not appear to have anything of that sort for his own magazine. The most striking thing about the fiction published in the latter periodical,
however, is how very different it was from that published by Figuier. With the exception of Gautier’s story, Figuier seems to have scrupulously avoided fiction dealing with future wars, although it was a popular theme of futuristic fiction at the time, but Gautier seemed to have a strong prejudice in favor of that kind of material, publishing, among other items, an exceedingly long serial by “Captain Danrit,” the jingoistic doyen of French future war fiction.5

  The other two long serials Gautier used were both reprints signed Pierre Ferréol, a signature also used, sometimes in abbreviated form, on popular science articles. In 1896, however, Gautier seems to have felt that a change of policy was in order—perhaps because reader reaction to the Danrit serial, which had stretched over two years, had been negative—and switched to short fiction, beginning with “Scrupule professionnel,” bearing the signature Claude Manceau, here translated as “A Professional Scruple,” a melodramatic conte cruel revisiting a macabre theme that had seen several previous literary treatments, most notably Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s “Le Secret de l’Échafaud” (1883)6. Something odd then happened, when that story was followed by a serial entitled “Conte bleu” [a designation applied to all kinds of fanciful tales, from fairy tales to anecdotal tall tales], bearing the signature G. Bethuys. The end of the third episode of the story—a sarcastic but earnest account of two military men visiting an industrialist who claims to have solved “the social problem,” although his son, who has ambitions to be an alchemist, denies the claim vehemently—carries the usual “suite” [to be continued], but no continuation actually appeared, the next issue of the magazine beginning a new story bearing the same signature, “Cataclysme,” here translated as “Cataclysm,” without explanation.

  It is possible, given its content, that it was “Cataclysme”—a conte bleu if ever there was one—had actually been intended to appear under the former title but that the wrong manuscript had somehow ended up with the printer. Whatever the reason for the confusion, however, “Cataclysme,” was the last piece of fiction published in La Science Française, which stuck rigorously to non-fiction thereafter; Figuier, who also began to give preference to shorter stories, eventually followed suit, although not until the early years of the 20th century. A search for further information about Claude Manceau via Google Books grants snippet access to an interview in the aeronautical periodical Technique, which reveals that Claude Manceau, G. Bethuys and Pierre Ferréol were all among the numerous pseudonyms employed by the interviewee. In combination with information provided by the catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale, which lists G. Bethuys as a pseudonym of Technique’s editor, George-Frédéric Espitallier, this permits the conclusion that Espitallier was the author of both the Science Française stories, as well as the earlier reprinted serials. Espitallier, who had risen to the military rank of Lieutenant Colonel while in service, was a prolific writer on military technology from 1892 onwards, under his own and other names (one of his books being credited to both Bethuys and Manceau). Whether he ever completed the ill-fated serial begun as “Conte bleu”—which was shaping up to be the most interesting of the three Bethuys stories in Science Française—I do not know, although he did publish a book under the Bethuys name entitled L’Homme en nickel in 1897, which might be a novel.

  Soon after Gautier stopped publishing pseudonymous short stories, a batch of them appeared in La Science Illustrée, under the signature “C. Paulon.” Two of the three, “Un message de la planète Mars” (1897) and “Le Laboratoire bleu” (1898) are translated here as “A Message from the Planet Mars” and “The Blue Laboratory.” The third and longest of the stories bearing the Paulon signature, Les Mines d’or de Bas-Meudon was subsequently reprinted in book form in 1903 under the signature Paul Combes, which was presumably “C. Paulon’s” real name. Paul Combes (1856-1909) was a relatively well-known writer at that time, having published both poetry and fiction, but it is possible that C. Paulon was the pseudonym of his similarly named son, who published several books on geology in the early years of the 20th century. The elder Combes was not uninterested in science, however—the younger one could not possibly have been the author of Le Secret du gouffre, aventures d’un chasseur d’insectes (1888)—so the three Science Illustrée stories could have been an experimental venture on his part. Paul Combes fils’ memoir of his father, Paul Combes, sa vie, son oeuvre (1910), presumably clarifies any possible bibliographical confusion, but I have not had the opportunity to consult it.

  The two pairs of stories by Espitallier and Combes reproduced here are of no great literary merit, but they are interesting as a batch, in providing an illustration of the various ways in which writers of the period were attempting to solve the problem of constructing a roman scientifique. Although the handicap suffered by Bonnardot and Maricourt, of being virtually compelled to write off fantastic material as the substance of dreams, no longer afflicts them—although all that separates the Bethuys item from the dream formula is its blithe refusal to let his protagonist wake up—it remains manifest that they have not yet found any substitute for the other device that Bonnardot, Maricourt and Alphonse Brown had all felt obliged to use: that of embedding material within expository lectures, either delivered directly to the reader or pontificated by a character in the story.

  In this respect, the Paulon couplet illustrates two horns of a dilemma on which many would-be users of fiction in the popularization of science found themselves painfully stuck; the first item is a relatively anodyne conversation-piece, which merely voices its central idea as a hypothetical possibility, while the second is a frank melodrama, which, in using scientific speculation as a source of melodramatic threat, makes the vocation of science seem literally insane. “The Blue Laboratory” was not the first roman scientifique to obtain its plot by means of the transfiguration of a classic conte bleu (Charles Perrault’s “Barbe-Bleue” [Bluebeard]), and was certainly not the last, but it provides an excellent illustration of the perils of a method that tacitly represents science as a species of magic, whose plot value is entirely in the custody of maleficent sorcerers.

  There is an interesting contrast between the entire tradition of French stories about the possibility of interplanetary communication leading up to “Un message de la planète Mars” and the English tradition that was founded almost immediately after the publication of that story when H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds began serialization in an English periodical. The French tradition had been primarily inspired by Camille Flammarion, who hosted the salon in which Charles Cros introduced his proposal for interplanetary communication by optical means (described in some detail in the introduction to the four stories by Cros translated in The Supreme Progress (q.v.), and illustrated by one of the stories), which was subsequently repopularized in the 1890s, as fictionalized in several items translated in The Mysterious Fluid by Paul Vibert.7 Paulon’s story illustrates the innocent enthusiasm with which the theme was routinely treated in France, blithely unaware of the fact that the innocence was about to suffer a rude and fatal shock—for innocence can never be regained, even if commitment survives, as the French imaginative commitment to the possibility of fruitful and harmonious communication did.

  The publication of Wells’ scientific romances in France had a marked impact on the way many French writers thought about the possibilities of the roman scientifique, not simply because of their popularity but because of the manner of their publication. In England the first appearances of the works in question were scattered over a number of different publications, mostly belonging to a new generation of “middlebrow” publications aimed at a wide audience. Although there was some degree of variety in the appearance of Wells’ French translations—Figuier published a couple of short stories in La Science Illustrée—the core of that body of work appeared in a single venue, in a remarkable continuous series. The periodical that exposed Wells’ generic work to the French public was the conspicuously upmarket periodical the Mercure de France, the unofficial organ of the Symbolist Movement. Between late 1898, when Henri Davray’s translation of The Time Machine began serialization there, and early 1901, when his translation of The Island of Doctor Moreau concluded, there was hardly an issue of the magazine that did not carry a Wells translation, short stories filling in the gaps between the serials (the translation of The War of the Worlds appeared in 1899-1900). The magazine never gave such sustained prominence to a single author again, and the only other writers to whom it had previously given similarly prolific exposure—Remy de Gourmont and Gaston Danville—were both on its staff.