Alfred de Vigny’s The Military Condition, first published in France in 1835, is a rare philosophical examination of the military experience. It’s aphoristic, lucid, mordant, and reflective – a tribute to the perennial nature of the professional soldier.
Vigny (1797-1863) came from a noble family. His father was crippled by war, but nevertheless instilled in Vigny a reverence for martialism, while his mother inculcated romantic royalism. At school, Vigny followed the fortunes of the Grand Army eagerly – “Our minds were awhirl with the thunder of cannon-fire and the clamour of bells pealing out the Te Deum… Shouts of ‘Long Live the Emperor!’ put an end to Tacitus and Plato.”
Vigny joined the Royal Bodyguard in 1814 upon the Bourbon restoration. Louis XVIII fled upon Napoleon’s escape from Elba, returning only after Waterloo. Vigny, baulked of opportunities for heroism, left the army in 1827 to devote himself to literature, and in 1849 became Directeur of the Académie Française.
The book is made up of three semi-fictional tales, with overarching themes – the nature of war, the nature of soldiers, and the need for a new morality with the decline of Christianity.
The tedium of soldiers’ lives can be transfigured by “abnegation”. Vigny explains, “This life of constraint and boredom can produce, as if by a miracle, an artificially formed but noble character whose lineaments are great and good like those of an ancient medal”. There is bondage in soldiering, but also unique potential for greatness. Heroism is impervious to fortunes of war, if anything showing more strongly in defeat – and it is not invalidated even when enlisted in a bad cause. The soldier is stoically enduring, and capable of honourable conduct in the worst circumstances.
We meet a former naval captain, who is travelling with a woman in a cart. The woman is the widow of a man the ex-captain had befriended, but then executed 18 years before, because that was his Republican duty. Ever since, the captain has looked after the woman, who was driven insane with the shock.
Another story is set during July 1830’s tense “Three Days”, when there were risings against Charles X, who would be replaced by his cousin. Guards Captain Renaud recalls years as a prisoner of the English, refusing to escape because he had promised not to. We gain insight into Napoleon’s greatness, which is “outward, active, brilliant, proud, egotistical and capricious” (and doomed). Renaud remembers returning to the ranks, being traumatised by killing a 14-years-old enemy, and an unexpected last meeting with Napoleon, suddenly shockingly outdated.
Vigny imagined ultimately there would be world peace, a rare self-delusion. Soldiers occupy a unique cultural place, and always will. The nature of conflict is changing, but there will always be a need for gallant self-sacrifice.
This article first appeared in Chronicles, and is reproduced with permission