The Glory of the Empire
Page 47
7. Several authors categorically deny that Alexis was initiated into the cult of the sun, and regard the various texts used in support of that theory as apocryphal. Their strongest argument is that sun worship had died out by Alexis’s time. A good deal has been written, much of it polemical, on whether it might have survived in various religious centers. Jacques Benoist-Méchin, who has already published many remarkable biographies in the series “The Longest Dream in History,” is working at present on a volume to be called Alexis ou le rêve couronné [Alexis or the Dream Crowned], in which he hopes to resolve the problem once and for all.
Chapter XI
1. Letters from Philocrates to Helen, XI, 3.
2. Among those who see Philocrates as an agent of Basil and Gandolphus are Taine, in his Études d’histoire et de littérature; Renan, La Réforme intellectuelle et morale; Maurice Barrès, Le Roman de l’énergie nationale.
3. See Letters from Philocrates to Helen, XI, 7, 8, and 13, and XII, 2.
4. Lampidus, The Story of Alexis, trans. G. Lewes, 1847.
5. Barbey d’Aurevilly: Alcibiade, Alexis, Lauzun, Brummell, ou du Dandysme dans l’histoire.
6. Writers as different as Bustos Domecq, Gervasio Montenegro, Macedonio Fernandez, and Don Isidro Parodi maintain that one of Jorge Luis Borges’s most famous short stories, “The Lottery of Babylon,” is based on the lotteries organized by Alexis in Alexandria.
7. The first is classical Arabic, the second vernacular. Some think our word macabre comes from the Arabic qabr (tomb).
Chapter XII
1. Roger Caillois, in Le Mythe et l’homme [Myth and Man] (Gallimard, 1938), speaks of the period of “occultation” or eclipse that the hero always goes through prior to his time of trial and eventual triumph (p. 199). As examples he gives Dionysus at Nysa, Apollo when he was shepherd to Admetus, Oedipus before he met the Sphinx, Achilles among the women of Skyros, Vautrin in prison, and, in real life, Alexis’s retirement to the East. Other examples readily occur to one, from Julian the Apostate, Buddha, and Jesus to Joan of Arc and General de Gaulle.
2. The Petra manuscripts were acquired in 1962 by the Robert Garrett Oriental Collection, Princeton University Library.
3. See above, ch. III, p. 28, and ch. IX, p. 94.
4. La Divina Commedia, Inferno, Canto XXXIII.
5. There is a vast but often superficial body of work on this fundamental element of Tao philosophy. The reader should consult the works of J. J. L. Duyvendak and Paul Demiéville; L’Esprit du Tao, by Jean Grenier; and Liu Kia-huai’s translation of the Tao Tê Ching itself, with a preface by Etiemble. There are various allusions to Alexis in Karl Sigmund von Seckendorff’s novel, Das Rad des Schicksals oder die Geschichte Dschuang Dsïs. As an introduction to Buddhism, see Alexandra David-Neel, The Buddhism of Buddha; F. Huang, Buddhism from India to China; A. K. Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism.
6. See Marc Bloch, Les Rois thaumaturges, passim, and especially the chapter on “Alexis and the Development of the Supernatural Character Attributed to Royalty,” pp. 51–76, 170–176, and 418–419.
7. Some texts say she was a Circassian.
8. It has been suggested, but only on the basis of doubtful evidence, that her name was Tamar.
9. Sir Allan Carter-Bennett sees in “deep and unsealed” a reference to the temple tombs.
10. Trans. R. Graves.
Chapter XIII
1. A recent analysis of the water of the Nephta showed a high iron content. See Bulletin de la Société d’histoire et de géographie de l’Empire, III (1969), pp. 227–244.
2. See above, ch. X, p. 106.
3. There is a poem on the collapse of the Empire and the blinding of Isidore that is often attributed to Alexis, but the text, which exists only in a French version, has been revealed through an anachronism as the work of the Franco-American poet and diplomat Saint-Léger Léger, author of Éloges and Vents.
4. The extreme cold referred to by Justus Dion and other extant sources has cast doubt on whether Alexis and Philocrates really met in Samarkand or Bukhara, where the climate is quite mild, or farther to the south, where it is more rigorous. The Hindu Kush, Pamir, Karakoram, or even, farther east, the Altai mountains have all been suggested, but the problem is so far unresolved. See Trudy Instituta, istorii, arkheologii i etnografii Akademii Nauk Kazakh., Tadzhik., Azerb., Turkim. i Uzkm. S. S. R., XXIII (1969), pp. 27–61.
5. For the complete text see N. R. F., Paris, 1953.
6. Regnar Soszla-Sczimonovski’s Foreigners as Rulers studies not only the case of Alexis, but also those of Alexander the Great, Stilicho, Theodoric, Mazarin, Napoleon, and the Greek and English royal families.
Chapter XIV
1. The phrase, which is often attributed to Mao Tse-tung, really belongs to Philocrates, from whom Mao Tse-tung probably borrowed it. See the article, “Tung Fang Hung” [The East Is Red], People’s Daily (Feb. 26, 1966), and the curious allusion to “Alexis the pioneer” in a pamphlet in honor of Chairman Mao published in Tiranë in 1968.
2. See B. and B. Twin, Doubles in History (Amphitryon Press, 1966), pp. 66–99.
3. See above, ch. V, p. 41.
4. See Renan’s Vie d’Alexis, Calmann-Lévy, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. IV, p. 356.
5. The iconography of Helen and Alexis is inexhaustible. The best lists are in The Painters of Alexis (Skira, 1962) and Corpus des Peintures historiques (C.N.R.S., 1957–1968).
6. The fresco is now in a very bad state of deterioration. It is to be hoped that the plans for restoring it, announced at various times by UNESCO and Italy’s Soprintendenza alle Gallerie ed alle Opere d’Arte, may soon be set in motion to avert what would be an irreparable loss to the history of Western art and to history itself.
7. Baldassare Peruzzi built the Farnesina on the banks of the Tiber between 1508 and 1511, for the banker Agostino Chigi, “the Magnificent,” who ruled over trade with the East. It contains works by Raphael and his pupils, and is now the seat of the Accademia dei Lincei in the Via della Lungara.
8. Remembrance of Things Past, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (Chatto and Windus), vol. IX, The Captive, pt. I, pp. 249–250.
9. Justus Dion, Chronicles, XX, 76.
10. Victor Hugo, “Naissance de Gavroche,” in Choses vues.
11. A. W. Grock and Max Van Emden, “Jester, Trickster, Hamster,” American Anthropologist, vol. 58 (1956), p. 503.
12. See above, ch. XI, 114–115.
13. Émile Bréhier, Mélanges d’histoire et de philosophie (P.U.F., 1959), p. 87.
Chapter XV
1. See above, ch. VII, p. 69.
2. See René Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, and Marcel Brion, La Vie des Huns.
3. Quoted above, ch. XIV, p. 176.
4. Justus Dion, Chronicles, XXXI, 32.
5. See Actes des Troisièmes Journées du College de philosophie, de sociologie et d’histoire, “Puissance et charisme dans l’Empire d’Alexis.”
Chapter XVI
1. The present town of Székesfehérvár, Hungary, probably owes its name to a distant memory of the gathering of the barbarians in Asia.
2. American and English scholars have found references to ships belonging to Bruince’s father in various documents and in stone and clay inscriptions.
3. The State and Revolution [Gosudarstvo i revolyutsiya] (1917), p. 31.
4. L’Art de la guerre par principes et par règles (1748).
5. Essai de tactique générale (1779).
6. Vom Kriege (posthumous).
7. Die Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte (1919–1925).
8. The Mind of the Army [Mozg armii] (1929).
9. Thoughts on War (1944); Strategy (1955).
10. The scene is the subject of a painting by Géricault in Aragon’s novel La Semaine Sainte.
11. Both Diderot, in his Lettre sur les aveugles, and Voltaire, in the entry “Aveugle�
�� in the Dictionnaire philosophique, question whether Isidore was really blind, suggesting he had recovered his sight but said nothing about it so as to be able to use it to good purpose when the opportunity arose.
12. Justus Dion, Chronicles, XLIII, 27.
13. See above, ch. VII, p. 70.
Chapter XVII
1. Private collection.
2. See Maurice Rheims, La Vie étrange des objets, for the history of Alexis’s letter to Balamir. On its adventures in the seventeenth century, see Paul Morand’s book on Fouquet and Marcel Pagnol’s on the Iron Mask.
3. See above, ch. V, pp. 44–46.
4. Renan, La Réforme intellectuelle et morale, p. 139.
5. See above, ch. XII, pp. 138–139. See below for the end of the story.
Chapter XVIII
1. See above, ch. IV, pp. 37–38, and ch. VII, p. 66.
2. Traditions vary on this subject. Some include 6 and 13 as “perfect numbers.”
3. The number of divisors has always been important in mathematical philosophy. Plato, in the Laws (737e–738b), fixes the ideal population of the city at the strange figure of 5,040 households, because 5,040 is divisible by all numbers from 1 to 10 and by 49 others.
4. Readers may pursue this question in the monumental Mathématiques de l’Empire, by Jean-Claude Abreu and Macedonio Fernandez. There are also some interesting passages on Alexis in Léon Brunschvicg’s Étapes de la philosophie mathématique.
5. Some authors arrive at a total of 122 or 123, including Corsica and Palestine, which for fiscal and other reasons (see ch. XXI, p. 310) were subject to special arrangements.
6. There is a detailed reconstruction of one of these ships in the Maritime Museum at Greenwich.
7. See above, ch. XIV, pp. 162–163.
8. Le Figaro (July 11, 1970).
9. Chamfort, Maximes et pensées, no. 525 (Livre de poche), p. 149.
10. See the remarkable historical and archeological note by Prof. Robert Weill-Pichon in the Blue Guide on the Empire.
11. Henri Focillon, L’Art de l’Empire, p. 85.
12. But recently it was reported in the Times Literary Supplement and in Le Monde that colored frescoes had been discovered that were thought to date from the Empire. An international team is soon to report on its investigations.
13. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), Aphorisms, 127.
14. Conference on “History and Truth,” held by the International Institute of Philosophy, Heidelberg, 1959.
15. On the influence of the two philosophers up to Aquinas, Bacon, and Descartes, see Jean-François Revel’s Histoire de la philosophie occidentale.
16. Trans. J. Heinz.
17. Justus Dion, Chronicles, XXXIV, 21.
Chapter XIX
1. Justus Dion, Chronicles, LXI, 56.
2. See above, ch. I, p. 5.
3. Essais, III, 13.
4. See above, ch. XV, p. 193.
5. See above, ch. XVIII, pp. 246–247.
6. See above, ch. VII, pp. 67–68.
7. “Vom Wesen des Grundes und vom Kaiser Alexis,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, vol. XXXII (1953), p. 57.
8. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, addendum to §451.
Chapter XX
1. See above, ch. XIX, p. 275.
2. The fashion in painting and the decorative arts for elephants bearing obelisks or towers dates from this time. It was revived in Renaissance Rome and the Baroque period.
3. Zafir Nameh, IV, 11–15.
4. Histoire de la littérature de l’Empire (N.R.F., 1945), pp. 78, 134, 249.
5. At the end of his life Thomas Mann said Death in Venice had been influenced by Alexis’s feelings toward Pomposa.
6. President de Brosses: “With great difficulty I read something of Dante on Alexis and Hadrian. . . . I must admit Dante pleases me rarely and tires me often.” Flaubert: “One dares not say how dreary one finds that interminable description of the meeting between the emperor and the patriarch. This is a work of its time and not of all the ages.”
7. See above, ch. XVII, pp. 229–230.
8. Amédée Thierry suggests it was August 14.
9. The event provides the setting for Julien Gracq’s novel, Le Rivage des Syrtes.
10. See below, ch. XXII, p. 319.
11. Some Chinese sources call Ho K’iu-ping “the flying general,” apparently in an effort to appropriate some of the prestige that the description enjoyed through a large part of Asia.
12. See Ch’oe Ch’aewon and Yi Chungu, Choson myong ‘innok [Biographies of Eminent Personages in the History of Korea], and Futo-no-Yasumaro, Kojiki [Book of Ancient Things]. For Japanese representations of the invasion attempt, see Shizuya Fujikake, “On the Scroll Painting of the Mongol Invasion,” Kokka (1921), nos. 371–379.
13. Now Fethiya, in Lycia.
14. See C. W. Ceram, Des dieux, des tombeaux, des savants, especially pp. 149–157 and 176–192. This work, almost in the form of a novel, should be regarded with caution. It has many inaccuracies, and the author’s fancy sometimes runs away with him.
15. The modern Elath, on the Gulf of Aqaba.
16. SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny began a joint German-Japanese search for Balamir’s treasure, a project in which both Hitler and Martin Bormann took great interest. It was abandoned when Colonel Skorzeny and his parachutists were sent to Italy to try to set Mussolini free.
17. The title of mikado, which originally meant the royal palace, not the emperor himself, is much more recent.
18. The fresco in the Campo Santo in Pisa (perhaps by Francesco Traini, but the attribution is debated), which depicted Balamir’s funeral, was the chief victim of the air raid on July 27, 1944. Only the sinopia, or sketch, discovered under the debris, remains to give some idea of the original huge composition.
Chapter XXI
1. Abul Ghazi Bahadur Khan, Chronicle. See also the Voyages of Jean du Plan Carpin.
2. See above, ch. XVIII, p. 242.
3. Ch. XVIII, pp. 250–252.
4. See René Le Senne for a detailed analysis of Alexis’s character. It is probable that he was closer to cyclothymia, perhaps to schizothymia or schizophrenia, than to the paranoia usually met with among emperors and other leaders.
5. Justus Dion’s references to Logophilus and his views on the Emperor are confirmed by a scandalous but amusing tale called Nights of the Empire or The Banquet of Logophilus, probably the work of an Alexandrian or Syrian priest, which has been called one of the first novels in the history of literature.
6. See The Will to Power.
Chapter XXII
1. Justus Dion, Chronicles, XXXVII, 22; LV, 4; LXXI, 13.
2. It has been said he was the agent of Alexis’s enemies—the priests, the barbarians, or the Pomposan merchants.
3. See the famous sonnet by Philippe Berthelot.
4. Recent studies, founding their argument on the observations of Justus Dion and other chroniclers, have suggested she may have died of cancer.
5. Stendhal’s Promenades dans Rome describes pictures and statues of young women suffering horrible tortures or with seven swords piercing their hearts.
6. The question of whether Napoleon really existed has been examined by Whately in Historical Doubts on Napoleon Bonaparte, mentioned by J. L. Borges. In France itself, Charles Philippon in about 1840 reduced Napoleon to a solar myth.
7. Scattered references to the archpatriarch, and different views about his teachings, can be found by the learned reader in Bossuet, Voltaire, Pascal, and Marx.
8. Voltaire, Alexis’s Prayer in Traité sur la Tolérance.
9. On the various aspects of the Empire after Alexis, aside from general works by Arnold Toynbee, Ferdinand Lot, Henri Pirenne, and André Malraux, see the more specialized works of P. Faure, Vie économique et sociale à la fin de l’Empire, and H. Baer, Histoire
de la littérature de l’Empire après Alexis. The author of the present work proposes, in so far as time and strength allow, to devote the years from now until about 1986 or 1987 to bringing out a history of the Empire in twenty-seven volumes, to be published by the Presses Universitaires de France.
10. See above, ch. XIX, p. 268.
11. René Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, p. 366.
12. Marco Polo, in Grousset, op. cit., pp. 379–380.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Justus Dion, Chronicles, LXXXII, 6.
17. See above, ch. XVIII, pp. 256–257.
18. Altaic refers to the origins both of the peoples of the Empire and of the barbarians. Balamir was descended from tribes of Mongol origin who had long lived as nomads east of the Altai, whence had also come, many centuries earlier, the ancestors of the Porphyries and the Venostae (see ch. I, p. 7).
19. This name, adopted later by Pirenne, Burckhardt, and Toynbee, was given currency by Ranke and Mommsen, who probably borrowed it from the Benedictines of Saint-Maur and the learned Bollandists.
20. Justus Dion, Chronicles, CXXII, 27. The same words are attributed to Alexis in Firdausi’s Shah Nameh (Book of Kings) and Hamd Allah al Mustawfi’s Zafir Nameh.
Chapter XXIII
1. Justus Dion’s actual expression is “from the golden age after the oak born of the eagle.” See ch. I, p. 6.
2. Justus Dion, Chronicles, CXXXIII, 4; Zafir Nameh, III, 106.
3. “The Case of Alexis,” Seminar on Diachrony, p. 1239.
4. See Dr. Annette Chardon-Cohen, La Signification sexuelle d’un épisode historique: Alexis et la coitus interruptus. See also “névrose d’abandon” and “complexe d’Alexis” in Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse, by J. Laplanche and J.-B. Lefèvre-Pontalis (P.U.F.).