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''Servitude et grandeur militaires'' is a book in three parts by Alfred de Vigny, published in 1835. Difficult to categorize, it is not a novel but a succession of short stories sometimes loosely based on episodes within Vigny’s own experience. It is also a threefold meditation on the nature of military life: with diminishing enthusiasm Vigny had been an Army officer from 1814 to 1827. The title of ''Servitude et grandeur militaires'' is difficult, if not impossible, to translate. One reasonable, but still inadequate, attempt at a translation would be “Glory and Submission: Aspects of Military Life”. The book has been published with at least five English titles, the most recent being the 2013 release: ''The Warrior's life''. The work records some of Vigny’s personal memories. More importantly, it is a record of his philosophy of military life and of life generally. It contains autobiographical elements, perhaps the most memorable of these being his account of the withdrawal of Louis XVIII of France to Ghent in March 1815, when, as a very young second lieutenant in the Household Cavalry (Garde Royale), he rode with the retreating royal party as far as Béthune. The even more memorable scene of Napoleon I’s encounter with Pope Pius VII at Fontainebleau was not one of Vigny’s personal memories. ==Component stories== The three parts of ''Servitude et grandeur militaires'' are the stories “Laurette ou le cachet rouge” (“Laurette, or the Red Seal”), “La Veillée de Vincennes” (“Late-Night Conversation at Vincennes”) and “La Canne de jonc” (“The Malacca Cane”). These are accompanied by essays “On the General Characteristics of Armies”, “On Responsibility” and on other related subjects. “Laurette ou le cachet rouge” The frame-narrator, writing from the standpoint of 1815, recounts events that occurred in 1797. This story told in the first person has as its frame Louis XVIII of France’s retreat to Ghent; it encloses the ''récit'' (flashback) of the battalion commander, who in earlier life had been a naval captain. Laurette, a child-bride, accompanies her husband when, in the custody of the naval captain, the young man is sentenced to be deported to French Guiana by order of the French Directory. A letter sealed with a large red seal, not to be opened until part way through the voyage, sentences the young man to death. The young man is shot on the cathead of the ship. His widow loses her reason and is cared for by the battalion commander, who resigns from the naval service to become a soldier and who takes her with him on his campaigns in a small cart pulled by a mule. Laurette dies three days after the commander is killed at the Battle of Waterloo. “La Veillée de Vincennes” The frame-narrator, writing from the standpoint of 1819, recounts the Adjutant Mathurin’s story of his youthful (anachronistic) friendship with the future playwright Michel-Jean Sedaine and of his young future wife Pierrette’s introduction in 1778 to the court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, when Princess Marie Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe, paints her portrait. Following this is the frame-narrator’s own story of the explosion, on 17 August 1815, at the powder-magazine at the fort of Vincennes. The Adjutant’s death in this explosion is related in the frame narrative. The story conveys a charming if rose-tinted impression of French eighteenth-century court life. “La Canne de jonc” The frame-narrator, writing from the standpoint of 1832, describes how in July 1830 he had met up again with a brother officer, Captain Renaud. In defence of the government of Charles X of France the captain is preparing, somewhat reluctantly, to take up arms for the last time. Reminiscing with the frame-narrator, he recalls “three defining moments”〔“La Canne de jonc”, chapter 2.〕 in his life. The first is Napoleon I’s encounter with Pope Pius VII in 1804, which he happened to overhear as the Emperor’s page.〔This encounter has elements of Bonaparte’s later meeting with the Pope, at Fontainebleau in 1813.〕 The second comes when he is taken prisoner in 1809 by Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood. The third defining moment comes five years later, in the attack on a Russian guardhouse, when he kills a fourteen-year-old Russian soldier. By way of epilogue a subordinate frame-narrator takes over, describing how, during the three “glorious days” of the July Revolution of 1830, and sixteen years after the killing of the boy soldier, Renaud is shot by a boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to the young Russian. The principal frame-narrator finally takes up the story again, visiting Renaud on his deathbed and finding the street urchin grieving beside him. “La Canne de jonc” is a complex interweaving of authorial commentary, frame narratives and ''récits''. Narratively speaking, it is the most ambitious of the three stories. Its triadic structure mirrors that of ''Servitude et grandeur militaires'' as a whole. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Servitude et grandeur militaires」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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