Après moi, le déluge explained

"French: Après moi, le déluge" (pronounced as /fr/;) is a French expression attributed to King Louis XV of France, or in the form "French: Après nous, le déluge" (pronounced as /fr/;) to Madame de Pompadour, his favourite.[1] [2] It is generally regarded as a nihilistic expression of indifference to whatever happens after one is gone.[3] [2] Its meaning was translated in 1898 by E. Cobham Brewer in the forms "When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care", and "Ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone".[4]

One account says that Louis XV's downcast expression while he was posing for the artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour inspired Madame de Pompadour to say: French: "Il ne faut point s'affliger; vous tomberiez malade. Après nous, le déluge."[1] Another account states that the Madame used the expression to laugh off ministerial objections to her extravagances.[4] The phrase is also often seen as foretelling the French Revolution and the corresponding ruin brought to France.[5]

The phrase is believed to date from after the 1757 Battle of Rossbach, which was disastrous for the French,[1] and may have been a reference to the biblical flood. A recent interpretation from biographer Michel Antoine argues that in taking the remark out of original context—which included anticipation of a 1757 arrival of Halley's Comet—earlier interpretations ignore the King's proficiency in astronomy and knowledge of the impending comet, and that it was commonly blamed for causing the Genesis flood (in French, déluge). Thus the expression, Antoine argues, was not a reference to fear of revolution, but to the predicted comet's passing and possible impact.[6]

Interpretations

A further, more recent interpretation by biographer Michel Antoine argues that the remark is usually taken out of its original context. He argues that in the year it was made, 1757, France experienced the assassination attempt on the King, and the crushing defeat of the French army by the Prussians at the Battle of Rossbach, while anticipating the arrival of Halley's Comet. Hence, he argues that the "déluge" the King referred to was not a revolution, but the predicted comet's passing the earth in 1757—the comet having been commonly blamed for causing the Genesis flood, with accompanying prediction of a new deluge on its return. The argument notes that the King was a proficient amateur astronomer, who collaborated with the best French astronomers; Antoine writes that the King's remark "was a manner of evoking, with his scientific culture and a good dose of black humor, this sinister year beginning with the assassination attempt by Damiens and ending with the Prussian victory". He notes that Halley's Comet finally passed the earth in April 1759, accompanied by enormous public attention and anxiety, but no floods.

Literary and other uses

Literature prior to 19th century

A phrase of similar meaning to the title phrase is attributed to the Arabic poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani who died in 968 AD; the phrase translates as, "If I die of thirst, may it never rain again". The phrase in the original text is "إذا مِتُّ ظمآنًا فلا نزلَ القطرُ".[7]

Literature in and after the 19th century

Karl Marx used the phrase in Das Kapital (1867) stating, "French: Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation."[8]

Fyodor Dostoevsky applies the phrase in his writings to describe the selfishness and apathy of certain corrupting values. He used it in The Idiot, (serialised beginning in 1868) as an epigraph for an article written by one of the characters of the novel. During the trial of Dimitri Fyodorovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (serialised beginning in 1879), the prosecution uses the expression to describe the attitude of the defendant's reprobate father and to lament the deterioration of Russian values more generally.

Literature in the 20th century

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck was fond of using the phrase, as in:

The liberal has flourished at all periods. The nobody is always eager to imagine himself a somebody. The man who is a misfit in his own society is always a liberal out of amour propre The disinterestedness of the conservative cherishes the sacredness of a cause that shall not die with him; the liberal says: Après moi, le déluge. Conservatism is rooted in the strength of man; liberalism battens on his weakness. The liberal's conjuring trick consists in turning others' weakness to his own account, living at other men's expense, and concealing his art with patter about ideals. This is the accusation against him. He has always been a source of gravest danger.[9]

D. H. Lawrence used the phrase in "Whitman" (1923), calling it "the soul's last shout and shriek, on the confines of death".[10] In other of his writings of the 1920s, Lawrence uses the expression a number of times, calling it "the tacit utterance of every man", in his "crisis" of unbearable "loneliness ... surrounded by nullity".[11] But "you mustn't expect it to wait for your convenience," he warns the dissolute "younger generation";[12] "the real deluge lies just ahead of us".[13]

Kurt Vonnegut uses "French: Après moi le déluge" in his novel Player Piano (1952), when the main character Paul talks to Doctor Pond.

In popular culture

Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor included "French: Après moi, le déluge" in the chorus of her song "Après Moi" from her album Begin to Hope, a song later covered by Peter Gabriel.

See also

Sources

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Mould 2011 p. 43.
  2. OUP-Lexico 2020.
  3. Nishitani 1990 p. 132.
  4. Brewer 1898 p. 342.
  5. Farlex Inc. Staff 2015.
  6. Antoine 1989 pp. 740f.
  7. Web site: صحيفة عمون : إذا مِتُّ ظمآنًا فلا نزلَ القطرُ . 2023-08-02 . وكالة عمون الاخبارية.
  8. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm#S5 Das Kapital, Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter Ten, Section 5.
  9. [Moeller van den Bruck, Arthur]
  10. Studies in Classic American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 155.
  11. "The Crown", IV (1925) in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 280.
  12. "Latter-Day sinners" from Pansies (1928) in Poems, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 461.
  13. "The Memoires of Duc de Lauzun", Version 1 (1926) in Introductions and Reviews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 91.

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