The Ranums' Panat Times
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Orest Ranum: Master, Mentor and Historian of the Subjects of the Kings of FranceKatherine Stern Brennan
Presented at the "Glorious Artisan" session at the 45th annual meeting
of the Orest, like a concerned guild master, taught us, his students, the craft of doing history from the moment we entered his seminar to the day we crossed the threshold of the academic world with our PhDs in hand. He has, of course, never ceased to be mentor, kibitzers, sounding board and supporter for each us. Many of Orest's students are not here today, but I know that they join Tom [Brennan] and myself in expressing our profound gratitude for the remarkable apprenticeship that we experienced while being "Ranum students." Yet finding words to describe how Orest does history, and how he guided us to become historians, has not been easy. Orest revealed a fundamental approach to his work as an historian in his 1994 inaugural lecture at the College de France. He discussed the Anglo-American model of absolutism and wrote: "Pour moi personnellement, j'ai toujours essaye de me tenir a l'ecart, de passer outre, Loire de roder juste en dehors de ce grand modele-afin de le casser, de le modifier ou de l'approfondir." 1 We all have benefitted from Orest's "prowling" around the outside of the theory or model of absolutism and we would all agree that he has broken, modified, and deepened the model during his study of the history of France. His rejection of such a convenient theory reflects his independence of mind and much else besides. He never, either directly or even subtly, conveyed to us his students the possibility that somehow absolutism impoverished a society. Orest instead recognized the fundamental humanness of each of us and, in my mind, has used this as his frame for writing history and for teaching the craft. He has applied this self-effacing criterion to past individuals, revealing their visions and insecurities, both collective and individual, to fashion a deep understanding of all subjects of the kings of France. He reiterated to his students this respect for the humans of the past while constantly pushing us to practice critical thinking. Of one thing I am sure, however, this imaginative and independent pattern of doing history could not have been accomplished without Pat whose intellectual companionship, and profound knowledge of the century, informs Orest's work and that of all of his students. Orest's intuitive and yet rigorously informed understanding of the seventeenth century fascinated me early on when as a young adult, I wandered the streets of Paris with him in order to have tea with the Comte de Panat. Every window ledge and coal chute, the width and height of each doorway held further information for Orest and sharing his observations came naturally — as a naturalist shares observations about flora and fauna so Orest shares the history of the material culture of the Grand Siecle. Years later as a graduate student I recognized his continuing interest in conveying context — but this time it was not solely about doorways, but rather about sharing the equally tangible context of "doing history". In the living room and library of Ridgewood Rd. or the friendly yet formal office of Gilman Hall, Orest distributed books, modern and old, to look at, artifacts to touch, paintings and prints to examine, as a way not only of bringing the century alive, but also of conveying a reverence for the past and an appreciation for the art of being an historian. Orest is a master artisan of the historian's craft who works patiently to instruct his apprentices to reject the prefabricated furniture of the profession and to seek new styles of furniture. In other words, to bring together new findings from archival research that might defy the traditional mold, but in doing so might also pay better homage to the French their politics, and their vision of how to construct a society. The more work I complete on the provincial academies the more I appreciate Orest's understanding of seventeenth century social hierarchy. He respects the deference of Richelieu's creatures and the anxiety of the men of letters who were "without station" and sought to integrate themselves into the complex and changing system of patronage. Orest's sense of humanity continued to serve him well here. :He did not bring pre-conceived perceptions of expected social or class behavior to his work as an historian. He never inadvertently or carelessly placed such concepts onto the society that so engaged his interest. Instead Orest exercised the discipline necessary to listen carefully and fully to the voices of the seventeenth century and to build almost from within, an appreciation of the yearnings of those seeking a foothold in the web of interlocking circles that created the fabric of society. According to Orest, in his work on courtesy, the manners and honnetetés due individuals and corporations according to their rank became a science, or field of knowledge. Indeed he continues, "for the marks of respect due up and down the social hierarchy were very subtle and complex as well as rationally derived from an overall conception of what society was. Learning this science was the central feature of a humanist education in the entire early modern period." Orest recognized the development of a conscious or nascent understanding by French men of letters of how society was held together. They shared the conviction that men judged each other and used the results — the absence or presence of approval — as a way of structuring the society and its politics. Or as Orest states, it is important to focus on the "uses of courtesy and discourtesy as coercive political instruments by royal officials to gain increased power over society." 2 It is interesting to me that a man who is so reluctant a judge of others could make sense of such an ungenerous society. Certainly French men of letters exercised the skill of judging constantly and were encouraged to do so by the way in which academies were constructed in France from the Academie Française to the small, often short-lived, provincial academies. Men of letters used the designation of academy for a variety of purposes, not least of which was to protect the discourse within the meetings from the form of judgement that took place outside the gatherings. Within the bounds of the academy men of letters expressed the intent to adhere to the fundamental practice of recognizing mutual equality between all academicians: famous, unknown, foreign, provincial, and Parisian, all were members of the republic of letters. Within that imaginary land of equality created by these men judgement was a natural exercise. One need not look further than the opening of "Le Misanthrope" to remind oneself of how, in the eyes of Moliere, judging and assessing had become less meaningful amongst those with intellectual, or creative, ambitions who gathered only at social functions. After Alceste castigates Philinte for his hypocritical ways he adds: "Je veux qu'on soit sincere, et qu'en homme d'honneur,/ On ne lache aucun mot qui ne parse du coeur.'' He continues, " Et je ne hais rien tent que les contorsions/ De tous ces grands faiseurs de protestations,/Ces affables donneurs d'embrassades frivoles,/ Ces obligeants diseurs d'inutiles paroles,/ Qui de civilites avec tous font combat,/ Et traitent du meme air l'honnete homme et le fat." 3 Men of letters who shaped the academic tradition in provincial France at the time had a different vision of what it meant to "judge". The opening address of the Academy of Arles in 1686 included a comment on the act of critiquing other academicians' work: "When an academician completes a piece of work the academy has the right to judge it because of the mutual interest taken in its glory....Criticism is frankly given and received without distress or repugnance; the sincere friendship which links academicians by the similarity of their habits and studies, removes all suspicion of malignity, and envy, so that by their mutual help nothing leaves an academy that does not follow the rules and is in a state of perfection.'' 4 The academy intended to bring men of letters together for the purpose of sincere, rather than hypocritical, judgment. Academicians used their corporate membership to engage the attention of members of the royal academies in Paris. How they used the entree that often resulted depended on their own initiative, their confessional identity, and their willingness to be judged by those not of the republic of letters, but rather of the inherently unequal, potentially hypocritical political hierarchy. It is Orest's understanding of this use of critical assessment as a tool, as a way of constructing and Reconstructing power, in the seventeenth century that has illuminated the concept of royal power and absolutism for all of us. But the Ranum way of doing history was never static either. Orest, historian of Paris, constantly refers to the provincial identity of France. His remarkable perception of French history may have been generated on the causses of Panat — or, perhaps, from working on the trains that crisscrossed the center plains of the United States between the two coasts. Orest's strong comprehension of the relationship between the periphery and the center, between the provinces and Paris again reflects his interest in all aspects of the subjects of the kings of France. We are the beneficiaries of this sympathetic comprehension that the kingdom of France was constructed of different parts, but that it was itself a whole entity. Orest's multi-faceted, rich assessment of the characteristics of seventeenth century France structured the fashion in which his students absorbed history. We now find ourselves quite unwilling to imagine his shift from the status as our major professor to one of retired craftsman. We feel propelled into a generational orbit for which we sense we are unprepared. But in many ways Orest has prepared us for this stage of life as well. In his musings at the end of the course at the College de France, Orest described students coming to him for what he called "la petite benediction" for their work — an act befitting the relationship between master and apprentice or mentor and student. But when we as students sought benediction it would be accompanied by lessons in intellectual self-reliance which led to the precious discovery that in the Orestetelian republic of letters ideas were always traded between equals. Orest operates under that assumption: we sought to be apprentices and students, he conceived of us as young equals. We were embarrassed at times, and even confused perhaps, as we stumbled from ignorant statements to timid conclusions. (In fact, some days I think we became historians despite ourselves) Yet in those moments of disarray we learned the difference between listening too hard to theoretical frameworks and not adequately enough to the subjects of the kings of France. We learned to respect our own nascent understanding of royal politics and provincial aspirations as they applied to our topics--we discovered the fruitfulness of the symbiosis that Orest presented as an alternative to monolithic "absolutism". To pay proper homage to Orest might violate his sense of the magisterial seriousness of the greater purpose of doing history. So I will look to the future, to the Ranum web page, which ingeniously represents a 21st-century solution to maintaining a republic of letters, and the lunches in Baltimore, Paris, and Panat, to continue the dialogue with Pat and Orest. We are all deeply grateful to Orest, who in his reserve and his unjudgemental ways has elucidated the very heart and soul of a highly critical society. Yet, I must add, placetne magister? Is it alright Orest?
Katherine Stern Brennan 1.Orest Ranum, La France des annees 1650, Histoire et Historiographies, Lecon Inaugurale, College de France, November 25, 1994, p. 12. |