From Mirbeau to Robin 

Mirbeau and Education

When Paul Robin, the victim of a campaign of slander, was dismissed from his position at Cempuis on 30 August 1894, Octave Mirbeau immediately came to his defense. In Le Journal of 9 September 1894, he wrote:

"Mr. Robin, director of the orphanage at Cempuis, has been dismissed from his post. It was to be expected, and it fits perfectly within the established pattern. Since there was nothing to reproach him for except his extraordinary dedication, the noble generosity of his spirit, and the superiority of his intellect, those responsible did not even bother, in the decree stripping him of his office, to explain this administrative act—which is truly a cowardly and shameful deed; some have even called it a crime. Mr. Robin has been dismissed, pure and simple, without a word of explanation. It is more convenient that way. It also has the added advantage of leaving, around a man struck down without cause and with such silent severity, a haze of vague and curious accusations that everyone is free to interpret as they please and to transform, according to the baseness of their own hearts, into licentious fantasies—just as the schools run by the Brothers have, alas, provided us with all too many, and all too transparent, examples."(1)

Octave Mirbeau was not an educator, yet his own experience of schooling and his clear-sighted observation of the society of his time soon led him to concern himself with educational questions, even if he never developed a formal pedagogical theory. In this respect, his views converge with those of Paul Robin.

Thus, when Robin writes about the teaching of history :

"History is at present a discipline whose serious principles can scarcely be taught to children. Rejecting both the providentialist foundation and the patriotic fervour of traditional instruction, we could explain the countless crimes we would have to recount only as aberrations of the human mind, and such an explanation would merely cast a harmful confusion into young minds."(2) his judgment may be compared with what Mirbeau's young protagonist experiences in Sébastien Roch concerning a certain way of teaching history:
"Sometimes, during Saturday lessons, to entertain the pupils, the teacher would read them episodes from the French Revolution or dramatic accounts of the wars in Brittany and the Vendée. Sébastien recognized in them the same ogre-like faces he had encountered in his schoolbooks, the same eruption of sinister madmen, the same cries of war and frenzied hatred. Only now the names of Marat and Robespierre had replaced those of kings and conquerors, inspiring the same terror; the guillotine was at work, as red with blood as the great heroes' battle-axe and the sword of God. He could not understand why he was required to hate the former while being taught to revere the latter."(3)

Yet decent and upright people are unsettling, and is it not precisely because they disturb the established order that they are so often subjected to disgrace by the envious, the slanderous, and the foolish? Regarding the injustice inflicted upon Paul Robin, Mirbeau speaks in much the same spirit as Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), who wrote in his Thoughts :
"The world is nothing but an alliance of scoundrels against decent people, of the basest against the noblest."(4)

With regard to Robin, however, Mirbeau is even more explicit : "Christian morality and raison d'état require that one continue to hound an enemy who has already been brought to the ground. He must be trampled until no trace of him remains. That is exactly what is being done. Hardly a day passes without Mr. Robin being furiously insulted, viciously slandered, portrayed as a kind of sadistic monster, even as a cheerful swindler. Has it not even been insinuated—for one must be both cautious and villainous when insinuating—that he may have embezzled two hundred thousand francs, no doubt to satisfy unspeakable passions?"(5)

Mirbeau therefore undertakes a vigorous rehabilitation of the man whose only "crime" was to put into practice an education that allowed children to live "in the greatest freedom possible" and "made them—or allowed them to remain—moral and kind human beings." * (6)

"Everyone who knows Mr. Robin says that he is the best of men, that no soul has ever been more passionately devoted to doing good, more deeply conscious of its duties, more clear-sighted and scrupulous in fulfilling that delicate and sublime mission: the education of children.

Everyone who has visited the school at Cempuis returns with touching and delightful memories of it. Never has one seen, among so many children gathered together, so much health and happiness. Everywhere there are fresh faces, supple bodies, and joyful eyes untouched by impure curiosity or the dispiriting sadness born of hidden mysteries."

A man of great virtue said to me, upon returning from a visit to Cempuis, these exact words:

"For the first time, I had the impression of a childhood and a youth that were truly youthful and enthusiastic, and I realized that from such an environment genuine men and women could emerge—that is to say, beings admirably equipped for work and social life, protected from the enslaving disciplines of authority, from the enervating disappointments of religion, free from every form of falsehood. They may perhaps discover happiness within themselves and thereby achieve the beauty of life. What is so wonderful and profound in Mr. Robin's system is that he has succeeded in making work a matter of faith, illuminating even the humblest occupation with a beautiful glow, a radiant flame of idealism. The hardest thing is to bring love—which is also intellect—into whatever one makes: a chair, a pair of boots, a bed of flowers, a piece of cloth, a painting, or a book. On that basis, there is no inferiority among professions, even the humblest ones; and a locksmith who works iron with love, and therefore with artistry, is worth as much as the admired sculptor who creates a beautiful statue or the writer who produces a fine book. This is what Mr. Robin teaches his children. And it is not rash to hope that from this admirable system an entire renewal of social conditions may emerge. To raise the worker to the role of a conscious creator, to give his life the interest of a continual search, of an artist's dream—what could be more beautiful?..." (7)

What indeed could be more beautiful? And what of today? What do we want for the worker, whom some claim has disappeared? What do we want for the younger generation, for "our children," in this twenty-first century of globalization, hyper-connectivity, hyper-pollution, debilitating overconsumption, environmental devastation, and a fear-driven narrative of so-called global warming and climate change, punctuated by recurring disasters, and so on? To what dark project do we intend to consign today's youth?

Desperately lucid yet serenely rebellious, did Mirbeau not add, in concluding his defense of Robin, words that remain true of all religious and political powers?

"This is precisely where the priest and the politician—who, in order to perpetuate their domination, require herds of brutes—sensed the danger. They understood that from Cempuis, and from institutions founded upon the same philosophy of freedom and human dignity, there would no longer emerge submissive voters or devout believers in religious falsehood. All innovators had to be discouraged, and the innovators were struck down in the very person of Mr. Robin. They now know what one risks by attempting to awaken, within the human brute, that which lies dormant there and is divine." (8)