The other day, after lunch, I was strolling through the studio of my friend X__, the eminent sculptor. While I was admiring a bust completed from the day before, there was a knock on the door. A small, simple-minded fellow entered with a confident look, long hair, pale complexion, in a classic Abruzzo peasant outfit, and with a suburban accent:

• —Excuse me, m’sieu, don't you need a model?

• —No, not today!

• —What about tomorrow?

• —Not tomorrow, nor the day after, nor the following days.

• —Bad luck!

And he left. Five minutes later, knock, knock on the door.

• —Excuse me, m’sieu, I forgot to ask you if you could lend me a hundred sous?

• —You’re bothering me, leave me alone.

• —That's not very polite! Well, look, can't you give me just fifty cents to smoke a good cigar?

• —Get out of here, I have nothing to give you.

• —Oh well then, if you don't have anything to give me, of course I’ll get out of here, no need to insist. So tell me, anyway, your statues must not bring you much money, if you don't have anything to give me!

• —Scoundrel!!!

• —Okay! Okay! Don't get agitated like that, it could harm you. I’m leaving.

And we went back to talking quietly. Then, the third entry of the street urchin:

• —Excuse me, m’sieu, would you happen to know a rich Kroumir1 who has some cake?

And without further ado, the urchin ran out, the door slamming behind him.

You’re wondering why I’m coming here to talk about a sculptor, a model, a Kroumir, a cigar, or a cake?

Well, here is the “why”: we, too, are looking for the rich Kroumir; we’re longing for the generous Maecenas who will grant us the freedom to work and the means to live.2 Do you know that we can no longer fit in the Conservatory? The place is too cramped—and I’m not talking about its dilapidated state—it's not only made up of rooms too small for the number of pupils in each class, but it doesn't even have the number of rooms necessary for the classes instituted by the new regulations. I asked one of my colleagues:

• —How do you manage to escape suffocation in this limited space, with your twenty-five pupils or auditors?

When I was elected permanent secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts on July 18, 1914, I received the following message from Claude Debussy, whom I had known since 1884 at the Concordia Society, when the young composer, who had just won the Grand Prix de Rome with his Enfant prodigue, came as an accompanist warmly recommended to me by Ambroise Thomas: “It was upon returning from London that I learned of your appointment; although expected, it is still very fortunate for the entire music world. Please count me among those whom the news particularly delights, and believe in my affectionate devotion.” I replied to Debussy, “Very touched by your precious fellowship, I would be flattered to act as your sponsor to the Academy and to have you as my successor—with the dispensing of my eulogy; you will be welcomed with open arms. Come and see me tomorrow, if possible.”

Unfortunately, the war had come, interrupting any election to the Institute. It was not until 1918 that the Institute was able to resume its normal life, and on March 17, 1918, Debussy replied to my renewed requests: “My dear Permanent Secretary, since you are willing to help me pass through the doors of the Institute, I will be very happy to enter my name, even now, for the chair that you used to occupy there. In renewing to you, dear maître and friend, the expression of all my gratitude, deem me faithfully yours. Claude Debussy.” Eight days later, alas, Debussy passed away from the illness that was afflicting him. Debussy's two letters of candidacy can be found with those of Mme Debussy in our archives. The first is dated the day after I was elected as permanent secretary, when I left my chair free. The second one is from the end of the war. Debussy's death thus prevented him from taking his place among us.

Two years later, in the same way, Auguste Rodin in his turn passed away and never took his place among us, having obtained twenty-seven votes in a single round. Three days after this memorable election, alas, he died.

Debussy and Stravinsky met in 1910, shortly after a revolution had begun just before the turn of the century in the field of cinema. In fact, so radical was this revolution, and so compatible were early cinema and contemporary music, that certain film techniques quite likely influenced both these composers.

Cinematic Montage

In the history of the early cinema, filmmakers who had experience in both photography and theater were able to quickly explore the technical possibilities now available to them. These included the traveling shot, used exclusively in a Lumière film of 1896 showing a gondola sailing down the Grand Canal in Venice; extreme close-ups, used in the George Albert Smith film Grandma's Reading Glass from 1900; film reversal (so simple an effect that films of all sorts were often shown forward and then again backward for comic effect); enlarging or reducing an image, used in George Méliès's film L’homme à la tête de caoutchouc (The Man with the Rubber Head) of 1901, in which a man's rubber head is inflated until it explodes; and substitution (stopping the camera and changing the scene before restarting it), found in Alfred Clark's The Execution of Mary Stuart from 1895, which contains a convincing depiction of a beheading. As advanced as these camera techniques were, these early films—unsophisticated efforts that were certainly not considered works of art—could not have been expected to influence contemporary musicians. This is because, as film historian David Robinson notes, “by 1900, the film's visual vocabulary had been recognized. Only gradually was the idea of a syntax appreciated, the notion that the essence of cinema is the juxtaposition of shots into an expressive continuity.”

While advances were being made in camera techniques, film continuity was maintained in the simplest way possible, through a single shot of a single scene. Edwin Porter's 1902 film The Life of an American Fireman represented the first step toward the modern conception of cinematic montage. Porter exploited imagery of fire—one of the most popular subjects of early cinema—and built a film around various scenes of fires and firemen while adding some additional material of his own. From this, he constructed a dramatic film that is little-known today but widely discussed in film history, as it was the first to show that “the meaning of a shot was not self-contained but could be modified by joining the shot to others.”

Debussy and Stravinsky first met in 1910, at very different times in their lives. Debussy, at forty-seven, had already composed many of his masterpieces and was recently diagnosed with the cancer that would kill him eight years later; Stravinsky, at twenty-seven, had just burst onto the international stage with the Ballets Russes. The friendship they formed was unclouded up to the premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913, when Debussy began to snipe at Stravinsky's latest ballet behind his back. This troubled phase of the relationship lasted until Debussy's death in 1918. The friendship may have ended sooner had Stravinsky learned of Debussy's true feelings; however, Stravinsky only mentioned Debussy's critiques of The Rite late in his own life.

Aside from certain key works that the two composers wrote during the years 1910–17, the most obvious sign of this friendship are the photos taken in June 1910 when Stravinsky was in Paris for the premiere of The Firebird. The most famous of these photos depicts Debussy standing next to a sitting Stravinsky (figure I.1).

Here are two giants of twentieth century music: Stravinsky stares directly at the camera while Debussy's eyes are averted, as though his attention has been caught by something off camera. Debussy's love of Asian art is evident in the two prints hanging on the wall, The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai and an unknown portrait of a geisha. While Debussy and Stravinsky do not look entirely at ease in their photo together, that would quickly change, as the two would soon begin to dedicate works to one another and consult each other about compositions in progress. They would also begin to imitate one another, a fact that lies at the heart of this study. But before proceeding, let us reflect on why the photo of these two composers is so famous.

The image shows two of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, who, even though they were born twenty-eight hundred kilometers and a generation apart, nevertheless became friends. Stravinsky might be the century's most famous composer, but Debussy's role during this period is equally important. Boulez would write that twentieth-century music began with Debussy's Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), composed from 1892 to 1894.

The inventory of the bridal goods of Isabella Bruce, Queen of Norway, drawn up on 25 September 1293 in Bergen, is considered an important document concerning Scottish-Norwegian relationships at the end of the thirteenth century and has been studied and cited mainly by historians. On closer examination of the text, however, a number of interesting remarks can also be made on the diverse items that made up the trousseau of the Scottish-born queen, their manufacture, quality, fabric, material, colours, and purpose. The colours and decorations of the bedding sets and soft furnishings in particular seem to be linked to significant heraldic figures.

For this article, a palaeographic and linguistic analysis was carried out on a digital copy of the document. The findings contribute to an explanation for some problematic loci, which have led to a new identification of the author/scribe of the inventory and their origins.

The text shows a number of the linguistic features that have been identified in medieval British business documents. Additionally, the analysis sheds light on a couple of technical words found in the inventory whose interpretation is not clear (banker? was perhaps used as an adjective meaning “for the seats” and palees was perhaps a noun meaning “two-coloured vertical striped cloth”). The document also contains the Medieval Latin hapax phalereteca which might mean “a metal ornament similar to a phalera” or perhaps “a sort of lock similar to a phalera.”

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

After the loss of part of their overseas empire in the 1260s, the Norwegian kings sought to re-establish ties with the Scottish crown. This was accomplished in August 1281 through the wedding of Margaret, daughter of Alexander III of Scotland, and the young king, Eirikr II of Norway. Margaret was about six years older than her husband, who was about thirteen years old at that time. The marriage lasted less than two years: Margaret died giving birth to her only daughter, Margaret of Norway, probably on 9 April 1283. The Norwegian princess became the heir apparent to the Scottish throne after Alexander III's death, but she died on her way to Orkney in late September or early October 1290. As the heir of his late daughter, Eirikr took part, albeit without success, in the Great Cause that took place between 1290 and 1292 in order to choose a new king of Scots.

This collection offers translations of three tales, originally in verse, from medieval Germany. The first—whose author is anonymous—is the story of Duke Ernst (Herzog Ernst); the second, by the well-known and prolific writer Konrad von Würzburg, is that of Henry of Kempten (Heinrich von Kempten; the work is also known as Otto mit dem Bart); and the third, by an author of whom we know very little, but who names himself as Heinrich, is about a figure who is very well known, Reynard the Fox (Reinhart Fuchs). The three tales, two about knights and adventure and one about the trickery of a cunning fox, are all entertaining, but they are also all essentially political, and their messages are not exclusively medieval. The first two, although exciting and adventurous (and Ernst in particular travels and meets exotic and strange creatures), both show young men in conflict with the state, or its embodiment in the emperor, and both men learn the necessity of compromise in order to maintain the stability of the state. The third story first shows us the familiar fox up to his usual pranks but then becomes darker as the fox becomes the most untrustworthy adviser at the court of the lion king in a disturbing fable about the acquisition of power.

For help in the production of this book, several votes of thanks are due, first to the many students with whom I read and discussed these texts over a good number of years at the University of Stirling. In the production of this book, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the two readers, who made informed, detailed, and extremely useful comments; this is an aspect of academic work that deserves much credit and thanks (although in the time-honored but quite genuine formula, any remaining errors are my responsibility!). My professional and my personal thanks go, too, to the indefatigable Jim Walker, whose expertise, advice, and endless patience have meant a great deal to me over the many years we have worked together, when he has supported me in publishing books on both modern and medieval literature.

Cavaillé-Coll had received his early education at the University of Toulouse, where he had only studied science. The Cavaillé family came from Gaillac (Tarn). One Cavaillé had built organs two hundred years ago, not only in the Midi but in the north of Spain. Jean-Pierre Cavaillé had married a Mlle Marie-Françoise Coll in Barcelona. The Cavaillé-Colls were two brothers, both organbuilders. There were Cavaillé instruments and Cavaillé-Coll instruments.

The story of the illustrious Aristide Cavaillé-Coll is no less picturesque. His professor of mathematics at the University of Toulouse, who was delighted with his aptitude for science, went one day to tell his father: “My son is leaving for Paris. I have former classmates from the École Polytechnique, Charles Cagniard de Latour, Félix Savart, etc. Allow your son to accompany mine. It may be very useful to him. At the same time, I will introduce him to all my former colleagues. They may be interested.”

The young Aristide showed up one Monday, a quarter of an hour before a meeting of the Académie des Sciences and handed his letter of introduction to Cagniard de la Tour, inventor of the siren, who read the letter, looked Aristide in the eye, thought he looked intelligent, and said to him: “No doubt you have come concerning the organ of Saint-Denis. Have you drawn up a plan? The competition closes next Friday. Are you ready?” The young Aristide, without being concerned, replied: “I don't know anything about the competition for the organ of Saint-Denis. In any case, I will have to ask Papa's permission.” —“If you have anything in your brain, any new ideas, and are able to express them clearly, and have all this work done by Friday, at seven o’clock, then on Saturday you will ask Papa!”

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll returned home immediately and set to work. As the son of an organbuilder and a student of the faculty of sciences, he had acquired a certain amount of experience and designed a number of new plans for the organ, notably from the point of view of the wind system, mechanism, timbres, pressures, etc. This represented a lot of experience, but he lacked practice. Nonetheless, he knew how to present all of his ideas in a plan—perhaps naively, but clearly—in such a way that the jury, which met the following week, classified his report “No 1.”

Subscription Committee for the Restoration of the Trocadéro Grand Orgue

Gathered under the chairmanship of Maître WIDOR, permanent secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Committee for the Restoration of the Grand Orgue of the Trocadéro,

Considering the ever-increasing state of disrepair of this admirable instrument, estimated at nearly two million [francs],

Considering, moreover, the impossibility in which the public authorities find themselves, given the current economic situation, to make the action impatiently awaited by the French artistic world,

Decides to open, in its collective name, a subscription intended to save from definitive ruin the only official concert Grand Orgue existing in Paris, the masterpiece of CAVAILLÉ-COLL, and to make a strong appeal to the Parisian Public, through the generous voice of the Press.

Mazarin Palace, March 10, 1926

[signed:]

Widor,

From the Institute, Chairman

Marcel Dupré,

Professor at the Conservatory, Vice-Chairman

Émile-Alphonse Leduc,

Treasurer

Édouard Monet,

Secretary

Jean Maciet,

Assistant Secretary

Committee for the Restoration of the Grand Orgue of the Trocadéro

Paris, March 11, 1926

Dear Editor-in-Chief,

The Committee for the Restoration of the Grand Orgue of the Trocadéro, meeting under the chairmanship of Maître WIDOR, has decided to deal urgently with the irremediable by opening a subscription in its collective name.

Presenting a wish very dear to all our French composers, organists, and conductors, the Committee makes an appeal to you, certain that you will know how to attend to it, thus contributing greatly to the work that it is undertaking officially today.

The sum to be subscribed to restore purely and simply our official concert Grand Orgue amounts to 60,500 francs.

At its opening meeting, the Committee found itself in possession of various donations amounting to 19,714.50 francs.

The signatories of this appeal express their gratitude to you now—on behalf of the Members of the Committee—for the valuable collaboration that you will be good enough to bring to it by publishing its appeal and mentioning the address of its devoted Treasurer, Mr. Émile-Alphonse LEDUC, Honorary President of the Chambre Syndicale des Éditeurs de Musique, 3 rue de Gramont, PARIS (2e).

Please accept, Mr. Editor-in-Chief, the assurance of our highest consideration.

The Secretary,

[signed:] Édouard Monet

23 rue Madame 6e

Members of the Subscription Committee

BOARD: President: Widor; Vice-President: Marcel Dupré Treasurer: Leduc; Secretaries: E. Monet and J. Maciet, organists.

Sirs: Firmin Gremier, Joseph Bonnet, G. Bret, A. Cellier, G. Jacob, H. Letocart,

The Existential Question

If the examination of the relationship between Stirner and political and moral nihilism has thrown up little more than inconclusive answers, the current chapter, which looks at the most familiar form of nihilism in modern parlance, existential nihilism, offers the opportunity to come down decisively on one side of the argument or the other. Although Stirner has rarely been accused explicitly of being an existential nihilist, it is the sense behind most of the examples of his association with nihilism since World War II. During this time, Stirner has been described as an existentialist far more frequently than as an existential nihilist, but the link between his supposed existentialist characteristics and his nihilistic tendencies is often at least implied.

Carr defines existential nihilism as “the feeling of emptiness and pointlessness that follows from the judgment, ‘Life has no meaning.’” This understanding of nihilism has become so prevalent that Gertz, in his recent book on the subject, barely discusses it in any other sense. Although he recognizes nihilism's complexity and diversity, all definitions, in his analysis, ultimately revolve around the absence of meaning: “Nihilism is not merely the denial that life is inherently meaningful, as nihilism can instead be seen as a particular way of responding to the anxiety caused by the discovery of life's inherent meaninglessness.” The predominance of existential nihilism over all other types of nihilism has been attested to by numerous modern commentators. Crosby attributes its primacy to its widespread use, its ability to subsume other forms, such as moral, epistemological, and cosmic nihilism, and its broad relevance to life in general rather than to a specific discipline. Thus, he concludes that “existential nihilism is the most basic and inclusive, and therefore the most important, form of nihilism.” Carr likewise recognizes existential nihilism as “probably the most commonplace sense of the word,” noting its significance in modern literature (citing Dostoevsky and Camus) and observing that Nietzsche was “preoccupied with this form,” although it might be more accurate to say he invented it.

Existential nihilism can be considered not just the heir to, but also the fulfillment of Nietzsche's infamous prophecy: “What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what is inevitable: the rise of nihilism.”

During this time, in order not to forget my first vocation, I was working with Albert Schweitzer on an edition of the Preludes, Fugues, and Chorales by J. S. Bach that the New York publisher Schirmer had requested from us. The five volumes of Preludes and Fugues have been published, each piece with its preface, indications of general feeling, registration, and tempo, that is to say, preceded by three or four large pages in-folio; each Chorale text has been translated, and the translation made by the musician. The Schirmer firm, having gone through some rough times, still exists, but we are still waiting for the edition of the Chorales, the original publishers, alas, having died.

Schirmer not having published the Chorales, I asked Charles Delagrave if he would agree to publish the French translation of the chorale texts in a small book that all French organists could have at hand, each chorale being annotated, studied, and detailed. Unfortunately, this publisher was afraid of getting involved in a venture that would not be sufficiently profitable, and we left it at that. I’m sorry about this, because only a man like Schweitzer can give us the true meaning of this singular work of J. S. Bach, the musician-poet.

The Preludes and Fugues: I don't have to go back over the performance style of Bach, with which many naive musicians have allowed themselves so much license and fantasy. They forget that of all instruments, the only one whose sound can “last forever” is the organ. Its sound gives us the example of perfect breathing, free from any unevenness or fluctuation. As for the articulation of repeated notes, this articulation must have, in a moderate tempo, half the value of the note. What is style? It is the absolute respect of the composer's text, each printed note of which must be rendered as he intended.

When Schweitzer came to Paris in the winter to complete his liturgical studies, he used the opportunity to study organ with me. I myself went every summer to Gunsbach, near Colmar, to finish the chapters that had not been completed in Paris. I stayed in Gunsbach in a charming village inn that lies at the foot of the tragic Hartmannswillerkopf Mountain.

Indeed, the duke lived for a good six years in that country and governed his duchy well. One morning the noble lord chanced to be taking his ease outside his castle when he saw a ship sail into the harbor, a ship that had come from Christian Ethiopia, the land of the Moors, and he asked who owned the ship, and what news they brought. They told the duke: “We are merchants and we set out from Ethiopia but could not help being driven here by the winds. We had no intention of coming to this country. We implore you, most noble knight, for the sake of God to show us mercy and help us, lord, to preserve our lives. We shall give you as much of our goods as you would like, with no limits because we are in your hands. We would only ask that you leave enough to keep us from starvation and that we can get home alive.”

When he heard this, the bold warrior realized what things were like in the country they came from. Duke Ernst asked if there was a war there, and they told him what the situation was. They said: “The troops of the king of Babylon often cause great damage to the lands of the king of Ethiopia. They have frequently attacked with very considerable force, trying to make the king renounce Christianity and so to increase the numbers of heathens and unbelievers. They regularly invade our country with a great army and have to be stopped. On many occasions they have had to give way and flee from our land because of our forces and the king's bravery in battle. He is unwavering in his belief.”

When he had heard their story, the duke asked the merchants if they would help him secretly and covertly. “It has long been my desire to get to Jerusalem,” he said, and if they would help him to get there, he would reward them handsomely. He was also inclined, he said, if there was a war, to stay for a time there with the king, and then move on to Jerusalem. When the merchants heard this, they were very happy indeed, and promised him faithfully that they would do whatever he said.

The extant accounts of expenditure from the royal treasury in mid-sixteenth-century Scotland represent a gold mine of information on many topics. Purchases of finished clothing items, fabric for clothing, and dress accessories appear mingled among others, although they are usually found in sections with titles such as “The expensis debursit upoun my Lorde Governour, his Ladye, and bairnis awyn personnes” or “The expensis debursit be my lord governoris precept and spetiall commande.” The Lord Governor was James Hamilton, Earl of Arran and regent for Mary, Queen of Scots, between 1543 and 1554. This article is based on an analysis of records of clothing, fabric, and accessory purchases extracted from the accounts of royal treasury expenditure during his tenure, collated according to recipients.

Amongst the accounts lies the key to deciphering how certain types of clothing and fabric represented layers of social status and the dividing lines between them. Although the accounts provide fascinating individual wardrobe biographies, which I discuss in Dressing the Scottish Court, 1543–1553: Clothing in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, broader analysis also yields interesting results, including which groups of people commonly wore certain garments and fabrics and the importance of particular types of cloth and clothing to maintaining social status. This study provides analysis across whole categories of garments and fabric types cross-referenced with the social status of the wearers. The data set is rich enough to support many different types of analysis.

All of the clothing analyzed in the accounts must be viewed through the lens of Arran's patronage because, as regent, he authorized all expenses drawn on the royal treasury, many of which were his own personal expenditures. In addition to a large number of clothes for himself, he supplied garments to servants, familial and personal connections, political allies (or those he wished to become allies), and, in a few cases, to those needing charity. Those on Arran's payroll in these accounts included not only his personal servants but also people serving the government in various capacities. Members of this expanded household received clothing as part of their remuneration, as livery in a general sense, while only Arran's pages and a few others had “display livery”—heraldic livery that they wore to add consequence to the Regent as he went about his business running the country.

For some twenty years, at each of the public sessions of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, you saw and heard my eminent predecessor read a Notice in which he displayed his tact, clear-sighted knowledge of men, and benevolent authority….

Composer, organist, music theorist, and teacher, he was also in our company not only as an excellent colleague whom we surrounded with our respect and affection, but also as the vigilant, active, and indefatigable permanent secretary who, notably through the founding of the Casa Velázquez, was able to increase the ascendancy of our Academy, and to propagate the peaceful and liberal influence of France.

Let us think of the disconcerting paradox that Widor was for so long an old man without old age. We knew he was over ninety, but we couldn't believe it. An alert and amusing conversationalist, full of jokes and anecdotes, with a keen ear and a mischievous eye, he was nothing like an old man….

Like yesterday's news, he recounted anecdotes from half a century ago with a smile and no trace of melancholy; his memory and picturesque speech gave them the flavor of current news….

As for the Notices written by Widor, they are alert and lively, retaining the ease and spontaneity of his conversation, and containing a wealth of information that will be consulted by future historians….

How many visitors, artists, teachers, students, aspirants to a prize from the Academy, candidates for a Chair in the Academy, and also colleagues of the Institute came to consult him or confide in him a concern, a desire, or a cause for worry.1 People trusted his clear-sighted authority, and he, with the ascendancy given by age, a fine artistic career, and the most fruitful activity in his high office, felt strong enough not to be weakened either by his good grace or his paternal bonhomie. He listened sympathetically to each visitor; then he would introduce a first anecdote that would make the conversation more relaxed; soon a second anecdote would make a smiling diversion; and by the third anecdote, what had at first seemed thorny was dampened and almost forgotten. Even if one had come to visit Mr. Permanent Secretary about an administrative difficulty, he had enough wit to solve it, or at least to elude it, thanks to the charm of a fourth anecdote, totally unexpected and which came from the distant past.

Reynard, who rarely showed any loyalty to anyone, pressed the king to confer upon his friend, the elephant, lordship over a country. “Granted,” said the king. “Let him rule Bohemia.” This pleased the elephant very much, and the king gave it to him to hold in fief in accordance with the law. The good servant of the king set off at once. He had come poor to the court and was now a prince. The elephant traveled to the land where the king had sent him and announced to the people the surprising news that he was now their overlord. For this he was severely beaten and had to go back in sorrow to where he came from. They might easily have wounded him so severely that he would not have survived.

Having had the elephant made ruler of a country, Reynard thought that he still hadn't exercised enough malice. Again he made an urgent request to the king about the camel, who had been one of those judging him. “She should also play a useful role,” he said. “Make her the abbess at Erstein in Alsace, and this will save your soul, because they send up a lot of prayers.” The king acceded gladly to the request and granted her with his right hand a role that would be financially very beneficial to her. Certainly she saw herself as a wealthy and powerful abbess, so she took her leave and hurried to take up the post. She skipped gaily across the courtyard and was very grateful to Reynard for the gift of this important position. It would, however, lead to trouble for her. When she reached the convent, all those who had heard the news hurried along. They looked at her and immediately wanted to know who she was. “I shall give you an honest answer,” she said. “The mighty king has granted me authority over this place. I shall be the abbess.” The nuns were so angry about this that the camel was nearly killed. The nuns closed in on her, and the abbess was beaten to within an inch of her life. They used their sharp writing implements to make wounds on her body, and it put her in a great deal of danger.

There was once an emperor named Otto, to whom a great many countries were subject, all of them held in thrall by fear of his power. He had a fine long beard, which he tended with considerable care, and anything that he swore “by my beard” would be carried out to the letter. He had fiery red hair and was, all things considered, an unpleasant man, who proved time and again how anger and rage could just boil up inside him. Anyone who tried to go against him was as good as dead, and if the emperor said of anyone, “You'll pay for that, by my beard,” then that person would be killed on the spot without any hope of mercy. A lot of men had lost their lives that way after falling out of favor with the emperor over some serious misdemeanor.

One year, Otto decided to hold a great Easter celebration at his fine and large fortress near Bamberg, and a great number of high-ranking prince-abbots from royal monasteries came to this feast, as well as many worthy bishops. A whole stream of earls, barons, and knights with their richly dressed retinues came, too, all of whom owed feudal allegiance to the empire and to its imperial leader. The dignitaries all thronged to this imperial diet peacefully and happily. Once the paschal Mass had been celebrated, everything was going well, tables were set up and looked splendid, bread was put out ready, and there were plenty of fine goblets, too, so that when Emperor Otto and his court came back from the cathedral, they could wash their hands and break their fast straightaway. [1–49]

A young and noble squire had been sent to the festival to learn proper courtly behavior, a wellborn, good-looking, and clearly good-hearted lad, who was much admired by everyone there. His father was the powerful duke of Swabia, and one day he would inherit all his great wealth as the sole heir. This same innocent lad was at court that day and wandered along the tables.

Max the Obscure

Stirner is commonly regarded as no more than an insignificant, but nonetheless irksome, footnote in the history of German philosophy, a perception, I shall argue, that deserves reconsideration. His influence on subsequent thinkers can often only be surmised, leading at least one observer to suspect a clandestine conspiracy to keep him firmly in the shadows. There are many possible reasons for Stirner's disrepute, not least of which is the explosive nature of his iconoclastic message, which is too unconventional for some and too dangerous for others. Another is that, unlike many of his German predecessors, he makes no attempt to construct a grand philosophical system, but instead articulates the great majority of his ideas in a single work, leading perhaps to their appearing less weighty or significant. Or, equally, it could be because Der Einzige is written in a style that is far from the abstruse complexity found in the work of his predecessor, Hegel, on the one hand, and equally far from the rich, expressive lyricism of his successor, Nietzsche, on the other. In other words, his writing may appear too pellucid to those used to reading Hegel and too dull for admirers of Nietzsche. Whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, for his unpopularity—an issue that will be addressed in more detail in the course of this study—the fact is that Stirner is largely unknown or ignored outside a relatively small circle of anarchists, postanarchists, Marxists, and scholars of (anti-)Hegelianism.

Stirner's lack of prominence is curious when one considers that, even for a time of such intellectual upheaval as the post-Hegelian Vormärz (pre-March period) from 1831 to 1848, Der Einzige is a remarkably radical work. It explicitly rejects as hegemonic myths and fictions (or, in Stirner's terminology, spooks [Spuke] and idées fixes) all the man-made causes to which humans commonly devote themselves, be they institutionalized systems like religion, communism, nationalism, and monarchy, or abstract principles like goodness, truth, freedom, and justice. Rarely, if ever, in the history of ideas has there been such a comprehensive assault on man's convictions and beliefs. Individually, Stirner's Young Hegelian colleagues confronted different elements of the prevailing ideology, as did Feuerbach, for instance, with Christianity and Marx with capitalism, but Stirner assails the entire edifice of human dogma.

The Meaning and History of Political Nihilism

There is little dispute about the meaning of political nihilism. Although the term can be, and has been, used in other contexts, in the history of ideas it is generally considered synonymous with the nineteenth-century phenomenon of Russian nihilism. In other words, political nihilism is the generalized form of Russian nihilism, from which it derives its essential properties. This is evidently the sense in which it is meant by Biedermann when he speaks of Stirner's Der Einzige as a literary version of nihilism, “which … allowed none but the sovereign ego to celebrate its triumphs on the ruins of society.” Likewise for Masaryk when he declares that, in Der Einzige, he “was already advocating political nihilism; … for Stirner, a republic was no longer enough: the state as such is to be abolished.” Perhaps the most colorful instance of Stirner's association with political nihilism is Heman's description of Stirner as an anarchist and nihilist “whose followers want, with dagger, revolver, and bombs, to make themselves owners of the whole world.”

It is significant that all of these comments were written in the quarter century following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 when the memory of this and other acts of violence committed by Russian nihilists was still fresh in the mind. Nonetheless, however negative Stirner's critics meant the association to be, these crimes, shocking though they were, especially in an age where monarchical government was the rule, were carried out as part of an escalating response to the brutal repressiveness of the Russian imperial regime, which was characterized by countless atrocities in the form of indiscriminate massacres, public executions, and mass deportations to Siberia of perceived enemies of the state, be they rebellious Poles or revolting peasants. The Russian nihilists were not, as a rule, unprincipled thugs who practiced violence for its own sake. As the eminent Russianist, Eugene Lampert, writes: “They were rebels because they felt man's inhumanity to man…. They were the conscience of Russia.”

The effective equivalence of political and Russian nihilism is borne out in general usage. In the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, one finds the following definition: “Political nihilism calls for the complete destruction of existing political institutions, along with their supporting outlooks and social structures, but has no positive message of what should be put in their place.”