Note 10 — FOURTH STUDY
Reading edition
"This spirited poem was sent to the Cornhill, because Browning was asked for a subscription to the fund for sending food to Paris after the siege by the Germans in 1870-71. Though he condemned Louis Napoleon's war, he wished to help the French in their distress, and he sent to the fund the 100 pounds that Mr. George Smith gave him for 'Hervé Riel.' The subject of the poem and its generous treatment surely manifolded the good-will of the gift. An English poet restored to France its 'Forgotten Worthy.' An Englishman sang the praises of a French sailor's balking the English fleet. One of the nation whose boast it is that her heroes need no other motive for their noble deeds than 'England expects every man to do his duty' showed that in France, too—whose citizens were accused of seeking glory and vainglory as their dearest gain—was a man who could act out Nelson's words with no thought of Nelson's end—a 'peerage or Westminster Abbey'—but just do his duty because it lay before him, and put aside with a smile the reward offered him for doing it; a real man, an honor to the nation and the navy of which he was part."
"The facts of the story had been forgotten and were denied at St. Malo, but the reports to the French Admiralty at the time were looked up and the facts established. Browning's only alteration is that Hervé Riel's holiday to see his wife, 'La Belle Aurore,' was to last, not a day only, but his lifetime."
"Hervé Riel" was written at Le Croisic, the home of the hero. It is a small fishing village near the mouth of the Loire.