“Le champ des Raines” Elegy as naive and sentimental “rêverie” in Promenades et souvenirs

Thanks to an Oriental legend quoted almost at the end and centered on the mirage of Saint Rieul, Rousseauian reverie is revealed after the fact to be a “naive” and “sentimental” elegiac domain according to Schiller’s categories. Deprived of lodging, the walker of Valois passes, by way of memories of his youth, from the degree zero of the elegy to its occasional apotheosis. The latter combines, in Senlis, the discovery of a carriage of acrobats with the happy prospect of comedy in the chateau.