Après moi, le déluge

For the Elliot Murphy album, see Après le Déluge.

"Après moi, le déluge" (pronounced [apʁɛ mwa lə delyʒ]; lit. 'After me, the flood') is a French expression attributed to King Louis XV of France, or in the form "Après nous, le déluge" (pronounced [apʁɛ nu lə delyʒ]; lit. 'After us, the flood') to Madame de Pompadour, his favourite.^[1][2] It is generally regarded as a nihilistic expression of indifference to whatever happens after one is gone.^{[3][2][clarification needed]} Its meaning was translated in 1898 by E. Cobham Brewer in the forms "When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care", and "Ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone".^[4]

One account says that Louis XV's downcast expression while he was posing for the artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour inspired Madame de Pompadour to say: "Il ne faut point s'affliger; vous tomberiez malade. Après nous, le déluge."^{[1][note 1]} Another account states that the Madame used the expression to laugh off ministerial objections to her extravagances.^[4] The phrase is also often seen as foretelling the French Revolution and the corresponding ruin brought to France.^{[5][better source needed]}

The phrase is believed to date from after the 1757 Battle of Rossbach, which was disastrous for the French,^[1].

Alternate interpretations

Biographer Michel Antoine thought that the remark "Après moi, le déluge" was actually a prediction that the upcoming passing of Halley's Comet in 1759 would cause a literal flood, similar to the Genesis flood having been blamed on it as well.^{[6][clarification needed][7][better source needed][note 2]}

Literary and other uses

Literature prior to 19th century

A phrase of similar meaning to the title phrase is attributed to the Arabic poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani who died in 968 AD; the phrase translates as, "If I die of thirst, may it never rain again".^{[according to whom?][citation needed]} The phrase in the original text is "إذا مِتُّ ظمآنًا فلا نزلَ القطرُ".^[8]

Literature in and after the 19th century

Karl Marx used the phrase in Das Kapital (1867) stating, "Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation."^{[9][10][full citation needed]}

Fyodor Dostoevsky applies the phrase in his writings to describe the selfishness and apathy of certain corrupting values.^{[citation needed][original research?]} He used it in The Idiot, (serialised beginning in 1868) as an epigraph for an article written by one of the characters of the novel.^{[citation needed][original research?]} During the trial of Dimitri Fyodorovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (serialised beginning in 1879), the prosecution uses the expression to describe the attitude of the defendant's reprobate father and to lament the deterioration of Russian values more generally.^{[citation needed][original research?]}

Literature in the 20th century

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck was fond of using the phrase, as in:

The liberal has flourished at all periods. The nobody is always eager to imagine himself a somebody. The man who is a misfit in his own society is always a liberal out of amour propre. The disinterestedness of the conservative cherishes the sacredness of a cause that shall not die with him; the liberal says: Après moi, le déluge. Conservatism is rooted in the strength of man; liberalism battens on his weakness. The liberal's conjuring trick consists in turning others' weakness to his own account, living at other men's expense, and concealing his art with patter about ideals. This is the accusation against him. He has always been a source of gravest danger.^[11]

D. H. Lawrence used the phrase in "Whitman" (1923), calling it "the soul's last shout and shriek, on the confines of death".^{[12][full citation needed]} In other of his writings of the 1920s, Lawrence uses the expression a number of times,^{[original research?]} calling it "the tacit utterance of every man", in his "crisis" of unbearable "loneliness ... surrounded by nullity".^{[13][non-primary source needed]} But "you mustn't expect it to wait for your convenience," he warns the dissolute "younger generation";^{[14][non-primary source needed]} "the real deluge lies just ahead of us".^{[15][non-primary source needed]}

Kurt Vonnegut uses "Après moi le déluge" in his novel Player Piano (1952), when the main character Paul talks to Doctor Pond.^{[citation needed][original research?]}

Jack Kerouac's last essay, titled "After Me, the Deluge", was published in the LA Times on 10/26/69, five days after his death. It is a somewhat bitter reconsideration of the so-called Beat Generation, which he was credited with inspiring.

In popular culture

Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor included "Après moi, le déluge" in the chorus of her song "Après Moi" from her 2006 album Begin to Hope, a song later covered by Peter Gabriel in his Album Scratch My Back.^{[non-primary source needed]}

See also

• Flood myth
• Let them eat cake
• Ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί
• No. 617 Squadron RAF