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diff --git a/33062.txt b/33062.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36d07c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/33062.txt @@ -0,0 +1,25980 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of French Literature, by +George Saintsbury + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Short History of French Literature + +Author: George Saintsbury + +Release Date: July 3, 2010 [EBook #33062] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + +London + +HENRY FROWDE + +OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE + +AMEN CORNER, E.C. + + +New York + +112 FOURTH AVENUE + + + + +Clarendon Press Series + +A SHORT HISTORY + +OF + +FRENCH LITERATURE + +BY + +GEORGE SAINTSBURY + + +FOURTH EDITION + +Oxford +AT THE CLARENDON PRESS +1892 + + +Oxford + +HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY + + + + +PREFACE. + + +An attempt to present to students a succinct history of the course of +French literature compiled from an examination of that literature +itself, and not merely from previous accounts of it is, I believe, a new +one in English. There will be observed in the parts of this Short +History a considerable difference of method; and as such a difference is +not usual in works of the kind, it may be well to state the reasons +which have induced me to adopt it. Early French literature is to a great +extent anonymous. Moreover, even where it is not, the authors were +usually more influenced by certain prevalent styles or forms than by +anything else. Into these forms they threw without considerations of +congruity whatever they had to say. Nothing, for instance, can be less +suitable for historical or scientific disquisition than the octosyllabic +metre of a satiric poem. But Jean de Meung and one at least of the +authors of _Renart le Contrefait_[1] do not think of composing prose +diatribes. At one moment and place the form of the Chanson de Geste is +all-absorbing, at another the form of the Roman d'Aventures, at another +the form of the Fabliau. In Book I. I shall therefore proceed by these +forms, giving an account of each separately. + +After Villon the case changes. Instead of classes of chroniclers, +trouveres, jongleurs, we get individual authors of eminence and +individuality striking out their own way and saying their own say in +the manner not that is fashionable but that seems best to them. During +this time, therefore, and especially during that brilliant age of French +literature, the sixteenth century, I shall proceed by authors, taking +the most remarkable individually, and grouping their followers around +them. + +From the time of Malherbe the system of schools begins, divided +according to subjects. The poet, the dramatist, the historian, have +their predecessors, and either intentionally copy them or intentionally +innovate upon them. Malherbe and Delille, Corneille and Lemercier, +Sarrasin and Rulhiere, whatever the difference of merit, stand to one +another in a definite relation, and the later writers represent more or +less the accepted traditions each of his school. In this part, +therefore, I shall proceed by subjects, taking historians, poets, +dramatists, etc., together. One difference will be noticed between the +third and fourth Books, dealing respectively with the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries. It has seemed unnecessary to allot a special +chapter to theological and ecclesiastical writing in the latter, or to +scientific writing in the former. + +Almost all writers who have attempted literary histories in a small +compass have recognised the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of +treating contemporary or recent work on the same scale as older authors. +In treating, therefore, of literature subsequent to the appearance of +the Romantic movement, I shall content myself with giving a rapid sketch +of the principal literary developments and their exponents. + +There are doubtless objections to this quadripartite arrangement; but it +appears to me better suited for the purpose of laying the foundations of +an acquaintance with French literature than a more uniform plan. + +The space at my disposal does not admit of combining full information as +to the literature with elaborate literary comment upon its +characteristics, and there can be no doubt that in such a book as this, +destined for purposes of education chiefly, the latter must be +sacrificed to the former. As an instance of the sacrifice I may refer +to Bk. I. Ch. II. There are some forty or fifty Chansons de Gestes in +print, all of which save two or three I have read, and almost every one +of which presents points on which it would be most interesting to me to +comment. But to do this in the limits would be impossible. Nor is it +easy to enter upon disputed literary questions, however tempting they +may be. On such points as the relations of Northern to Provencal poetry, +the origin of the Chansons and the Arthurian romances, the successive +versions of Froissart, the authenticity of the last book of Rabelais, it +is only possible here to indicate the most probable conclusions. +Generally speaking, the scale of treatment will be found to be adjusted +to the system of division already stated. In the middle ages, where the +importance of the general form surpasses that of the individual +practitioners, comparatively small space is given to these individuals, +and little attempt is made to follow up the scanty and often conjectural +particulars of their lives. In the later books I have endeavoured +(departing in this respect from the system of my two former sketches of +the subject, the article on 'French Literature' in the ninth edition of +the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and the _Primer_ which has preceded this +work in the Clarendon Press Series) to deal more fully with the greater +names whose work is most instructive, and as to whom most curiosity is +likely to be felt. + +If, as seems very likely, these explanations should not content some of +my critics, I can only say that the passages which they may miss here +would have been far easier and far pleasanter for me to write than the +passages which they will here find. This volume attempts to be, not a +series of _causeries_ on the literary history of France, but a Short +History of French Literature. Two things only I have uniformly aimed at, +accuracy as absolute as I could secure, and completeness as thorough as +space would allow. In the pursuit of the former object I have thought it +well to take no fact or opinion at second-hand where the originals were +accessible to me. Manuscript sources I do not pretend to have +consulted; but any judgment which is passed in this book may be taken +as founded on personal acquaintance with the book or author unless the +contrary be stated. Some familiarity with the subject has convinced me +that nowhere are opinions of doubtful accuracy more frequently adopted +and handed on without enquiry than in the history of literature. + +Those who read this book for purposes of study will, it is hoped, be +already acquainted with the _Primer_, which is, in effect, an +introduction to it, and which contains what may be called a bird's-eye +view of the subject. But, lest the wood should be lost sight of for the +trees, notes or interchapters have been inserted between the several +books, indicating the general lines of development followed by the great +literature which I have attempted to survey. To these I have for the +most part confined generalisations as distinct from facts. + +I have, I believe, given in the notes a sufficient list of authorities +which those who desire to follow up the subject may consult. I have not +been indiscriminately lavish in indicating editions of authors, though I +believe that full information will be found as to those necessary for a +scholarly working knowledge of French literature. I had originally hoped +to illustrate the whole book with extracts; but I discovered that such a +course would either swell it to an undesirable bulk, or else would +provide passages too short and too few to be of much use. I have +therefore confined the extracts to the mediaeval period, which can be +illustrated by selections of moderate length, and in which such +illustration, from the general resemblance between the individuals of +each class, and the comparative rarity of the original texts, is +specially desirable. To avoid the serious drawback of the difference of +principle on which old French reprints have been constructed, as many of +these extracts as possible have been printed from Herr Karl Bartsch's +admirable _Chrestomathie_. But in cases where extracts were either not +to be found there, or were not, in my judgment, sufficiently +characteristic, I have departed from this plan. The illustration, by +extracts, of the later literature, which requires more space, has been +reserved for a separate volume. + +I had also intended to subjoin some tabular views of the chief literary +forms, authors, and books of the successive centuries. But when I formed +this intention I was not aware that such tables already existed in a +book very likely to be in the hands of those who use this work, M. +Gustave Masson's _French Dictionary_. Although the plan I had formed was +not quite identical with his, and though the execution might have +differed in detail, it seemed both unnecessary and to a certain extent +ungracious to trespass on the same field. With regard to dates the Index +will, it is believed, be found to contain the date of the birth and +death, or, if these be not obtainable, the _floruit_ of every deceased +author of any importance who is mentioned in the book. It has not seemed +necessary invariably to duplicate this information in the text. I have +also availed myself of this Index (for the compilation of which I owe +many thanks to Miss S. A. Ingham) to insert a very few particulars, +which seemed to find a better place there than in the body of the +volume, as being not strictly literary. + +In conclusion, I think it well to say that the composition of this book +has, owing to the constant pressure of unavoidable occupations, been +spread over a considerable period, and has sometimes been interrupted +for many weeks or even months. This being the case, I fear that there +may be some omissions, perhaps some inconsistencies, not improbably some +downright errors. I do not ask indulgence for these, because that no +author who voluntarily publishes a book has a right to ask, nor, +perhaps, have critics a right to give it. But if any critic will point +out to me any errors of fact, I can promise repentance, as speedy +amendment as may be, and what is more, gratitude. + + (1882.) + + +_Preface to the Second Edition._--In the second edition the text has +been very carefully revised. All corrections of fact indicated by +critics and private correspondents, both English and French (among whom +I owe especial thanks to M. A. Beljame), have, after verification, been +made. A considerable number of additional dates of the publication of +important books have been inserted in the text, and the Index has +undergone a strict examination, resulting in the correction of some +faults which were due not to the original compiler but to myself. On the +suggestion of several competent authorities a Conclusion, following the +lines of the Interchapters, is now added. If less deference is shown to +some strictures which have been passed on the plan of the work and the +author's literary views, it is due merely to the conviction that a +writer must write his own book in his own way if it is to be of any good +to anybody. But in a few places modifications of phrases which seemed to +have been misconceived or to be capable of misconception have been made. +I have only to add sincere thanks to my critics for the very general +and, I fear, scarcely deserved approval with which this Short History of +a long subject has been received, and to my readers for the promptness +with which a second edition of it has been demanded. + + (1884.) + + +_Preface to the Third Edition._--In making, once more, an examination of +this book for the purposes of a third edition I have again done my best +to correct such mistakes as must (I think I may say inevitably) occur in +a very large number of compressed statements about matter often in +itself of great minuteness and complexity. I have found some such +mistakes, and I make no doubt that I have left some. + +In the process of examination I have had the assistance of two detailed +reviews of parts of the book by two French critics, each of very high +repute in his way. The first of these, by M. Gaston Paris, in _Romania_ +(XII, 602 _sqq._), devoted to the mediaeval section only, actually +appeared before my second edition: but accident prevented my availing +myself of it fully, though some important corrections suggested by it +were made on a slip inserted in most of the copies of that issue. The +assistance thus given by M. Paris (whose forbearance in using his great +learning as a specialist I have most cordially to acknowledge) has been +supplemented by the appearance, quite recently, of an admirable +condensed sketch of his own[2], which, compact as it is, is a very +storehouse of information on the subject. If in this book I have not +invariably accepted M. Paris' views or embodied his corrections, it is +merely because in points of opinion and inference as opposed to +ascertained fact, the use of independent judgment seems to me always +advisable. + +The other criticism (in this case of the later part of my book), by M. +Edmond Scherer, would not seem to have been written in the same spirit. +M. Scherer holds very different views from mine on literature in general +and French literature in particular; he seems (which is perhaps natural) +not to be able to forgive me the difference, and to imagine (which if +not unnatural is perhaps a little unreasonable, a little uncharitable, +and even, considering an express statement in my preface, a little +impolite) that I cannot have read the works on which we differ. I am +however grateful to him for showing that a decidedly hostile +examination, conducted with great minuteness and carefully confined to +those parts of the subject with which the critic is best acquainted, +resulted in nothing but the discovery of about half a dozen or a dozen +misprints and slips of fact[3]. One only of these (the very unpardonable +blunder of letting Madame de Stael's _Considerations_ appear as an +early work, which I do not know how I came either to commit or to +overlook) is of real importance. Such slips I have corrected with due +gratitude. But I have not altered passages where M. Scherer mistakes +facts or mistakes me. I need hardly say that I have made no alterations +in criticism, and that the passage referring to M. Scherer himself (with +the exception of a superfluous accent) stands precisely as it did. + +Some additions have been made to the latter part of the book, but not +very many: for the attempt to 'write up' such a history to date every +few years can only lead to confusion and disproportion. I have had, +during the decade which has passed since the book was first planned, +rather unusual opportunities of acquainting myself with all new French +books of any importance, but a history is not a periodical, and I have +thought it best to give rather grudging than free admittance to +new-comers. On the other hand, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, +to obliterate chronological references which the effluxion of time has +rendered, or may render, misleading. The notes to which it seemed most +important to attract attention, as modifying or enlarging some statement +in the text, are specially headed 'Notes to Third Edition': but they +represent only a small part of the labour which has been expended on the +text. I have also again overhauled and very considerably enlarged the +index; while the amplification of the 'Contents' by subjoining to each +chapter-heading a list of the side-headings of the paragraphs it +contains, will, I think, be found an advantage. And so I commend the +book once more to readers and to students[4]. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Note to Third Edition._--M. Gaston Paris expresses some surprise at +my saying 'one of the authors,' and attributes both versions to the +Troyes clerk (see pp. 52, 53). I can only say that so long as _Renart le +Contrefait_ is unpublished, if not longer, such a question is difficult +to decide: and that the accepted monograph on the subject (that of Wolf) +left on my mind the impression of plural authorship as probable. + +[2] _La Litterature Francaise du Moyen Age_ (Paris, 1888). + +[3] A preface is but an ill place for controversy. As however M. +Scherer, thanks chiefly to the late Mr. Matthew Arnold, enjoys some +repute in England, I may give an example of his censure. He accuses me +roundly of giving in my thirty dates of Corneille's plays 'une dizaine +de fausses,' and he quotes (as I do) M. Marty-Laveaux. As since the +beginning, years ago, of my Cornelian studies, I have constantly used +that excellent edition, though, now as always, reserving my own judgment +on points of opinion, I verified M. Scherer's appeal with some alarm at +first, and more amusement afterwards. The eminent critic of the _Temps_ +had apparently contented himself with turning to the half-titles of the +plays and noting the dates given, which in ten instances do differ from +mine. Had his patience been equal to consulting the learned editor's +_Notices_, he would have found in every case but one the reasons which +prevailed and prevail with me given by M. Marty-Laveaux himself. The one +exception I admit. I was guilty of the iniquity of confusing the date of +the publication of _Othon_ with the date of its production, and printing +1665 instead of 1664. So dangerous is it to digest and weigh an editor's +arguments, instead of simply copying his dates. Had I done the latter, I +had 'scaped M. Scherer's tooth. + +[4] The remarks on M. Scherer in this preface (and I need hardly say +still more those which occur in the body of the book with reference to a +few others of his criticisms) were written long before his fatal +illness, and had been sent finally to press some time before the +announcement of his death. I had at first thought of endeavouring to +suppress those which could be recalled. But it seemed to me on +reflection that the best compliment to the memory of a man who was +himself nothing if not uncompromising, and towards whom, whether alive +or dead, I am not conscious of having entertained any ill-feeling, would +be to print them exactly as they stood, with the brief addition that I +have not known a critic more acute within his range, or more honest +according to what he saw, than M. Edmond Scherer. (March 20, 1889.) + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + +PREFACE v + + +BOOK I. + +MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE. + + +CHAP. I. THE ORIGINS 1 + +Relation of French to Latin. Influence of Latin Literature. +Early Monuments. Dialects and Provincial Literatures. +Beginning of Literature proper. Cantilenae. Trouveres +and Jongleurs. + + +II. CHANSONS DE GESTES 10 + +Origin of Chansons de Gestes. Definition. Period of +Composition. Chanson de Roland. Amis et Amiles. +Other principal Chansons. Social and Literary Characteristics. +Authorship. Style and Language. Later +History. + + +III. PROVENCAL LITERATURE 26 + +Langue d'Oc. Range and characteristics. Periods of +Provencal Literature. First Period. Second Period. +Forms of Troubadour Poetry. Third Period. Literary +Relation of Provencal and French. Defects of Provencal +Literature. + + +IV. ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY 34 + +The Tale of Arthur. Its Origin. Order of French Arthurian +Cycle. Chrestien de Troyes. Spirit and Literary +value of Arthurian Romances. Romances of Antiquity. +Chanson d'Alixandre. Roman de Troie. Other Romances +on Classical subjects. + + +V. FABLIAUX. THE ROMAN DU RENART 47 + +Foreign Elements in Early French Literature. The Esprit +Gaulois makes its appearance. Definition of Fabliaux. +Subjects and character of Fabliaux. Sources of Fabliaux. +The Roman du Renart. The Ancien Renart. Le Couronnement +Renart. Renart le Nouvel. Renart le Contrefait. +Fauvel. + + +VI. EARLY LYRICS 62 + +Early and Later Lyrics. Origins of Lyric. Romances +and Pastourelles. Thirteenth Century. Changes in Lyric. +Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century. Quesnes de +Bethune. Thibaut de Champagne. Minor Singers. Adam +de la Halle. Ruteboeuf. Lais. Marie de France. + + +VII. SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY 75 + +Verse Chronicles. Miscellaneous Satirical Verse. Didactic +verse. Philippe de Thaun. Moral and Theological verse. +Allegorical verse. The Roman de la Rose. Popularity +of the Roman de la Rose. Imitations. + + +VIII. ROMANS D'AVENTURES 91 + +Distinguishing features of Romans d'Aventures. Looser +application of the term. Classes of Romans d'Aventures. +Adenes le Roi. Raoul de Houdenc. Chief Romans +d'Aventures. General Character. Last Chansons. Baudouin +de Sebourc. + + +IX. LATER SONGS AND POEMS 100 + +The Artificial Forms of Northern France. General Character. +Varieties. Jehannot de Lescurel. Guillaume de +Machault. Eustache Deschamps. Froissart. Christine +de Pisan. Alain Chartier. + + +X. THE DRAMA 110 + +Origins of the Drama. Earliest Vernacular Dramatic +Forms. Mysteries and Miracles. Miracles de la Vierge. +Heterogeneous Character of Mysteries. Argument of a +Miracle Play. Profane Drama. Adam de la Halle. +Monologues. Farces. Moralities. Soties. Profane +Mysteries. Societies of Actors. + + +XI. PROSE CHRONICLES 127 + +Beginning of Prose Chronicles. Grandes Chroniques de +France. Villehardouin. Minor Chroniclers between Villehardouin +and Joinville. Joinville. Froissart. Fifteenth-Century +Chroniclers. + + +XII. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 140 + +General use of Prose. Prose Sermons. St. Bernard. +Maurice de Sully. Later Preachers. Gerson. Moral and +Devotional Treatises. Translators. Political and Polemical +Works. Codes and Legal Treatises. Miscellanies +and Didactic Works. Fiction. Antoine de la Salle. + + +INTERCHAPTER I. SUMMARY OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 151 + + +BOOK II. + +THE RENAISSANCE. + + +CHAP. I. VILLON, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY 155 + +The Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Characteristics +of Fifteenth-century Literature. Villon. Comines. Coquillart. +Baude. Martial d'Auvergne. The Rhetoriqueurs. +Chansons du xv'eme Siecle. Preachers. + + +II. MAROT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 168 + +Hybrid School of Poetry. Jean le Maire. Jehan du +Pontalais. Roger de Collerye. Minor Predecessors of Marot. +Clement Marot. The School of Marot. Mellin de Saint-Gelais. +Miscellaneous Verse. Anciennes Poesies Francaises. + + +III. RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 183 + +Fiction at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. Rabelais. +Bonaventure des Periers. The Heptameron. Noel du +Fail. G. Bouchet. Cholieres. Apologie pour Herodote. +Moyen de Parvenir. + + +IV. THE PLEIADE 196 + +Character and Effects of the Pleiade Movement. Ronsard. +The Defense et Illustration de la Langue Francaise. Du +Bellay. Belleau. Baif. Daurat, Jodelle, Pontus de +Tyard. Magny. Tahureau. Minor Ronsardists. Du +Bartas. D'Aubigne. Desportes. Bertaut. + + +V. THE THEATRE FROM GRINGORE TO GARNIER 216 + +Gringore. The last Age of the Mediaeval Theatre. Beginnings +of the Classical Drama. Jodelle. Minor Pleiade +Dramatists. Garnier. Defects of the Pleiade Tragedy. +Pleiade Comedy. Larivey. + + +VI. CALVIN AND AMYOT 228 + +Prose Writers of the Renaissance. Calvin. Minor Reformers +and Controversialists. Preachers of the League. +Amyot. Minor Translators. Dolet. Fauchet. Pasquier. +Henri Estienne. Herberay. Palissy. Pare. Olivier de Serres. + + +VII. MONTAIGNE AND BRANTOME 241 + +Disenchantment of the late Renaissance. Montaigne. +Charron. Du Vair. Bodin and other Political Writers. +Brantome. Montluc. La Noue. Agrippa d'Aubigne. +Marguerite de Valois. Vieilleville. Palma-Cayet. Pierre +de l'Estoile. D'Ossat. Sully. Jeannin. Minor Memoir-writers. +General Historians. + + +VIII. THE SATYRE MENIPPEE. REGNIER 259 + +Satyre Menippee. Regnier. + + +INTERCHAPTER II. SUMMARY OF RENAISSANCE LITERATURE 270 + + +BOOK III. + +THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. + + + CHAP. I. POETS 274 + +Malherbe. The School of Malherbe. Vers de Societe. +Voiture. Epic School. Chapelain. Bacchanalian School. +Saint Amant. La Fontaine. Boileau. Minor Poets of the +Seventeenth Century. + + +II. DRAMATISTS 290 + +Montchrestien. Hardy. Minor predecessors of Corneille. +Rotrou. Corneille. Racine. Minor Tragedians. Development +of Comedy. Moliere. Contemporaries of +Moliere. The School of Moliere. Regnard. Characteristics +of Molieresque Comedy. + + +III. NOVELISTS 319 + +D'Urfe. The Heroic Romances. Scarron. Cyrano de +Bergerac. Furetiere. Madame de la Fayette. Fairy +Tales. Perrault. + + +IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS 332 + +General Historians. Mezeray. Historical Essayists. +St. Real. Memoir-writers. Rohan. Bassompierre. +Madame de Motteville. Cardinal de Retz. Mademoiselle. +La Rochefoucauld. Saint Simon. Madame de Sevigne. +Tallemant des Reaux. Historical Antiquaries. Du Cange. + + +V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS 354 + +Balzac. Pascal. La Rochefoucauld. La Bruyere. + + +VI. PHILOSOPHERS 368 + +Descartes. Port Royal. Bayle. Malebranche. + + +VII. THEOLOGIANS AND PREACHERS 379 + +St. Francois de Sales. Bossuet. Fenelon. Massillon. +Bourdaloue. Minor Preachers. + + +INTERCHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 391 + + +BOOK IV. + +THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. + + +CHAP. I. POETS 395 + +Literary Degeneracy of the Eighteenth Century, especially +manifest in Poetry. J. B. Rousseau. Voltaire. Descriptive +Poets. Delille. Lebrun. Parny. Chenier. Minor +Poets. Light Verse. Piron. Desaugiers. + + +CHAP. II. DRAMATISTS 406 + +Divisions of Drama. La Motte. Crebillon the Elder. +Voltaire and his followers. Lesage. Comedie Larmoyante. +La Chaussee. Diderot. Marivaux. Beaumarchais. Characteristics +of Eighteenth-century Drama. + + +III. NOVELISTS 416 + +Lesage. Marivaux. Prevost. Voltaire. Diderot. Rousseau. +Crebillon the Younger. Bernardin de St. Pierre. Restif +de la Bretonne. Chateaubriand. Madame de Stael. +Xavier de Maistre. Benjamin Constant. + + +IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS 436 + +Characteristics and Divisions of Eighteenth-century History. +Rollin. Dubos. Boulainvilliers. Voltaire. Mably. +Rulhiere. Memoirs. Mme. de Staal-Delaunay. Duclos. +Besenval. Madame d'Epinay. Minor Memoirs. Memoirs +of the Revolutionary Period. Abundance of Letter-writers. +Mademoiselle Aisse. Madame du Deffand. Mademoiselle +de Lespinasse. Voltaire. Diderot. Galiani. + + +V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS 452 + +Occasional Writing in the Eighteenth-century. Periodicals. +Fontenelle. La Motte. Vauvenargues. D'Aguesseau. +Duclos. Marmontel. La Harpe. Thomas. Orthodox +Apologists. Freron. Philosophe Criticism. D'Alembert. +Diderot. Les Feuilles de Grimm. Diderot's Salons. His +General Criticism. Newspapers of the Revolution. The +Influence of Journalism. Chamfort. Rivarol. Joubert. +Courier. Senancour. + + +VI. PHILOSOPHERS 473 + +The philosophe movement. Montesquieu. Lettres Persanes. +Grandeur et Decadence des Romains. Esprit des +Lois. Voltaire. The Encyclopaedia. Diderot. D'Alembert. +Rousseau. Political Economists. Vauban, Quesnay, +etc. Turgot. Condorcet. Volney. La Mettrie. Helvetius. +Systeme de la Nature. Condillac. Joseph de +Maistre. Bonald. + + +VII. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS 499 + +Buffon. Lesser Scientific Writers. Voyages and Travels. +Linguistic and Literary Study. + + +INTERCHAPTER IV. SUMMARY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 504 + + +BOOK V. + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 510 + +The Romantic Movement. Writers of the later Transition. +Beranger. Lamartine. Lamennais. Victor Cousin. Beyle. +Nodier. Delavigne. Soumet. The Romantic Propaganda +in Periodicals. Victor Hugo. Sainte-Beuve. His Method. +Dangers of the Method. Dumas the Elder. Honore de +Balzac. George Sand. Merimee. Theophile Gautier. +Alfred de Musset. Influence of the Romantic Leaders. +Minor Poets of 1830. Alfred de Vigny. Auguste Barbier. +Gerard de Nerval. Curiosites Romantiques. Petrus Borel. +Louis Bertrand. Second Group of Romantic Poets. +Theodore de Banville. Leconte de Lisle. Charles Baudelaire. +Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group. +Dupont. The Parnasse. Minor and later Dramatists. +Scribe. Ponsard. Emile Augier. Eugene Labiche. Dumas +the Younger. Victorien Sardou. Classes of Nineteenth-century +Fiction. Minor and later Novelists. Jules Janin. +Charles de Bernard. Jules Sandeau. Octave Feuillet. +Murger. Edmond About. Feydeau. Gustave Droz. +Flaubert. The Naturalists. Emile Zola. Journalists +and Critics. Paul de St. Victor. Hippolyte Taine. +Academic Critics. Linguistic and Literary Study of +French. Philosophical Writers. Comte. Theological +Writers. Montalembert. Ozanam. Lacordaire. Ernest +Renan. Historians. Thierry. Thiers. Guizot. Mignet. +Michelet. Quinet. Tocqueville. Minor Historians. + + +CONCLUSION 579 + + +INDEX 591 + + + + +BOOK I. + +MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE ORIGINS. + + +[Sidenote: Relation of French to Latin.] + +Of all European literatures the French is, by general consent, that +which possesses the most uniformly fertile, brilliant, and unbroken +history. In actual age it may possibly yield to others, but the +connection between the language of the oldest and the language of the +newest French literature is far closer than in these other cases, and +the fecundity of mediaeval writers in France far exceeds that of their +rivals elsewhere. For something like three centuries England, Germany, +Italy, and more doubtfully and to a smaller extent, Spain, were content +for the most part to borrow the matter and the manner of their literary +work from France. This brilliant literature was however long before it +assumed a regularly organized form, and in order that it might do so a +previous literature and a previous language had to be dissolved and +precipitated anew. With a few exceptions, to be presently noticed, +French literature is not to be found till after the year 1000, that is +to say until a greater lapse of time had passed since Caesar's campaigns +than has passed from the later date to the present day. Taking the +earliest of all monuments, the Strasburg Oaths, as starting-point, we +may say that French language and French literature were nine hundred +years in process of formation. The result was a remarkable one in +linguistic history. French is unquestionably a daughter of Latin, yet it +is not such a daughter as Italian or Spanish. A knowledge of the older +language would enable a reader who knew no other to spell out, more or +less painfully, the meaning of most pages of the two Peninsular +languages; it would hardly enable him to do more than guess at the +meaning of a page of French. The long process of gestation transformed +the appearance of the new tongue completely, though its grammatical +forms and the bulk of its vocabulary are beyond all question Latin. The +history of this process belongs to the head of language, not of +literature, and must be sought elsewhere. It is sufficient to say that +the first mention of a _lingua romana rustica_ is found in the seventh +century, while allusions in Latin documents show us its gradual use in +pulpit and market-place, and even as a vehicle for the rude songs of the +minstrel, long before any trace of written French can be found. + +[Sidenote: Influence of Latin Literature.] + +Meanwhile, however, Latin was doing more than merely furnishing the +materials of the new language. The literary faculty of the Gauls was +early noticed, and before their subjection had long been completed they +were adepts at using the language of the conquerors. It does not fall +within our plan to notice in detail the Latin literature of Gaul and +early France, but the later varieties of that literature deserve some +little attention, because of the influence which they undoubtedly +exercised on the literary forms of the new language. In early French +there is little trace of the influence of the Latin forms which we call +classical. It was the forms of the language which has been said to have +'dived under ground with Naevius and come up again with Prudentius' that +really influenced the youthful tongue. Ecclesiastical Latin, and +especially the wonderful melody of the early Latin hymn-writers, had by +far the greatest effect upon it. Ingenious and not wholly groundless +efforts have been made to trace the principal forms of early French +writing to the services and service-books of the church, the chronicle +to the sacred histories, the lyric to the psalm and the hymn, the +mystery to the elaborate and dramatic ritual of the church. The _Chanson +de Geste_, indeed, displays in its matter and style many traces of +Germanic origin, but the metre with its regular iambic cadence and its +rigid caesura testifies to Latin influence. The service thus performed +to the literature was not unlike the service performed to the language. +In the one case the scaffolding, or rather the skeleton, was furnished +in the shape of grammar; in the other a similar skeleton, in the shape +of prosody, was supplied. Important additions were indeed made by the +fresh elements introduced. Rhyme Latin had itself acquired. But of the +musical refrains which are among the most charming features of early +French lyric poetry we find no vestige in the older tongue. + +[Sidenote: Early Monuments.] + +The history of the French language, as far as concerns literature, from +the seventh to the eleventh century, can be rapidly given. The earliest +mention of the Romance tongue as distinguished from Latin and from +German dialect refers to 659, and occurs in the life of St. Mummolinus +or Momolenus, bishop of Noyon, who was chosen for that office because of +his knowledge of the two languages, Teutonic and Romanic[5]. We may +therefore assume that Mummolinus preached in the _lingua Romana_. To the +same century is referred the song of St. Faron, bishop of Meaux[6], but +this only exists in Latin, and a Romance original is inferred rather +than proved. In the eighth century the Romance eloquence of St. Adalbert +is commended[7], and to the same period are referred the glossaries of +Reichenau and Cassel, lists containing in the first case Latin and +Romance equivalents, in the second Teutonic and Romance[8]. By the +beginning of the ninth century it was compulsory for bishops to preach +in Romance, and to translate such Latin homilies as they read[9]; and to +this same era has been referred a fragmentary commentary on the Book of +Jonah[10], included in the latest collection of 'Monuments[11].' In 842 +we have the Strasburg Oaths, celebrated alike in French history and +French literature. The text of the MS. of Nithard which contains them is +of the tenth century. + +We now come to documents less shapeless. The tenth century itself gives +us the song of St. Eulalie, a poem on the Passion, a life of St. Leger, +and perhaps a poem on Boethius. These four documents are of the highest +interest. Not merely has the language assumed a tolerably regular form, +but its great division into Langue d'Oc and Langue d'Oil is already +made, and grammar, prosody, and other necessities or ornaments of +bookwriting, are present. The following extracts will illustrate this +part of French literature. The Romance oaths and the 'St. Eulalie' are +given in full, the 'Passion' and the 'St. Leger' in extract; it will be +observed that the interval between the first and the others is of very +considerable width. This interval probably represents a century of +active change, and of this unfortunately we have no monuments to mark +the progress accurately. + + +LES SERMENTS DE STRASBOURG DE 842. + + Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun + salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant deus savir et podir + me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha + et in cadhuna cosa, si cum on per dreit son fradra salvar + dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid + nunqua prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in + damno sit. + + Si Lodhuvigs sagrament, quae son fradre Karlo jurat, + conservat, et Karlus meos sendra de sua part nun los tanit, + si io returnar nun l'int pois, ne io ne neuls, cui eo + returnar int pois, in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuwig nun li iv + er. + + +CANTILENE DE SAINTE EULALIE. + + Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, + bel auret corps, bellezour anima. + Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi, + voldrent la faire diaule servir. + Elle non eskoltet les mals conselliers, + qu'elle deo raneiet, chi maent sus en ciel, + Ne por or ned argent ne paramenz, + por manatce regiel ne preiement. + Niule cose non la pouret omque pleier, + la polle sempre non amast lo deo menestier. + E poro fut presentede Maximiien, + chi rex eret a cels dis sovre pagiens + El li enortet, dont lei nonque chielt. + qued elle fuiet lo nom christiien. + Ell' ent adunet lo suon element, + melz sostendreiet les empedementz, + Qu'elle perdesse sa virginitet: + poros furet morte a grand honestet. + Enz enl fou la getterent, com arde tost. + elle colpes non auret, poro nos coist. + A ezo nos voldret concreidre li rex pagiens; + ad une spede li roveret tolir lo chief. + La domnizelle celle kose non contredist, + volt lo seule lazsier, si ruovet Krist. + In figure de colomb volat a ciel. + tuit orem, que por nos deguet preier, + Qued auuisset de nos Christus mercit + post la mort et a lui nos laist venir + Par souue clementia. + + +LA PASSION DU CHRIST. + + Christus Jhesus den s'en leved, + Gehsesmani vil' es n'anez. + toz sos fidels seder rovet, + avan orar sols en anet. + Grant fu li dois, fort marrimenz. + si condormirent tuit ades. + Jhesus cum veg los esveled, + trestoz orar ben los manded. + E dunc orar cum el anned, + si fort sudor dunques suded, + que cum lo sangs a terra curren + de sa sudor las sanctas gutas. + Als sos fidels cum repadred, + tam benlement los conforted + li fel Judas ja s'aproismed + ab gran cumpannie dels judeus. + Jhesus cum vidra los judeus, + zo lor demandet que querent. + il li respondent tuit adun + 'Jhesum querem _Nazarenum_.' + 'Eu soi aquel,' zo dis Jhesus. + tuit li felun cadegren jos. + terce ves lor o demanded, + a totas treis chedent envers. + + +VIE DE SAINT LEGER. + + Domine deu devemps lauder + et a sus sancz honor porter; + in su' amor cantomps dels sanz + quae por lui augrent granz aanz; + et or es temps et si est biens + quae nos cantumps de sant Lethgier. + Primos didrai vos dels honors + quie il auuret ab duos seniors; + apres ditrai vos dels aanz + que li suos corps susting si granz, + et Evvruins, cil deumentiz, + qui lui a grand torment occist. + Quant infans fud, donc a ciels temps + al rei lo duistrent soi parent, + qui donc regnevet a ciel di: + cio fud Lothiers fils Baldequi. + il le amat; deu lo covit; + rovat que _litteras_ apresist. + +[Sidenote: Dialects and Provincial Literatures.] + +Considering the great extent and the political divisions of the country +called France, it is not surprising that the language which was so +slowly formed should have shown considerable dialectic variations. The +characteristics of these dialects, Norman, Picard, Walloon, Champenois, +Angevin, and so forth, have been much debated by philologists. But it so +happens that the different provinces displayed in point of literature +considerable idiosyncrasy, which it is scarcely possible to dispute. +Hardly a district of France but contributed something special to her +wide and varied literature. The South, though its direct influence was +not great, undoubtedly set the example of attention to lyrical form and +cadence. Britanny contributed the wonderfully suggestive Arthurian +legends, and the peculiar music and style of the _lai_. The border +districts of Flanders seem to deserve the credit of originating the +great beast-epic of Reynard the Fox; Picardy, Eastern Normandy, and the +Isle of France were peculiarly rich in the _fabliau_; Champagne was the +special home of the lighter lyric poetry, while almost all northern +France had a share in the Chansons de Gestes, many districts, such as +Lorraine and the Cambresis, having a special _geste_ of their own. + +[Sidenote: Beginning of Literature proper.] + +It is however with the eleventh century that the history of French +literature properly so called begins. We have indeed few Romance +manuscripts so early as this, the date of most of them not being earlier +than the twelfth. But by the eleventh century not merely were laws +written in French (charters and other formal documents were somewhat +later), not merely were sermons constantly composed and preached in that +tongue, but also works of definite literature were produced in it. The +_Chanson de Roland_ is our only instance of its epic literature, but is +not likely to have stood alone: the mystery of _The Ten Virgins_, a +medley of French and Latin, has been (but perhaps falsely) ascribed to +the same date; and lyric poetry, even putting aside the obscure and +doubtful _Cantilenes_, was certainly indulged in to a considerable +extent. From this date it is therefore possible to abandon generalities, +and taking the successive forms and developments of literature, to deal +with them in detail. + +Before however we attempt a systematic account of French literature as +it has been actually handed down to us, it is necessary to deal very +briefly with two questions, one of which concerns the antecedence of +possible ballad literature to the existing Chansons de Gestes, the other +the machinery of diffusion to which this and all the early historical +developments of the written French language owed much. + +[Sidenote: Cantilenae.] + +It has been held by many scholars, whose opinions deserve respect, that +an extensive literature of _Cantilenae_[12], or short historical +ballads, preceded the lengthy epics which we now possess, and was to a +certain extent worked up in these compositions. It is hardly necessary +to say that this depends in part upon a much larger question--the +question, namely, of the general origins of epic poetry. There are +indeed certain references[13] to these Cantilenae upon which the +theories alluded to have been built. But the Cantilenae themselves have, +as one of the best of French literary historians, the late M. Paulin +Paris, remarks of another debated product, the Provencal epic, only one +defect, 'le defaut d'etre perdu,' and investigation on the subject is +therefore more curious than profitable. No remnant of them survives save +the already-mentioned Latin prose canticle of St. Faron, in which +vestiges of a French and versified original are thought to be visible, +and the ballad of Saucourt, a rough song in a Teutonic dialect[14]. In +default of direct evidence an argument has been sought to be founded on +the constant transitions, repetitions, and other peculiarities of the +Chansons, some of which (and especially _Roland_, the most famous of +all) present traces of repeated handlings of the same subject, such as +might be expected in work which was merely that of a _diaskeuast_[15] of +existing lays. + +[Sidenote: Trouveres and Jongleurs.] + +It is however probable that the explanation of this phenomenon need not +be sought further than in the circumstances of the composition and +publication of these poems, circumstances which also had a very +considerable influence on the whole course and character of early French +literature. We know nothing of the rise or origin of the two classes of +_Trouveurs_ and _Jongleurs_. The former (which it is needless to say is +the same word as _Troubadour_, and _Trobador_, and _Trovatore_) is the +term for the composing class, the latter for the performing one. But the +separation was not sharp or absolute, and there are abundant instances +of Trouveres[16] who performed their own works, and of Jongleurs who +aspired to the glories if not of original authorship, at any rate of +alteration and revision of the legends they sang or recited. The natural +consequence of this irregular form of publication was a good deal of +repetition in the works published. Different versions of the legends +easily enough got mixed together by the copyist, who it must be +remembered was frequently a mere mechanical reproducer, and neither +Trouvere nor Jongleur; nor should it be forgotten that, so long as +recitation was general, repetitions of this kind were almost inevitable +as a rest to the reciter's memory, and were scarcely likely to attract +unfavourable remark or criticism from the audience. We may therefore +conclude, without entering further into the details of a debate +unsuitable to the plan of this history, that, while but scanty evidence +has been shown of the existence previous to the _Chansons de Gestes_ of +a ballad literature identical in subject with those compositions, at the +same time the existence of such a literature is neither impossible nor +improbable. It is otherwise with the hypothesis of the existence of +prose chronicles, from which the early epics (and _Roland_ in +particular) are also held to have derived their origin. But this subject +will be better handled when we come to treat of the beginnings of French +prose. For the present it is sufficient to say that, with the exception +of the scattered fragments already commented upon, there is no +department of French literature before the eleventh century and the +_Chansons de Gestes_, which possesses historical existence proved by +actual monuments, and thus demands or deserves treatment here. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] 'Fama bonorum operum, quia praevalebat non tantum in Teutonica sed +in Romana lingua, Lotharii regis ad aures usque perveniente,' says his +life. The chronicler Sigebert confirms the statement that he was made +bishop 'quod Romanam non minus quam Teutonicam calleret linguam.' +_Lingua Latina_ and _Lingua Romana_ are from this time distinguished. + +[6] The Latin form of the song is given by Helgaire, Bishop of Meaux, +who wrote a life of St. Faron, his predecessor, towards the end of the +ninth century. Helgaire uses the words 'juxta rusticitatem,' 'carmen +rusticum;' and _Lingua Rustica_ is usually if not universally synonymous +with _Lingua Romana_. + +[7] 'Si vulgari id est romana lingua loqueretur omnium aliarum putares +inscium.' + +[8] The Reichenau Glossary is at Carlsruhe. It was published in 1863 by +Holtzmann. The Cassel Glossary, which came from Fulda, was published in +the last century (1729). + +[9] Ordered by the Councils of Tours, Rheims, and Arles (813-851). + +[10] In the Library at Valenciennes. + +[11] _Les plus anciens Monuments de la Langue Francaise._ Paris, 1875. + +[12] The subject of the Cantilenae is discussed at great length by M. +Leon Gautier, _Les Epopees Francaises_, Ed. 2, vol. i. caps. 8-13. +Paris, 1878. + +[13] These, which are for the most part very vague and not very early, +will be found fully quoted and discussed in Gautier, l. c. + +[14] Published by Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1837). + +[15] This word (= arranger or putter-in-order) is familiar in Homeric +discussion, and therefore seems appropriate. M. Gaston Paris speaks with +apparent confidence of the pre-existing _chants_, and, in matter of +authority, no one speaks with more than he: but it can hardly be said +that there is proof of the fact. + +[16] The older and in this case more usual form. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE CHANSONS DE GESTES. + + +The earliest form which finished literature took in France was that of +epic or narrative poetry. Towards the middle of the eleventh century +certainly, and probably some half-century earlier, poems of regular +construction and considerable length began to be written. These are the +_Chansons de Gestes_, so called from their dealing with the +_Gestes_[17], or heroic families of legendary or historical France. It +is remarkable that this class of composition, notwithstanding its age, +its merits, and the abundant examples of it which have been preserved, +was one of the latest to receive recognition in modern times. The matter +of many of the Chansons, under their later form of verse or prose +romances of chivalry, was indeed more or less known in the eighteenth +century. But an appreciation of their real age, value, and interest has +been the reward of the literary investigations of our own time. It was +not till 1837 that the oldest and the most remarkable of them was first +edited from the manuscript found in the Bodleian Library[18]. Since that +time investigation has been constant and fruitful, and there are now +more than one hundred of these interesting poems known. + +[Sidenote: Origin of Chansons de Gestes.] + +The origin and sources of the _Chansons de Gestes_ have been made a +matter of much controversy. We have already seen how, from the testimony +of historians and the existence of a few fragments, it appears that rude +lays or ballads in the different vernacular tongues of the country were +composed and sung if not written down at very early dates. According to +one theory, we are to look for the origin of the long and regular epics +of the eleventh and subsequent centuries in these rude compositions, +first produced independently, then strung together, and lastly subjected +to some process of editing and union. It has been sought to find proof +of this in the frequent repetitions which take place in the Chansons, +and which sometimes amount to the telling of the same incident over and +over again in slightly varying words. Others have seen in this +peculiarity only a result of improvisation in the first place, and +unskilful or at least uncritical copying in the second. This, however, +is a question rather interesting than important. What is certain is that +no literary source of the Chansons is now actually in existence, and +that we have no authentic information as to any such originals. At a +certain period--approximately given above--the fashion of narrative +poems on the great scale seems to have arisen in France. It spread +rapidly, and was eagerly copied by other nations. + +[Sidenote: Definition.] + +The definition of a _Chanson de Geste_ is as follows. It is a narrative +poem, dealing with a subject connected with French history, written in +verses of ten or twelve syllables, which verses are arranged in stanzas +of arbitrary length, each stanza possessing a distinguishing assonance +or rhyme in the last syllable of each line. The assonance, which is +characteristic of the earlier Chansons, is an imperfect rhyme, in which +identity of vowel sound is all that is necessary. Thus _traitor_, +_felon_, _compaingnons_, _manons_, _noz_, the first, fourth, and fifth +of which have no character of rhyme whatever in modern poetry, are +sufficient terminations for an assonanced poem, because the last vowel +sound, o, is identical. There is moreover in this versification a +regular caesura, sometimes after the fourth, sometimes after the sixth +syllable; and in a few of the older examples the stanzas, or as they are +sometimes called _laisses_, terminate in a shorter line than usual, +which is not assonanced. This metrical system, it will be observed, is +of a fairly elaborate character, a character which has been used as an +argument by those who insist on the existence of a body of ballad +literature anterior to the Chansons. We shall see in the following +chapters how this double definition of a _Chanson de Geste_, by matter +and by form, serves to exclude from the title other important and +interesting classes of compositions slightly later in date. + +[Sidenote: Period of Composition.] + +The period of composition of these poems extended, speaking roughly, +over three centuries. In the eleventh they began, but the beginnings are +represented only by _Roland_, the _Voyage de Charlemagne_, and perhaps +_Le Roi Louis_. Most and nearly all the best date from the twelfth. The +thirteenth century also produces them in great numbers, but by this time +a sensible change has come over their manner, and after the beginning of +the fourteenth only a few pieces deserving the title are written. They +then undergo transformation rather than neglect, and we shall meet them +at a later period in other forms. Before dealing with other general +characteristics of the early epics of France it will be well to give +some notion of them by actual selection and narrative. For this purpose +we shall take two Chansons typical of two out of the three stages +through which they passed. _Roland_ will serve as a sample of the +earliest, _Amis et Amiles_ of the second. Of the third, as less +characteristic in itself and less marked by uniform features, it will be +sufficient to give some account when we come to the compositions which +chiefly influenced it, namely the romances of Arthur and of antiquity. + +[Sidenote: Chanson de Roland.] + +The _Chanson de Roland_, the most ancient and characteristic of these +poems, though extremely popular in the middle ages[19], passed with them +into obscurity. The earliest allusion to the Oxford MS., which alone +represents its earliest form, was made by Tyrwhitt a century ago. +Conybeare forty years later dealt with it in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ +of 1817, and by degrees the reviving interest of France in her older +literature attracted French scholars to this most important monument of +the oldest French. It was first published as a whole by M. F. Michel in +1837, and since that time it has been the subject of a very great amount +of study. Its length is 4001 decasyllabic lines, and it concludes with +an obscure assertion of authorship, publication or transcription by a +certain Turoldus[20]. The date of the Oxford MS. is probably the middle +of the twelfth century, but its text is attributed by the best +authorities to the end of the eleventh. There are other MSS., but they +are all either mutilated or of much later date. The argument of the poem +is as follows:-- + +Charlemagne has warred seven years in Spain, but king Marsile of +Saragossa still resists the Christian conqueror. Unable however to meet +Charlemagne in the field, he sends an embassy with presents and a +feigned submission, requesting that prince to return to France, whither +he will follow him and do homage. Roland opposes the reception of these +offers, Ganelon speaks in their favour, and so does Duke Naimes. Then +the question is who shall go to Saragossa to settle the terms. Roland +offers to go himself, but being rejected as too impetuous, suggests +Ganelon--a suggestion which bitterly annoys that knight and by +irritating him against Roland sows the seeds of his future treachery. +Ganelon goes to Marsile, and at first bears himself truthfully and +gallantly. The heathen king however undermines his faith, and a +treacherous assault on the French rearguard when Charlemagne shall be +too far off to succour it is resolved on and planned. Then the traitor +returns to Charles with hostages and mighty gifts. The return to France +begins; Roland is stationed to his great wrath in the fatal place, the +rest of the army marches through the Pyrenees, and meanwhile Marsile +gathers an enormous host to fall upon the isolated rearguard. There is a +long catalogue of the felon and miscreant knights and princes that +follow the Spanish king. The pagan host, travelling by cross paths of +the mountains, soon reaches and surrounds Roland and the peers. Oliver +entreats Roland to sound his horn that Charles may hear it and come to +the rescue, but the eager and inflexible hero refuses. Archbishop Turpin +blesses the doomed host, and bids them as the price of his absolution +strike hard. The battle begins and all its incidents are told. The +French kill thousands, but thousands more succeed. Peer after peer +falls, and when at last Roland blows the horn it is too late. +Charlemagne hears it and turns back in an agony of sorrow and haste. But +long before he reaches Roncevaux Roland has died last of his host, and +alone, for all the Pagans have fallen or fled before him. + +The arrival of Charlemagne, his grief, and his vengeance on the Pagans, +should perhaps conclude the poem. There is however a sort of afterpiece, +in which the traitor Ganelon is tried, his fate being decided by a +single combat between his kinsman Pinabel and a champion named Thierry, +and is ruthlessly put to death with all his clansmen who have stood +surety for him. Episodes properly so called the poem has none, though +the character of Oliver is finely brought out as contrasted with +Roland's somewhat unreasoning valour, and there is one touching incident +when the poet tells how the Lady Aude, Oliver's sister and Roland's +betrothed, falls dead without a word when the king tells her of the +fatal fight at Roncevaux. The following passage will give an idea of the +style of this famous poem. It may be noticed that the curious refrain +_Aoi_ has puzzled all commentators, though in calling it a refrain we +have given the most probable explanation:-- + + Rollanz s'en turnet, par le camp vait tut suls + cercet les vals e si cercet les munz; + iloec truvat Ivorie et Ivun, + truvat Gerin, Gerer sun cumpaignun, + iloec truvat Engeler le Gascun + e si truvat Berenger e Orun, + iloec truvat Anseis e Sansun, + truvat Gerard le veill de Russillun: + par un e un les ad pris le barun, + al arcevesque en est venuz atut, + sis mist en reng dedevant ses genuilz. + li arcevesque ne poet muer n'en plurt; + lievet sa main, fait sa beneicun; + apres ad dit 'mare fustes, seignurs! + tutes voz anmes ait deus li glorius! + en pareis les mete en seintes flurs! + la meie mort me rent si anguissus, + ja ne verrai le riche empereur.' + Rollanz s'en turnet, le camp vait recercer; + desoz un pin e folut e ramer + sun cumpaignun ad truved Oliver, + cuntre sun piz estreit l'ad enbracet. + si cum il poet al arcevesque en vent, + sur un escut l'ad as altres culchet; + e l'arcevesque l'ad asols e seignet. + idonc agreget le doel e la pitet. + co dit Rollanz 'bels cumpainz Oliver, + vos fustes filz al bon cunte Reiner, + ki tint la marche de Genes desur mer; + pur hanste freindre e pur escuz pecier + e pur osberc e rompre e desmailler, + [pur orgoillos veintre e esmaier] + e pur prozdomes tenir e conseiller + e pur glutuns e veintre e esmaier + en nule terre n'ot meillor chevaler.' + Li quens Rollanz, quant il veit morz ses pers + e Oliver, qu'il tant poeit amer, + tendrur en out, cumencet a plurer, + en sun visage fut mult desculurez. + si grant doel out que mais ne pout ester, + voeillet o nun, a terre chet pasmet. + dist l'arcevesques 'tant mare fustes, ber.' + Li arcevesques quant vit pasmer Rollant, + dunc out tel doel, unkes mais n'out si grant; + tendit sa main, si ad pris l'olifan. + en Rencesvals ad une ewe curant; + aler i volt, si'n durrat a Rollant. + tant s'esforcat qu'il se mist en estant, + sun petit pas s'en turnet cancelant, + il est si fieble qu'il ne poet en avant, + nen ad vertut, trop ad perdut del sanc. + einz que om alast un sul arpent de camp, + fait li le coer, si est chaeit avant: + la sue mort li vait mult angoissant. + Li quenz Rollanz revient de pasmeisuns, + sur piez se drecet, mais il ad grant dulur; + guardet aval e si guardet amunt: + sur l'erbe verte, ultre ses cumpaignuns, + la veit gesir le nobilie barun, + co est l'arcevesque que deus mist en sun num; + cleimet sa culpe, si reguardet amunt, + cuntre le ciel amsdous ses mains ad juinz, + si priet deu que pareis li duinst. + morz est Turpin le guerreier Charlun. + par granz batailles e par mult bels sermons + cuntre paiens fut tuz tens campiuns. + deus li otreit seinte beneicun! Aoi. + Quant Rollanz vit l'arcevesque qu'est morz, + senz Oliver une mais n'out si grant dol, + e dist un mot que destrenche le cor: + 'Carles de France chevalce cum il pot; + en Rencesvals damage i ad des noz; + li reis Marsilie ad sa gent perdut tot, + cuntre un des noz ad ben quarante morz.' + Li quenz Rollanz veit l'arcevesque a terre, + defors sun cors veit gesir la buelle, + desuz le frunt li buillit la cervelle. + desur sun piz, entre les dous furcelles, + cruisiedes ad ses blanches mains, les belles. + forment le pleint a la lei de sa terre. + 'e, gentilz hom, chevaler de bon aire, + hoi te cumant al glorius celeste: + ja mais n'ert hume plus volenters le serve. + des les apostles ne fut honc tel prophete + pur lei tenir e pur humes atraire. + ja la vostre anme nen ait doel ne sufraite! + de pareis li seit la porte uverte!' + +[Sidenote: Amis et Amiles.] + +As _Roland_ is by far the most interesting of those Chansons which +describe the wars with the Saracens, so _Amis et Amiles_[21] may be +taken as representing those where the interest is mainly domestic. _Amis +et Amiles_ is the earliest vernacular form of a story which attained +extraordinary popularity in the middle ages, being found in every +language and in most literary forms, prose and verse, narrative and +dramatic. This popularity may partly be assigned to the religious and +marvellous elements which it contains, but is due also to the intrinsic +merits of the story. The Chanson contains 3500 lines, dates probably +from the twelfth century, and is written, like _Roland_, in decasyllabic +verse, but, unlike _Roland_, has a shorter line of six syllables and not +assonanced at the end of each stanza. Its story is as follows:-- + +Amis and Amiles were two noble knights, born and baptized on the same +day, who had the Pope for sponsor, and whose comradeship was specially +sanctioned by a divine message, and by the miraculous likeness which +existed between them. They were however brought up, the one in Berri, +the other in Auvergne, and did not meet till both had received +knighthood. As soon as they had joined company, they resolved to offer +their services to Charles, and did him great service against rebels. +Here the action proper begins. The friends arouse the jealousy of +Hardre, a felon knight, of Ganelon's lineage and likeness. Hardre +engages Gombaud of Lorraine, an enemy of the Emperor, to attack the two +friends; but the treason does not succeed, and the traitor, to escape +unpleasant enquiries, recommends Charles to bestow his own niece Lubias +on Amiles. The latter declares that Amis deserves her better, and to +Amis she is married, bearing however no good-will to Amiles for his +resignation of her and for his firm hold on her husband's affection. +Meanwhile, the daughter of Charles, Bellicent, conceives a violent +passion for Amiles, and the traitor Hardre unfortunately becomes aware +of the matter. He at once accuses Amiles of treason, and the knight is +too conscious of the dubiousness of his cause to be very willing to +accept the wager of battle. From this difficulty he is saved by Amis, +who comes to Paris from his distant seignory of Blaivies (Blaye), and +fights the battle in the name and armour of his friend, while the latter +goes to Blaye and plays the part of his preserver. Both ventures are +made easier by the extraordinary resemblance of the pair. Amis is +successful; he slays Hardre, and then has no little difficulty in saving +himself from a forced marriage with Bellicent. This embroglio is +smoothed out, and Amiles and Bellicent are happily united. The generous +Amis however has not been able to avoid forswearing himself while +playing the part of Amiles; and this sin is punished, according to a +divine warning, by an attack of leprosy. His wife Lubias seizes the +opportunity, procures a separation from him, and almost starves him, or +would do so but for two faithful servants and his little son. At last a +means of cure is revealed to him. If Amiles and Bellicent will allow +their two sons to be slain the blood will recover Amis of his leprosy. +The stricken knight journeys painfully to his friend and tells him the +hard condition. Amiles does not hesitate, and the following passage +tells his deed:-- + + Li cuens Amiles un petit s'atarja, + vers les anfans pas por pas en ala, + dormans les treuve, moult par les resgarda, + s'espee lieve, ocirre les voldra; + mais de ferir un petit se tarja. + li ainznes freres de l'effroi s'esveilla + que li cuens mainne qui en la chambre entra, + l'anfes se torne, son pere ravisa, + s'espee voit, moult grant paor en a, + son pere apelle, si l'en arraisonna: + 'biax sire peres, por deu qui tout forma, + que volez faire? nel me celez vos ja. + ainz mais nus peres tel chose ne pensa.' + 'biaux sire fiuls, ocirre vos voil ja + et le tien frere qui delez toi esta; + car mes compains Amis qui moult m'ama, + dou sanc de vos li siens cors garistra, + que gietez est dou siecle.' + 'Biax tres douz peres,' dist l'anfes erramment, + 'quant vos compains avra garissement, + se de nos sans a sor soi lavement, + nos sommes vostre de vostre engenrement, + faire en poez del tout a vo talent. + or nos copez les chies isnellement; + car dex de glorie nos avra en present, + en paradis en irommes chantant + et proierommes Jhesu cui tout apent + que dou pechie vos face tensement, + vos et Ami, vostre compaingnon gent; + mais nostre mere, la bele Belissant, + nos saluez por deu omnipotent.' + li cuens l'oit, moult grans pities l'en prent + que touz pasmez a la terre s'estent. + quant se redresce, si reprinst hardement. + or orroiz ja merveilles, bonne gent, + que tex n'oistes en tout vostre vivant. + li cuens Amiles vint vers le lit esrant, + hauce l'espee, li fiuls le col estent. + or est merveilles se li cuers ne li ment. + la teste cope li peres son anfant, + le sanc reciut et cler bacin d'argent: + a poi ne chiet a terre. + +No sooner has the blood touched Amis than he is cured, and the knights +solemnly visit the church where Bellicent and the people are assembled. +The story is told and the mother, in despair, rushes to the chamber +where her dead children are lying. But she finds them living and in full +health, for a miracle has been wrought to reward the faithfulness of the +friends now that suffering has purged them of their sin. + +This story, touching in itself, is most touchingly told in the Chanson. +No poem of the kind is more vivid in description, or fuller of details +of the manners of the time, than _Amis et Amiles_. Bellicent and Lubias, +the former passionate and impulsive but loving and faithful, the latter +treacherous, revengeful, and cold-hearted, give perhaps the earliest +finished portraits of feminine character to be found in French +literature. Amis and Amiles themselves are presented to us under so many +more aspects than Roland and Oliver that they dwell better in the +memory. The undercurrent of savagery which distinguished mediaeval times, +and the rapid changes of fortune which were possible therein, are also +well brought out. Not even the immolation of Ganelon's hostages is so +striking as the calm ferocity with which Charlemagne dooms his wife and +son as well as his daughter to pay with their lives the penalty of +Bellicent's fault; while the sudden lapse of Amis from his position of +feudal lordship at Blaye to that of a miserable outcast, smitten and +marked out for public scorn and ill-treatment by the visitation of God, +is unusually dramatic. _Amis et Amiles_ bears to _Roland_ something not +at all unlike the relation of the Odyssey to the Iliad. Its +continuation, _Jourdains de Blaivies_, adds the element of foreign +travel and adventure; but that element is perhaps more +characteristically represented, and the representation has certainly +been more generally popular, in _Huon de Bordeaux_. + +[Sidenote: Other principal Chansons.] + +Of the remaining Chansons, the following are the most remarkable. +_Aliscans_ (twelfth century) deals with the contest between William of +Orange, the great Christian hero of the south of France, and the +Saracens. This poem forms, according to custom, the centre of a whole +group of Chansons dealing with the earlier and later adventures of the +hero, his ancestors, and descendants. Such are _Le Couronnement Loys_, +_La Prise d'Orange_, _Le Charroi de Nimes_, _Le Moniage Guillaume_. The +series formed by these and others[22] is among the most interesting of +these groups. _Le Chevalier au Cygne_ is a title applied directly to a +somewhat late version of an old folk-tale, and more generally to a +series of poems connected with the House of Bouillon and the Crusades. +The members of this bear the separate headings _Antioche_[23], _Les +Chetifs_, _Les Enfances Godefroy_, etc. _Antioche_, the first of these, +which describes the exploits of the Christian host, first in attacking +and then in defending that city, is one of the finest of the Chansons, +and is probably in its original form not much later than the events it +describes, being written by an eye-witness. The variety of its +personages, the vivid picture of the alternations of fortune, the vigour +of the verse, are all remarkable. This group is terminated by _Baudouin +de Sebourc_[24], a very late but very important Chanson, which falls in +with the poetry of the fourteenth century, and the _Bastart de +Bouillon_[25]. _La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche_[26] is the oldest +form in which the adventures of one of the most popular and romantic of +Charlemagne's heroes are related. _Fierabras_ had also a very wide +popularity, and contains some of the liveliest pictures of manners to be +found in these poems, in its description of the rough horse-play of the +knights and the unfilial behaviour of the converted Saracen princess. +This poem is also of much interest philologically[27]. _Garin le +Loherain_[28] is the centre of a remarkable group dealing not directly +with Charlemagne, but with the provincial disputes and feuds of the +nobility of Lorraine. _Raoul de Cambrai_[29] is another of the Chansons +which deal with 'minor houses,' as they are called, in contradistinction +to the main Carlovingian cycle. _Gerard de Roussillon_[30] ranks as a +poem with the best of all the Chansons. _Hugues Capet_[31], though very +late, is attractive by reason of the glimpses it gives us of a new +spirit supplanting that of chivalry proper. In it the heroic distinctly +gives place to the burlesque. _Macaire_[32], besides being written in a +singular dialect, in which French is mingled with Italian, supplies the +original of the well-known dog of Montargis. _Huon de Bordeaux_[33], +already mentioned, was not only more than usually popular at the time of +its appearance, but has supplied Shakespeare with some of the dramatis +personae of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and Wieland and Weber with the +plot of a well-known poem and opera. _Jourdains de Blaivies_, the sequel +to _Amis et Amiles_, contains, besides much other interesting matter, +the incident which forms the centre of the plot of _Pericles_. _Les +Quatre Fils Aymon_ or _Renaut de Montauban_[34] is the foundation of one +of the most popular French chap-books. _Les Saisnes_[35] deals with +Charlemagne's wars with Witekind. _Berte aus grans Pies_[36] is a very +graceful story of womanly innocence. _Doon de Mayence_[37], though not +early, includes a charming love-episode. _Gerard de Viane_[38] contains +the famous battle of Roland and Oliver. The _Voyage de Charlemagne a +Constantinople_[39] is semi-burlesque in tone and one of the earliest in +which that tone is perceptible. + +[Sidenote: Social and Literary Characteristics.] + +In these numerous poems there is recognisable in the first place a +distinct family likeness which is common to the earliest and latest, and +in the second, the natural difference of manners which the lapse of +three hundred years might be expected to occasion. There is a sameness +which almost amounts to monotony in the plot of most Chansons de Gestes: +the hero is almost always either falsely accused of some crime, or else +treacherously exposed to the attacks of Saracens, or of his own +countrymen. The agents of this treachery are commonly of the blood of +the arch-traitor Ganelon, and are almost invariably discomfited by the +good knight or his friends and avengers. The part[40] which Charlemagne +plays in these poems is not usually dignified: he is represented as +easily gulled, capricious, and almost ferocious in temper, ungrateful, +and ready to accept bribes and gifts. His good angel is always Duke +Naimes of Bavaria, the Nestor of the Carlovingian epic. In the earliest +Chansons the part played by women is not so conspicuous as in the later, +but in all except _Roland_ it has considerable prominence. Sometimes the +heroine is the wife, daughter, or niece of Charlemagne, sometimes a +Saracen princess. But in either case she is apt to respond without much +delay to the hero's advances, which, indeed, she sometimes anticipates. +The conduct of knights to their ladies is also far from being what we +now consider chivalrous. Blows are very common, and seem to be taken by +the weaker sex as matters of course. The prevailing legal forms are +simple and rather sanguinary. The judgment of God, as shown by ordeal of +battle, settles all disputes; but battle is not permitted unless several +nobles of weight and substance come forward as sponsors for each +champion; and sponsors as well as principal risk their lives in case of +the principal's defeat, unless they can tempt the king's cupidity. These +common features are necessarily in the case of so large a number of +poems mixed with much individual difference, nor are the Chansons by any +means monotonous reading. Their versification is pleasing to the ear, +and their language, considering its age, is of surprising strength, +expressiveness, and even wealth. Though they lack the variety, the +pathos, the romantic chivalry, and the mystical attractions of the +Arthurian romances, there is little doubt that they paint, far more +accurately than their successors, an actually existing state of society, +that which prevailed in the palmy time of the feudal system, when war +and religion were deemed the sole subjects worthy to occupy seriously +men of station and birth. In giving utterance to this warlike and +religious sentiment, few periods and classes of literature have been +more strikingly successful. Nowhere is the mere fury of battle better +rendered than in _Roland_ and _Fierabras_. Nowhere is the valiant +indignation of the beaten warrior, and, at the same time, his humble +submission to providence, better given than in _Aliscans_. Nowhere do we +find the mediaeval spirit of feudal enmity and private war more +strikingly depicted than in the cycle of the Lorrainers, and in _Raoul +de Cambrai_. Nowhere is the devout sentiment and belief of the same time +more fully drawn than in _Amis et Amiles_. + +[Sidenote: Authorship.] + +The method of composition and publication of these poems was peculiar. +Ordinarily, though not always, they were composed by the Trouvere, and +performed by the Jongleur. Sometimes the Trouvere condescended to +performance, and sometimes the Jongleur aspired to composition, but not +usually. The poet was commonly a man of priestly or knightly rank, the +performer (who might be of either sex) was probably of no particular +station. The Jongleur, or Jongleresse, wandered from castle to castle, +reciting the poems, and interpolating in them recommendations of the +quality of the wares, requests to the audience to be silent, and often +appeals to their generosity. Some of the manuscripts which we now +possess were originally used by Jongleurs, and it was only in this way +that the early Chanson de Geste was intended to be read. The process of +hawking about naturally interfered with the preservation of the poems in +their original purity, and even with the preservation of the author's +name. In very few cases[41] is the latter known to us. + +The question whether the Chansons de Gestes were originally written in +northern or southern French has often been hotly debated. The facts are +these. Only three Chansons exist in Provencal. Two of these[42] are +admitted translations or imitations of Northern originals. The third, +_Girartz de Rossilho_, is undoubtedly original, but is written in the +northernmost dialect of the Southern tongue. The inference appears to be +clear that the Chanson de Geste is properly a product of northern +France. The opposite conclusion necessitates the supposition that either +in the Albigensian war, or by some inexplicable concatenation of +accidents, a body of original Provencal Chansons has been totally +destroyed, with all allusions to, and traditions of, these poems. Such a +hypothesis is evidently unreasonable, and would probably never have been +started had not some of the earliest students of Old French been +committed by local feeling to the championship of the language of the +Troubadours. On the other hand, almost all the dialects of Northern +French are represented, Norman and Picard being perhaps the +commonest[43]. + +[Sidenote: Style and Language.] + +The language of these poems, as the extracts given will partly show, is +neither poor in vocabulary, nor lacking in harmony of sound. It is +indeed, more sonorous and stately than classical French language was +from the seventeenth century to the days of Victor Hugo, and abounds in +picturesque terms which have since dropped out of use. The massive +castles of the baronage, with their ranges of marble steps leading up to +the hall, where feasting is held by day and where the knights sleep at +night, are often described. Dress is mentioned with peculiar lavishness. +Pelisses of ermine, ornaments of gold and silver, silken underclothing, +seem to give the poets special pleasure in recording them. In no +language are what have been called 'perpetual' epithets more usual, +though the abundance of the recurring phrases prevents monotony. The +'clear countenances' of the ladies, the 'steely brands' of the knights, +their 'marble palaces,' the 'flowing beard' of Charlemagne, the +'guileful tongue' of the traitors, are constant features of the verbal +landscape. From so great a mass of poetry it would be vain in any space +here available to attempt to arrange specimen 'jewels five words long.' +But those who actually read the Chansons will be surprised at the +abundance of fresh striking and poetic phrase. + +[Sidenote: Later History.] + +Before quitting the subject of the Chansons de Gestes, it may be well to +give briefly their subsequent literary history. They were at first +frequently re-edited, the tendency always being to increase their +length, so that in some cases the latest versions extant run to thirty +or forty thousand lines. As soon as this limit was reached, they began +to be turned into prose, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries being +the special period of this change. The art of printing came in time to +assist the spread of these prose versions, and for some centuries they +were almost the only form in which the Chansons de Gestes, under the +general title of romances of chivalry, were known. The verse originals +remained for the most part in manuscript, but the prose romances gained +an enduring circulation among the peasantry in France. From the +seventeenth century their vogue was mainly restricted to this class. But +in the middle of the eighteenth the Comte de Tressan was induced to +attempt their revival for the _Bibliotheque des Romans_. His versions +were executed entirely in the spirit of the day, and did not render any +of the characteristic features of the old Epics. But they drew attention +to them, and by the end of the century, University Professors began to +lecture on old French poetry. The exertions of M. Paulin Paris, of M. +Francisque Michel, and of some German scholars first brought about the +re-editing of the Chansons in their original form about half a century +ago; and since that time they have received steady attention, and a +large number have been published--a number to which additions are yearly +being made. Rather more than half the known total are now in print. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] _Gesta_ or _Geste_ has three senses: (_a_) the _deeds_ of a hero; +(_b_) the _chronicle_ of those deeds; and (_c_) the _family_ which that +chronicle illustrates. The three chief gestes are those of the King, of +Doon de Mayence, and of Garin de Montglane. Each of these is composed of +many poems. Contrasted with these are the 'petites gestes,' which +include only a few Chansons. + +[18] _La Chanson de Roland_, ed. Fr. Michel, Paris, 1837. The MS. is in +the Bodleian Library (Digby 23). Another, of much later date in point of +writing but representing the same text, exists at Venice. Of later +versions there are six manuscripts extant. The Chanson de Roland has +since its _editio princeps_ been repeatedly re-edited, translated, and +commented. The most exact edition is that of Prof. Stengel, Heilbronn, +1878, who has given the Bodleian Manuscript both in print and in +photographic facsimile. The best for general use is that of Leon Gautier +(seventh edition), 1877. + +[19] Wace (Roman de Rou, iii. 8038 Andresen) speaks of the Norman +Taillefer as singing at Hastings 'De Karlemaigne et de Rollant.' It has +been sought, but perhaps fancifully, to identify this song with the +existing _chanson_. + +[20] 'Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet.' The sense of the word +_declinet_ is quite uncertain, and the attempts made to identify +Turoldus are futile. + +[21] _Amis et Amiles_, ed. Hoffmann. Erlangen, 1852. + +[22] This series is given, sometimes in whole, sometimes in extracts, by +Dr. Jonckbloet, _Guillaume d'Orange_. The Hague, 1854. + +[23] Ed. P. Paris. Paris, 1848. + +[24] Ed. Boca. Valenciennes, 1841. + +[25] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1877. + +[26] Ed. Barrois. Paris, 1842. + +[27] There exists a Provencal version of it, evidently translated from +the French. The most convenient edition is that of Kroeber and Servois, +Paris, 1860. There is an English fourteenth-century version published by +Mr. Herrtage for the Early English Text Society, 1879. + +[28] Published partially by MM. P. Paris and E. du Meril and by Herr +Stengel. + +[29] Ed. Le Glay. Paris, 1840. + +[30] Ed. Michel. Paris, 1856. + +[31] Ed. La Grange. Paris, 1864. + +[32] Ed. Guessard. Paris, 1866. + +[33] Ed. Guessard et Grandmaison. Paris, 1860. + +[34] Ed. Michelant. Stuttgart, 1862. + +[35] Ed. Michel. Paris, 1839. + +[36] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1874. + +[37] Ed. Pey. Paris, 1859. + +[38] Ed. Tarbe. Rheims, 1850. + +[39] Ed. Michel. London, 1836. + +[40] It is very commonly said that this feature is confined to the later +Chansons. This is scarcely the fact, unless by 'later' we are to +understand all except _Roland_. In _Roland_ itself the presentment is by +no means wholly complimentary. + +[41] The Turoldus of _Roland_ has been already noticed. Of certain or +tolerably certain authors, Graindor de Douai (revisions of the early +crusading Chansons of 'Richard the Pilgrim,' _Antioche_, &c.), Jean de +Flagy (_Garin_), Bodel (_Les Saisnes_), and Adenes le Roi, a fertile +author or adapter of the thirteenth century, are the most noted. + +[42] _Ferabras_ and _Betonnet d'Hanstone_. M. Paul Meyer has recently +edited this latter poem under the title of _Daurel et Beton_ (Paris, +1880). To these should be added a fragment, _Aigar et Maurin_, which +seems to rank with _Girartz_. + +[43] There has been some reaction of late years against the scepticism +which questioned the 'Provencal Epic.' I cannot however say, though I +admit a certain disqualification for judgment (see note at beginning of +next chapter), that I see any valid reason for this reaction. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +PROVENCAL LITERATURE. + + +[Sidenote: Langue d'Oc.] + +The Romance language, spoken in the country now called France, has two +great divisions, the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil[44], which stand +to one another in hardly more intimate relationship than the first of +them does to Spanish or Italian. In strictness, the Langue d'Oc ought +not to be called French at all, inasmuch as those who spoke it applied +that term exclusively to Northern speech, calling their own Limousin, or +Provencal, or Auvergnat. At the time, moreover, when Provencal +literature flourished, the districts which contributed to it were in +very loose relationship with the kingdom of France; and when that +relationship was drawn tighter, Provencal literature began to wither and +die. Yet it is not possible to avoid giving some sketch of the literary +developments of Southern France in any history of French literature, as +well because of the connection which subsisted between the two branches, +as because of the altogether mistaken views which have been not +unfrequently held as to that connection. Lord Macaulay[45] speaks of +Provencal in the twelfth century as 'the only one of the vernacular +languages of Europe which had yet been extensively employed for literary +purposes;' and the ignorance of their older literature which, until a +very recent period, distinguished Frenchmen has made it common for +writers in France to speak of the Troubadours as their own literary +ancestors. We have already seen that this supposition as applied to Epic +poetry is entirely false; we shall see hereafter that, except as regards +some lyrical developments, and those not the most characteristic, it is +equally ill-grounded as to other kinds of composition. But the +literature of the South is quite interesting enough in itself without +borrowing what does not belong to it, and it exhibits not a few +characteristics which were afterwards blended with those of the +literature of the kingdom at large. + +[Sidenote: Range and characteristics.] + +The domain of the Langue d'Oc is included between two lines, the +northernmost of which starts from the Atlantic coast at or about the +Charente, follows the northern boundaries of the old provinces of +Perigord, Limousin, Auvergne, and Dauphine, and overlaps Savoy and a +small portion of Switzerland. The southern limit is formed by the +Pyrenees, the Gulf of Lyons, and the Alps, while Catalonia is overlapped +to the south-west just as Savoy is taken in on the north-east. This wide +district gives room for not a few dialectic varieties with which we need +not here busy ourselves. The general language is distinguished from +northern French by the survival to a greater degree of the vowel +character of Latin. The vocabulary is less dissolved and corroded by +foreign influence, and the inflections remain more distinct. The result, +as in Spanish and Italian, is a language more harmonious, softer, and +more cunningly cadenced than northern French, but endowed with far less +vigour, variety, and freshness. The separate development of the two +tongues must have begun at a very early period. A few early monuments, +such as the Passion of Christ[46] and the Mystery of the Ten +Virgins[47], contain mixed dialects. But the earliest piece of +literature in pure Provencal is assigned in its original form to the +tenth century, and is entirely different from northern French[48]. It is +arranged in _laisses_ and assonanced. The uniformity, however, of the +terminations of Provencal makes the assonances more closely approach +rhyme than is the case in northern poetry. Of the eleventh century the +principal monuments are a few charters, a translation of part of St. +John's Gospel, and several religious pieces in prose and verse. Not +till the extreme end of this century does the Troubadour begin to make +himself heard. The earliest of these minstrels whose songs we possess is +William IX, Count of Poitiers. With him Provencal literature, properly +so called, begins. + +[Sidenote: Periods of Provencal Literature.] + +The admirable historian of Provencal literature, Karl Bartsch, divides +its products into three periods; the first reaching to the end of the +eleventh century, and comprising the beginnings and experiments of the +language as a literary medium; the second covering the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, the most flourishing time of the Troubadour +poetry, and possessing also specimens of many other forms of literary +composition; the third, the period of decadence, including the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and remarkable chiefly for some +religious literature, and for the contests of the Toulouse school of +poets. In a complete history of Provencal literature notice would also +have to be taken of the fitful and spasmodic attempts of the last four +centuries to restore the dialect to the rank of a literary language, +attempts which have never been made with greater energy and success than +in our own time[49], but which hardly call for notice here. + +[Sidenote: First Period.] + +The most remarkable works of the first period have been already alluded +to. This period may possibly have produced original epics of the Chanson +form, though, as has been pointed out, no indications of any such exist, +except in the solitary instance of _Girartz de Rossilho_. The important +poem of Auberi of Besancon on Alexander is lost, except the first +hundred verses. It is thought to be the oldest vernacular poem on the +subject, and is in a mixed dialect partaking of the forms both of north +and south. Hymns, sometimes in mixed Latin and Provencal, sometimes +entirely in the latter, are found early. A single prose monument remains +in the shape of a fragmentary translation of the Gospel of St. John. But +by far the most important example of this period is the _Boethius_. The +poem, as we have it, extends to 238 decasyllabic verses arranged on the +fashion of a Chanson de Geste, and dates from the eleventh century, or +at latest from the beginning of the twelfth, but is thought to be a +rehandling of another poem which may have been written nearly two +centuries earlier. The narrative part of the work is a mere +introduction, the bulk of it consisting of moral reflections taken from +the _De Consolatione_. + +[Sidenote: Second Period.] + +It is only in the second period that Provencal literature becomes of +real importance. The stimulus which brought it to perfection has been +generally taken to be that of the crusades, aided by the great +development of peaceful civilisation at home which Provence and +Languedoc then saw. The spirit of chivalry rose and was diffused all +over Europe at this time, and in some of its aspects it received a +greater welcome in Provence than anywhere else. For the mystical, the +adventurous, and other sides of the chivalrous character, we must look +to the North, and especially to the Arthurian legends, and the Romans +d'Aventures which they influenced. But, for what has been well called +'la passion souveraine, aveugle, idolatre, qui eclipse tous les autres +sentiments, qui dedaigne tous les devoirs, qui se moque de l'enfer et du +ciel, qui absorbe et possede l'ame entiere[50],' we must come to the +literature of the south of France. Passion is indeed not the only motive +of the Troubadours, but it is their favourite motive, and their most +successful. The connection of this predominant instinct with the +elaborate and unmatched attention to form which characterises them is a +psychological question very interesting to discuss, but hardly suitable +to these pages. It is sufficient here to say that these various motives +and influences produced the Troubadours and their literature. This +literature was chiefly lyrical in form, but also included many other +kinds, of which a short account may be given. + +_Girartz de Rossilho_ belongs in all probability to the earliest years +of the period, though the only Provencal manuscript in existence dates +from the end of the thirteenth century. In the third decade of the +twelfth Guillem Bechada had written a poem on the conquest of Jerusalem +by the Crusaders, which, however, has perished, though the northern +cycle of the Chevalier au Cygne may represent it in part. Guillem of +Poitiers also wrote a historical poem on the Crusades with similar ill +fate. But the most famous of historical poems in Provencal has +fortunately been preserved to us. This is the chronicle of the +Albigensian War, written in Alexandrines by William of Tudela and an +anonymous writer. We also possess a rhymed chronicle of the war of +1276-77 in Navarre, by Guillem Anelier. In connection with the Arthurian +cycle there exists a Provencal Roman d'Aventures, entitled _Jaufre_. The +testimony of Wolfram von Eschenbach would appear to be decisive as to +the existence of a Provencal continuation of Chrestien's _Percevale_ by +a certain Kiot or Guyot, but nothing more is known of this. _Blandin de +Cornoalha_ is another existing romance, and so is the far more +interesting _Flamenca_, a lively picture of manners dating from the +middle of the thirteenth century. In shorter and slighter narrative +poems Provencal is still less fruitful, though Raimon Vidal, Arnaut de +Zurcasses, and one or two other writers have left work of this kind. A +very few narrative poems of a sacred character are also found, and +vestiges of drama may be traced. But, as we have said, the real +importance of the period consists in its lyrical poetry, the poetry of +the Troubadours. The names of 460 separate poets are given, and 251 +pieces have come down to us without the names of their writers. We have +here no space for dwelling on individual persons; it is sufficient to +mention as the most celebrated Arnaut Daniel, Bernart de Ventadorn, +Bertran de Born, Cercamon, Folquet de Marseilha, Gaucelm Faidit, Guillem +of Poitiers, Guillem de Cabestanh, Guiraut de Borneilh, Guiraut Riquier, +Jaufre Rudel, Marcabrun, Peire Cardenal, Peire Vidal, Peirol, Raimbaut +de Vaqueiras, Sordel. + +[Sidenote: Forms of Troubadour Poetry.] + +The chief forms in which these poets exercised their ingenuity were as +follows. The simplest and oldest was called simply _vers_; it had few +artificial rules, was written in octosyllabic lines, and arranged in +stanzas. From this was developed the _canso_, the most usual of +Provencal forms. Here the rhymes were interlaced, and the alternation of +masculine and feminine by degrees observed. The length of the lines +varied. Both these forms were consecrated to love verse; the Sirvente, +on the other hand, is panegyrical or satirical, its meaning being +literally 'Song of Service.' It consisted for the most part of short +stanzas, simply rhyme, and corresponding exactly to one another. The +_planh_ or Complaint was a dirge or funeral song written generally in +decasyllabics. The _tenson_ or debate is in dialogue form, and when +there are more than two disputants is called _torneijamens_. The +narrative Romance existed in Provencal as well as the _balada_ or +three-stanza poem, usually with refrain. The _retroensa_ is a longer +refrain poem of later date, but in neither is the return of the same +rhyme in each stanza necessarily observed, as in the French _ballade_. +The _alba_ is a leave-taking poem at morning, and the _serena_ (if it +can be called a form, for scarcely more than a single example exists) a +poem of remembrance and longing at eventide. The _pastorela_, which had +numerous sub-divisions, explains itself. The _descort_ is a poem +something like the irregular ode, which varies the structure of its +stanzas. The _sextine_, in six stanzas of identical and complicated +versification, is the stateliest of all Provencal forms. Not merely the +rhymes but the words which rhyme are repeated on a regular scheme. The +_breu-doble_ (double-short) is a curious little form on three rhymes, +two of which are repeated twice in three four-lined stanzas, and given +once in a concluding couplet, while the third finishes each quatrain. +Other forms are often mentioned and given, but they are not of much +consequence. + +The prose of the best period of Provencal literature is of little +importance. Its most considerable remains, besides religious works and a +few scientific and grammatical treatises, are a prose version of the +_Chanson des Albigeois_, and an interesting collection of contemporary +lives of the Troubadours. + +[Sidenote: Third Period.] + +The productiveness of the last two centuries of Provencal literature +proper has been spoken of by the highest living authority as at most an +aftermath. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Arnaut Vidal +wrote a Roman d'Aventures entitled _Guillem de la Barra_. This poet, +like most of the other literary names of the period, belongs to the +school of Toulouse, a somewhat artificial band of writers who flourished +throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, held poetical +tournaments on the first Sunday in May, invented or adopted the famous +phrase _gai saber_ for their pursuits, and received, if they were +successful, the equally famous Golden Violet and minor trinkets of the +same sort. The brotherhood directed itself by an art of poetry in which +the half-forgotten traditions of more spontaneous times were gathered +up. + +To this period, and to its latter part, the Waldensian writings entitled +_La Nobla Leyczon_, to which ignorance and sectarian enthusiasm had +given a much earlier date, are now assigned. There is also a +considerable mass of miscellaneous literature, but nothing of great +value, or having much to do with the only point which is here of +importance, the distinctive character of Provencal literature, and the +influence of that literature upon the development of letters in France +generally. With a few words on these two points this chapter may be +concluded. + +[Sidenote: Literary Relation of Provencal and French.] + +[Sidenote: Defects of Provencal Literature.] + +It may be regarded as not proven that any initial influence was +exercised over northern French literature by the literature of the +South, and more than this, it may be held to be unlikely that any such +influence was exerted. For in the first place all the more important +developments of the latter, the Epic, the Drama, the Fabliau, are +distinctly of northern birth, and either do not exist in Provencal at +all, or exist for the most part as imitations of northern originals. +With regard to lyric poetry the case is rather different. The earliest +existing lyrics of the North are somewhat later than the earliest songs +of the Troubadours, and no great lyrical variety or elegance is reached +until the Troubadours' work had, by means of Thibaut de Champagne and +others, had an opportunity of penetrating into northern France. On the +other hand, the forms which finished lyric adopted in the North are by +no means identical with those of the Troubadours. The scientific and +melodious figures of the Ballade, the Rondeau, the Chant-royal, the +Rondel, and the Villanelle, cannot by any ingenuity be deduced from +Canso or Balada, Retroensa or Breu-Doble. The Alba and the Pastorela +agree in subject with the Aubade and the Pastourelle, but have no +necessary or obvious connection of form. It would, however, be almost as +great a mistake to deny the influence of the spirit of Provencal +literature over French, as to regard the two as standing in the +position of mother and daughter. The Troubadours undoubtedly preceded +their Northern brethren in scrupulous attention to poetical form, and in +elaborate devices for ensuring such attention. They preceded them too in +recognising that quality in poetry for which there is perhaps no other +word than elegance. There can be little doubt that they sacrificed to +these two divinities, elegance and the formal limitation of verse, +matters almost equally if not more important. The motives of their poems +are few, and the treatment of those motives monotonous. Love, war, and +personal enmity, with a certain amount of more or less frigid didactics, +almost complete the list. In dealing with the first and the most +fruitful, they fell into the deadly error of stereotyping their manner +of expression. Objection has sometimes been taken to the 'eternal +hawthorn and nightingale' of Provencal poetry. The objection would +hardly be fatal, if this eternity did not extend to a great many things +besides hawthorn and nightingales. In the later Troubadours especially, +the fault which has been urged against French dramatic literature just +before the Romantic movement was conspicuously anticipated. Every mood, +every situation of passion, was catalogued and analysed, and the proper +method of treatment, with similes and metaphors complete, was assigned. +There was no freshness and no variety, and in the absence of variety and +freshness, that of vigour was necessarily implied. It may even be +doubted whether the influence of this hot-house verse on the more +natural literature of the North was not injurious rather than +beneficial. Certain it is that the artificial poetry of the Trouveres +went (in the persons of the Rondeau and Ballade-writing Rhetoriqueurs of +the fifteenth century) the same way and came to the same end, that its +elder sister had already trodden and reached with the competitors for +the Violet, the Eglantine, and the Marigold of Toulouse. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[44] _Oc_ and _oil_ (_hoc_ and _hoc illud_), the respective terms +indicating affirmation. In this chapter the information given is based +on a smaller acquaintance at first hand with the subject than is the +case in the chapters on French proper. Herr Karl Bartsch has been the +guide chiefly followed. + +[45] Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes. + +[46] See chap. i. + +[47] See chap. x. + +[48] The poem on Boethius. See chap. i. + +[49] By the school of the so-called _Felibres_, of whom Mistral and +Aubanel are the chief. + +[50] Moland and Hericault's Introduction to _Aucassin et Nicolette_. +Paris, 1856. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY. + + +[Sidenote: The Tale of Arthur. Its Origins.] + +The passion for narrative poetry, which at first contented itself with +stories drawn from the history or tradition of France, took before very +long a wider range. The origin of the Legend of King Arthur, of the +Round Table, of the Holy Graal, and of all the adventures and traditions +connected with these centres, is one of the most intricate questions in +the history of mediaeval literature. It would be beyond the scope of +this book to attempt to deal with it at length. It is sufficient for our +purpose, in the first place, to point out that the question of the +actual existence and acts of Arthur has very little to do with the +question of the origin of the Arthurian cycle. The history of mediaeval +literature, as distinguished from the history of the Middle Ages, need +not concern itself with any conflict between the invaders and the older +inhabitants of England. The question which is of historical literary +interest is, whether the traditions which Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter +Map, Chrestien de Troyes, and their followers, wrought into a fabric of +such astounding extent and complexity, are due to Breton originals, or +whether their authority is nothing but the ingenuity of Geoffrey working +upon the meagre data of Nennius[51]. As far as this question concerns +French literature, the chief champions of these rival opinions were till +lately M. de la Villemarque and M. Paulin Paris. In no instance was the +former able to produce Breton or Celtic originals of early date. On the +other hand, M. Paris showed that Nennius is sufficient to account for +Geoffrey, and that Geoffrey is sufficient to account for the purely +Arthurian part of subsequent romances and chronicles. The religious +element of the cycle has a different origin, and may possibly not be +Celtic at all. Lastly, we must take into account a large body of Breton +and Welsh poetry from which, especially in the parts of the legend which +deal with Tristram, with King Mark, &c., amplifications have been +devised. It must, however, still be admitted that the extraordinary +rapidity with which so vast a growth of literature was produced, +apparently from the slenderest stock, is one of the most surprising +things in literary history. Before the middle of the twelfth century +little or nothing is heard of Arthur. Before that century closed at +least a dozen poems and romances in prose, many of them of great length, +had elaborated the whole legend as it was thenceforward received, and as +we have it condensed and Englished in Malory's well-known book two +centuries and a half later. + +[Sidenote: Order of French Arthurian Cycle.] + +The probable genesis of the Arthurian legend, in so far as it concerns +French literature, appears to be as follows. First in order of +composition, and also in order of thought, comes the Legend of Joseph of +Arimathea, sometimes called the 'Little St. Graal.' This we have both in +verse and prose, and one or both of these versions is the work of Robert +de Borron, a knight and _trouvere_ possessed of lands in the +Gatinais[52]. There is nothing in this work which is directly connected +with Arthur. By some it has been attributed to a Latin, but not now +producible, 'Book of the Graal,' by others to Byzantine originals. +Anyhow it fell into the hands of the well-known Walter Map[53], and his +exhaustless energy and invention at once seized upon it. He produced the +'Great St. Graal,' a very much extended version of the early history of +the sacred vase, still keeping clear of definite connection with Arthur, +though tending in that direction. From this, in its turn, sprang the +original form of _Percevale_, which represents a quest for the vessel +by a knight who has not originally anything to do with the Round Table. +The link of connection between the two stories is to be found in the +_Merlin_, attributed also to Robert de Borron, wherein the Welsh legends +begin to have more definite influence. This, in its turn, leads to +_Artus_, which gives the early history of the great king. Then comes the +most famous, most extensive, and finest of all the romances, that of +_Lancelot du Lac_, which is pretty certainly in part, and perhaps in +great part, the work of Map; as is also the mystical and melancholy but +highly poetical _Quest of the Saint Graal_, a quest of which Galahad and +Lancelot, not, as in the earlier legends, Percival, are the heroes. To +this succeeds the _Mort Artus_, which forms the conclusion of the whole, +properly speaking. This, however, does not entirely complete the cycle. +Later than Borron, Map, and their unknown fellow-workers (if such they +had), arose one or more _trouveres_, who worked up the ancient Celtic +legends and lays of Tristram into the Romance of _Tristan_, connecting +this, more or less clumsily, with the main legend of the Round Table. +Other legends were worked up into the _omnium gatherum_ of _Giron le +Courtois_, and with this the cycle proper ceases. The later poems are +attributed to two persons, called Luce de Gast and Helie de Borron. But +not the slightest testimony can be adduced to show that any such persons +ever had existence[54]. + +These prose romances form for the most part the original literature of +the Arthurian story. But the vogue of this story was very largely +increased by a _trouvere_ who used not prose but octosyllabic verse for +his medium. + +[Sidenote: Chrestien de Troyes.] + +As is the case with most of these early writers, little or nothing is +known of Chrestien de Troyes but his name. He lived in the last half of +the twelfth century, he was attached to the courts of Flanders, +Hainault, and Champagne, and he wrote most of his works for the lords of +these fiefs. Besides his Arthurian work he translated Ovid, and wrote +some short poems. Chrestien de Troyes deserves a higher place in +literature than has sometimes been given to him. His versification is so +exceedingly easy and fluent as to appear almost pedestrian at times; and +his _Chevalier a la Charrette_, by which he is perhaps most generally +known, contrasts unfavourably in its prolixity with the nervous and +picturesque prose to which it corresponds. But _Percevale_ and the +_Chevalier au Lyon_ are very charming poems, deeply imbued with the +peculiar characteristics of the cycle--religious mysticism, passionate +gallantry, and refined courtesy of manners. Chrestien de Troyes +undoubtedly contributed not a little to the popularity of the Arthurian +legends. Although, by a singular chance, which has not yet been fully +explained, the originals appear to have been for the most part in +prose, the times were by no means ripe for the general enjoyment of work +in such a form. The reciter was still the general if not the only +publisher, and recitation almost of necessity implied poetical form. +Chrestien did not throw the whole of the work of his contemporaries into +verse, but he did so throw a considerable portion of it. His Arthurian +works consist of _Le Chevalier a la Charrette_, a very close rendering +of an episode of Map's _Lancelot_; _Le Chevalier au Lyon_, resting +probably upon some previous work not now in existence; _Erec et Enide_, +the legend which every English reader knows in Mr. Tennyson's _Enid_, +and which seems to be purely Welsh; _Cliges_, which may be called the +first Roman d'Aventures; and lastly, _Percevale_, a work of vast extent, +continued by successive versifiers to the extent of some fifty thousand +lines, and probably representing in part a work of Robert de Borron, +which has only recently been printed by M. Hucher. _Percevale_ is, +perhaps, the best example of Chrestien's fashion of composition. The +work of Borron is very short, amounting in all to some ninety pages in +the reprint. The _Percevale le Gallois_ of Chrestien and his +continuators, on the other hand, contains, as has been said, more than +forty-five thousand verses. This amplification is produced partly by the +importation of incidents and episodes from other works, but still more +by indulging in constant diffuseness and what we must perhaps call +commonplaces. + +[Sidenote: Spirit and Literary value of Arthurian Romances.] + +From a literary point of view the prose romances rank far higher, +especially those in which Map is known or suspected to have had a hand. +The peculiarity of what may be called their atmosphere is marked. An +elaborate and romantic system of mystical religious sentiment, finding +vent in imaginative and allegorical narrative, a remarkable refinement +of manners, and a combination of delight in battle with devotion to +ladies, distinguish them. This is, in short, the romantic spirit, or, as +it is sometimes called, the spirit of chivalry; and it cannot be too +positively asserted that the Arthurian romances communicate it to +literature for the first time, and that nothing like it is found in the +classics. In the work of Map and his contemporaries it is clearly +perceivable. The most important element in this--courtesy--is, as we +have already noticed, almost entirely absent from the Chansons de +Gestes, and where it is present at all it is between persons who are +connected by some natural or artificial relation of comradeship or kin. +Nor are there many traces of it in such fragments and indications as we +possess of the Celtic originals, which may have helped in the production +of the Arthurian romances. No Carlovingian knight would have felt the +horror of Sir Bors when the Lady of Hungerford exercises her undoubted +right by flinging the body of her captive enemy on the camp of his +uncle. Even the chiefs who are presented in the _Chanson d'Antioche_ as +joking over the cannibal banquet of the Roi des Tafurs, and permitting +the dead bodies of Saracens to be torn from the cemeteries and flung +into the beleaguered city, would have very much applauded the deed. +Gallantry, again, is as much absent from the Chansons as clemency and +courtesy. The scene in _Lancelot_, where Galahault first introduces the +Queen and Lancelot to one another, contrasts in the strongest manner +with the downright courtship by which the Bellicents and Nicolettes of +the Carlovingian cycle are won. No doubt Map represents to a great +extent the sentiments of the polished court of England. But he deserves +the credit of having been the first, or almost the first, to express +such manners and sentiments, perhaps also of having being among the +first to conceive them. + +These originals are not all equally represented in Malory's English +compilation. Of Robert de Borron's work little survives except by +allusion. _Lancelot du Lac_ itself, the most popular of all the +romances, is very disproportionately drawn upon. Of the youth of +Lancelot, of the winning of Dolorous Gard, of the war with the Saxons, +and of the very curious episode of the false Guinevere, there is +nothing; while the most charming story of Lancelot's relations with +Galahault of Sorelois disappears, except in a few passing allusions to +the 'haughty prince.' On the other hand, the _Quest of the Saint Graal_, +the _Mort Artus_, some episodes of _Lancelot_ (such as the _Chevalier a +la Charrette_), and many parts of _Tristan_ and _Giron le Courtois_, are +given almost in full. + +It seems also probable that considerable portions of the original form +of the Arthurian legends are as yet unknown, and have altogether +perished. The very interesting discovery in the Brussels Library, of a +prose _Percevale_ not impossibly older than Chrestien, and quite +different from that of Borron, is an indication of this fact. So also is +the discovery by Dr. Jonckbloet in the Flemish _Lancelot_, which he has +edited, of passages not to be found in the existing and recognised +French originals. The truth would appear to be that the fascination of +the subject, the unusual genius of those who first treated it, and the +tendency of the middle ages to favour imitation, produced in a very +short space of time (the last quarter or half of the twelfth century) an +immense amount of original handling of Geoffrey's theme. To this +original period succeeded one of greater length, in which the legends +were developed not merely by French followers and imitators of +Chrestien, but by his great German adapters, Wolfram von Eschenbach, +Gottfried of Strasburg, Hartmann von der Aue, and by other imitators at +home and abroad. Lastly, as we shall see in a future chapter, come +Romans d'Aventures, connecting themselves by links more or less +immediate with the Round Table cycle, but independent and often quite +separate in their main incidents and catastrophes. + +The great number, length, and diversity of the Arthurian romances make +it impossible in the space at our command to abstract all of them, and +useless to select any one, inasmuch as no single poem is (as in the case +of the Chansons) typical of the group. The style, however, of the prose +and verse divisions may be seen in the following extracts from the +_Chevalier a la Charrette_ of Map, and the verse of Chrestien:-- + + Atant sont venu li chevalier jusqu'au pont: lors commencent + a plorer top durement tuit ensamble. Et Lanceloz lor demande + porquoi il plorent et font tel duel? Et il dient que c'est + por l'amor de lui, que trop est perillox li ponz. Atant + esgarde Lanceloz l'eve de ca et de la: si voit que ele est + noire et coranz. Si avint que sa veue torna devers la cite, + si vit la tor ou la raine estoit as fenestres. Lanceloz + demande quel vile c'est la?--'Sire, font-il, c'est le leus + ou la raine est.' Si li noment la cite. Et il lor dit: 'Or + n'aiez garde de moi, que ge dont mains le pont que ge onques + mes ne fis, ne il n'est pas si perilleux d'assez comme ge + cuidoie. Mes moult a de la outre bele tor, et s'il m'i + voloient hebergier il m'i auroient encor ennuit a hoste.' + Lors descent et les conforte toz moult durement, et lor dit + que il soient ausinc tout asseur comme il est. Il li lacent + les pans de son hauberc ensenble et li cousent a gros fil de + fer qu'il avoient aporte, et ses manches meesmes li cousent + dedenz ses mains, et les piez desoz; et a bone poiz chaude + li ont peez les manicles et tant d'espes comme il ot entre + les cuisses. Et ce fu por miauz tenir contre le trenchant de + l'espee. + + Quant il orent Lancelot atorne et bien et bel si lor prie + que il s'en aillent. Et il s'en vont, et le font naigier + outre l'eve, et il enmainent son cheval. Et il vient a la + planche droit: puis esgarde vers la tor ou la raine estoit + en prison, si li encline. Apres fet le signe de la verroie + croiz enmi son vis, et met son escu derriers son dos, qu'il + ne li nuise. Lors se met desor la planche en chevauchons, si + se traine par desus si armez comme il estoit, car il ne li + faut ne hauberc ne espee ne chauces ne heaume ne escu. Et + cil de la tor qui le veoient en sont tuit esbahi, ne il n'i + a nul ne nule qui saiche veroiement qui il est; mes qu'il + voient qu'il traine pardesus l'espee trenchant a la force + des braz et a l'enpaignement des genouz; si ne remaint pas + por les filz de fer que des piez et des mains et des genous + ne saille li sanz. Mes por cel peril de l'espee qui trenche + et por l'eve noire et bruiant et parfonde ne remaint que + plus ne resgart vers la tor que vers l'eve, ne plaie ne + angoisse qu'il ait ne prise naient; car se il a cele tor + pooit venir il garroit tot maintenant de ses max. Tant s'est + hertiez et trainez qu'il est venuz jusqu'a terre. + +This becomes in the poem a passage more than 100 lines long, of which +the beginning and end may be given:-- + + Le droit chemin vont cheminant, + Tant que li jors vet declinant, + Et vienent au pon de l'espee + Apres none, vers la vespree. + Au pie del' pont, qui molt est max, + Sont descendu de lor chevax, + Et voient l'eve felenesse + Noire et bruiant, roide et espesse, + Tant leide et tant espoantable + Com se fust li fluns au deable; + Et tant perilleuse et parfonde + Qu'il n'est riens nule an tot le monde + S'ele i cheoit, ne fust alee + Ausi com an la mer betee. + Et li ponz qui est an travers + Estoit de toz autres divers, + Qu'ainz tex ne fu ne james n'iert. + Einz ne fu, qui voir m'an requiert, + Si max pont ne si male planche: + D'une espee forbie et blanche + Estoit li ponz sor l'eve froide. + Mes l'espee estoit forz et roide, + Et avoit deus lances de lonc. + De chasque part ot uns grant tronc + Ou l'espee estoit cloffichiee. + Ja nus ne dot que il i chiee. + Porce que ele brist ne ploit. + Si ne sanble-il pas qui la voit + Qu'ele puisse grant fes porter. + Ce feisoit molt desconforter + Les deus chevaliers qui estoient + Avoec le tierz, que il cuidoient + Que dui lyon ou dui liepart + Au chief del' pont de l'autre part + Fussent lie a un perron. + L'eve et li ponz et li lyon + Les metent an itel freor + Que il tranblent tuit de peor. + + * * * * * * + + Cil ne li sevent plus que dire, + Mes de pitie plore et sopire + Li uns et li autres molt fort. + Et cil de trespasser le gort + Au mialz que il set s'aparoille, + Et fet molt estrange mervoille, + Que ses piez desire et ses mains. + N'iert mie toz antiers ne sains + Quant de l'autre part iert venuz. + Bien s'iert sor l'espee tenuz, + Qui plus estoit tranchanz que fauz, + As mains nues et si deschauz + Que il ne s'est lessiez an pie + Souler ne chauce n'avanpie. + De ce gueres ne s'esmaioit + S'es mains et es piez se plaioit; + Mialz se voloit-il mahaignier + Que cheoir el pont et baignier + An l'eve dont james n'issist. + A la grant dolor con li sist + S'an passe outre et a grant destrece: + Mains et genolz et piez se blece. + Mes tot le rasoage et sainne + Amors qui le conduist et mainne: + Si li estoit a sofrir dolz. + A mains, a piez et a genolz + Fet tant que de l'autre part vient. + +[Sidenote: Romances of Antiquity. Chanson d'Alixandre.] + +About the same time as the flourishing of the Arthurian cycle there +began to be written the third great division of Jean Bodel, 'la matiere +de Rome la grant[55].' The most important beyond all question of the +poems which go to make up this cycle (as it is sometimes called, though +in reality its members are quite independent one of the other) is the +Romance of _Alixandre_. Of the earliest French poem on this subject only +a few fragments exist. This is supposed to have been a work of the +eleventh or very early twelfth century, composed in octosyllabic verses, +and in the mixed dialect common at the time in the south-east, by +Alberic or Auberi of Besancon or Briancon. The _Chanson d'Alixandre_ is, +however, in all probability a much more important work than Alberic's. +It is in form a regular Chanson de Geste, written in twelve-syllabled +verse, of such strength and grace that the term Alexandrine has cleaved +ever since to the metre. Its length, as we have it[56], is 22,606 +verses, and it is assigned to two authors, Lambert the Short[57] and +Alexander of Bernay, though doubt has been expressed whether any of the +present poem is due to Lambert; if we have any of his work, it is not +later than the ninth decade of the twelfth century. Lambert, Alexander, +and perhaps others, are thought to have known not Alberic, but a later +ten-syllabled version into Northern French by Simon of Poitiers. The +remoter sources are various. Foremost among them may undoubtedly be +placed the Pseudo-Callisthenes, an unknown Alexandrian writer translated +into Latin about the fourth century by Julius Valerius, who fathered +upon the philosopher a collection of stories partly gathered from +Plutarch, Quintus Curtius, and a hundred other authorities, partly +elaborated according to the fashion of Greek romancers. Some oriental +traditions of Alexander were also in the possession of western Europe. +Out of all these, and with a considerable admixture of the floating +fables of the time, Lambert and Alexander wove their work. There is, of +course, not the slightest attempt at antiquity of colour. Alexander has +twelve peers, he learns the favourite studies of the middle ages, he is +dubbed knight, and so forth. Many interesting legends, such as that of +the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, make their first appearance in the +poem, and it is altogether one of extraordinary merit. A specimen +_laisse_ may be given:-- + + En icele forest, dont vos m'oez conter, + nesune male choze ne puet laianz entrer. + li home ne les bestes n'i ozent converser, + onques en nesun tans ne vit hon yverner + ne trop froit ne trop chaut ne neger ne geler. + ce conte l'escripture que hom n'i doit entrer, + se il nen at talent de conquerre ou d'amer. + les deuesses d'amors i doivent habiter, + car c'est lor paradix ou el doivent entrer, + li rois de Macedoine en a oi parler, + qui cercha les merveilles dou mont et de la mer, + et ce fist il meismes enz ou fons avaler + en un vessel de voirre, ce ne puet n'on fausser, + qu'il fist faire il meismes fort et reont et cler + et enclorre de fer qu'il ne peust quasser, + s'il l'esteust a roche ou aillors ahurter, + et si que il poet bien par mi outre esgarder, + por veoir les poissons tornoier et joster + et faire lor agaiz et sovent cembeler. + et quant il vint a terre, nou mist a oublier: + la prist la sapience dou mont a conquester + et faire ses agaiz et sa gent ordener + et conduire les oz et sagement mener, + car ce fust toz li mieudres qui ainz peust monter + en cheval por conquerre ne de lance joster, + li gentiz et li larges et ii prex por doner. + la forest des puceles ot oi deviser, + cil qui tot volt conquerre i ot talent d'aler: + souz ciel n'a home en terre qui l'en peust torner. + +While the figure of Alexander served as centre to one group of fictions, +most of which were composed in Chanson form, the octosyllabic metre, +which had made the Arthurian romances its own, was used for the +versification of another numerous class, most of which dealt with the +tale of Troy divine. + +[Sidenote: Roman de Troie.] + +Here also the poems were neither entirely fictitious, nor on the other +hand based upon the best authorities. Dares Phrygius and Dictys +Cretensis, with some epitomes of Homer, were the chief sources of +information. The principal poem of this class is the _Roman de Troie_ of +Benoist de Sainte More (_c._ 1160). This work[58], which extends to more +than thirty thousand verses, has the redundancy and the long-windedness +which characterise many, if not most, early French poems written in its +metre. But it has one merit which ought to conciliate English readers to +Benoist. It contains the undoubted original of Shakespeare's Cressida. +The fortunes of Cressid (or Briseida, as the French trouvere names her) +have been carefully traced out by MM. Moland, Hericault[59], and Joly, +and form a very curious chapter of literary history. Nor is this episode +the only one of merit in Benoist. His verse is always fluent and facile, +and not seldom picturesque, as the following extract (Andromache's +remonstrance with Hector) will show:-- + + Quant elle voit qe neant iert, + o ses dous poinz granz cous se fiert, + fier duel demaine e fier martire, + ses cheveus trait e ront e tire. + bien resemble feme desvee: + tote enragiee, eschevelee, + e trestote fors de son sen + court pour son fil Asternaten. + des eux plore molt tendrement, + entre ses braz l'encharge e prent. + vint el pales atot arieres, + o il chaucoit ses genoillieres. + as piez li met e si li dit + 'sire, por cest enfant petit + qe tu engendras de ta char + te pri nel tiegnes a eschar + ce qe je t'ai dit e nuncie. + aies de cest enfant pitie: + james des euz ne te verra. + s'ui assembles a ceux de la, + hui est ta mort, hui est ta fins. + de toi remandra orfenins. + cruelz de cuer, lous enragiez, + par qoi ne vos en prent pitiez? + par qoi volez si tost morir? + par qoi volez si tost guerpir + et moi e li e vostre pere + e voz serors e vostre mere? + par qoi nos laisseroiz perir? + coment porrons sens vos gerir? + lasse, com male destinee!' + a icest not chai pasmee + a cas desus le paviment. + celle l'en lieve isnelement + qi estrange duel en demeine: + c'est sa seroge, dame Heleine. + +[Sidenote: Other Romances on Classical subjects.] + +The poems of the Cycle of Antiquity have hitherto been less diligently +studied and reprinted than those of the other two. Few of them, with the +exception of _Alixandre_ and _Troie_, are to be read even in fragments, +save in manuscript. _Le Roman d'Eneas_, which is attributed to Benoist, +is much shorter than the _Roman de Troie_, and, with some omissions, +follows Virgil pretty closely. Like many other French poems, it was +adapted in German by a Minnesinger, Heinrich von Veldeke. _Le Roman de +Thebes_, of which there is some chance of an edition, stands to Statius +in the same relation as _Eneas_ to Virgil. And _Le Roman de Jules +Cesar_ paraphrases, though not directly, Lucan. To these must be added +_Athis et Prophilias_ (Porphyrias), or the Siege of Athens, a work which +has been assigned to many authors, and the origin of which is not clear, +though it enjoyed great popularity in the middle ages. The _Protesilaus_ +of Hugues de Rotelande is the only other poem of this series worth the +mentioning. + +Neither of these two classes of poems possesses the value of the +Chansons as documents for social history. The picture of manners in them +is much more artificial. But the Arthurian romances disclose partially +and at intervals a state of society decidedly more advanced than that of +the Chansons. The _bourgeois_, the country gentleman who is not of full +baronial rank, and other novel personages appear. + + * * * * * + +_Note to Third Edition._--Since the second edition was published M. +Gaston Paris has sketched in _Romania_ and summarised in his _Manuel_, +but has not developed in book form, a view of the Arthurian romances +different from his father's and from that given in the text. In this +view the importance of 'Celtic' originals is much increased, and that of +Geoffrey diminished, Walter Map disappears almost entirely to make room +for divers unknown French trouveres, the order of composition is +altered, and on the whole a lower estimate is formed of the literary +value of the cycle. The 'Celtic' view has also been maintained in a book +of much learning and value, _Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail_ +(London, 1888), by Mr. Alfred Nutt. I have not attempted to incorporate +or to combat these views in the text for two reasons, partly because +they will most probably be superseded by others, and partly because the +evidence does not seem to me sufficient to establish any of them +certainly. But having given some years to comparative literary criticism +in different languages and periods, I think I may be entitled to give a +somewhat decided opinion against the 'Celtic' theory, and in favour of +that which assigns the special characteristics of the Arthurian cycle +and all but a very small part of its structure of incident to the +literary imagination of the trouveres, French and English, of the +twelfth century. And I may add that as a whole it seems to me quite the +greatest literary creation of the Middle Ages, except the _Divina +Commedia_, though of course it has the necessary inferiority of a +collection by a great number of different hands to a work of individual +genius. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] Nennius, a Breton monk of the ninth century, has left a brief Latin +Chronicle in which is the earliest authentic account of the Legend of +Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth, _circa_ 1140, produced a _Historia +Britonum_, avowedly based on a book brought from Britanny by Walter, +Archdeacon of Oxford. No trace of this book, unless it be Nennius, can +be found. _See note at end of chapter._ + +[52] Department of Seine-et-Marne, near Fontainebleau. + +[53] Map as a person belongs rather to English than to French history. +He lived in the last three quarters of the twelfth century. + +[54] These various Romances are not by any means equally open to study +in satisfactory critical editions. To take them chronologically, M. +Hucher has published Robert de Borron's _Little Saint Graal_ in prose, +his _Percevale_, and the _Great Saint Graal_, with full and valuable if +not incontestable notes, 3 vols.; Le Mans, 1875-1878. The verse form of +the _Little Saint Graal_ was published by M. F. Michel in 1841. An +edition of _Artus_ was promised by M. Paulin Paris, but interrupted or +prevented by his death. The great works of Map, _Lancelot_ and the +_Quest_, as well as the _Mort Artus_, have never been critically edited +in full; and the sixteenth-century editions being rare and exceedingly +costly, as well as uncritical, they are not easily accessible, except in +M. Paris' Abstract and Commentary, _Les Romans de la Table Ronde_, 5 +vols., 1869-1877. _Tristan_ was published partially forty years ago by +M. F. Michel. _Merlin_ was edited in 1886 by M. G. Paris and M. Ulrich. +A complete edition of Chrestien de Troyes has been undertaken by Dr. +Wendelin Foerster and has preceded to its second volume (_Yvain_). This +under its second title of _Le Chevalier au Lyon_ has also been edited by +Dr. Holland (third edition 1886). Besides this there is the great +Romance of _Percevale_ (continued by others, especially a certain +Manessier), of which M. Potvin has given an excellent edition, 6 vols., +Mons, 1867-1872, including in it a previously unknown prose version of +the Romance of very early date; _Le Chevalier a la Charrette_, continued +by Godefroy de Lagny, and edited, with the original prose from _Lancelot +du Lac_, by Dr. Jonckbloet (The Hague, 1850); and _Erec et Enide_, by M. +Haupt (Berlin, 1860). This piecemeal condition of the texts, and the +practical inaccessibility of many of them, make independent judgment in +the matter very difficult. What is wanted first of all is a book on the +plan of M. Leon Gautier's _Epopees Francaises_, giving a complete +account of all the existing texts--for the entire editing of these +latter must necessarily take a very long time. The statements made above +represent the opinions which appear most probable to the writer, not +merely from the comparison of authorities on the subject, but from the +actual study of the texts as far as they are open to him. (_See note at +end of Chapter._) + +[55] This expression occurs in the _Chanson des Saisnes_, i. 6. 7: 'Ne +sont que iij matieres a nul home atandant, De France et de Bretaigne et +de Rome la grant.' + +[56] Ed. Michelant. Stuttgart, 1846. + +[57] _Li Cors_, otherwise _li tors_ 'the crooked.' Since this book was +first written M. Paul Meyer has treated the whole subject of the +paragraph in an admirable monograph, _Alexandre le Grand dans la +Litterature Francaise du Moyen Age_, 2 vols. Paris, 1886. + +[58] Ed. Joly. Rouen, 1870. + +[59] Moland and Hericault's _Nouvelles du XIV'eme Siecle_. Paris, 1857. +Joly, _Op. cit._ See also P. Stapfer, _Shakespeare et l'Antiquite_. 2 +vols. Paris, 1880. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +FABLIAUX. THE _ROMAN DU RENART_. + + +[Sidenote: Foreign Elements in Early French Literature.] + +Singular as the statement may appear, no one of the branches of +literature hitherto discussed represents what may be called a specially +French spirit. Despite the astonishing popularity and extent of the +Chansons de Gestes, they are, as is admitted by the most patriotic +French students, Teutonic in origin probably, and certainly in genius. +The Arthurian legends have at least a tinge both of Celtic and Oriental +character; while the greater number of them were probably written by +Englishmen, and their distinguishing spirit is pretty clearly +Anglo-Norman rather than French. On the other hand, Provencal poetry +represents a temperament and a disposition which find their full +development rather in Spanish and Italian literature and character than +in the literature and character of France. All these divisions, +moreover, have this of artificial about them, that they are obviously +class literature--the literature of courtly and knightly society, not +that of the nation at large. Provencal literature gives but scanty +social information; from the earlier Chansons at least it would be hard +to tell that there were any classes but those of nobles, priests, and +fighting men; and though, as has been said, a more complicated state of +society appears in the Arthurian legends, what may be called their +atmosphere is even more artificial. + +[Sidenote: The Esprit Gaulois makes its appearance.] + +It is far otherwise with the division of literature which we are now +about to handle. The Fabliaux[60], or short verse tales of old France, +take in the whole of its society from king to peasant with all the +intervening classes, and represent for the most part the view taken of +those classes by each other. Perhaps the _bourgeois_ standpoint is most +prominent in them, but it is by no means the only one. Their tone too is +of the kind which has ever since been specially associated with the +French genius. What is called by French authors the _esprit gaulois_--a +spirit of mischievous and free-spoken jocularity--does not make its +appearance at once, or in all kinds of work. In most of the early +departments of French literature there is a remarkable deficiency of the +comic element, or rather that element is very much kept under. The +comedy of the Chansons consists almost entirely in the roughest +horse-play; while the knightly notion of _gabz_ or jests is exemplified +in the _Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople_, where it seems to be +limited to extravagant, and not always decent, boasts and gasconnades. +More comic, but still farcical in its comedy, is the curious running +fire of exaggerated expressions of poltroonery which the Red Lion keeps +up in _Antioche_, while the names and virtues of the Christian leaders +are being catalogued to Corbaran. In the Arthurian Romances also the +comic element is scantily represented, and still takes the same form of +exaggeration and horse-play. At the same time it is proper to say that +both these classes of compositions are distinguished, at least in their +earlier examples, by a very strict and remarkable decency of language. + +In the Fabliaux the state of things is quite different. The attitude is +always a mocking one, not often going the length of serious satire or +moral indignation, but contenting itself with the peculiar ludicrous +presentation of life and humanity of which the French have ever since +been the masters. In the Fabliaux begins that long course of scoffing at +the weaknesses of the feminine sex which has never been interrupted +since. In the Fabliaux is to be found for the first time satirical +delineation of the frailties of churchmen instead of adoring celebration +of the mysteries of the Church. All classes come in by turns for +ridicule--knights, burghers, peasants. Unfortunately this freedom in +choice of subject is accompanied by a still greater freedom in the +choice of language. The coarseness of expression in many of the Fabliaux +equals, if it does not exceed, that to be found in any other branch of +Western literature. + +[Sidenote: Definition of Fabliaux.] + +The interest of the Fabliaux as a literary study is increased by the +precision with which they can be defined, and the well-marked period of +their composition. According to the excellent definition of its latest +editor, the Fabliau[61] is 'le recit, le plus souvent comique, d'une +aventure reelle ou possible, qui se passe dans les donnees moyennes de +la vie humaine,' the recital, for the most part comic, of a real or +possible event occurring in the ordinary conditions of human life. M. de +Montaiglon, to be rigidly accurate, should have added that it must be in +verse, and, with very rare, if any, exceptions, in octosyllabic +couplets. Of such Fabliaux, properly so called, we possess perhaps two +hundred. They are of the most various length, sometimes not extending to +more than a score or so of lines, sometimes containing several hundreds. +They are, like most contemporary literature, chiefly anonymous, or +attributed to persons of whom nothing is known, though some famous +names, especially that of the Trouvere Ruteboeuf, appear among their +authors. Their period of composition seems to have extended from the +latter half of the twelfth century to the latter half of the fourteenth, +no manuscript that we have of them being earlier than the beginning of +the thirteenth century, and none later than the beginning of the +fifteenth. If, however, their popularity in their original form ceased +at the latter period, their course was by no means run. They had passed +early from France into Italy (as indeed all the oldest French literature +did), and the stock-in-trade of all the Italian _Novellieri_ from +Boccaccio downwards was supplied by them. In England they found an +illustrious copyist in Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales are perfect +Fabliaux, informed by greater art and more poetical spirit than were +possessed by their original authors. In France itself the Fabliaux +simply became farces or prose tales, as the wandering reciter of verse +gave way to the actor and the bookseller. They appear again (sometimes +after a roundabout journey through Italian versions) in the pages of the +French tale-tellers of the Renaissance, and finally, as far as collected +appearance is concerned, receive their last but not their least +brilliant transformation in the _Contes_ of La Fontaine. In these the +cycle is curiously concluded by a return to the form of the original. + +[Sidenote: Subjects and character of Fabliaux.] + +Until MM. de Montaiglon and Raynaud undertook their edition, which has +been slowly completed, the study of the Fabliaux was complicated by the +somewhat chaotic conditions of the earlier collections. Barbazan and his +followers printed as Fabliaux almost everything that they found in verse +which was tolerably short. Thus, not merely the mediaeval poems called +_dits_ and _debats_, descriptions of objects either in monologue or +dialogue, which come sometimes very close to the Fabliau proper, but +moral discourses, short romances, legends like the _Lai d'Aristote_, and +such-like things, were included. This interferes with a comprehension of +the remarkably characteristic and clearly marked peculiarities of the +Fabliau indicated in the definition given above. As according to this +the Fabliau is a short comic verse tale of ordinary life, it will be +evident that the attempts which have been made to classify Fabliaux +according to their subjects were not very happy. It is of course +possible to take such headings as Priests, Women, Villeins, Knights, +etc., and arrange the existing Fabliaux under them. But it is not +obvious what is gained thereby. A better notion of the _genre_ may +perhaps be obtained from a short view of the subjects of some of the +principal of those Fabliaux whose subjects are capable of description. +_Les deux Bordeors Ribaux_ is a dispute between two Jongleurs who boast +their skill. It is remarkable for a very curious list of Chansons de +Gestes which the clumsy reciter quotes all wrong, and for a great +number of the sly hits at chivalry and the chivalrous romances which are +characteristic of all this literature. Thus one Jongleur, going through +the list of his knightly patrons, tells of Monseignor Augier Poupee-- + + 'Qui a un seul coup de s'espee + Coupe bien a un chat l'oreille;' + +and of Monseignor Rogier Ertaut, whose soundness in wind and limb is not +due to enchanted armour or skill in fight, but is accounted for thus-- + + 'Quar onques ne ot cop feru' (for that never has he struck a blow). + +_Le Vair Palefroi_ contains the story of a lover who carries off his +beloved on a palfrey grey from an aged wooer. _La Housse Partie_, a +great favourite, which appears in more than one form, tells the tale of +an unnatural son who turns his father out of doors, but is brought to a +better mind by his own child, who innocently gives him warning that he +in turn will copy his example. _Sire Hain et Dame Anieuse_ is one of the +innumerable stories of rough correction of scolding wives. _Brunain la +Vache au Prestre_ recounts a trick played on a covetous priest. In _Le +Dit des Perdrix_, a greedy wife eats a brace of partridges which her +husband has destined for his own dinner, and escapes his wrath by one of +the endless stratagems which these tales delight in assigning to +womankind. _Le sot Chevalier_, though extremely indecorous, deserves +notice for the Chaucerian breadth of its farce, at which it is +impossible to help laughing. _The two Englishmen and the Lamb_ is +perhaps the earliest example of English-French, and turns upon the +mistake which results in an ass's foal being bought instead of the +required animal. _Le Mantel Mautaillie_ is the famous Arthurian story +known in English as 'The Boy and the Mantle.' _Le Vilain Mire_ is the +original of Moliere's _Medecin malgre lui_. _Le Vilain qui conquist +Paradis par Plaist_ is characteristic of the curious irreverence which +accompanied mediaeval devotion. A villein comes to heaven's gate, is +refused admission, and successively silences St. Peter, St. Thomas, and +St. Paul, by very pointed references to their earthly weaknesses. As a +last specimen may be mentioned the curiously simple word-play of +_Estula_. This is the name of a little dog which, being pronounced, +certain thieves take for 'Es tu la?' + +[Sidenote: Sources of Fabliaux.] + +Such are a very few, selected as well as may be for their typical +character, of these stories. It is not unimportant to consider briefly +the question of their origin. Many of them belong no doubt to that +strange common fund of fiction which all nations of the earth +indiscriminately possess. A considerable number seem to be of purely +original and indigenous growth: but an actual literary source is not +wanting in many cases. The classics supplied some part of them, the +Scriptures and the lives of the saints another part; while not a little +was due to the importation of Eastern collections of stories resulting +from the Crusades. The chief of these collections were the fables of +Bidpai or Pilpai, in the form known as the romance of 'Calila and +Dimna,' and the story of Sendabar (in its Greek form Syntipas). This was +immensely popular in France under the verse form of _Dolopathos_, and +the prose form of _Les sept Sages de Rome_. The remarkable collection of +stories called the _Gesta Romanorum_ is apparently of later date than +most of the Fabliaux; but the tales of which it was composed no doubt +floated for some time in the mouths of Jongleurs before the unknown and +probably English author put them together in Latin. + +[Sidenote: The Roman du Renart.] + +Closely connected with the Fabliaux is one of the most singular works of +mediaeval imagination, the _Roman du Renart_[62]. This is no place to +examine the origin or antiquity of the custom of making animals the +mouthpieces of moral and satirical utterance on human affairs. It is +sufficient that the practice is an ancient one, and that the middle ages +were early acquainted with Aesop and his followers, as well as with +Oriental examples of the same sort. The original author, whoever he was, +of the epic (for it is no less) of 'Reynard the Fox,' had therefore +examples of a certain sort before his eyes. But these examples contented +themselves for the most part with work of small dimension, and had not +attempted connected or continuous story. A fierce battle has been fought +as to the nationality of Reynard. The facts are these. The oldest form +of the story now extant is in Latin. It is succeeded at no very great +interval by German, Flemish, and French versions. Of these the German as +it stands is apparently the oldest, the Latin version being probably of +the second half of the twelfth century, and the German a little later. +But (and this is a capital point) the names of the more important beasts +are in all the versions French. From this and some minute local +indications, it seems likely that the original language of the epic is +French, but French of the Walloon or Picard dialect, and that it was +written somewhere in the district between the Seine and the Rhine. This, +however, is a matter of the very smallest literary importance. What is +of great literary importance is the fact that it is in France that the +story receives its principal development, and that it makes its home. +The Latin, Flemish, and German Reynards, though they all cover nearly +the same ground, do not together amount to more than five-and-twenty +thousand lines. The French in its successive developments amounts to +more than ninety thousand in the texts already published or abstracted; +and this does not include the variants in the Vienna manuscript of +_Renart le Contrefait_, or the different developments of the _Ancien +Renart_, recently published by M. Ernest Martin. + +[Sidenote: The Ancien Renart.] + +The order and history of the building up of this vast composition are as +follows. The oldest known 'branches,' as the separate portions of the +story are called, date from the beginning of the thirteenth century. +These are due to a named author, Pierre de Saint Cloud. But it is +impossible to say that they were actually the first written in French: +indeed it is extremely improbable that they were so. However this may +be, during the thirteenth century a very large number of poets wrote +pieces independent of each other in composition, but possessing the same +general design, and putting the same personages into play. In what has +hitherto been the standard edition of _Renart_, Meon published +thirty-two such poems, amounting in the aggregate to more than thirty +thousand verses. Chabaille added five more in his supplement, and M. +Ernest Martin has found yet another in an Italianised version. This last +editor thinks that eleven branches, which he has printed together, +constitute an 'ancient collection' within the _Ancien Renart_, and have +a certain connection and interdependence. However this may be, the +general plan is extremely loose, or rather non-existent. Everybody knows +the outline of the story of Reynard; how he is among the animals (Noble +the lion, who is king, Chanticleer the cock, Firapel the leopard, +Grimbart the badger, Isengrin the wolf, and the rest) the special +representative of cunning and valour tempered by discretion, while his +enemy Isengrin is in the same way the type of stupid headlong force, and +many of the others have moral character less strongly marked but +tolerably well sustained. How this general idea is illustrated the +titles of the branches show better than the most elaborate description. +'How Reynard ate the carrier's fish;' 'how Reynard made Isengrin fish +for eels;' 'how Reynard cut the tail of Tybert the cat;' 'how Reynard +made Isengrin go down the well;' 'of Isengrin and the mare;' 'how +Reynard and Tybert sang vespers and matins;' 'the pilgrimage of +Reynard,' and so forth. Written by different persons, and at different +times, these branches are of course by no means uniform in literary +value. But the uniformity of spirit in most, if not in all of them, is +extremely remarkable. What is most noticeable in this spirit is the +perpetual undertone of satirical comment on human life and its affairs +which distinguishes it. The moral is never obtrusively put forward, and +it is especially noteworthy that in this _Ancien Renart_, as contrasted +with the later development of the poem, there is no mere allegorising, +and no attempt to make the animals men in disguise. They are quite +natural and distinct foxes, wolves, cats, and so forth, acting after +their kind, with the exception of their possession of reason and +language. + +[Sidenote: Le Couronnement Renart.] + +The next stage of the composition shows an alteration and a degradation. +_Renart le Couronne_, or _Le Couronnement Renart_[63], is a poem of some +3400 lines, which was once attributed to Marie de France, for no other +reason than that the manuscript which contains it subjoins her _Ysopet_ +or fables. It is, however, certainly not hers, and is in all probability +a little later than her time. The main subject of it is the cunning of +the fox, who first reconciles the great preaching orders Franciscans and +Dominicans; then himself becomes a monk, and inculcates on them the art +of _Renardie_; then repairs to court as a confessor to the lion king +Noble who is ill, and contrives to be appointed his successor, after +which he holds tournaments, journeys to Palestine, and so forth. It is +characteristic of the decline of taste that in the list of his army a +whole bestiary (or list of the real and fictitious beasts of mediaeval +zoology) is thrust in; and the very introduction of the abstract term +_Renardie_, or foxiness, is an evil sign of the abstracting and +allegorising which was about to spoil poetry for a time, and to make +much of the literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tedious +and heavy. The poem is of little value or interest. The only +chronological indication as to its composition is the eulogy of William +of Flanders, killed ('jadis,' says the author) in 1251. + +[Sidenote: Renart le Nouvel.] + +The next poem of the cycle is of much greater length, and of at least +proportionately greater value, though it has not the freshness and +_verve_ of the earlier branches. _Renart le Nouvel_ was written in 1288 +by Jacquemart Gielee, a Fleming. This poem is in many ways interesting, +though not much can be said for its general conception, and though it +suffers terribly from the allegorising already alluded to. In its first +book (it consists of more than 8000 lines, divided into two books and +many branches) Renart, in consequence of one of his usual quarrels with +Isengrin, gets into trouble with the king, and is besieged in +Maupertuis. But the sense of verisimilitude is now so far lost, that +Maupertuis, instead of being a fox's earth, is an actual feudal castle; +and more than this, the animals which attack and defend it are armed in +panoply, ride horses, and fight like knights of the period. Besides this +the old familiar and homely personages are mixed up with a very strange +set of abstractions in the shape of the seven deadly sins. All this is +curiously blended with reminiscences and rehandlings of the older and +simpler adventures. Another remarkable feature about _Renart le Nouvel_ +is that it is full of songs, chiefly love songs, which are given with +the music. Its descriptions, though prolix, and injured by allegorical +phrases, are sometimes vigorous. + +[Sidenote: Renart le Contrefait.] + +The cycle was finally completed in the second quarter of the fourteenth +century by the singular work or works called _Renart le Contrefait_. +This has, unfortunately, never been printed in full, nor in any but the +most meagre extracts and abstracts. Its length is enormous; though, in +the absence of opportunity for examining it, it is not easy to tell how +much is common to the three manuscripts which contain it. Two of these +are in Paris and one in Vienna, the latter being apparently identical +with one which Menage saw and read in the seventeenth century. One of +the Parisian manuscripts contains about 32,000 verses, the other about +19,000; and the Vienna version seems to consist of from 20,000 to 25,000 +lines of verse, and about half that number of prose. The author (who, in +so far as he was a single person, appears to have been a clerk of +Troyes, in Champagne) wrote it, as he says, to avoid idleness, and seems +to have regarded it as a vast commonplace book, in which to insert the +result not merely of his satirical reflection, but of his miscellaneous +reading. A noteworthy point about this poem is that in one place the +writer expressly disowns any concealment of his satirical intention. His +book, he says, has nothing to do with the kind of fox that kills +pullets, has a big brush, and wears a red skin, but with the fox that +has two hands and, what is more, two faces under one hood[64]. +Notwithstanding this, however, there are many passages where the old +'common form' of the epic is observed, and where the old personages make +their appearance. Indeed their former adventures are sometimes served up +again with slight alterations. Besides this there is a certain number of +amusing stories and _fabliaux_, the most frequently quoted of which is +the tale of an ugly but wise knight who married a silly but beautiful +girl in hopes of having children uniting the advantages of both parents, +whereas the actual offspring of the union were as ugly as the father and +as silly as the mother. Combined with these things are numerous +allusions to the grievances of the peasants and burghers of the time +against the upper classes, with some striking legends illustrative +thereof, such as the story of a noble dame, who, hearing that a vassal's +wife had been buried in a large shroud of good stuff, had the body taken +up and seized the shroud to make horsecloths of. This original matter, +however, is drowned in a deluge not merely of moralising but of didactic +verse of all kinds. The history of Alexander is told in one version by +Reynard to the lion king in 7000 verses, and is preluded and followed by +an account of the history of the world on a scarcely smaller scale. This +proceeding, at least in the Vienna version, seems to be burdensome even +to Noble himself, who, at the reign of Augustus, suggests that Reynard +should exchange verse for prose, and 'compress.' The warning cannot be +said to be unnecessary: but works as long as _Renart le Contrefait_, +and, as far as it is possible to judge, not more interesting, have been +printed of late years; and it is very much to be wished that the +publication of it might be undertaken by some competent scholar. + +[Sidenote: Fauvel.] + +Renart is not the only bestial personage who was made at this time a +vehicle of satire. In the days of Philippe le Bel a certain Francois de +Rues composed a poem entitled _Fauvel_, from the name of the hero, a +kind of Centaur, who represents vice of all kinds. The direct object of +the poem was to attack the pope and the clergy. + +Some extracts from the _Fabliau_ of the Partridges and from _Renart_ may +appropriately now be given:-- + + Por ce que fabliaus dire sueil, + en lieu de fable dire vueil + une aventure qui est vraie, + d'un vilain qui deles sa haie + prist deus pertris par aventure. + en l'atorner mist moult sa cure; + sa fame les fist au feu metre. + ele s'en sot bien entremetre: + le feu a fait, la haste atorne. + et li vilains tantost s'en torne, + por le prestre s'en va corant. + mais au revenir targa tant + que cuites furent les pertris. + la dame a le haste jus mis, + s'en pinca une peleure, + quar molt ama la lecheure, + quant diex li dona a avoir. + ne beoit pas a grant avoir, + mais a tos ses bons acomplir. + l'une pertris cort envair: + andeus les eles en menjue. + puis est alee en mi la rue + savoir se ses sires venoit. + quant ele venir ne le voit, + tantost arriere s'en retorne, + et le remanant tel atorne + mal du morsel qui remainsist. + adonc s'apenssa et si dist + que l'autre encore mengera. + moult tres bien set qu'ele dira, + s'on li demande que devindrent: + ele dira que li chat vindrent, + quant ele les ot arrier traites; + tost li orent des mains retraites, + et chascuns la seue en porta. + + * * * * * * + + Tant dura cele demoree + que la dame fu saoulee, + et li vilains ne targa mie: + a l'ostel vint, en haut s'escrie + 'diva, sont cuites les pertris?' + 'sire,' dist ele. 'aincois va pis, + quar mengies les a li chas.' + li vilains saut isnel le pas, + seure li cort comme enragies. + ja li eust les iex sachies, + quant el crie 'c'est gas, c'est gas. + fuiies,' fet ele, 'Sathanas! + couvertes sont por tenir chaudes.' + +(He accepts the excuse; bids her lay the table, and goes to sharpen his +knife. The priest arrives. She tells him that her husband is plotting +outrage against him, and as a proof shows him sharpening his knife. The +priest flies, and she tells her husband that he has run off with the +partridges. The husband pursues, but in vain, and the Fabliau thus +concludes:--) + + A l'ostel li vilains retorne, + et lors sa feme en araisone: + 'diva,' fait il, 'et quar me dis + coment tu perdis les pertris?' + cele li dist 'se diex m'ait, + tantost que li prestres me vit, + si me pria, se tant l'amasse, + que je les pertris li moustrasse, + quar moult volentiers les verroit + et je le menai la tout droit + ou je les avoie couvertes. + il ot tantost les mains ouvertes, + si les prist et si s'en fui. + mes je gueres ne le sivi, + ains le vous fis moult tost savoir.' + cil respont 'bien pues dire voir + or le laissons a itant estre.' + ainsi fu engingnies le prestre + et Gombaus qui les pertris prist. + par example cis fabliaus dist: + fame est faite por decevoir. + menconge fait devenir voir + et voir fait devenir menconge. + cil n'i vout metre plus d'alonge + qui fist cest fablel et ces dis. + ci faut li fabliaus des pertris. + +(_Reynard and Isengrin go a-fishing._) + + Ce fu un poi devant Noel + que l'en metoit bacons en sel, + li ciex fu clers et estelez, + et li vivier fu si gelez, + ou Ysengrin devoit peschier, + qu'on pooit par desus treschier, + fors tant c'un pertuis i avoit, + qui des vilains faiz i estoit, + ou il menoient lor atoivre + chascune nuit juer et boivre: + un seel i estoit laissiez. + la vint Renarz toz eslaissiez + et son compere apela. + 'sire,' fait il, 'traiiez vos ca: + ci est la plente des poissons + et li engins ou nos peschons + les anguiles et les barbiaus + et autres poissons bons et biaus.' + dist Ysengrins 'sire Renart, + or le prenez de l'une part, + sel me laciez bien a la qeue.' + Renarz le prent et si li neue + entor la qeue au miex qu'il puet. + 'frere,' fait il, 'or vos estuet + moult sagement a maintenir + por les poissons avant venir.' + lors s'est en un buisson fichiez: + si mist son groing entre ses piez + tant que il voie que il face. + et Ysengrins est seur la glace + et li seaus en la fontaine + plains de glacons a bone estraine. + l'aive conmence a englacier + et li seaus a enlacier + qui a la qeue fu noez: + de glacons fu bien serondez. + la qeue est en l'aive gelee + et en la glace seelee. + +This chapter would be incomplete without a reference to the _Ysopet_ of +Marie de France[65], which may be said to be a link of juncture between +the Fabliau and the _Roman du Renart_. _Ysopet_ (diminutive of Aesop) +became a common term in the middle ages for a collection of fables. +There is one known as the _Ysopet of Lyons_, which was published not +long ago[66]; but that of Marie is by far the most important. It +consists of 103 pieces, written in octosyllabic couplets, with +moralities, and a conclusion which informs us that the author wrote it +'for the love of Count William' (supposed to be Long-Sword), translating +it from an English version of a Latin translation of the Greek. Marie's +graceful style and her easy versification are very noticeable here, +while her morals are often well deduced and sharply put. The famous +'Wolf and Lamb' will serve as a specimen. + + Ce dist dou leu e dou aignel, + qui beveient a un rossel: + li lox a lo sorse beveit + e li aigniaus aval esteit. + irieement parla li lus + ki mult esteit cuntralius; + par mautalent palla a lui: + 'tu m'as,' dist il, 'fet grant anui.' + li aignez li ad respundu + 'sire, eh quei?' 'dunc ne veis tu? + tu m'as ci ceste aigue tourblee: + n'en puis beivre ma saolee. + autresi m'en irai, ce crei, + cum jeo ving, tut murant de sei.' + li aignelez adunc respunt + 'sire, ja bevez vus amunt: + de vus me vient kankes j'ai beu.' + 'qoi,' fist li lox, 'maldis me tu?' + l'aigneus respunt 'n'en ai voleir.' + lous li dit 'jeo sai de veir: + ce meisme me fist tes pere + a ceste surce u od lui ere, + or ad sis meis, si cum jeo crei.' + 'qu'en retraiez,' feit il, 'sor mei? + n'ere pas nez, si cum jeo cuit.' + 'e cei pur ce,' li lus a dit: + 'ja me fais tu ore cuntraire + e chose ke tu ne deiz faire.' + dunc prist li lox l'engnel petit, + as denz l'estrangle, si l'ocit. + + _Moralite._ + + Ci funt li riche robeur, + li vesconte e li jugeur, + de ceus k'il unt en lur justise. + fausse aqoison par cuveitise + truevent assez pur eus cunfundre. + suvent les funt as plaiz semundre, + la char lur tolent e la pel, + si cum li lox fist a l'aingnel. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[60] The first collection of Fabliaux was published by Barbazan in 1756. +This was re-edited by Meon in 1808, and reinforced by the same author +with a fresh collection in 1823. Meanwhile Le Grand d'Aussy had +(1774-1781) given extracts, abstracts, and translations into modern +French of many of them. Jubinal, Robert, and others enriched the +collection further, and in vol. xxiii. of the _Histoire Litteraire_ M. +V. Le Clerc published an excellent study of the subject. A complete +collection of Fabliaux has, however, only recently been attempted, by M. +M. A. de Montaiglon and G. Raynaud (6 vols., Paris, 1872-1888). + +[61] _Fabliau_ is, of course, the Latin _fabula_. The genealogy of the +word is _fabula_, _fabella_, _fabel_, _fable_, _fablel_, _fableau_, +_fabliau_. All these last five forms exist. + +[62] It should be noticed that this title, though consecrated by usage, +is a misnomer. It should be _Roman_ de _Renart_, for this latter is a +proper name. The class name is _goupil_ (vulpes). The standard edition +is that of Meon (4 vols., Paris, 1826) with the supplement of Chabaille, +1835. This includes not merely the _Ancien Renart_, but the +_Couronnement_ and _Renart le Nouvel_. _Renart le Contrefait_ has never +been printed. Rothe (Paris, 1845) and Wolf (Vienna, 1861) have given the +best accounts of it. Recently M. Ernest Martin has given a new critical +edition of the _Ancien Renart_ (3 vols., Strasburg and Paris, +1882-1887). + +[63] The necessary expression of the genitive by _de_ is later than +this. Mediaeval French retained the inflection of nouns, though in a +dilapidated condition. Properly speaking _Renars_ is the nominative, +_Renart_ the general inflected case. + +[64] This is a free translation of the last line of the original, which +is as follows:-- + + Pour renard qui gelines tue, + Qui a la rousse peau vestue, + Qui a grand queue et quatre pies, + N'est pas ce livre communies; + Mais pour cellui qui a deux mains + Dont il sont en ce siecle mains, + Qui ont sous la chappe Faulx Semblant. + + Wolf, _Op. cit._ p. 5. + +The final allusion is to a personage of the _Roman de la Rose_. + +[65] Ed. Roquefort, vol. ii. See next chapter. + +[66] By Dr. W. Foerster. Heilbronn, 1882. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +EARLY LYRICS. + + +[Sidenote: Early and Later Lyrics.] + +The lyric poetry of the middle ages in France divides itself naturally +into two periods, distinguished by very strongly marked characteristics. +The end of the thirteenth century is the dividing point in this as in +many other branches of literature. After that we get the extremely +interesting, if artificial, forms of the Rondeau and Ballade, with their +many varieties and congeners. With these we shall not busy ourselves in +the present chapter. But the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are +provided with a lyric growth, less perfect indeed in form than that +which occupied French singers from Machault to Marot, but more +spontaneous, fuller of individuality, variety, and vigour, and scarcely +less abundant in amount. + +[Sidenote: Origins of Lyric.] + +[Sidenote: Romances and Pastourelles.] + +Before the twelfth century we find no traces of genuine lyrical work in +France. The ubiquitous _Cantilenae_ indeed again make their appearance +in the speculations of literary historians, but here as elsewhere they +have no demonstrable historical existence. Except a few sacred songs, +sometimes, as in the case of Saint Eulalie, in early Romance language, +sometimes in what the French call _langue farcie_, that is to say, a +mixture of French and Latin, nothing regularly lyrical is found up to +the end of the eleventh century. But soon afterwards lyric work becomes +exceedingly abundant. This is what forms the contents of Herr Karl +Bartsch's delightful volume of _Romanzen und Pastourellen_[67]. These +are the two earliest forms of French lyric poetry. They are recognised +by the Troubadour Raimon Vidal as the special property of the Northern +tongue, and no reasonable pretence has been put forward to show that +they are other than indigenous. The tendency of both is towards iambic +rhythm, but it is not exclusively manifested as in later verse. It is +one of the most interesting things in French literary history to see how +early the estrangement of the language from the anapaestic and dactylic +measures natural to Teutonic speech began to declare itself[68]. These +early poems bubble over with natural gaiety, their refrains, musical +though semi-articulate as they are, are sweet and manifold in cadence, +but the main body of the versification is either iambic or trochaic (it +was long before the latter measure became infrequent), and the freedom +of the ballad-metres of England and Germany is seldom present. The +Romance differs in form and still more in subject from the Pastourelle, +and both differ very remarkably from the form and manner of Provencal +poetry. It has been observed by nearly all students, that the love-poems +of the latter language are almost always at once personal and abstract +in subject. The Romance and the Pastourelle, on the contrary, are almost +always dramatic. They tell a story, and often (though not always in the +case of the Pastourelle) they tell it of some one other than the singer. +The most common form of the Romance is that of a poem varying from +twenty lines long to ten times that length and divided into stanzas. +These stanzas consist of a certain number (not usually less than three +or more than eight) of lines of equal length capped with a refrain in a +different metre. By far the best, though by no means the earliest, of +them are those of Audefroy le Bastard, who, according to the late M. +Paulin Paris, may be fixed at the beginning of the thirteenth century. +Audefroy's poems are very much alike in plan, telling for the most part +how the course of some impeded true love at last ran smooth. They rank +with the very best mediaeval poetry in colour, in lively painting of +manners and feelings, and in grace of versification. Unfortunately they +are one and all rather too long for quotation here. The anonymous +Romance of 'Bele Erembors' will represent the class well enough. The +rhyme still bears traces of assonance, which is thought to have +prevailed till Audefroy's time:-- + + Quant vient en mai, que l'on dit as lons jors, + Que Frans en France repairent de roi cort, + Reynauz repaire devant el premier front + Si s'en passa lez lo mes Arembor, + Ainz n'en designa le chief drecier a mont. + E Raynaut amis! + + Bele Erembors a la fenestre au jor + Sor ses genolz tient paile de color; + Voit Frans de France qui repairent de cort, + E voit Raynaut devant el premier front: + En haut parole, si a dit sa raison. + E Raynaut amis! + + 'Amis Raynaut, j'ai ja veu cel jor + Se passisoiz selon mon pere tor, + Dolanz fussiez se ne parlasse a vos.' + 'Ja mesfaistes, fille d'Empereor, + Autrui amastes, si obliastes nos.' + E Raynaut amis! + + 'Sire Raynaut, je m'en escondirai: + A cent puceles sor sainz vos jurerai, + A trente dames que avuec moi menrai, + C'onques nul hom fors vostre cors n'amai. + Prennez l'emmende et je vos baiserai.' + E Raynaut amis! + + Li cuens Raynauz en monta lo degre, + Gros par espaules, greles par lo baudre; + Blonde ot lo poil, menu, recercele: + En nule terre n'ot so biau bacheler. + Voit l'Erembors, so comence a plorer. + E Raynaut amis! + + Li cuens Raynauz est montez en la tor, + Si s'est assis en un lit point a flors, + Dejoste lui se siet bele Erembors. + + * * * * * * + + Lors recomencent lor premieres amors. + E Raynaut amis! + +The Pastourelle is still more uniform in subject. It invariably +represents the knight or the poet riding past and seeing a fair +shepherdess by his road-side. He alights and woos her with or without +success. In this class of poem the stanzas are usually longer, and +consist of shorter lines than is the case with the Romances, while the +refrains are more usually meaningless though generally very musical. It +is, however, well to add that the very great diversity of metrical +arrangement in this class makes it impossible to give a general +description of it. There are Pastourelles consisting merely of +four-lined stanzas with no refrain at all. The following is a good +specimen of the class:-- + + De Saint Quentin a Cambrai + Chevalchoie l'autre jour; + Les un boisson esgardai, + Touse i vi de bel atour. + La colour + Ot freche com rose en mai. + De cuer gai + Chantant la trovai + Ceste chansonnete + 'En non deu, j'ai bel ami, + Cointe et joli, + Tant soie je brunete.' + + Vers la pastoure tornai + Quant la vi en son destour; + Hautement la saluai + Et di 'deus vos doinst bon jour + Et honour. + Celle ke ci trove ai, + Sens delai + Ses amis serai.' + Dont dist la doucete + 'En non deu, j'ai bel ami, + Cointe et joli, + Tant soie je brunete.' + + Deles li seoir alai + Et li priai de s'amour, + Celle dist 'Je n'amerai + Vos ne autrui par nul tour, + Sens pastour, + Robin, ke fiencie l'ai. + Joie en ai, + Si en chanterai + Ceste chansonnete: + En non deu, j'ai bel ami, + Cointe et joli, + Tant soie je brunete.' + +So various, notwithstanding the simplicity and apparent monotony of +their subjects, are these charming poems, that it is difficult to give, +by mere citation of any one or even of several, an idea of their beauty. +In no part of the literature of the middle ages are its lighter +characteristics more pleasantly shown. The childish freedom from care +and afterthought, the half unconscious delight in the beauty of flowers +and the song of birds, the innocent animal enjoyment of fine weather and +the open country, are nowhere so well represented. Chaucer may give +English readers some idea of all this, but even Chaucer is sophisticated +in comparison with the numerous, and for the most part nameless, singers +who preceded him by almost two centuries in France. As a purely formal +and literary characteristic, the use of the burden or refrain is perhaps +their most noteworthy peculiarity. Herr Bartsch has collected five +hundred of these refrains, all different. There is nothing like this to +be found in any other literature; and, as readers of Beranger know, the +fashion was preserved in France long after it had been given up +elsewhere. + +[Sidenote: Thirteenth Century.] + +[Sidenote: Changes in Lyric.] + +After the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France +undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases to be anonymous, +and individual singers--some of them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very +great merit and individuality--make their appearance. In the second +place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in +form, and exhibits evident marks of the communication between troubadour +and trouvere, and of the imitation by the latter of the stricter forms +of Provencal poetry. The Romance and the Pastourelle are still +cultivated, but by their side grow up French versions, often adapted +with considerable independence, of the forms of the South[69]. Such, for +instance, is the _chanson d'amour_, a form less artfully regulated +indeed than the corresponding canzon or sestine of the troubadours, but +still of some intricacy. It consists of five or six stanzas, each of +which has two interlaced rhymes, and concludes with an _Envoi_, which, +however, is often omitted. _Chansonnettes_ on a reduced scale are also +found. In these pieces the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, +which was ultimately to become the chief distinguishing feature of +French prosody, is observable, though it is by no means universal. To +the Provencal _tenson_ corresponds the _jeu parti_ or verse dialogue, +which is sometimes arranged in the form of a Chanson. The _salut +d'amour_ is a kind of epistle, sometimes of very great length and +usually in octosyllabic verse, the decasyllable being more commonly used +in the Chanson. Of this the _complainte_ is only a variety. Again, the +Provencal _sirvente_ is represented by the northern _serventois_, a poem +in Chanson form, but occupied instead of love with war, satire, +religion, and miscellaneous matters. It has even been doubted whether +the _serventois_ is not the forerunner of the _sirvente_ instead of the +reverse being the case. Other forms are _motets_, _rotruenges_, +_aubades_. Poems called _rondeaux_ and _ballades_ also make their +appearance, but they are loose in construction and undecided in form. +The thirteenth century is, moreover, the palmy time of the Pastourelle. +Most of those which we possess belong to this period, and exhibit to the +full the already indicated characteristics of that graceful form. But +the lyric forms of the thirteenth century are to some extent rather +imitated than indigenous, and it is no doubt to the fact of this +imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priority to the +Langue d'Oc, unfounded as it has been sufficiently shown to be, is due +in the main. The most courageous defenders of the North have wished to +maintain its claims wholly intact even in this instance, but +probability, if not evidence, is against them. + +[Sidenote: Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century.] + +[Sidenote: Quesnes de Bethune.] + +[Sidenote: Thibaut de Champagne.] + +It has been said that the number of song writers from the end of the +twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is extremely large. M. +Paulin Paris, whose elaborate chapter in the _Histoire Litteraire_ is +still the great authority on the subject, has enumerated nearly two +hundred, to whose work have to be added hundreds of anonymous pieces. It +would seem indeed that during a considerable period the practice of song +writing was almost as incumbent on the French gentleman of the +thirteenth century as that of sonnetteering on the English gentleman of +the sixteenth. There are, however, not a few names which deserve +separate notice. The first of these in point of time, and not the last +in point of literary importance, is that of Quesnes de Bethune, the +ancestor of Sully, and himself a famous warrior, statesman, and poet. +His epitaph by a poet not usually remarkable for eloquence[70] is a very +striking one. It gives us approximately the date of his death, 1224; and +the word _vieux_ is supposed to show that Quesnes must have been born at +least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. He took part in two +crusades, that of Philip Augustus and that which Villehardouin has +chronicled. His poems[71] are of all classes, historical, satirical, and +amorous, some of last being addressed to Marie, Countess of Champagne; +and his Chansons are, in the technical sense, some of the earliest we +possess. Contemporary with Quesnes apparently was the personage who is +known under the title of Chatelain de Coucy, and whose love for the Lady +of Fayel resulted in an interchange of very tender and beautiful verse; +the poem known as the lady's own is one of the very best of its kind. +Long afterwards lover and lady became the hero and heroine of a romance, +which has led some persons to throw doubt upon their historical +existence, and the Lady of Fayel has even been deprived of her poem by a +well-known kind of criticism. Of more importance is Thibaut de +Champagne, King of Navarre, who is indeed the most important single +figure of early French lyrical poetry. He was born in 1201, and died in +1253. His high position as a feudal prince in both north and south, the +minority of St. Louis, and the intimate relations which existed between +the King's mother, Blanche of Castille, and Thibaut, made him the mark +for a good deal of satirical invective. There is a tradition that he was +Blanche's lover, the only objection to which is that the Queen was +thirty years his senior. Thibaut's poems have been more than once +reprinted, the last edition being that of M. Tarbe[72]; this contains +eighty-one pieces, not a few of which, however, are probably the work of +others. The majority of them are Chansons d'Amour, of the kind just +defined. There are, however, a good many Jeux-Partis, and a certain +number of nondescript poems on miscellaneous subjects. There is more +reason for the common opinion which attributes to Thibaut the marriage +of the poetical qualities of northern and southern France, than the mere +fact of his having been both Count of Champagne and King of Navarre. His +poems have in reality something of the freshness and the individuality +of the Trouveres, mixed with a great deal of the formal grace and +elegance of the Troubadours. The following may serve as an example:-- + + Contre le tens qui desbrise + Yvers, et revient este, + Et la mauvis se desguise, + Qui de lonc tens n'a chante + Ferai chanson. Car a gre + Me vient que j'aie en pense + Amor, qui en moi s'est mise. + Bien m'a droit son dart gete. + + Douce dame, de franchise, + N'ai je point en vos trove: + S'ele ne s'i est puis mise + Que je ne vos esgarde, + Trop avez vers moi fierte. + Mais ce fait vostre biaute, + Ou il n'i a pas de devise, + Tant en i a grand plante. + + En moi n'a point d'astenance + Que je puisse aillors penser, + Pors que la, ou conoissance + Ne merci ne puis trover. + Bien fui fait por li amer; + Car ne m'en puis saoler. + Et quant plus aurai cheance, + Plus la me convendra douter. + + D'une riens sui en doutance, + Que je ne puis plus celer, + Qu'en li n'ait un po d'enfance. + Ce me fait deconforter, + Que s'a moi a bon penser + Ne l'ose ele desmontrer. + Si feist qu'a sa semblance + Le poisse deviner. + + Des que je li fis priere + Et la pris a esgarder, + Me fist amors la lumiere + Des iels par le cuer passer. + Cil conduit me fait grever: + Dont je ne me soi garder: + Ne ne puet torner arriere + Mon cuer; miex voudrait crever. + + Dame, a vos m'estuet clamer, + Et que merci vos requiere. + Diex m'i laist pitie trover! + +[Sidenote: Minor Singers.] + +[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.] + +Besides Thibaut there are not a few other song writers of the thirteenth +century, who rise out of the crowd named by M. Paulin Paris. Some of +these, as might be expected, are famous for their achievements in other +departments of literature. Such are Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel, Guyot +de Provins. There are, however, two, Gace Brule and Colin Muset, who +survive solely but worthily as song writers. Gace Brule was a knight of +Champagne, Colin Muset a professed minstrel. The former chiefly composed +sentimental work; the latter, with the proverbial or professional gaiety +of his class, drew nearer to the satirical tone of the Fabliau writers. +His best-known and most usually quoted work describes the different +welcome which he receives from his family on his return from +professional tours, according to the success or ill-success with which +he has met. Two other poets, Adam de la Halle and Ruteboeuf, are far +more prominent in literary history. Adam de la Halle[73] bore the +surname 'Le Bossu d'Arras,' from his native town, though the term +hunchback seems to have had no literal application to him. His exact +date is not known, but it must probably have been from the fourth to the +ninth decade of the thirteenth century. His dramatic works, which are of +signal importance, will be noticed elsewhere. But besides these he has +left some seventy or eighty lyrical pieces of one kind or another. +Adam's life was not uneventful; he was at first a monk, but left his +convent and married. Then he proved as faithless to his temporal as he +had been to his spiritual vows. He lampooned his wife, his family, his +townsmen, and, shaking the dust of Arras from his feet, retired first to +Douai and then to the court of Robert of Artois, whom he accompanied to +Italy. He died in that country about 1288. The style of Adam de la Halle +varies from the coarsest satire to the most graceful tenderness. Of the +latter the following song is a good specimen:-- + + Diex! + Comment porroie + Trouver voie + D'aler a chelui + Cui amiete je sui? + Chainturelle, va-i + En lieu de mi; + Car tu fus sieue aussi, + Si m'en conquerra miex. + + Mais comment serai sans ti? + Dieus! + Chainturelle, mar vous vi; + Au deschaindre m'ochies; + De mes grietes a vous me confortoie, + Quant je vous sentoie, + Ai mi! + A le saveur de mon ami. + Ne pour quant d'autres en ai, + A cleus d'argent et de soie, + Pour men user. + Mais lasse! comment porroie + Sans cheli durer + Qui me tient en joie? + + Canchonnete, chelui proie + Qui le m'envoya, + Puis que jou ne puis aler la. + Qu'il en viengne a moi, + Chi droit, + A jour failli, + Pour faire tous ses boins, + Et il m'orra, + Quant il ert joins, + Canter a haute vois: + _Par chi va la mignotise,_ + _Par chi ou je vois_. + +[Sidenote: Ruteboeuf] + +Ruteboeuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more +fortunate than most of the poets of early France in leaving a +considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and +collectively edited[74]. Little or nothing, however, is known about him, +except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230; +he was certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to +any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian +or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable +in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject. +The first consists of personal and of comic poems; the second of poems +sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and +events; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the +latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division +_La Pauvrete Ruteboeuf_, _Le Mariage Ruteboeuf_, etc., are +complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there +is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as _Renart le +Bestourne_, _Le Dit des Cordeliers_, _Frere Denise_, _Le Dit de +l'Erberie_, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many +lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety, +chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a +characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Ruteboeuf's +sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second +class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of +thought. Many of these poems are _complaintes_ or elaborate elegies +(often composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as +Geoffroy de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the +_Complainte d'Outremer_, the _Complainte de Constantinople_, the _Dit de +la Voie de Tunes_, the _Debat du Croise et du Decroise_, are comments +on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in +favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France +with their degeneracy. 'Mort sont Ogier et Charlemagne' is an +often-quoted exclamation of Ruteboeuf in this sense. The third class +includes _La Mort Ruteboeuf_, otherwise _La Repentance Ruteboeuf_, +_La Voie de Paradis_, various poems to the Virgin, the lives of St. Mary +of Egypt and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the miracle play of +_Theophile_. Ruteboeuf's favourite metres are either the continuous +octosyllabic couplet, or else a stanza composed of an octosyllabic +couplet and a line of four syllables, the termination of the latter +being caught up by the succeeding couplet. In this the _Mariage_ is +written, of which a specimen may be given:-- + + En l'an de l'incarnacion, + VIII jors apres la nascion + Jhesu qui soufri passion, + en l'an soissante, + qu'arbres n'a foille, oisel ne chante, + fis je toute la rien dolante + que de cuer m'aime: + nis li musarz musart me claime. + or puis filer, qu'il me faut traime; + mult ai a faire. + deus ne fist cuer tant de pute aire, + tant li aie fait de contraire + ne de martire, + s'il en mon martire se mire, + qui ne doie de bon cuer dire + 'je te claim cuite.' + envoier un home en Egypte, + ceste dolor est plus petite + que n'est la moie; + je n'en puis mais se je m'esmoie. + l'en dit que fous qui ne foloie + pert sa saison: + sui je mariez sanz raison? + or n'ai ne borde ne maison. + encor plus fort: + por plus doner de reconfort + a ceus qui me heent de mort, + tel fame ai prise + que nus fors moi n'aime ne prise, + et s'estoit povre et entreprise, + quant je la pris. + a ci mariage de pris, + c'or sui povres et entrepris + ausi comme ele, + et si n'est pas gente ne bele. + cinquante anz a en s'escuele, + s'est maigre et seche: + n'ai pas paor qu'ele me treche. + despuis que fu nez en la greche + deus de Marie, + ne fu mais tele espouserie. + je sui toz plains d'envoiserie: + bien pert a l'uevre. + +Though he has less of the 'lyrical cry' than some others, Ruteboeuf is +perhaps the most vigorous poet of his time. + +[Sidenote: Lais. Marie de France.] + +There is one division of early poetry which may also be noticed under +this head, though it is sometimes dealt with as a kind of miniature +epic. This is the _lai_, a term which is used in old French poetry with +two different significations. The Trouveres of the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries made of it a regular lyrical form. But the most +famous of its examples, those which now pass under the name of Marie de +France, are narrative poems in octosyllabic verse and varying in length +considerably. It is agreed that the term and the thing are of Breton +origin; and the opinion which seems most probable is that the word +originally had reference rather to the style of music with which the +harper accompanied his verse, than to the measure, arrangement, or +subject of the latter. As to Marie herself[75], nothing is known about +her with certainty. She lived in England in the reign of Henry III, and +often gives English equivalents for her French words. The _lais_ which +we possess, written by her and attributed to her, are fourteen in +number. They bear the titles of _Gugemer_, _Equitan_, _Le Fresne_, _Le +Bisclaveret_, _Lanval_, _Les Deux Amants_, _Ywenec_, _Le Laustic_, +_Milun_, _Le Chaitivel_, _Le Chevrefeuille_, _Eliduc_, _Graalent_ and +_L'Espine_. Mr. O'Shaughnessy has paraphrased several of these in +English[76]; they are all narrative in character. Their distinguishing +features are fluent and melodious versification, pure and graceful +language--among the purest and most graceful, though decidedly Norman in +character, of the time--true poetical feeling, and a lively faculty of +invention and description. After Marie there was a tendency to +approximate the _lai_ to the Provencal _descort_, and at last, as we +have said, it acquired rules and a form quite alien from those of its +earlier examples. There is a general though not a universal inclination +to melancholy of subject in the early lays, a few of which are +anonymous. + + * * * * * + +_Note to Third Edition._--M. Gaston Paris has expressed some surprise at +my remarks on metre (p. 63). This from so accomplished a scholar is a +curious instance of the difficulty which Frenchmen seem to feel in +appreciating quantity. To an English eye and ear which have been trained +to classical prosody the trochaic rhythm of, for instance, the +Pastourelle quoted on p. 65, is unmistakable, and there are anapaestic +metres to be found here and there in early poems of the same kind. +Indeed, all French poetry is easily scanned quantitatively, though the +usual authorities protest against such scansion. Voltaire, it is said, +took Turgot's hexameters for prose, and the significance of this is the +same whether the mistake, as is probable, was mischievous or whether it +was genuine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67] Leipsic, 1870. + +[68] See note at end of chapter. + +[69] This miscellaneous lyric for the most part awaits collection and +publication. M. G. Raynaud has given a valuable _Bibliographie des +Chansonniers Francais des XIII'e et XIV'e siecles_. 2 vols., Paris, +1884. Also a collection of _motets_. Paris, 1881. + +[70] Philippe Mouskes. This is it: + + La terre fut pis en cest an + Quar li vieux Quesnes estoit mors. + +[71] The best edition is in Scheler's _Trouveres Belges_. Brussels, +1876. + +[72] Rheims, 1851. + +[73] The most convenient place to look for Adam's history and work is +_Le Theatre Francais au Moyen Age_. Par Monmerque et Michel. Paris, +1874. There are also separate editions of him by Coussemaker, and more +recently by A. Rambeau. Marburg, 1886. + +[74] By A. Jubinal. 2nd edition. 3 vols. Paris, 1874. + +[75] Ed. Roquefort. 2 vols. Paris, 1820. The first volume contains the +lays; the later the fables, which have been noticed in the last chapter. +Later edition, Warnke. Halle, 1885. Marie also wrote a poem on the +Purgatory of St. Patrick. Three other lays, _Tidorel_, _Gringamor_, and +_Tiolet_ have been attributed to her, and are printed in _Romania_, vol. +viii. + +[76] _Lays of France_, London, 1872. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY. + + +In consequence of the slowness with which prose was used for any regular +literary purpose in France, verse continued to do duty for it until a +comparatively late period in almost all departments of literature. By +the very earliest years of the twelfth century, and probably much +earlier (though we have no certain evidence of this latter fact), +documents of all kinds began to be written in verse of various forms. +Among the earliest serious verse that was written rank, as we might +expect, verse chronicles. It was not till 1200 at soonest that long +translations from the Latin in French prose were made, but such +translations, and original works as well, were written in French verse +long before. + +[Sidenote: Verse Chronicles.] + +The rhymed Chronicles were numerous, but, with rare exceptions, they +cannot be said to be of any very great literary importance. Whether they +were imitated directly from the Chansons de Gestes, or _vice versa_, is +a question which, as it happens, can be settled without difficulty. For +they are almost all in octosyllabic couplets, a metre certainly later +than the assonanced decasyllabics of the earliest Chansons. The latter +form and the somewhat later dodecasyllable or Alexandrine are rarely +used for Verse Chronicles, the most remarkable exception being the +spirited _Combat des Trente_[77], which is however very late, and the +_Chronique de du Guesclin_ of the same date. There are earlier examples +of history in Alexandrines (some are found in the twelfth century, such +as the account of Henry the Second's Scotch Wars by Jordan Fantome, +Chancellor of the diocese of Winchester), but they are not numerous or +important. It is not unworthy of notice that the majority of the early +Verse Chronicles are English or Anglo-Norman. The first of importance is +that of Geoffrey Gaymar, whose Chronicle of English history was written +about 1146. Gaymar was followed by a much better known writer, the +Jerseyman Wace[78], who not only, as has been mentioned, versified +Geoffrey of Monmouth into the _Brut_[79], but produced the important +_Roman de Rou_[80], giving the history of the Dukes of Normandy and of +the Conquest of England. The date of the _Brut_ is 1155, of the _Rou_ +1160. This latter is the better of the two, though Wace was not a great +poet. It consists chiefly of octosyllabics, with a curious insertion of +Alexandrines in rhymed not assonanced _laisses_. Wace was followed by +Benoist de Sainte-More, who extended his Chronicle of the Dukes of +Normandy to more than forty thousand verses. The 'Life of St. Thomas' +(Becket), by Garnier de Pont St. Maxence, also deserves notice, as does +an anonymous poem on the English wars in Ireland. But the most +interesting of this group is probably the history[81] of William +Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219 and who during his life +played a great part in England. It abounds in passages of historical +interest and literary value. During the thirteenth and fourteenth +centuries, the practice of writing history in verse gradually died out, +yet some of the most important examples date from this time. Such are +the Chronicles of Philippe Mouskes[82], a Fleming, in more than thirty +thousand verses, extending from the Siege of Troy to the year 1243. +Mouskes is of some importance in literary history, because of the great +extent to which he has drawn on the Chansons de Gestes for his +information. In 1304 Guillaume Guiart, a native of Orleans, wrote in +twelve thousand verses a Chronicle of the thirteenth century, including +a few years earlier and later. There are a large number of other Verse +Chronicles, but few of them are of much importance historically, and +fewer still of any literary interest. + +History, however, was by no means the only serious subject which took +this incongruous form in the middle ages. The amount of miscellaneous +verse written during the period between the end of the eleventh and the +beginning of the fifteenth century is indeed enormous. Only a very small +portion of it has ever been printed, and the mere summary description of +the manuscripts which contain it is as yet far from complete. If it be +said generally that, during the greater part of these three hundred +years, the first impulse of any one who wished to write, no matter on +what subject, was to write in verse, and that the popular notion of the +want of literary tastes in the middle ages is utterly mistaken, some +idea may be formed of the vast extent of literature, poetical in form, +which was then produced. Much no doubt of this literature is not in the +least worthy of detailed notice; much, whether worthy or not, must from +mere considerations of space and proportion remain unnoticed here. What +is possible, is to indicate briefly the chief forms, authors, and +subjects, which fall under the heading of this chapter, and to give a +somewhat detailed account of the great serious poem of mediaeval France, +the _Roman de la Rose_. Peculiarities of metre and so forth will be +indicated where it is necessary, but it may be said generally that the +great mass of this literature is in octosyllabic couplets. + +[Sidenote: Miscellaneous Satirical Verse.] + +It has already been observed in discussing the Fabliaux that the first +enquirers into old French literature were led to include a very +miscellaneous assortment of poems under that head; and it may now be +added that this miscellaneous assortment with much else constitutes the +_farrago_ of the present chapter. The two great poems of the _Roman du +Renart_ and the _Roman de la Rose_ stand as representatives of the more +or less serious poetry of the time, and everything else may be said to +be included between them. Beginning nearest to the _Roman du Renart_ and +its kindred Fabliaux, we find a vast number of half-satirical styles of +poetry, many, if not most of them, known (according to what has been +noted in the preface as characteristic of mediaeval literature) by +distinctive form-names. Of these _dits_ and _debats_ have already been +noticed, but it is not easy to give a notion of the number of the +existing examples, or of the extraordinary diversity of subjects to +which both, and especially the _dits_, extend. Perhaps some estimate may +be formed from the fact that the _dits_ of three Flemish poets alone, +Baudouin de Conde, Jean de Conde, and Watriquet de Couvin, fill four +stout octavo volumes[83]. The subjects of these and of the large number +of _dits_ composed by other writers and anonymous are almost +innumerable. The earliest are for the most part simple enumerations of +the names of streets, of street cries, of guilds, of coins, and +such-like things. By degrees they become more definitely didactic, and +at last allegorical moralising masters them as it does almost every +other kind of poetry in the fourteenth century. The _debat_, sometimes +called _dispute_, or _bataille_, is an easily understood variety of the +_dit_. Ruteboeuf's principal _debat_ has been named; another in a less +serious spirit is that between _Charlot et le Barbier_. There is a +_Bataille des Vins_, a _Bataille de Careme et de Charnage_, a _Debat de +l'Hiver et l'Ete_, etc., etc. Another name much used for half-satirical, +half-didactic verse was that of _Bible_, of which the most famous +(probably because it was the first known) is that of Guyot de +Provins,--a violent onslaught on the powers that were in Church and +State by a discontented monk. An extract from it will illustrate this +division of the subject as well as anything else:-- + + Des fisiciens me merveil: + de lor huevre et de lor conseil + rai ge certes mont grant merveille, + nule vie ne s'apareille + a la lor, trop par est diverse + et sor totes autres perverse. + bien les nomme li communs nons; + mais je ne cuit qu'i ne soit hons + qui ne les doie mont douter. + il ne voudroient ja trover + nul home sanz aucun mehaing. + maint oingnement font e maint baing + ou il n'a ne senz ne raison, + cil eschape d'orde prison + qui de lor mains puet eschaper. + qui bien set mentir et guiler + et faire noble contenance, + tout ont trove fors la creance + que les genz ont lor fait a bien. + tiex mil se font fisicien + qui n'en sevent voir nes que gie. + li plus maistre sont mont changie + de grant ennui, n'il n'est mestiers + dont il soit tant de mencongiers. + il ocient mont de la gent: + ja n'ont ne ami ne parent + que il volsissent trover sain; + de ce resont il trop vilain. + mont a d'ordure en ces liens. + qui en main a fisiciens, + se met par els. il m'ont eu + entre lor mains: onques ne fu, + ce cuit, nule plus orde vie. + je n'aim mie lor compaignie, + si m'ait dex, qant je sui sains: + honiz est qui chiet en lor mains. + par foi, qant je malades fui, + moi covint soffrir lor ennui. + +_Testaments_ of the satirical kind, chiefly noteworthy for the brilliant +use which Villon made of the tradition of composing them, _resveries_ +and _fatrasies_ (nonsense poems with a more or less satirical drift), +parodies of the offices of the Church, of its sermons, of the miracle +plays, are the chief remaining divisions of the poetry which, under a +light and scoffing envelope, conceals a serious purpose. + +[Sidenote: Didactic verse. Philippe de Thaun.] + +Such things have at all times been composed in verse, and the reason is +sufficiently obvious. In the first place, the intention of the writers +is to a certain extent masked, and in the second, the reader's attention +is attracted. But the middle ages by no means confined the use of verse +to such cases. Downright instruction was, as often as not, the object of +the verse writer in those days. The earliest, and as such the most +curious of didactic poems, are those of Philippe de Thaun, an Englishman +of Norman extraction, who wrote in the first quarter of the twelfth +century. His two works are a _Comput_, or Chronological Treatise, +dedicated to an uncle of his, who was chaplain to Hugh Bigod, Earl of +Norfolk, and a _Bestiary_, or Zoological Catalogue, dedicated to Adela +of Louvain, the wife of Henry the First. Written before the vogue of the +versified Arthurian Romances had consecrated the octosyllable, these +poems are in couplets of six syllables. Their great age, and to a +certain extent their literary merit, deserve an extract:-- + + Monosceros est beste, + un corn ad en la teste, + pur ceo ad si a nun. + de buc ele ad facun. + par pucele eat prise, + or oez en quel guise, + quant hom le volt cacer + et prendre et enginner, + si vent horn al orest + u sis repaires est; + la met une pucele + hors de sein sa mamele, + e par odurement + monosceros la sent; + dune vent a la pucele, + si baiset sa mamele, + en sun devant se dort, + issi vent a sa mort; + li hom survent atant, + ki l'ocit en dormant, + u trestut vif le prent, + si fait puis sun talent. + grant chose signefie, + ne larei nel vus die. + Monosceros griu est, + en franceis un-corn est: + beste de tel baillie + Jhesu Crist signefie; + un deu est e serat + e fud e parmaindrat; + en la virgine se mist, + e pur hom charn i prist, + e pur virginited, + pur mustrer casteed, + a virgine se parut + e virgine le conceut. + virgine est e serat + e tuz jurz parmaindrat. + ores oez brefment + le signefiement. + Ceste beste en verte + nus signefie de; + la virgine signefie, + sacez, sancte Marie; + par sa mamele entent + sancte eglise ensement; + e puis par le baiser + ceo deit signefier, + que hom quant il se dort + en semblance est de mort: + des cum home dormi, + ki en cruiz mort sufri, + ert sa destructiun + nostre redemptiun, + e sun traveillement + nostre reposement. + si deceut des diable + par semblant cuvenable; + anme e cors sunt un, + issi fud des et hum, + e iceo signefie + beste de tel baillie. + +_Bestiaries_ and _Computs_ (the French title of the Chronologies) were +for some time the favourites with didactic verse writers, but before +long the whole encyclopaedia, as it was then understood, was turned into +verse. Astrology, hunting, geography, law, medicine, history, the art of +war, all had their treatises; and latterly _Tresors_, or complete +popular educators, as they would be called nowadays, were composed, the +best-known of which is that of Walter of Metz in 1245. + +[Sidenote: Moral and Theological verse.] + +All, or almost all, these works, written as they were in an age +sincerely pious, if somewhat grotesque in its piety, and theoretically +moral, if somewhat loose in its practice, contained not only abundant +moralising, but also more or less theology of the mystical kind. It +would therefore have been strange if ethics and theology themselves had +wanted special exponents in verse. Before the middle of the twelfth +century Samson of Nanteuil (again an Englishman by residence) had +versified the Proverbs of Solomon, and in the latter half of the same +century vernacular lives of the saints begin to be numerous. Perhaps the +most popular of these was the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, of which +the fullest poetical form has been left us by an English trouvere of the +thirteenth century named Chardry, by whom we have also a verse rendering +of the 'Seven Sleepers,' and some other poems[84]. Somewhat earlier, +Hermann of Valenciennes was a fertile author of this sort of work, +composing a great _Bible de Sapience_ or versification of the Old +Testament, and a large number of lives of saints. Of books of Eastern +origin, one of the most important was the _Castoiement d'un Pere a son +Fils_, which comes from the _Panchatantra_, though not directly. The +translated work had great vogue, and set the example of other +_Castoiements_ or warnings. The monk Helinand at the end of the twelfth +century composed a poem on 'Death,' and a vast number of similar poems +might be mentioned. The commonest perhaps of all is a dialogue _Des +trois Morts et des trois Vifs_, which exists in an astonishing number of +variants. Gradually the tone of all this work becomes more and more +allegorical. _Dreams, Mirrors, Castles_, such as the 'Castle of Seven +Flowers,' a poem on the virtues, make their appearance. + +[Sidenote: Allegorical verse.] + +[Sidenote: The Roman de la Rose.] + +The question of the origin of this habit of allegorising and +personification is one which has been often incidentally discussed by +literary historians, but which has never been exhaustively treated. It +is certain that, at a very early period in the middle ages, it makes its +appearance, though it is not in full flourishing until the thirteenth +century. It seems to have been a reflection in light literature of the +same attitude of mind which led to the development of the scholastic +philosophy, and, as in the case of that philosophy, Byzantine and +Eastern influences may have been at work. Certain it is that in some of +the later Greek romances[85], something very like the imagery of the +_Roman de la Rose_ is discoverable. Perhaps, however, we need not look +further than to the natural result of leisure, mental activity, and +literary skill, working upon a very small stock of positive knowledge, +and restrained by circumstances within a very narrow range of +employment. However this may be, the allegorising habit manifests itself +recognisably enough in French literature towards the close of the +twelfth century. In the _Meraugis de Portlesguez_ of Raoul de Houdenc, +the passion for arguing out abstract questions of lovelore is +exemplified, and in the _Roman des Eles_ of the same author the knightly +virtues are definitely personified, or at least allegorised. At the same +time some at all events of the Troubadours, especially Peire Wilhem, +carried the practice yet further. _Merci_, _Pudeur_, _Loyaute_, are +introduced by that poet as persons whom he met as he rode on his +travels. In Thibaut de Champagne a still further advance was made. The +representative poem of this allegorical literature, and moreover one of +the most remarkable compositions furnished by the mediaeval period in +France, is the _Roman de la Rose_[86]. It is doubtful whether any other +poem of such a length has ever attained a popularity so wide and so +enduring. The _Roman de la Rose_ extends to more than twenty thousand +lines, and is written in a very peculiar style; yet it maintained its +vogue, not merely in France but throughout Europe, for nearly three +hundred years from the date of its commencement, and for more than two +hundred from that of its conclusion. The history of the composition of +the poem is singular. It was begun by William of Lorris, of whom little +or nothing is known, but whose work must, so far as it is easy to make +out, have been done before 1240, and is sometimes fixed at 1237. This +portion extends to 4670 lines, and ends quite abruptly. About forty +years later, Jean de Meung, or Clopinel, afterwards one of Philippe le +Bel's paid men of letters, continued it without preface, taking up +William of Lorris' cue, and extended it to 22,817 verses, preserving the +metre and some of the personages, but entirely altering the spirit of +the treatment. The importance of the poem requires that such brief +analysis as space will allow shall be given here. Its general import is +sufficiently indicated by the heading,-- + + Ci est le Rommant de la Rose + Ou l'art d'amors est tote enclose; + +though the rage for allegory induced its readers to moralise even its +allegorical character, and to indulge in various far-fetched +explanations of it. In the twentieth year of his age, the author says, +he fell asleep and dreamed a dream. He had left the city on a fair May +morning, and walked abroad till he came to a garden fenced in with a +high wall. On the wall were portrayed figures, Hatred, _Felonnie_, +_Villonie_, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, _Papelardie_ +(Hypocrisy), Poverty--all of which are described at length. He strives +to enter in, and at last finds a barred wicket at which he is admitted +by Dame Oiseuse (Leisure), who tells him that Deduit (Delight) and his +company are within. He finds the company dancing and singing, Dame +Liesse (Enjoyment) being the chief songstress, while Courtesy greets him +and invites him to take part in the festival. The god of love himself is +then described, with many of his suite--Beauty, Riches, etc. A further +description of the garden leads to the fountain of Narcissus, whose +story is told at length. By this the author, who is thenceforth called +the lover, sees and covets a rosebud. But thorns and thistles bar his +way to it, and the god of love pierces him with his arrows. He does +homage to the god, who accepts his service, and addresses a long +discourse to him on his future duties and conduct. The prospect somewhat +alarms him, when a new personage, Bel Acueil (Gracious Reception), comes +up and tenders his services to the lover, the god having disappeared. +Almost immediately, however, Dangier[87] makes his appearance, and +drives both the lover and Bel Acueil out of the garden. As the former +is bewailing his fate, Reason appears and remonstrates with him. He +persists in his desire, and parleys with Dangier, both directly and by +ambassadors, so that in the end he is brought back by Bel Acueil into +the garden and allowed to see but not to touch the rose. Venus comes to +his aid, and he is further allowed to kiss it. At this, however, Shame, +Jealousy, and other evil agents reproach Dangier. Bel Acueil is immured +in a tower, and the lover is once more driven forth. + +Here the portion due to William of Lorris ends. Its main characteristics +have been indicated by this sketch, except that the extreme beauty and +grace of the lavish descriptions which enclose and adorn the somewhat +commonplace allegory perforce escape analysis. It is in these +descriptions, and in a certain tenderness and elegance of general +thought and expression, that the charm of the poem lies, and this is +very considerable. The deficiency of action, however, and the continual +allegorising threaten to make it monotonous had it been much longer +continued in the same strain. + +It is unlikely that it was this consideration which determined Jean de +Meung to adopt a different style. In his time literature was already +agitated by violent social, political, and religious debates, and the +treasures of classical learning were becoming more and more commonly +known. But prose had not yet become a common literary vehicle, save for +history, oratory, and romance, nor had the duty of treating one thing at +a time yet impressed itself strongly upon authors. Jean de Meung was +satirically disposed, was accomplished in all the learning of his day, +and had strong political opinions. He determined accordingly to make the +poem of Lorris, which was in all probability already popular, the +vehicle of his thoughts. + +In doing this he takes up the story as his predecessor had left it, at +the point where the lover, deprived of the support of Bel Acueil, and +with the suspicions of Dangier thoroughly aroused against him, lies +despairing without the walls of the delightful garden. Reason is once +more introduced, and protests as before, but in a different tone and +much more lengthily. She preaches the disadvantages of love in a speech +nearly four hundred lines long, followed by another double the length, +and then by a dialogue in which the lover takes his share. The +difference of manner is felt at once. The allegory is kept up after a +fashion, but instead of the graceful fantasies of William of Lorris, the +staple matter is either sharp and satirical views of actual life, or +else examples drawn indifferently from sacred and profane history. One +speech of Reason's, a thousand lines in length, consists of a collection +of instances of this kind showing the mobility of fortune. At length she +leaves the lover as she found him, 'melancolieux et dolant,' but +unconvinced. Amis (the friend), who has appeared for a moment +previously, now reappears, and comforts him, also at great length, +dwelling chiefly on the ways of women, concerning which much scandal is +talked. The scene with Reason had occupied nearly two thousand lines; +that with Amis extends to double that length, so that Jean de Meung had +already excelled his predecessor in this respect. Profiting by the +counsel he has received, the lover addresses himself to Riches, who +guards the way, but fruitlessly. The god of love, however, takes pity on +him (slightly ridiculing him for having listened to Reason), and summons +all his folk to attack the tower and free Bel Acueil. Among these Faux +Semblant presents himself, and, after some parley, is received. This new +personification of hypocrisy gives occasion to some of the author's most +satirical touches as he describes his principles and practice. After +this, Faux Semblant and his companion, Contrainte Astenance (forced or +feigned abstinence), set to work in favour of the lover, and soon win +their way into the tower. There they find an old woman who acts as Bel +Acueil's keeper. She takes a message from them to Bel Acueil, and then +engages in a singular conversation with her prisoner, wherein the +somewhat loose morality of the discourses of Amis is still further +enforced by historical examples, and by paraphrases of not a few +passages from Ovid. She afterward admits the lover, who thus, at nearly +the sixteen-thousandth line from the beginning, recovers through the +help of False Seeming the 'gracious reception' which is to lead him to +the rose. The castle, however, is not taken, and Dangier, with the rest +of his allegorical company, makes a stout resistance to 'Les Barons de +L'Ost'--the lords of Love's army. The god sends to invoke the aid of his +mother, and this introduces a new personage. Nature herself, and her +confidant, Genius, are brought on the scene, and nearly five thousand +verses serve to convey all manner of thoughts and scraps of learning, +mostly devoted to the support, as before, of questionably moral +doctrines. In these five thousand lines almost all the current ideas of +the middle ages on philosophy and natural science are more or less +explicitly contained. Finally, Venus arrives and, with her burning +brand, drives out Dangier and his crew, though even at this crisis of +the action the writer cannot refrain from telling the story of Pygmalion +and the Image at length. The way being clear, the lover proceeds +unmolested to gather the longed-for rose. + +[Sidenote: Popularity of the Roman de la Rose.] + +It is impossible to exaggerate, and not easy to describe, the popularity +which this poem enjoyed. Its attacks on womanhood and on morality +generally provoked indeed not a few replies, of which the most important +came long afterwards from Christine de Pisan and from Gerson. But the +general taste was entirely in favour of it. Allegorical already, it was +allegorised in fresh senses, even a religious meaning being given to it. +The numerous manuscripts which remain of it attest its popularity before +the days of printing. It was frequently printed by the earliest +typographers of France, and even in the sixteenth century it received a +fresh lease of life at the hands of Marot, who re-edited it. Abroad it +was praised by Petrarch and translated by Chaucer[88]; and it is on the +whole not too much to say that for fully two centuries it was the +favourite book in the vernacular literature of Europe. Nor was it +unworthy of this popularity. As has been pointed out, the grace of the +part due to William of Lorris is remarkable, and the satirical vigour of +the part due to Jean de Meung perhaps more remarkable still. The +allegorising and the length which repel readers of to-day did not +disgust generations whose favourite literary style was the allegorical, +and who had abundance of leisure; but the real secret of its vogue, as +of all such vogues, is that it faithfully held up the mirror to the +later middle ages. In no single book can that period of history be so +conveniently studied. Its inherited religion and its nascent +free-thought; its thirst for knowledge and its lack of criticism; its +sharp social divisions and its indistinct aspirations after liberty and +equality; its traditional morality and asceticism, and its half-pagan, +half-childish relish for the pleasures of sense; its romance and its +coarseness, all its weakness and all its strength, here appear. + +[Sidenote: Imitations.] + +The imitations of the _Roman de la Rose_ were in proportion to its +popularity. Much of this imitation took place in other kinds of poetry, +which will be noticed hereafter. Two poems, however, which are almost +contemporary with its earliest form, and which have only recently been +published, deserve mention. One, which is an obvious imitation of +Guillaume de Lorris, but an imitation of considerable merit, is the +_Roman de la Poire_[89], where the lover is besieged by Love in a tower. +The other, of a different class, and free from trace of direct +imitation, is the short poem called _De Venus la Deesse d'Amors_[90], +written in some three hundred four-lined stanzas, each with one rhyme +only. Some passages of this latter are very beautiful. + +Three extracts, two from the first part of the _Roman de la Rose_, and +one from the second, will show its style:-- + + En iceli tens deliteus, + Que tote riens d'amer s'esfroie, + Sonjai une nuit que j'estoie, + Ce m'iert avis en mon dormant, + Qu'il estoit matin durement; + De mon lit tantost me levai, + Chaucai-moi et mes mains lavai. + Lors trais une aguille d'argent + D'un aguiller mignot et gent, + Si pris l'aguille a enfiler. + Hors de vile oi talent d'aler, + Por oir des oisiaus les sons + Qui chantoient par ces boissons + En icele saison novele; + Cousant mes manches a videle, + M'en alai tot seus esbatant, + Et les oiseles escoutant, + Qui de chanter moult s'engoissoient + Par ces vergiers qui florissoient, + Jolis, gais et pleins de leesce. + Vers une riviere m'adresce + Que j'oi pres d'ilecques bruire. + Car ne me soi aillors deduire + Plus bel que sus cele riviere. + D'un tertre qui pres d'iluec iere + Descendoit l'iaue grant et roide, + Clere, bruiant et aussi froide + Comme puiz, ou comme fontaine, + Et estoit poi mendre de Saine, + Mes qu'ele iere plus espandue. + Onques mes n'avoie veue + Tele iaue qui si bien coroit: + Moult m'abelissoit et seoit + A regarder le leu plaisant. + De l'iaue clere et reluisant + Mon vis rafreschi et lave. + Si vi tot covert et pave + Le fons de l'iaue de gravele; + La praerie grant et bele + Tres au pie de l'iaue batoit. + Clere et serie et bele estoit + La matinee et atempree: + Lors m'en alai parmi la pree + Contreval l'iaue esbanoiant, + Tot le rivage costoiant. + + * * * * * * + + Une ymage ot empres escrite, + Qui sembloit bien estre ypocrite, + _Papelardie_ ert apelee. + C'est cele qui en recelee, + Quant nus ne s'en puet prendre garde, + De nul mal faire ne se tarde. + El fait dehors le marmiteus, + Si a le vis simple et piteus, + Et semble sainte creature; + Mais sous ciel n'a male aventure + Qu'ele ne pense en son corage. + Moult la ressembloit bien l'ymage + Qui faite fu a sa semblance, + Qu'el fu de simple contenance; + Et si fu chaucie et vestue + Tout ainsinc cum fame rendue. + En sa main un sautier tenoit, + Et sachies que moult se penoit + De faire a Dieu prieres faintes, + Et d'appeler et sains et saintes. + El ne fu gaie ne jolive, + Ains fu par semblant ententive + Du tout a bonnes ovres faire; + Et si avoit vestu la haire. + Et sachies que n'iere pas grasse. + De jeuner sembloit estre lasse, + S'avoit la color pale et morte. + A li et as siens ert la porte + Deveee de Paradis; + Car icel gent si font lor vis + Amegrir, ce dit l'Evangile, + Por avoir loz parmi la vile, + Et por un poi de gloire vaine, + Qui lor toldra Dieu et son raine. + + * * * * * * + + _Comment le traistre Faulx-Semblant + Si va les cueurs des gens emblant, + Pour ses vestemens noirs et gris, + Et pour son viz pasle amaisgris._ + 'Trop sai bien mes habiz changier, + Prendre l'un, et l'autre estrangier. + Or sui chevaliers, or sui moines, + Or sui prelas, or sui chanoines, + Or sui clers, autre ore sui prestres, + Or sui desciples, or sui mestres, + Or chastelains, or forestiers: + Briement, ge sui de tous mestiers. + Or resui princes, or sui pages, + Or sai parler trestous langages; + Autre ore sui viex et chenus, + Or resui jones devenus. + Or sui Robers, or sui Robins, + Or cordeliers, or jacobins. + Si pren por sivre ma compaigne + Qui me solace et acompaigne, + (C'est dame Astenance-Contrainte), + Autre desguiseure mainte, + Si cum il li vient a plesir + Por acomplir le sien desir. + Autre ore vest robe de fame; + Or sui damoisele, or sui dame, + Autre ore sui religieuse, + Or sui rendue, or sui prieuse, + Or sui nonain, or sui abesse, + Or sui novice, or sui professe; + Et vois par toutes regions + Cerchant toutes religions. Mes de religion, sans faille, + G'en pren le grain et laiz la paille; + Por gens avulger i abit, + Ge n'en quier, sans plus, que l'abit. + Que vous diroie? en itel guise + Cum il me plaist ge me desguise; + Moult sunt en moi mue li vers, + Moult sunt li faiz aux diz divers. + Si fais cheoir dedans mes pieges + Le monde par mes privileges; + Ge puis confesser et assoldre, + (Ce ne me puet nus prelas toldre,) + Toutes gens ou que ge les truisse; + Ne sai prelat nul qui ce puisse, + Fors l'apostole solement + Qui fist cest establissement + Tout en la faveur de nostre ordre.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[77] This is an account of the battle of thirty Englishmen and thirty +Bretons in the Edwardian wars. + +[78] There is, it appears, no authority for the Christian name of Robert +which used to be given to Wace. + +[79] Wace's _Brut_ is not the only one. The title seems to have become a +common name. + +[80] The old edition of the _Roman de Rou_, by Pluquet, has been +entirely superseded by that of Dr. Hugo Andresen. 2 vols. Heilbronn, +1877-1879. + +[81] Discovered recently in the Middlehill collection, and known chiefly +by an article in _Romania_ (Jan. 1882), giving an abstract and +specimens. + +[82] Ed. Reiffenberg. Brussels, 1835-1845. + +[83] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1866-1868. + +[84] Well edited by Koch. Heilbronn, 1879. + +[85] See especially _Hysminias and Hysmine_. + +[86] Ed. F. Michel. 2 vols. Paris, 1864. + +[87] _Dangier_ is not exactly 'danger.' To be 'en dangier de quelqu'un' +is to be 'in somebody's power.' _Dangier_ is supposed to stand for the +guardian of the beloved, father, brother, husband, etc. This at least +has been the usual interpretation, and seems to me to be much the more +probable. M. Gaston Paris, however, and others, see in _Dangier_ the +natural coyness and resistance of the beloved object, not any external +influence. + +[88] Chaucer's authorship of the existing translation has been denied. +It is, however, certain that he did translate the poem. + +[89] Ed. Stehlich. Halle, 1881. + +[90] Ed. Foerster. Berne, 1880. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ROMANS D'AVENTURES. + + +[Sidenote: Distinguishing features of Romans d'Aventures.] + +The remarkable fecundity of early French literature in narrative poetry +on the great scale was not limited to the Chanson de Geste, the +Arthurian Romance, and the classical story wrought into the likeness of +one or the other of these. Towards the end of the twelfth or the +beginning of the thirteenth century a new class of narrative poems +arose, derived from each and all of these kinds, but marked by important +differences. The new form immediately reacted on the forms which had +given it birth, and produced new Chansons de Gestes, new Arthurian +Romances, and new classical stories fashioned after its own image. This +is what is called the Roman d'Aventures, of which the first and main +feature is open and almost avowed fictitiousness, and the second the +more or less complete abandonment of any attempt at cyclic arrangement +or subordination to a central theme. + +[Sidenote: Looser application of the term.] + +[Sidenote: Classes of Romans d'Aventures.] + +Until quite recently it was not unusual to apply the term Roman +d'Aventures with less strictness, and to make it include the Romances of +the Round Table. There can, however, be no doubt that it is far better +to adopt Jean Bodel's three classes as distinguishing into separate +groups the epic poetry of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and to +restrict the title Romans d'Aventures to the later narrative +developments of the thirteenth and fourteenth. For the second +distinguishing mark which we have just indicated is striking and of more +or less universal application. In these later poems the ambition of the +writer to class his work under and with some precedent work is almost +entirely absent. He allows himself complete freedom, though he may +sometimes, in order to give his characters greater interest, connect +them nominally with some famous personage or event of the earlier +cycles. This tendency to shake off the shackles of cyclicism is early +apparent. There are episodes even in the Chansons de Gestes which have +little or no reference to Charlemagne or his peers: the Arthurian +Romances in prose and verse contain long digressions, holding but very +loosely to the Table Round, such as the adventures of Tristram and +Percivale, and still more the singular episode of Grimaud in the _Saint +Graal_. As for the third class, the Trouveres almost from the beginning +assumed the greatest licence in their handling of the classical legends. +These accordingly were less affected than any others by the change. It +is possible to divide the Romans d'Aventures themselves under the three +headings. It is further possible to indicate a large class of Chansons +de Gestes over which the influence of the Roman d'Aventures has passed. +But the Chanson having a special formal peculiarity--the assonanced or +rhymed tirade--survived the new influence better than the other two, and +keeps its name, and to some extent its character, while the Romances of +Arthur and antiquity are simply lost in the general body of tales of +adventure. These tales are for the most part written in octosyllabic +couplets on the model of Chrestien, but a very few, such as _Brun de la +Montaigne_, imitate the exterior characteristics of the Chanson. + +It is further to be noticed that while the earlier poems are mostly +anonymous, the Romans d'Aventures are generally, though not always, +signed, and bear characteristics of particular authorship. In some +cases, notably in those of Adenes le Roi and Raoul de Houdenc, we have a +body of work signed or otherwise identified, which enables us to +attribute a definite literary character and position to its authors. +This, as we have noted, is impossible in the case of the national epics, +and not too easy in that of the Arthurian Romances. Until quite recently +however the Roman d'Aventures has had less of the attention of editors +than its forerunners, and the works which compose the class are still to +some extent unpublished. + +[Sidenote: Adenes le Roi.] + +Adenes or Adans le Roi perhaps derived his surname from the function of +king of the minstrels, if he performed it, at the court of Henry III, +duke of Brabant. He was, most likely, born in the second quarter of the +thirteenth century, and the last probable allusion to him which we have +occurs in the year 1297. The events of his life are only known from his +own poems, and consist chiefly of travels in company with different +princesses and princes of Flanders and Brabant. His literary work is +however of great importance. It consists partly of refashionings of +three Chansons de Gestes, _Les enfances Ogier_, _Berte aus grans Pies_, +and _Bueves de Commarchis_[91]. In these three poems Adenes works up the +old epics into the form fashionable in his time, and as we possess the +older versions of the first and last, the comparison of the two forms +affords a literary study of the highest interest. His last, longest, and +most important work is the Roman d'Aventures of _Cleomades_[92], a poem +extending to 20,000 verses, and not less valuable for its intrinsic +merit than as a type of its class. Its popularity in the middle ages was +immense. Froissart gives it the place occupied in the _Inferno_ by +_Lancelot_ in his description of his declaration of love to his +mistress, and allusions to it under its second title of _Le Cheval de +Fust_[93] are frequent. The most prominent feature in the story is the +introduction of a wooden horse, like that known to everybody in the +Arabian Nights, which, started and guided by means of pegs, transports +its rider whithersoever he will. Its great length allows of a very long +series of adventures, all of which are told in spirited and flowing +verse, though with considerable prolixity and a certain abuse of stock +descriptions. These two faults characterise all the Romans d'Aventures +and the Chansons which were remodelled in their style. The merits of +_Cleomades_ are not so universally found, but its extreme length is not +common. Few other Romans d'Aventures exceed 10,000 lines. An extract +from this poem will well illustrate the manner of this important class +of composition:-- + + Cleomades vit un chastel + encoste un plain, tres fort et bel, + ou il ot mainte bele tour. + bos et rivieres vit entour, + vignes et praieries grans. + mult fu li chastiaus bien seans. + la facon dou castel deisse, + mais je dout mult que ne meisse + trop longement au deviser: + pour ce m'en voel briement passer. + Du chastel vous dirai le non: + miols seant ne vit aine nus hom, + lors l'apieloit on Chastel-noble. + n'ot tel dusque en Constantinoble, + ne de la dusque en Osterice + n'ot plus bel, plus fort ne plus rice. + carmans a cel point i estoit + que Cleomades vint la droit. + forment li sambloit li chastiaus + de toutes pars riches et biaus. + Cleomades lors s'avisa + que viers le chastel se trera. + bien pensoit qu'en tel liu manoient + gent qui de grant afaire estoient. + che fu si qu'apries l'ajournee + mult faisoit bele matinee, + car mais estoit nouviaus entres: + c'est uns tans ki mult est ames + et de toutes gens conjois; + pour cou a non mais li jolis. + une tres grant tour haute et forte + avoit ases pries de la porte, + ki estoit couverte de plon, + plate deseure, car adon + les faisoit on ensi couvrir + pour engins et pour assallir. + Cleomades a avisee + la tour ki estoit haute et lee; + lors pense qu'il s'arestera + sor cele tour tant qu'il savra, + se il puet, la certainite + quel pais c'est la verite. + lors a son cheval adrechie + viers la tour de marbre entaillie. + les chevilletes si tourna + que droit sour la tour aresta. + si coiement s'est avales + que sour aighe coie vait nes. + +[Sidenote: Raoul de Houdenc.] + +Raoul de Houdenc is an earlier poet than Adenes, and represents the +Roman d'Aventures in its infancy, when it still found it necessary to +attach itself to the great cycle of the Round Table. His works, besides +some shorter poems[94], consist of the _Roman des Eles_ (Ailes), a +semi-allegorical composition, describing the wings and feathers of +chivalry, that is to say, the great chivalrous virtues, among which +Raoul, like a herald as he was, gives Largesse the first place; of +_Meraugis de Portlesguez_, an important composition, possessing some +marked peculiarities of style; and possibly also of the _Vengeance de +Raguidel_, in which the author works out one of the innumerable +unfinished episodes of the great epic of _Percevale_. Thus Raoul de +Houdenc occupies no mean place in French literature, inasmuch as he +indicates the starting-point of two great branches, the Roman +d'Aventures and the allegorical poem, and this at a very early date. +This date is not known exactly; but it was certainly before 1228, when +the Trouvere Huon de Mery alludes to him, and classes him with Chrestien +as a master of French verse. He has in truth some very noteworthy +peculiarities. The chief of these, which must soon strike any reader of +_Meraugis_, is his tendency to _enjambement_ or overlapping of couplets. +It is a curious feature in the history of French verse that the +isolation of the couplet has constantly recurred in its history, and +that as constantly reformers have striven to break up the monotony so +produced by this process of _enjambement_. Perhaps Raoul is the earliest +who thus, as an indignant critic put it at the first representation of +_Hernani_, 'broke up verses, and threw them out of window.' Besides this +metrical characteristic, the thing most noteworthy in his poems (as +might indeed have been expected from his composition of the _Roman des +Eles_) is a tendency to allegorising, and to scholastic disquisitions on +points of amatory casuistry. The whole plot of _Meraugis_ indeed turns +on the enquiry whether physical or metaphysical love is the sincerest, +and on the quarrel which a difference on this point brings on between +the hero and Gorvein Cadrus his friend and his rival in the love of the +fair Lidoine. + +[Sidenote: Chief Romans d'Aventures.] + +Many other Romans d'Aventures deserve mention, both for their intrinsic +merits and for the immense popularity they once enjoyed. Foremost among +these must be mentioned _Partenopex de Blois_[95] and _Flore et +Blanchefleur_[96]. The former (formerly ascribed to Denis Pyramus and +now denied to him, but said to date from the twelfth century) is a kind +of modernised _Cupid and Psyche_, except that Cupid's place is taken by +the fairy Melior, and Psyche's by the knight Parthenopeus or +Parthenopex. This poem has great elegance and freshness of style, and +though the author is inclined to moralise (as a near forerunner of the +_Roman de la Rose_ was bound to do), his moralisings are gracefully and +naively put. _Flore et Blanchefleur_ is perhaps even superior. Its theme +is the love of a young Christian prince for a Saracen girl-slave, who +has been brought up with him. She is sold into a fresh captivity to +remove her from him, but he follows her and rescues her unharmed from +the harem of the Emir of Babylon. The delicacy of the handling is very +remarkable in this poem, and it has some links of connection with +_Aucassin et Nicolette_. _Le Roman de Dolopathos_[97] has a literary +history of great interest which we need not touch upon here. Its +versification has more vigour than that of almost any other Roman +d'Aventures. _Blancandin et l'Orguilleuse d'Amour_[98] is more promising +at the beginning than in the sequel. A young knight, hearing of the +pride and coyness of a lady, accosts and kisses her as she rides past +with a great following of knights. Her coldness is of course changed to +love at first sight, and the audacious suitor afterwards delivers her +from her enemies; but the working out of the story is rather dully +managed. _Brun de la Montaigne_[99], as has been already mentioned, is +written in Chanson form, and deals with the famous Forest of Broceliande +in Britanny. _Guillaume de Palerne_[100] is a still more interesting +work. It introduces the favourite mediaeval idea of lycanthropy, the +hero being throughout helped and protected by a friendly were-wolf, who +is before the end of the poem freed from the enchantment to which he is +subjected. This Romance was early translated into English. Of the same +class is the _Roman de l'Escouffle_, where a hawk carries away the +heroine's ring, as in a well-known story of the Arabian Nights. _Amadas +et Idoine_[101] is one of the numerous histories of the success of a +squire of low degree, but is distinguished from most of them by the +originality of its conception and the vigour of its style. The scenes +where the hero is recovered of his madness by his beloved, and where, +keeping guard over her tomb, he fights with ghostly enemies, after a +time of trial of his fidelity, and rescues her from death, are unusually +brilliant. _Le Bel Inconnu_[102], which (from a curious misunderstanding +of its older form _Li Biaus Desconnus_) occurs in English form as +_Lybius Diasconus_, tells the story of a son of Gawain and the fairy +with the white hands, and thus is one of the numerous secondary Romances +of the Round Table. So also is the long and interesting _Roman du +Chevalier as Deux Espees_[103]; this extends to more than 12,000 lines, +and, though the adventures recorded are of the ordinary Round Table +pattern, there is noticeable in it a better faculty of maintaining the +interest and a completer mastery over episodes than usual. A still +longer poem (also belonging to what may be called the outer Arthurian +cycle) is _Durmart le Gallois_[104], which contains almost 16,000 +verses. The loves of the hero and Fenise, the Queen of Ireland, are +somewhat lengthily handled; but there are passages of merit, especially +one most striking episode in which the hero, riding through a forest by +night, comes to a tree covered from top to bottom with burning torches, +while a shining naked child is enthroned on the summit. These touches of +mystical religion are rarer in the later Romans d'Aventures than in the +Arthurian Romances proper, but with them one of the most remarkable +elements of romance disappears. Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beaumanoir +(who has other claims to literary distinction) is held to be author of +two Romans d'Aventures[105], _La Manekine_ (the story of the King of +Hungary's daughter, who cut off her hand to save herself from her +father's incestuous passion) and _Blonde d'Oxford_, where a young French +squire carries off an English heiress. _Joufrois de Poitiers_[106], +which has not come down to us complete, is chiefly remarkable for the +liveliness of style with which adventures, in themselves tolerably +hackneyed, are handled. Other Romans d'Aventures, which are either as +yet in manuscript or of less importance, are _Ille et Galeron_ and +_Eracle_, both by Gautier d'Arras, _Cristal et Larie_, _La Dame a la +Licorne_, _Guy de Warwike_, _Gerard de Nevers_ or _La Violette_[107], +_Guillaume de Dole_, _Eledus et Serena_, _Florimont_. + +[Sidenote: General Character.] + +Like most kinds of mediaeval poetry, these Romans d'Aventures have a +very considerable likeness the one to the other. It may indeed be said +that they possess a 'common form' of certain incidents and situations, +which reappear with slight changes and omissions in all or most of them. +Their besetting sins are diffuseness and the recurrence of stock +descriptions and images. On the other hand, they have their peculiar +merits. The harmony of their versification is often very considerable; +their language is supple, picturesque, and varied, and the moral +atmosphere which they breathe is one of agreeable refinement and +civilisation. In them perhaps is seen most clearly the fanciful and +graceful side of the state of things which we call chivalry. Its +mystical and transcendental sides are less vividly and touchingly +exhibited than in the older Arthurian Romances; and its higher passions +are also less dealt with. The Romans d'Aventures supply once more, +according to the Aristotelian definition, an Odyssey to the Arthurian +Iliad; they are complex and deal with manners. Nor ought it to be +omitted that, though they constantly handle questions of gallantry, and +though their uniform theme is love, the language employed on these +subjects is almost invariably delicate, and such as would not fail to +satisfy even modern standards of propriety. The courtesy which was held +to be so great a knightly virtue, if it was not sufficient to ensure a +high standard of morality in conduct, at any rate secured such a +standard in matter of expression. In this respect the Court literature +of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stands in very remarkable +contrast to that which was tolerated, if not preferred, from the time of +Louis the Eleventh until the reign of his successor fourteenth of the +name. + +[Sidenote: Last Chansons. Baudouin de Sebourc.] + +Reference has already been made to the influence which these poems had +on the Chansons de Gestes. Few of the later developments of these are +worth much attention, but what may be called the last original Chanson +deserves some notice. _Baudouin de Sebourc_[108] and its sequel the +_Bastard of Bouillon_[109] worthily close this great division of +literature, and, setting as they do a finish to the sub-cycle of the +_Chevalier au Cygne_, hardly lose except in simplicity by comparison +with its magnificent opening in the _Chanson d'Antioche_. They contain +together some 33,000 verses, and the scene changes freely. It is +sometimes in Syria, where the Crusaders fight against the infidel, +sometimes in France and Flanders, where Baudouin has adventures of all +kinds, comic and chivalrous, sometimes on the sea, where among other +things the favourite mediaeval legend of St. Brandan's Isle is brought +in. Not a little of its earlier part shows the sarcastic spirit common +at the date of its composition, the beginning of the fourteenth century. +The length of the two poems is enormous, as has been said; but, putting +two or three masterpieces aside, no poem of mediaeval times has a more +varied and livelier interest than _Baudouin de Sebourc_, and few breathe +the genuine Chanson spirit of pugnacious piety better than _Le Bastart +de Bouillon_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[91] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, v. d. + +[92] Ed. van Hasselt. Brussels, 1866. + +[93] _The wooden horse._ + +[94] The _Songe d'Enfer_ and the _Voie de Paradis_, published by +Jubinal, as the _Roman des Eles_ has been by Scheler, _Meraugis_ by +Michelant, and the _Vengeance de Raguidel_ by Hippeau. + +[95] Ed. Crapelet. Paris, 1834. + +[96] Ed. Du Meril. Paris, 1856. + +[97] Ed. Brunet et Montaiglon. Paris, 1856. + +[98] Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1867. + +[99] Ed. Meyer. Paris, 1875. + +[100] Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1876. + +[101] Ed. Hippeau. Paris, 1863. + +[102] Ed. Hippeau. Paris, 1860. + +[103] Ed. Foerster. Halle, 1877. + +[104] Ed. Stengel. Tuebingen, 1873. + +[105] Both edited in extract by Bordier. Paris, 1869. Complete edition +begun by Suchier. Paris, 1884. + +[106] Ed. Hofmann and Muncker. Halle, 1880. + +[107] Ed. Michel. + +[108] Ed. Boca. 2 vols. Valenciennes, 1841. + +[109] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1877. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LATER SONGS AND POEMS. + + +[Sidenote: The Artificial Forms of Northern France.] + +Not the least important division of early French literature, in point of +bulk and peculiarity, though not always the most important in point of +literary excellence, consists of the later lyrical and miscellaneous +poems of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. By the end of the +thirteenth century the chief original developments had lost their first +vigour, while, on the other hand, the influence of the regular forms of +Provencal poetry had had time to make itself fully felt. There arose in +consequence, in northern France, a number of artificial forms, the +origin and date of which is somewhat obscure, but which rapidly attained +great popularity, and which continued for fully two centuries almost to +monopolise the attention of poets who did not devote themselves to +narrative. These forms, the Ballade, the Rondeau, the Virelai, etc., +have already been alluded to as making their appearance among the later +growths of early lyrical poetry. They must now be treated in the +abundant development which they received at the hands of a series of +poets from Lescurel to Charles d'Orleans. + +[Sidenote: General Character. Varieties.] + +The principle underlying all these forms is the same, that is to say, +the substitution for the half-articulate refrain of the early Romances, +of a refrain forming part of the sense, and repeated with strict +regularity at the end or in the middle of stanzas rigidly corresponding +in length and constitution. In at least two cases, the _lai_ and the +_pastourelle_, the names of earlier and less rigidly exact forms were +borrowed for the newer schemes; but the more famous and prevailing +models[110], the Ballade, with its modification the Chant Royal, and +the Rondel, with its modifications the Rondeau and the Triolet, are new. +It has been customary to see in the adoption of these forms a sign of +decadence; but this can hardly be sustained in face of the fact that, in +Charles d'Orleans and Villon respectively, the Rondel and the Ballade +were the occasion of poetry far surpassing in vigour and in grace all +preceding work of the kind, and also in presence of the service which +the sonnet--a form almost if not quite as artificial--has notoriously +done to poetry. It may be admitted, however, that the practitioners of +the Ballade and the Rondeau soon fell into puerile and inartistic +over-refinements. The forms of Ballade known as Equivoquee, Fratrisee, +Couronnee, etc., culminating in the preposterous Emperiere, are +monuments of tasteless ingenuity which cannot be surpassed in their +kind, and they have accordingly perished. But both in France and in +England the Ballade itself and a few other forms have retained +popularity at intervals, and have at the present day broken out into +fresh and vigorous life. + +[Sidenote: Jehannot de Lescurel.] + +[Sidenote: Guillaume de Machault.] + +[Sidenote: Eustache Deschamps] + +The chief authors of these pieces during the period we are discussing +were Jehannot de Lescurel, Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps, +Jean Froissart, Christine de Pisan, Alain Chartier, and Charles +d'Orleans. Besides these there were many others, though the epoch of +the Hundred Years' War was not altogether fertile in lighter poetry or +poetry of any kind. Jehannot de Lescurel[111] is one of those poets of +whom absolutely nothing is known. His very name has only survived in the +general syllabus of contents of the manuscript which contains his works, +and which is in this part incomplete. The thirty-three poems--sixteen +Ballades, fifteen Rondeaus[112], and two nondescript pieces--which exist +are of singular grace, lightness, and elegance. They cannot be later and +are probably earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century, and thus +they are anterior to most of the work of the school. Guillaume de +Machault was a person sufficiently before the world, and his work is +very voluminous. As usual with all these poets, it contains many details +of its author's life, and enables us to a certain extent to construct +that life out of these indications. Machault was probably born about +1284, and may not have died till 1377. A native of Champagne and of +noble birth, he early entered, like most of the lesser nobility of the +period, the service of great feudal lords. He was chamberlain to Philip +the Fair, and at his death became the secretary of John of Luxembourg, +the well-known king of Bohemia. After the death of this prince at +Cressy, he returned to the service of the court of France and served +John and Charles V., finally, as it appears, becoming in some way +connected with Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. His works were very +numerous, amounting in all to some 80,000 lines, of which until recently +nothing but a few extracts was in print. In the last few years, however, +_La Prise d'Alexandrie_[113], a rhymed chronicle of the exploits of +Lusignan, and the _Voir Dit_[114], a curious love poem in the style of +the age, have been printed. Besides these his works include numerous +ballades, etc., and several long poems in the style of those of +Froissart, shortly to be described. On the other hand, the works of +Eustache Deschamps, which are even more voluminous than those of +Machault, his friend and master, are almost wholly composed of short +pieces, with one notable exception, the _Miroir de Mariage_, a poem of +13,000 lines[115]. Deschamps has left no less than 1175 ballades, and as +the ballade usually contains twenty-four lines at least, and frequently +thirty-four, this of itself gives a formidable total. Rondeaus, +virelais, etc., also proceeded in great numbers from his pen; and he +wrote an important 'Art of Poetry,' a treatise rendered at once +necessary and popular by the fashion of artificial rhyming. The life of +Deschamps was less varied than that of Machault, whose inferior he was +in point of birth, but he held some important offices in his native +province, Champagne. Both Deschamps and Machault exhibit strongly the +characteristics of the time. Their ballades are for the most part either +moral or occasional in subject, and rarely display signs of much +attention to elegance of phraseology or to weight and value of thought. +In the enormous volume of their works, amounting in all to nearly +200,000 lines, and as yet mostly unpublished, there is to be found much +that is of interest indirectly, but less of intrinsic poetical worth. +The artificial forms in which they for the most part write specially +invite elegance of expression, point, and definiteness of thought, +qualities in which both, but especially Deschamps, are too often +deficient. When, for instance, we find the poet in his anxiety to +discourage swearing, filling, in imitation of two bad poets of his time, +one, if not two ballades[116] with a list of the chief oaths in use, it +is difficult not to lament the lack of critical spirit displayed. + +[Sidenote: Froissart.] + +Froissart, though inferior to Lescurel, and though far less remarkable +as a poet than as a prose writer, can fairly hold his own with +Deschamps and Machault, while he has the advantage of being easily +accessible[117]. The later part of his life having been given up to +history, he is not quite so voluminous in verse as his two predecessors. +Yet, if the attribution to him of the _Cour d' Amour_ and the _Tresor +Amoureux_ be correct, he has left some 40,000 or 50,000 lines. The bulk +of his work consists of long poems in the allegorical courtship of the +time, interspersed with shorter lyrical pieces in the prevailing forms. +One of these poems, the _Buisson de Jonece_, is interesting because of +its autobiographical details; and some shorter pieces approaching more +nearly to the _Fabliau_ style, _Le Dit du Florin_, _Le Debat du Cheval +et du Levrier_, etc., are sprightly and agreeable enough. For the most +part, however, Froissart's poems, like almost all the poems of the +period, suffer from the disproportion of their length to their matter. +If the romances of the time, which are certainly not destitute of +incident, be tedious from the superabundance of prolix description, much +more tedious are these recitals of hyperbolical passion tricked out with +all the already stale allegorical imagery of the _Roman de la Rose_ and +with inappropriate erudition of the fashion which Jean de Meung had +confirmed, if he did not set it. + +[Sidenote: Christine de Pisan.] + +Christine de Pisan, who was born in 1363, was a pupil of Deschamps, as +Deschamps had been a pupil of Machault. She was an industrious writer, a +learned person, and a good patriot, but not by any means a great +poetess. So at least it would appear, though here again judgment has to +be formed on fragments, a complete edition of Christine never having +been published, and even her separate poems being unprinted for the most +part, or printed only in extract. Besides a collection of Ballades, +Rondeaux, and so forth, she wrote several _Dits_ (the _Dit de la +Pastoure_, the _Dit de Poissy_, the _Dittie de Jeanne d'Arc_, and some +_Dits Moraux_), besides a _Mutation de Fortune_, a _Livre des Cent +Histoires de Troie_, etc., etc. + +[Sidenote: Alain Chartier.] + +Alain Chartier, who was born in or about 1390, and who died in 1458, is +best known by the famous story of Margaret of Scotland, queen of +France, herself an industrious poetess, stooping to kiss his poetical +lips as he lay asleep. He also awaits a modern editor. Like Froissart, +he devoted himself to allegorical and controversial love poems, and like +Christine to moral verse. In the former he attained to considerable +skill, and a ballade, which will presently be given, will show his +command of dignified expression. On the whole he may be said to be the +most complete example of the scholarliness which tended more and more to +characterise French poetry at this time, and which too often degenerated +into pedantry. Chartier is the first considerable writer of original +work who Latinises much; and his practice in this respect was eagerly +followed by the _rhetoriqueur_ school both in prose and verse. He +himself observed due measure in it; but in the hands of his successors +it degraded French to an almost Macaronic jargon. + +In all the earlier work of this school not a little grace and elegance +is discoverable, and this quality manifests itself most strongly in the +poet who may be regarded as closing the strictly mediaeval series, +Charles d'Orleans[118]. The life of this poet has been frequently told. +As far as we are concerned it falls into three divisions. In the first, +when after his father's death he held the position of a great feudal +prince almost independent of royal control, it is not recorded that he +produced any literary work. His long captivity in England was more +fruitful, and during it he wrote both in French and in English. But the +last five-and-twenty years of his life, when he lived quietly and kept +court at Blois (bringing about him the literary men of the time from +Bouciqualt to Villon, and engaging with them in poetical tournaments), +were the most productive. His undoubted work is not large, but the +pieces which compose it are among the best of their kind. He is fond, in +the allegorical language of the time, of alluding to his having 'put his +house in the government of Nonchaloir,' and chosen that personage for +his master and protector. There is thus little fervency of passion +about him, but rather a graceful and somewhat indolent dallying with the +subjects he treats. Few early French poets are better known than Charles +d'Orleans, and few deserve their popularity better. His Rondeaux on the +approach of spring, on the coming of summer and such-like subjects, +deserve the very highest praise for delicate fancy and formal skill. + +Of poets of less importance, or whose names have not been preserved, the +amount of this formal poetry which remains to us is considerable. The +best-known collection of such work is the _Livre des Cent +Ballades_[119], believed, on tolerably satisfactory evidence, to have +been composed by the famous knight-errant Bouciqualt and his companions +on their way to the fatal battle of Nicopolis. Before, however, the +fifteenth century was far advanced, poetry of this formal kind fell into +the hands of professional authors in the strictest sense, _Grands +Rhetoriqueurs_ as they were called, who, as a later critic said of +almost the last of them, 'lost all the grace and elegance of the +composition' in their elaborate rules and the pedantic language which +they employed. The complete decadence of poetry in which this resulted +will be treated partly in the summary following the present book, partly +in the first chapter of the book which succeeds it. + +Meanwhile this frail but graceful poetry may be illustrated by an +irregular _Ballade_ from Lescurel, a _Chanson Balladee_ from Machault, a +_Virelai_ from Deschamps, a _Ballade_ from Chartier, and a _Rondel_ from +Charles d'Orleans. + + +JEHANNOT DE LESCUREL. + + Amour, voules-vous acorder + Que je muire pour bien amer? + Vo vouloir m'esteut agreer; + Mourir ne puis plus doucement; + Vraiement, + Amours, faciez voustre talent. + + Trop de mauvais portent endurer + Pour celi que j'aim sanz fausser + N'est pas par li, au voir parler, + Ains est par mauparliere gent. + Loiaument, + Amours, faciez voustre talent. + + Dous amis, plus ne puis durer + Quant ne puis ne n'os regarder + Vostre doue vis, riant et cler. + Mort, alegez mon grief torment; + Ou, briefment, + Amours, faciez voustre talent. + + +GUILLAUME DE MACHAULT. + + Onques si bonne journee + Ne fu adjournee, + Com quant je me departi + De ma dame desiree + A qui j'ay donnee + M'amour, & le cuer de mi. + + Car la manne descendi + Et douceur aussi, + Par quoi m'ame saoulee + Fu dou fruit de Dous ottri, + Que Pite cueilli + En sa face coulouree. + La fu bien l'onnour gardee + De la renommee + De son cointe corps joli; + Qu'onques villeine pensee + Ne fu engendree + Ne nee entre moy & li. + Onques si bonne journee, &c. + + Souffisance m'enrichi + Et Plaisance si, + Qu'onques creature nee + N'ot le cuer si assevi, + N'a mains de sousci, + Ne joie si affinee. + Car la deesse honnouree + Qui fait l'assemblee + D'amours, d'amie & d'ami, + Coppa le chief de s'espee + Qui est bien tempree, + A Dangier, mon anemi. + Onques si bonne journee, &c. + + Ma dame l'enseveli + Et Amours, par fi + Que sa mort fust tost plouree. + N'onques Honneur ne souffri + (Dont je l'en merci) + Que messe li fu chantee. + Sa charongne trainee + Fu sans demouree + En un lieu dont on dit: fi! + S'en fu ma joie doublee, + Quant Honneur l'entree + Ot dou tresor de merci. + Onques si bonne journee, &c. + + +EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS. + + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle? + Il me semble, a mon avis, + Que j'ay beau front et doulz viz, + Et la bouche vermeilette; + Dictes moy se je sui belle. + + J'ay vers yeulx, petit sourcis, + Le chief blont, le nez traitis, + Ront menton, blanche gorgette; + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle, etc. + + J'ay dur sain et hault assis, + Lons bras, gresles doys aussis, + Et, par le faulx, sui greslette; + Dictes moy se je sui belle. + + J'ay piez rondes et petiz, + Bien chaussans, et biaux habis, + Je sui gaye et foliette; + Dictes moy se je sui belle. + + J'ay mantiaux fourrez de gris, + J'ay chapiaux, j'ay biaux proffis, + Et d'argent mainte espinglette; + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle? + + J'ay draps de soye, et tabis, + J'ay draps d'or, et blanc et bis, + J'ay mainte bonne chosette; + Dictes moy se je sui belle. + + Que quinze ans n'ay, je vous dis; + Moult est mes tresors jolys, + S'en garderay la clavette; + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle? + + Bien devra estre hardis + Cilz, qui sera mes amis, + Qui ora tel damoiselle; + Dictes moy se je sui belle? + + Et par dieu, je li plevis, + Que tres loyal, se je vis, + Li seray, si ne chancelle; + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle? + + Se courtois est et gentilz, + Vaillains, apers, bien apris, + Il gaignera sa querelle; + Dictes moy se je sui belle. + + C'est uns mondains paradiz + Que d'avoir dame toudiz, + Ainsi fresche, ainsi nouvelle; + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle? + + Entre vous, acouardiz, + Pensez a ce que je diz; + Cy fine ma chansonnelle; + Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle? + + +ALAIN CHARTIER. + + O folz des folz, et les folz mortelz hommes, + Qui vous fiez tant es biens de fortune + En celle terre, es pays ou nous sommes, + Y avez-vous de chose propre aucune? + Vous n'y avez chose vostre nes-une, + Fors les beaulx dons de grace et de nature. + Se Fortune donc, par cas d'adventur + Vous toult les biens que vostres vous tenez, + Tort ne vous fait, aincois vous fait droicture, + Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez. + + Ne laissez plus le dormir a grans sommes + En vostre lict, par nuict obscure et brune, + Pour acquester richesses a grans sommes. + Ne convoitez chose dessoubz la lune, + Ne de Paris jusques a Pampelune, + Fors ce qui fault, sans plus, a creature + Pour recouvrer sa simple nourriture. + Souffise vous d'estre bien renommez, + Et d'emporter bon loz en sepulture: + Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez. + + Les joyeulx fruictz des arbres, et les pommes, + Au temps que fut toute chose commune, + Le beau miel, les glandes et les gommes + Souffisoient bien a chascun et chascune: + Et pour ce fut sans noise et sans rancune. + Soyez contens des chaulx et des froidures, + Et me prenez Fortune doulce et seure. + Pour vos pertes, griefve dueil n'en menez, + Fors a raison, a point, et a mesure, + Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez. + + Se Fortune vous fait aucune injure, + C'est de son droit, ja ne l'en reprenez, + Et perdissiez jusques a la vesture: + Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez. + + +CHARLES D'ORLEANS. + + Le temps a laissie son manteau + De vent, de froidure et de pluye, + Et s'est vestu de brouderie, + De soleil luyant, cler et beau. + Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau, + Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie: + Le temps a laissie son manteau + De vent, de froidure et de pluye. + Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau + Portent, en livree jolie, + Gouttes d'argent d'orfavrerie, + Chascun s'abille de nouveau: + Le temps a laissie son manteau. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[110] The following is an account of these forms, in their more +important developments. The _ballade_ consists of three stanzas, and an +_envoy_, or final half-stanza, which is sometimes omitted. The number of +the lines in each stanza is optional, but it should not usually be more +than eleven or less than eight. The peculiarity of the poem is that the +last line of every stanza is identical, and that the rhymes are the same +throughout and repeated in the same order. The examples printed at the +end of this chapter from Lescurel and Chartier will illustrate this +sufficiently. There is no need to enter into the absurdity of _ballades +equivoquees_, _emperieres_, etc., further than to say that their main +principle is the repetition of the same rhyming word, in a different +sense, it may be twice or thrice at the end of the line, it may be at +the end and in the middle, it may be at the end of one line and the +beginning of the next. The _chant royal_ is a kind of major ballade +having five of the longest (eleven-lined) stanzas and an envoy of five +lines. The _rondel_ is a poem of thirteen lines (sometimes made into +fourteen by an extra repetition), consisting of two quatrains and a +five-lined stanza, the first two lines of the first quatrain being +repeated as the last two of the second, and the first line of all being +added once more at the end. The _rondeau_, a poem of thirteen, fourteen, +or fifteen lines, is arranged in stanzas of five, four, and four, five, +or six lines, the last line of the second and third stanzas consisting +of the first words of the first line of the poem. The _triolet_ is a +sort of rondel of eight lines only, repeating the first line at the +fourth, and the first and second at the seventh and eighth. Lastly, the +_villanelle_ alternates one of two refrain lines at the end of each +three-lined stanza. These are the principal forms, though there are many +others. + +[111] Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1855. + +[112] The Rondeau is not in Lescurel systematised into any regular form. + +[113] Ed. L. de Mas Latrie. Societe de l'Orient Latin, Geneva, 1877. +This is a poem not much shorter than the _Voir Dit_, but continuously +octosyllabic and very spirited. The final account of the murder of +Pierre (which he provoked by the most brutal oppression of his vassals) +is full of power. + +[114] Ed. P. Paris. Societe des Bibliophiles, Paris, 1875. This is a +very interesting poem consisting of more than 9000 lines, mostly +octosyllabic couplets, with ballades, etc. interspersed, one of which is +given at the end of this chapter. It is addressed either to Agnes of +Navarre, or, as M. P. Paris thought, to Peronelle d'Armentieres, and was +written in 1362, when the author was probably very old. + +[115] Deschamps is said to have been also named Morel. A complete +edition of his works has been undertaken for the Old French Text Society +by the Marquis de Queux de Saint Hilaire. + +[116] Ballades, 147, 149. Ed. Queux de St. Hilaire. + +[117] Ed. Scheler. 3 vols. Brussels, 1870-1872. + +[118] Ed. Hericault. 2 vols. Paris, 1874. Charles d'Orleans was the son +of the Duke of Orleans, who was murdered by the Burgundians, and of +Valentina of Milan. He was born in 1391, taken prisoner at Agincourt, +ransomed in 1449, and he died in 1465. His son was Louis XII. + +[119] Ed. Queux de St. Hilaire. Paris, 1868. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE DRAMA. + + +[Sidenote: Origins of Drama.] + +The origins of the drama in France, like most other points affecting +mediaeval literature, have been made the subject of a good deal of +dispute. It has been attempted, on the one hand, to father the mysteries +and miracle-plays of the twelfth and later centuries on the classical +drama, traditions of which are supposed to have been preserved in the +monasteries and other homes of learning. On the other hand, a more +probable and historical source has been found in the ceremonies and +liturgies of the Church, which in themselves possess a considerable +dramatic element, and which, as we shall see, were early adapted to +still more definitely dramatic purposes. Disputes of this kind, if not +exactly otiose, are not suited to these pages; and it is sufficient to +say that while Plautus and Terence at least retained a considerable hold +on mediaeval students, the natural tendencies to dramatic representation +which exist in almost every people, assisted by the stimulus of +ecclesiastical traditions, ceremonies, and festivals, are probably +sufficient to account for the beginnings of dramatic literature in +France. + +[Sidenote: Earliest Vernacular Dramatic Forms.] + +[Sidenote: Mysteries and Miracles.] + +[Sidenote: Miracles de la Vierge.] + +It so happens too that such historical evidence as we have entirely +bears out this supposition. The earliest compositions of a dramatic kind +that we possess in French, are arguments and scraps interpolated in +Latin liturgies of a dramatic character. Earlier still these works had +been wholly in Latin. The production called 'The Prophets of Christ' is +held to date from the eleventh century, and consists of a series of +utterances of the prophets and patriarchs, who are called upon in turn +to bear testimony in reference to the Messiah, according to a common +patristic habit. By degrees other portions of Old Testament history were +thrown into the dramatic or at least dialogic form. In the drama or +dramatic liturgy of _Daniel_, fragments of French make their appearance, +and the Mystery of _Adam_ is entirely in the vulgar tongue. Both these +belong to the twelfth century, and the latter appears to have been not +merely a part of the church services, but to have been independently +performed outside the church walls. It is accompanied by full directions +in Latin for the decoration and arrangement of stage and scenes. Another +important instance, already mentioned, of somewhat dubious age, but +certainly very early, is the Mystery of _The Ten Virgins_. This is not +wholly in French, but contains some speeches in a Romance dialect. These +three dramas, _Daniel_, _Adam_, and _The Ten Virgins_, are the most +ancient specimens of their kind, which, from the thirteenth century +onward, becomes very numerous and important. By degrees a distinction +was established between mystery and miracle-plays, the former being for +the most part taken from the sacred Scriptures, the latter from legends +and lives of the Saints and of the Virgin. Early and interesting +specimens of the miracle are to be found in the _Theophile_ of +Ruteboeuf and in the _Saint Nicholas_ of Jean Bodel d'Arras, both +belonging to the same (thirteenth) century[120]. But the most remarkable +examples of the miracle-play are to be found in a manuscript which +contains forty miracles of the Virgin, dating from the fourteenth +century. Selections from these have been published at different times, +and the whole is now in course of publication by the Old French Text +Society[121]. As the miracles were mostly concerned with isolated +legends, they did not lend themselves to great prolixity, and it is rare +to find them exceed 2000 lines. Their versification is at first somewhat +licentious, but by degrees they settled down into more or less regular +employment of the octosyllabic couplet. Both in them and in the +mysteries the curious mixture of pathos and solemnity on the one side, +with farcical ribaldry on the other, which is characteristic of +mediaeval times, early becomes apparent. The mysteries, however, as they +became more and more a favourite employment of the time, increased and +grew in length. The narrative of the Scriptures being more or less +continuous, it was natural that the small dramas on separate subjects +should by degrees be attracted to one another and be merged in larger +wholes. It was another marked characteristic of mediaeval times that all +literary work should be constantly subject to _remaniement_, the facile +scribes of each day writing up the work of their predecessors to the +taste and demands of their own audience. In the case of the mysteries, +as in that of the _Chansons de Gestes_, each _remaniement_ resulted in a +lengthening of the original. It became an understood thing that a +mystery lasted several days in the representation; and in many +provincial towns regular theatres were constructed for the performances, +which remained ready for use between the various festival times. In the +form which these representations finally assumed in the fifteenth +century, they not only required elaborate scenery and properties, but +also in many cases a very large troop of performers. It is from this +century that most of the mysteries we possess date, and they are all +characterised by enormous length. The two most famous of these are the +_Passion_[122] of Arnould Greban, and the _Viel Testament_[123], due to +no certain author. The _Passion_, as originally written in the middle of +the fifteenth century, consisted of some 25,000 lines, and thirty or +forty years later it was nearly doubled in length by the alterations of +Jean Michel. The _Mystere du Viel Testament_, of which no manuscript is +now known, but which was printed in the last year of the fifteenth +century, is now being reprinted, and extends to nearly 50,000 verses. +Additions even to this are spoken of; and Michel's _Passion_, +supplemented by a _Resurrection_, extended to nearly 70,000 lines, which +vast total is believed to have been frequently acted as a whole. In such +a case the space of weeks rather than days, which is said to have been +sometimes occupied in the performance of a mystery, cannot be thought +excessive. + +[Sidenote: Heterogeneous Character of Mysteries.] + +The enormous length of the larger mysteries makes analysis of any one of +them impossible; but as an instance of the curious comedy which is +intermixed with their most serious portions, and which shocked critics +even up to our own time, we may take the scene of the Tower of Babel in +the _Mystere du Viel Testament_[124]. Here the author is not content +with describing Nimrod's act in general terms, or by the aid of the +convenient messenger; he brings the actual masons and carpenters on the +stage. _Gaste-Bois_ (Spoilwood), _Casse-Tuileau_ (Breaktile), and their +mates talk before us for nearly 200 lines, while Nimrod and others come +in from time to time and hasten on the work. The workmen are quite +outspoken on the matter. They do not altogether like the job; and one of +them says, + + On ne peut en fin que faillir. + Besongnons; mais qu'on nous paie bien. + +A little further on and they are actually at work. One calls for a hod +of mortar, another for his hammer. The labourers supply their wants, or +make jokes to the effect that they would rather bring them something to +drink. So it goes on, till suddenly the confusion of tongues falls upon +them, and they issue their orders in what is probably pure jargon, +though fragments of something like Italian can be made out. In the very +middle of this scene occurs a really fine and reverently written +dialogue between Justice and Mercy pleading respectively to the Divinity +for vengeance and pardon. Instances such as this abound in the +mysteries, which are sometimes avowedly interrupted in order that the +audience may be diverted by a farcical interlude. + +[Sidenote: Argument of a Miracle Play.] + +Of the miracles, that of _St. Guillaume du Desert_ will serve as a fair +example. It is but 1500 lines in length, yet the list of _dramatis +personae_ extends to nearly thirty, and there are at least as many +distinct scenes. William, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, has +rendered himself in many ways obnoxious to the Holy See. He has +recognised an anti-pope, has driven a bishop from his diocese for +refusing to do likewise, and has offended against morality. An embassy, +including St. Bernard, is therefore sent from Rome to warn and correct +him. William is not proof against their eloquence, and soon becomes +deeply penitent. He quits his palaces, and retires to the society of +hermits in the wilderness. These enjoin penances upon him. He is to have +a heavy hauberk immovably riveted on his bare flesh, and with sackcloth +for an overcoat to visit Rome and beg the Pope's forgiveness. He does +this, and the Pope sends him to the patriarch of Jerusalem, William +taking the additional penance as a proof of the heinousness of his sin. +After this he retires by himself into a solitary place. Here, however, a +knight of his country seeks him out, represents the anarchy into which +it has fallen in his absence, and implores him to return. But this is +not William's notion of duty. He refuses, and to be free from such +importunities in future, retires to the island of Rhodes, and there +lives in solitude. Irritated at the idea of his escaping them, Satan and +Beelzebub attack him and beat him severely; but he recovers by the +Virgin's intervention, and serves as a model to young devotees who seek +his cell, and like him become hermits. At last a chorus of saints +descends to see his godly end, which takes place in the presence of the +neophytes. The events, of which this is a very brief abstract, are all +clearly indicated in the short space of 1500 verses, many of which are +only of four syllables[125]. There is of course no attempt at drawing +any figure, except that of the saint, at full length, and this is +characteristic of the class. But as dramatised legends, for they are +little more, these miracles possess no slight merit. + +The general literary peculiarities of the miracle and mystery plays do +not differ greatly from those of other compositions in verse of the same +time which have been already described. Their great fault is prolixity. +In the collection of the _Miracles de la Vierge_, the comparative +brevity of the pieces renders them easier to read than the long +compositions of the fifteenth century, and the poetical beauty of some +of the legends which they tell is sufficient to furnish them with +interest. Even in these, however, the absence of point and of dignity +in the expression frequently mars the effect; and this is still more the +case with the longer mysteries. Of these latter, however, the work of +the brothers Greban--for there were two, Arnould and Simon, +concerned--contains passages superior to the general run, and in others +lines and even scenes of merit occur. + +[Sidenote: Profane Drama.] + +[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.] + +Although the existence of the drama as an actual fact was for a long +time due to the performance and popularity of the mysteries and +miracles, specimens of dramatic work with purely profane subjects are to +be found at a comparatively early date. Adam de la Halle, so far as our +present information goes, has the credit of inventing two separate +styles of such composition[126]. In _Li Jus de la Feuillie_ he has left +us the earliest comedy in the vulgar tongue known; in the pastoral drama +of _Robin et Marion_ the earliest specimen of comic opera. Independently +of the improbability that the drama, once in full practice, should be +arbitrarily confined to a single class of subject, there were many germs +of dramatic composition in mediaeval literature which wanted but a +little encouragement to develop themselves. The verse dialogues and +_debats_, which both troubadours and trouveres had favoured, were in +themselves incompletely dramatic. The _pastourelles_, an extremely +favourite and fashionable class of composition, must have suggested to +others besides the Hunchback of Arras the idea of dramatising them; and +the early and strongly-marked partiality of the middle ages for pageants +and shows of all kinds could hardly fail to induce those who planned +them to intersperse dialogue. + +The plot of _Robin et Marion_ is simple and in a way regular. The +ordinary incidents of a _pastourelle_, the meeting of a fair shepherdess +and a passing knight, the wooing (in this case an unsuccessful one) and +the riding away, are all there. The piece is completed by a kind of +rustic picnic, in which the neighbouring shepherds and shepherdesses +join and disport themselves. Marion is a very graceful and amiable +figure; Robin a sheepish coward, who is not in the least worthy of her. +In Adam's other and earlier drama he is by no means so partial to the +feminine sex, and his work, though equally fresh and vigorous, is more +complex and less artistically finished. It is in part autobiographic, +and introduces Adam confessing to friends with sufficient effrontery his +intention of going to Paris and deserting his wife. This part contains a +very pretty though curiously unsuitable description of the wooing, which +has such an unlucky termination. Suddenly, however, the author +introduces his father, an old citizen, who is quite ready to encourage +his son in his evil ways provided it costs him nothing, and the piece +loses all regularity of plot. Divers citizens of Arras, male and female, +are introduced with a more or less satiric intention, and the last +episode brings in the personages of Morgue la Fee and of the _mesnie_ +(attendants) of a certain shadowy King Hellequin. There is a doctor, +too, whose revelations of his patients' affairs are sufficiently comic, +not to say farcical. Destitute as it is of method, and approaching more +nearly to the Fabliau than to any other division of mediaeval literature +in the coarseness of its language, the piece has great interest, not +merely because of its date and its apparent originality, but because of +numerous passages of distinct literary merit. The picture of the +neglected wife in her girlhood is inferior to nothing of the kind even +in the thirteenth century, that fertile epoch of early French poetry. +The father, too, Maitre Henri, the earliest of his kind on the modern +stage, has traits which the great comic masters would not disown. + +The classes of later secular drama may be thus divided,--the monologue, +the farce, the morality, the _sotie_, the profane mystery. The first +four of these constitute one of the most interesting divisions of early +French literature; and it is to be hoped that before long easy access +will be afforded to the whole of it. The last is only interesting from +the point of view of literary history. + +[Sidenote: Monologues.] + +The monologue is the simplest form of dramatic composition and needs but +little notice, though it seems to have met with some favour from +playgoers of the time. By dint also of adroit changes of costume and +assistance from scenery, etc., the monologue was sometimes made more +complicated than appears at first sight possible, as for instance, in +the _Monologue du Bien et du Mal des Dames_, where the speaker plays +successively the parts of two advocates and of a judge. The monologue, +however, more often consisted in a dramatisation of the earlier _dit_, +in which some person or thing is made to declare its own attributes. Of +very similar character is the so-called _sermon joyeux_, which, however, +preserves more or less the form of an address from the pulpit, of course +travestied and applied to ludicrous subjects. + +[Sidenote: Farces.] + +The farce, on the other hand, is one of the most important of all +dramatic kinds in reference to French literature. It is a genuine +product of the soil, and proved the ancestor of all the best comedy of +France, on which foreign models had very little influence. Until the +discovery and acquisition by the British Museum of a unique collection +of farces the number of these compositions known to exist was not large, +and such as had been printed were difficult of access. It is still not +easy to get together a complete collection, but the reimpression of the +British Museum pieces in the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_[127] with M. +Ed. Fournier's _Theatre avant la Renaissance_[128] contains ample +materials for judgment. In all, we possess about a hundred farces, most +of which are probably the composition of the fifteenth century, though +it is possible that some of them may date from the end of the +fourteenth. The most famous of all early French farces, that of +_Pathelin_, belongs, it is believed, to the middle or earlier part of +the fifteenth, and speaking generally, this century is the most +productive of theatrical work, at least of such as remains to us. The +subjects of these farces are of the widest possible diversity. In their +general character they at once recall the Fabliaux, and no one who reads +many of them can doubt that the one _genre_ is the immediate successor +of the other. The farce, like the Fabliau, deals with an actual or +possible incident of ordinary life to which a comic complexion is given +by the treatment. The length of these compositions is very variable, but +the average is perhaps about five hundred lines. Their versification is +always octosyllabic and regular. But a curious peculiarity is found in +most of them as well as in a few contemporary dramas of the serious +kind. From time to time the speeches of the characters are dovetailed +into one another so as to make up the Triolet (or rondeau of eight lines +with triple repetition of the first and double repetition of the +second), a form which in the fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth +centuries has been a favourite with French poets of the lighter kind. +The number of personages is never large; it sometimes falls as low as +two (in which case the farce might in strictness be called, as it +sometimes is, a _debat_ or dialogue), and rarely, if ever, rises above +four or five. From what has already been said it will be seen that it is +not easy to give any general summary of the subjects of this curious +composition. Conjugal differences of one kind and another make up a very +large part of them, but by no means the whole, and there are few aspects +of contemporary bourgeois life which do not come in for treatment. As an +example we may take the _Farce du Paste de la Tarte_[129]. The +characters are two thieves, a pastry-cook, and his wife. The farce opens +with a lamentable Triolet, in which the two thieves bewail their unhappy +state. Immediately afterwards, the pastry-cook, in front of whose shop +the scene is laid, calls to his wife and tells her that an eel-pie is to +be kept for him, and that he will send for it later, as he intends to +dine abroad. The two thieves overhear the conversation, and the token +which is to be given by the messenger, and after trying in vain to beg a +dinner, determine to filch one. Thief the second goes to the +pastry-cook's wife, gives the appointed token, and easily obtains the +pie, upon which both feast. Unluckily, however, this does not satisfy +them, and the successful thief, remembering a fine tart which he has +seen in the shop, decides that the possession of it would much improve +their dinner. He persuades his companion to try and secure it. +Meanwhile, however, the enraged pastry-cook has come home hungry and +demands his eel-pie. His wife in vain assures him that she has sent it +by the messenger who brought his token. Her husband disbelieves her; +words run high, and are followed by blows. At this juncture the first +thief appears and demands the tart, whereupon the irate pastry-cook +turns his rage upon him. The stick makes him confess the device, and +smarting under the blows, he is easily induced to make his companion a +sharer in his own sorrows. This is effected by an obvious stratagem. The +pastry-cook thus avenges himself of both his enemies, who however, with +some philosophy, console themselves with the fact that, after all, they +have had an excellent dinner without paying for it. + +This piece serves as a fair example of the more miscellaneous farces, in +almost all of which the stick plays a prominent part, a part which it +may be observed retained its prominence at least till the time of +Moliere. Of the farces dealing with conjugal matters, one of the most +decent, and perhaps the most amusing of all, is the _Farce du Cuvier_, +which has nothing to do with the story under the same title which may be +found (possibly taken from Apuleius) in Boccaccio, and in the Fabliaux. +In the farce a hen-pecked husband is obliged by his wife to accept a +long list of duties which he is to perform. Soon afterwards she by +accident falls into the washing-tub, and to all her cries for help he +replies 'cela n'est point a mon rollet' (schedule). Not a few also are +directed against the clergy, and these as a rule are the most licentious +of all. It is, however, rare to find any one which is not more or less +amusing; and students of Moliere in particular will find analogies and +resemblances of the most striking kind to many of his motives. It is, +indeed, pretty certain that these pieces did not go out of fashion until +Moliere's own time. The titles of some of the early and now lost pieces +which his company for so many years played in the provinces are +immediately suggestive of the old farces to any one who knows the +latter. The farce was moreover a very far-reaching kind of composition. +As a rule the satire which it contains is directed against classes, such +as women, the clergy, pedants, and so forth, who had nothing directly to +do with politics, and it is thus, more or less directly, the ancestor of +the comedy of manners. It is never, properly speaking, political, even +indirect allusions to politics being excluded from it. It relies wholly +upon domestic and personal interests. Not a few farces, such as that of +which we have given a sketch, turn upon the same subject as the _Repues +Franches_ attributed to Villon, and deal with the ingenious methods +adopted by persons who hang loose upon society for securing their daily +bread. Others attack the fertile subject of domestic service, and +furnish not a few parallels to Swift's _Directions_. Every now and then +however we come across a farce, or at least a piece bearing the title, +in which a more allegorical style of treatment is attempted. Such is the +farce of _Folle Bobance_, in which the tendency of various classes to +loose and light living is satirised amusingly enough. A gentleman, a +merchant, a farmer, are all caught by the seductive offers of Folle +Bobance, and are not long before they repent it. Such again is the +_Farce des Theologastres_, in which the students of the Paris +theological colleges are ridiculed, the _Farce de la Pippee,_ and many +others. + +[Sidenote: Moralities.] + +In strictness, however, those pieces where allegorical personages make +their appearance are not farces but moralities. These compositions were +exceedingly popular in the later middle ages, and their popularity was a +natural sequence of the rage for allegorising which had made itself +evident in very early times, and had in the _Roman de la Rose_ dominated +almost all other literary tastes. The taste for personification and +abstraction has always lent itself easily enough to satire, and in the +fifteenth century pieces under the designation of moralities became very +common. We do not possess nearly as many specimens of the morality as of +the farce, but, on the other hand, the morality is often, though not +always, a much longer composition than the farce. The subjects of +moralities include not merely private vices and follies, but almost all +actual and possible defects of Church and State, and occasionally the +term is applied to pieces, the characters of which are not abstractions, +but which tell a story with a more or less moral turn. Sometimes these +pieces ran to a very great length, and one is quoted, _L'Homme Juste et +l'Homme Mondain_, which contains 36,000 lines, and must, like the longer +mysteries, have occupied days or even weeks in acting. A morality +however, on the average, consisted of about 2000 lines, and its +personages were proportionally more numerous than those of the farce. +Thus the _Moralite des Enfans de Maintenant_ contains thirteen +characters who are indifferently abstract and concrete; Maintenant, +Mignotte, Bon Advis, Instruction, Finet, Malduit, Discipline, Jabien, +Luxure, Bonte, Desespoir, Perdition, and the Fool. This list almost +sufficiently explains the plot, which simply recounts the persistence of +one child in evil and his bad end, with the repentance of the other. The +moralities have the widest diversity of subject, but most of them are +tolerably clearly explained by their titles. _La Condamnation de +Banquet_ is a rather spirited satire on gluttony and open housekeeping. +_Marchebeau_ attacks the disbanded soldiery of the middle of the +fifteenth century. _Charite_ points out the evils which have come into +the world for lack of charity. _La Moralite d'une Femme qui avait voulu +trahir la Cite de Romme_ is built on the lines of a miracle-play. +_Science et Asnerye_ is a very lively satire representing the superior +chances which the followers of _Asnerye_--ignorance--have of obtaining +benefices and posts of honour and profit as compared with those of +learning. _Mundus, caro, daemonia_, again tells its own tale. _Les +Blasphemateurs_, which is very well spoken of, but has not been +reprinted, rests on the popular legend upon which _Don Juan_ is also +based. In short, unless a complete catalogue were given, there is no +means of fully describing the numerous works of this class. + +[Sidenote: Soties.] + +The Sotie is a class of much more idiosyncrasy. Although we have very +few Soties (not at present more than a dozen accessible to the student), +although the contents of this class are as a rule duller even than those +of the moralities, and infinitely inferior in attraction to those of the +farces, yet the Sotie has the merit of possessing a much more distinct +and peculiar form. It is essentially political comedy, and it has the +peculiarity of being played by stock personages, like an Italian comedy +of the early kind. The Sotie, at least in its purely political form, +was, as might be expected, not very long lived. Its most celebrated +author was Gringore, and his Sotie, which forms part of _Le Jeu du +Prince des Sots et Mere Sotte_, is still the typical example of the +kind. Besides these two characters (who represent, roughly speaking, the +temporal and spiritual powers), we have in this piece, Sotte Commune, +the common people; Sotte Fiance, false confidence; Sotte Occasion, who +explains herself; and a good many other allegorical personages, such as +the Seigneur de Gayete, etc. These pieces, however, are for the most +part so entirely occasional that their chief literary interest lies in +their curious stock personages. It should, however, be observed that of +the few Soties which we possess by no means all correspond to this +description, some of them being indistinguishable from moralities. A +curious detail is that the various pieces we have been mentioning were +sometimes, in representation, combined after the fashion of a regular +tetralogy. First came a monologue or _cry_ containing a kind of +proclamation. This was followed by the Sotie itself; then followed the +morality, and lastly a farce. The work of Gringore, just noticed, forms +part of such a tetralogy. + +[Sidenote: Profane Mysteries.] + +The profane mysteries may be briefly despatched. They were the natural +result of the vogue of the mysteries proper, with which they vie in +prolixity. Some of them were based on history or romance, such as, for +instance, the Mystery of _Troy_. Others corresponded pretty nearly to +the history plays of our own dramatists at a later period. Such is the +Mystery of the _Siege of Orleans_ which versifies and dramatises, at a +date very shortly subsequent to the actual events, the account of them +already made public in different chronicles. + +[Sidenote: Societies of Actors.] + +Of considerable interest and importance in connection with these early +forms of drama is the subject of the persons and societies by whom they +were represented, a subject upon which it is necessary to say a few +words. At first, as we have seen, the actors were members or dependents +of the clergy. As the mysteries increased in bulk and demanded larger +companies, their representation fell more and more into the hands of the +laity, even women in not a few cases acting parts, though this was +rather the exception than the rule. It became not unusual for the +guilds, which play such an important part in the social history of the +middle ages, to undertake the task, and at last regular societies of +actors were formed. The most famous of these, the _Confrerie de la +Passion_ (whose first object was to play the mystery, or rather cycle of +mysteries, known by that name), was licensed in 1402, and in the course +of the fifteenth century a very large number of rival bodies were more +or less formally constituted. The clerks of the Bazoche, or Palace of +Justice, had long been dramatically inclined, but it was not till this +time that they were recognised as, so to speak, the patentees of a +peculiar form of drama which in their case was the morality. The +_Enfants sans Souci_, young men of good families in the city, devoted +themselves rather to the Sotie, and the stock personages of that curious +form correspond to the official titles of the officers of their guild. +Besides these, many other similar but less durable and regularly +constituted societies arose, whose heads took fantastic titles, such as +Empereur de Galilee, Roi de l'Epinette, Prince de l'Etrille, and so +forth. No one of these, however, attained the importance of the +Confraternity of the Passion. This was chiefly composed of tradesmen and +citizens of Paris, and for a hundred and fifty years it continued to +play for the most part mysteries, sacred and profane alike, but the +latter, according to its name and profession, less commonly. In 1548 a +curious example of the change of times and manners took place, owing in +all probability to the influence, direct or indirect, of the +Reformation. The Confraternity had its charter renewed, but it was +expressly forbidden to play the sacred dramas which it had been +originally constituted to perform. Thenceforward secular plays only were +lawful in Paris, but the older dramas continued for a long time to be +performed in the provinces, and in Britanny have been acted within the +last half century. The Confraternity became regular actors of ordinary +farces, and as time went on were known under the title of the Comedians +of the Hotel de Bourgogne, a name which brings us at once into the +presence of Moliere. In these last sentences we have a little +outstripped the mediaeval period proper, but in dramatic matters there +is no gap between the ancient and modern theatre until we arrive at the +Pleiade. + +It is not very easy to illustrate the manner of the ancient French drama +by citations within ordinary compass; but the following passages, the +first from the Mystery of the _Passion_, the second from the original +form of _Pathelin_, may serve the purpose:-- + + _Ici deschargent Jesus de la croix._ + + _Simon._ or avant donc, puis que ainsi va. + je ferai vostre voulente; + mais il me poise en verite + de la honte que vous me faictes. + o Jesus, de tous les prophettes + le plus sainct et le plus begnin, + vous venes a piteuse fin, + veue vostre vie vertueeuse + quant vostre croix dure et honteuse + pour vostre mort fault que je porte. + se c'est a tort, je m'en rapporte + a ceulx qui vous ont forjuge. + _Ici charge la croix a Simon._ + + _Nembroth._ Messeigneurs, il est bien charge; + cheminons, depeschons la voie. + + _Salmanazar._ j'ai grant desir que je le voie + fiche en ce hault tabernacle, + a scavoir s'il fera miracle, + quant il sera cloue dessus. + + _Jeroboam._ seigneurs, hastes moi ce Jesus + et ces deux larrons aux coustes. + s'ilz ne vuellent, si les battez + si bien qu'il n'y ait que redire. + + _Claquedent._ a cela ne tiendra pas, sire. + nos en ferons nostre povoir. + + _Ici porte Simon une partie de la croix et + Jesus l'autre et le battent les sergens._ + + _Dieu le pere._ Pitie doit tout cueur esmouvoir + en lamenter piteusement + le martyre et le gref tourment + que Jesus, mon chier filz, endure. + il porte detresse tant dure, + que, puis que le monde dura, + homme si dure n'endura, + laquelle ne peult plus durer + sans la mort honteuse endurer, + et n'aura son sainct corps duree + tant qu'il ait la mort enduree, + il appert, car plus va durant, + et plus est tourment endurant, + sans quelque confort qui l'alege. + si convient que la mort abrege + et de l'executer s'apreste, + pour satiffaire a la requeste + de dame Justice severe, + qui pour requeste ne priere + ne veult rien de ses drois quitter. + Michel, alles donc conforter + en ceste amere passion + mon filz, plain de dilection, + qui veult dure mort en gre predre + et va sa doulce chair estrandre + ou puissant arbre de la croix. + + _Sainct Michel._ pere du ciel et roi des rois, + humblement a chere assimplie + sera parfaicte et acomplie + vostre voulente juste et bonne. + _Ici descendent les anges de paradis._ + + * * * * * + + _Path._ ce bergier ne peut nullement + respondre aux fais que l'on propose, + s'il n'a du conseil; et il n'ose + ou il ne scet en demander. + s'il vous plaisoit moy commander + que je fusse a luy, je y seroye. + + _Juge._ avecques luy? je cuideroye + que ce fust trestoute froidure: + c'est peu d'acquest. _Path._ mais je vous jure + qu'aussi n'en veuil rien avoir: + pour dieu soit. or je voys scavoir + au pauvret qu'il voudra me dire, + et s'il me scaura point instruire + pour respondre aux fais de partie. + il auroit dure departie + de ce, qui ne le secourroit. + vien ca, mon amy. qui pourroit + trouver? entens. _Berg._ bee. _Path._ quel bee, dea! + par le sainct sang que dieu crea, + es tu fol? dy moy ton affaire. + + _Berg._ bee. _Path._ quel bee! oys tu tes brebis braire? + c'est pour ton prouffit; entens y. + + _Berg._ bee. _Path._ et dy ouy ou nenny, + c'est bien faict. dy tousjours, feras? + + _Berg._ bee. _Path._ plus haut, ou tu t'en trouveras + en grans depens, ou je m'en doubte. + + _Berg._ bee. _Path._ or est plus fol cil qui boute + tel fol naturel en proces. + ha, sire, renvoyez l'en a ses + brebis; il est fol de nature. + + _Drapp._ est il fol? sainct sauveur d'Esture! + il est plus saige que vous n'estes. + + _Path._ envoyez le garder ses bestes, + sans jour que jamais ne retourne. + que maudit soit il qui adjourne + tels folz que ne fault adjourner. + + _Drapp._ et l'en fera l'en retourner + avant que je puisse estre ouy? + + _Path._ m'aist dieu, puis qu'il est foul, ouy. + pour quoy ne fera? _Drapp._ he dea, sire, + au moins laissez moy avant dire + et faire mes conclusions. + ce ne sont pas abusions + que je vous dy ne mocqueries. + + _Juge._ ce sont toutes tribouilleries + que de plaider a folz ne a folles. + escoutez, a moins de parolles + la court n'en sera plus tenue. + + _Drapp._ s'en iront ilz sans retenue + de plus revenir? _Juge._ et quoy doncques? + + _Path._ revenir? vous ne veistes oncques + plus fol ne en faict ne en response: + et cil ne vault pas mieulx une once. + tous deux sont folz et sans cervelle: + par saincte Marie la belle, + eux deux n'en ont pas un quarat[130]. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[120] These, as well as _The Ten Virgins_ and many other pieces soon to +be mentioned, are to be found in Monmerque and Michel, _Theatre Francois +au Moyen Age_, Paris, 1874, last ed.; _Adam_, ed. Luzarches, 1854. + +[121] Vols. 1-6. Paris, 1876-1881. + +[122] Ed. G. Paris and G. Raynaud. Paris, 1878. + +[123] Ed. J. de Rothschild. Vols. i-iii. Paris, 1878-1881. + +[124] _Mystere du Viel Testament_, i. 259-272. + +[125] _Miracles de la Vierge_, ii. 1-54. + +[126] See Monmerque and Michel, _op. cit._ + +[127] _Ancien Theatre Francais_, vols. 1-3. Paris, 1854. + +[128] Paris, n. d. + +[129] _Ancien Theatre Francais_, ii. 64-79. + +[130] A history of the mediaeval theatre has been undertaken by M. Petit +de Julleville, of which two volumes, containing an excellent account of +the Mysteries, have appeared (Paris, 1880). Information on other points +is rather scattered, but it will be found well summarised in Aubertin, +_Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature Francaise au Moyen Age_ +(Paris, 1876-8), i. 372-570. A complete collection of farces, _soties_, +etc. is hoped for from the Old French Text Society. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +PROSE CHRONICLES. + + +[Sidenote: Beginning of Prose Chronicles.] + +[Sidenote: Grandes Chroniques de France.] + +In all countries the use of prose for literature is chronologically +later than the use of poetry, and France is no exception to the rule. +The Chansons de Gestes were in their way historical poems, and they +were, as we have seen, soon followed by directly historical poems in +considerable numbers. It was not, however, till the prose Arthurian +romances of Map and his followers had made prose popular as a vehicle +for long narratives, that regular history began to be written in the +vulgar tongue. The vogue of these prose romances dates from the latter +portion of the twelfth century; the prose chronicle follows it closely, +and dates from the beginning of the thirteenth. It was not at first +original. The practice of chronicle writing in Latin had been frequent +during the earlier centuries, and at last the monks of three +monasteries, St. Benoit sur Loire, St. Germain des Pres, and St. Denis, +began to keep a regular register of the events of their own time, +connecting this with earlier chronicles of the past. The most famous and +dignified of the three, St. Denis, became specially the home of history. +The earliest French prose chronicles do not, however, come from this +place. They are two in number; both date from the earliest years of the +thirteenth century, and both are translations. One is a version of a +Latin compilation of Merovingian history; the other of the famous +chronicle of _Turpin_[131]. These two are composed in a southern +dialect bordering on the Provencal, and the first was either written by +or ascribed to a certain Nicholas of Senlis. The example was followed, +but it was not till 1274 that a complete vernacular version of the +history of France was executed by a monk of St. Denis--Primat--in French +prose. This version, slightly modified, became the original of a +compilation very famous in French literature and history, the _Grandes +Chroniques de France_, which was regularly continued by members of the +same community until the reign of Charles V, from official sources and +under royal authority. The work, under the same title but written by +laics, extends further to the reign of Louis XI. The necessity of +translation ceased as soon as the example of writing in the vernacular +had been set, though Latin chronicles continued to be produced as well +as French. + +[Sidenote: Villehardouin.] + +Long, however, before history on the great scale had been thus +attempted, and very soon after the first attempt of Nicholas of Senlis +had shown that the vulgar tongue was capable of such use, original prose +memoirs and chronicles of contemporary events had been produced, and, as +happens more than once in French literature, the first, or one of the +first, was also the best. The _Conquete de Constantinoble_[132] of +Geoffroy de Villehardouin was written in all probability during the +first decade of the thirteenth century. Its author was born at +Villehardouin, near Troyes, about 1160, and died, it would seem, in his +Greek fief of Messinople in 1213. His book contains a history of the +Fourth Crusade, which resulted in no action against the infidels, but in +the establishment for the time of a Latin empire and in the partition of +Greece among French barons. Villehardouin's memoirs are by universal +consent among the most attractive works of the middle ages. Although no +actually original manuscript exists, we possess a copy which to all +appearance faithfully represents the original. To readers, who before +approaching Villehardouin have well acquainted themselves with the +characteristics of the Chansons de Gestes, the resemblance of the +_Conquete de Constantinoble_ to these latter is exceedingly striking. +The form, putting the difference between prose and verse aside, is very +similar, and the merits of vigorous and brightly coloured language, of +simplicity and vividness of presentation, are identical. At the same +time either his own genius or the form which he has adopted has saved +Villehardouin from the crying defect of most mediaeval work, prolixity +and monotony. He has much to say as well as a striking manner of saying +it, and the interest of his work as a story yields in nothing to its +picturesqueness as a piece of literary composition. His indirect as well +as direct literary value is moreover very great, because he enables us +to see that the picture of manners and thought given by the Chansons de +Gestes is in the main strictly true to the actual habits of the +time--the time, that is to say, of their composition, not of their +nominal subjects. Villehardouin is the chief literary exponent of the +first stage of chivalry, the stage in which adventure was an actual fact +open to every one, and when Eastern Europe and Western Asia offered to +the wandering knight opportunities quite as tempting as those which the +romances asserted to have been open to the champions of Charlemagne and +Arthur. But, as a faithful historian, he, while putting the poetical and +attractive side of feudalism in the best light, does not in the least +conceal its defects, especially the perpetual jarring and rivalry +inevitable in armies where hundreds of petty kings sought each his own +advantage. + +[Sidenote: Minor Chroniclers between Villehardouin and Joinville.] + +The Fourth Crusade was fertile in chroniclers. Villehardouin's work was +supplemented by the chronicle of Henri de Valenciennes, which is written +in a somewhat similar style, but with still more resemblance to the +manner and diction of the Chansons, so much so that it has been even +supposed, though probably without foundation, to be a rhymed Chanson +thrown into a prose form. This process is known to have been actually +applied in some cases. Another historian of the expedition whose work +has been preserved was Robert de Clari. Baldwin Count of Flanders, who +also accompanied it, was not indeed the author but the instigator of a +translation of Latin chronicles which, like the _Grandes Chroniques de +France_, was continued by original work and attained, under the title of +_Chronique de Baudouin d'Avesnes_, very considerable dimensions. + +The thirteenth century also supplies a not inconsiderable number of +works dealing with the general history of France. Guillaume de Nangis +wrote in the latter part of the century several historical treatises, +first in Latin and then in French. An important work, entitled _La +Chronique de Rains_ (Rheims), dates from the middle of the period, and, +though less picturesque in subject and manner than Villehardouin, has +considerable merits of style. Normandy, Flanders, and, the Crusades +generally, each have groups of prose chronicles dealing with them, the +most remarkable of the latter being a very early French translation of +the work of William of Tyre, with additions[133]. Of the Flanders group, +the already mentioned chronicle called of Baudouin d'Avesnes is the +chief. It is worth mentioning again because in its case we see the way +in which French was gaining ground. It exists both in Latin and in the +vernacular. In other cases the Latin would be the original; but in this +case it appears, though it is not positively certain, that the book was +written in French, and translated for the benefit of those who might +happen not to understand that language. + +[Sidenote: Joinville.] + +As Villehardouin is the representative writer of the twelfth century, so +is Joinville[134] of the thirteenth, as far as history is concerned. +Jean de Joinville, Senechal of Champagne, was born in 1224 at the castle +of Joinville on the Marne, which afterwards became the property of the +Orleans family, and was destroyed during the Revolution. He died in +1319. He accompanied Saint Louis on his unfortunate crusade in 1248, +but not in his final and fatal expedition to Tunis. Most of the few +later events of his life known to us were connected with the +canonisation of the king; but he is known to have taken part in active +service when past his ninetieth year. His historical work, a biography +of St. Louis, deals chiefly with the crusade, and is one of the most +circumstantial records we have of mediaeval life and thought. It is of +much greater bulk than Villehardouin's _Conquete_, and is composed upon +a different principle, the author being somewhat addicted to gossip and +apt to digress from the main course of his narrative. It has, however, +to be remembered that Joinville's first object was not, like +Villehardouin's, to give an account of a single and definite enterprise, +but to display the character of his hero, to which end a certain amount +of desultoriness was necessary and desirable. His style has less vigour +than that of his countryman and predecessor, but it has more grace. It +is evident that Joinville occasionally set himself with deliberate +purpose to describe things in a literary fashion, and his interspersed +reflections on manners and political subjects considerably increase the +material value of his work. It is unfortunate that nothing like a +contemporary manuscript has come down to us, the earliest in existence +being one of the late fourteenth century, when considerable changes had +passed over the language. With the aid of some contemporary documents on +matters of business which Joinville seems to have dictated, M. de Wailly +has effected an exceedingly ingenious conjectural restoration of the +text of the book, but the interest of this is in strictness diminished +by the fact that it is undoubtedly conjectural. The period of +composition of Joinville's book was somewhat late in his life, +apparently in the first years of the fourteenth century, and about 1310 +he presented it to Louis le Hutin, though it does not appear what became +of the manuscript. + +The period between Joinville and Froissart is peculiarly barren in +chronicles. Besides the serial publications already noticed, the +_Chroniques de France_ and the _Chroniques de Flandre_, there are +perhaps only two which are worth mentioning. The first is a _Chronique +des Quatre Premiers Valois_, written with exactness and careful +attention to authentic sources of information. The other is the +_Chronique_ of Jean Lebel, canon of Liege. This is not only a work of +considerable merit in itself, but still more remarkable because it was +the model, and something more, of Froissart. That historian began by +almost paraphrasing the work of Lebel; and though by degrees he worked +the early parts of his book into more and more original forms according +to the information which he picked up, these parts remained to the last +indebted to the author from whom they had been originally compiled. + +[Sidenote: Froissart.] + +Froissart was born in 1337 and did not die till after 1409, the precise +date of his death being unknown. There are few problems of literary +criticism which are more difficult than that of arranging a definitive +edition of his famous Chroniques[135]. In most cases the task of the +critic is to decide which of several manuscripts, all long posterior to +the author's death, deserves most confidence, or how to supply and +correct the faults of a single document. In Froissart's case there is, +on the contrary, an embarrassing number of seemingly authentic texts. +During the whole of his long life, Froissart seems to have been +constantly occupied in altering, improving, and rectifying his work, and +copies of it in all its states are plentiful. The early printed editions +represent merely a single one of these; Buchon's is somewhat more +complete. But it is only within the last few years that the labours of +M. Kervyn de Lettenhove and M. Simeon Luce have made it possible (and +not yet entirely possible) to see the work in all its conditions. M. +Kervyn de Lettenhove's edition is complete and excellent as far as it +goes. That of M. Luce is still far from finished. The editor, however, +has succeeded in presenting three distinct versions of the first book. +This is the most interesting in substance, the least in manner and +style. It deals with a period most of which lay outside of Froissart's +own knowledge, and in treating which he was at first content to +paraphrase Jean Lebel, though afterwards he made this part of the book +much more his own. It never, however, attained to the gossiping +picturesqueness of the later books (there are four in all), in which the +historian relies entirely on his own collections. Although Cressy, +Poitiers, and Najara may be of more importance than the fruitless +_chevauchee_ of Buckingham through France, the gossip of the Count de +Foix' court, and the kite-and-crow battles of the Duke de Berri and his +officers with Aymerigot Marcel and Geoffrey Tete-Noire, they are much +less characteristic of Froissart. The literary instinct of Scott enabled +him (in a speech of Claverhouse[136]) exactly to appreciate our author. +Some of his admirers have striven to make out that traces of political +wisdom are to be found in the later books. If it be so, they are very +deeply hidden. A sentence which must have been written when Froissart +was more than fifty years old puts his point of view very clearly. +Geoffrey Tete-Noire, the Breton brigand, 'held a knight's life, or a +squire's, of no more account than a villain's,' and this is said as if +it summed up the demerits of the free companion. Beyond knights and +ladies, tourneys and festivals, Froissart sees nothing at all. But his +admirable power of description enables him to put what he did see as +well as any writer has ever put it. Vast as his work is, the narrative +and picturesque charm never fails; and in a thousand different lights +the same subject, the singular afterglow of chivalry, which the +influence of certain English and French princes kept up in the +fourteenth century, is presented with a mastery rare in any but the best +literature. He is so completely indifferent to anything but this, that +he does not take the slightest trouble to hide the misery and the +misgovernment which the practical carrying out of his idea caused. +Never, perhaps, was there a better instance of a man of one idea, and +certainly there never was any man by whom his one idea was more +attractively represented. To this day it is difficult even with the +clearest knowledge of the facts to rise from a perusal of Froissart +without an impression that the earlier period of the Hundred Years' War +was a sort of golden age in which all the virtues flourished, except for +occasional ugly outbreaks of the evil principle in the Jacquerie, the +Wat Tyler insurrection, and so forth. As a historian Froissart is, as +we should expect, not critical, and he carries the French habit of +disfiguring proper names and ignoring geographical and other trifles to +a most bewildering extent. But there is little doubt that he was +diligent in collecting and careful in recording his facts, and his +extreme minuteness often supplies gaps in less prolix chroniclers. + +[Sidenote: Fifteenth-Century Chroniclers.] + +The last century of the period which is included in this chapter is +extremely fertile in historians. These range themselves naturally in two +classes; those who undertake more or less of a general history of the +country during their time, and those who devote themselves to special +persons as biographers, or to the recital of the events which more +particularly concern a single city or district. The first class, +moreover, is more conveniently subdivided according to the side which +the chroniclers took on the great political duel of their period, the +struggle between Burgundy and France. + +The Burgundian side was particularly rich in annalists. The study and +practice of historical writing had, as a consequence of the Chronicle of +Baudouin, and the success of Lebel and Froissart, taken deep root in the +cities of Flanders which were subject to the Duke of Burgundy, while the +magnificence and opulence of the ducal court and establishments +naturally attracted men of letters. Froissart's immediate successor, +Enguerrand de Monstrelet, belongs to this party. Monstrelet[137], who +wrote a chronicle covering the years 1400-1444, is not remarkable for +elegance or picturesqueness of style, but takes particular pains to copy +exactly official reports of speeches, treaties, letters, etc. Another +important chronicle of the same side is that of George Chastellain[138], +a busy man of letters, who was historiographer to the Duke of Burgundy, +and wrote a history of the years 1419-1470. Chastellain was a man of +learning and talent, but was somewhat imbued with the heavy and pedantic +style which both in poetry and prose was becoming fashionable. The +memoirs of Olivier de la Marche extend from 1435 to 1489, and are also +somewhat heavy, but less pedantic than those of Chastellain. Dealing +with the same period, and also written in the Burgundian interest, are +the memoirs of Jacques du Clerq, 1448-1467, and of Lefevre de Saint +Remy, 1407-1436; as also the Chronicle of Jehan de Wavrin, beginning at +the earliest times and coming down to 1472. Wavrin's subject is +nominally England, but the later part of his work of necessity concerns +France also. + +The writers on the royalist side are of less importance and less +numerous, though individually perhaps of equal value. The chief of them +are Mathieu de Coucy, who continued the work of Monstrelet in a +different political spirit from 1444 to 1461; Pierre de Fenin, who wrote +a history of part of the reign of Charles VI; and Jean Juvenal des +Ursins[139], a statesman and ecclesiastic, who has dealt more at length +with the whole of the same reign. Of these Juvenal des Ursins takes the +first rank, and is one of the best authorities for his period; but from +a literary point of view he cannot be very highly spoken of, though +there is a certain simplicity about his manner which is superior to the +elaborate pedantry of not a few of his contemporaries and immediate +successors. + +The second class has the longest list of names, and perhaps the most +interesting constituents. First may be mentioned _Le Livre des Faits et +bonnes Moeurs du sage roi Charles V._ This is an elaborate panegyric +by the poetess Christine de Pisan, full of learning, good sense, and +sound morality, but somewhat injured by the classical phrases, the +foreign idioms, and the miscellaneous erudition, which characterise the +school to which Christine belonged. Far more interesting is the _Livre +des Faits du Marechal de Bouciqualt_[140], a book which is a not +unworthy companion and commentary to Froissart, exhibiting the kind of +errant chivalry which characterised the fourteenth century, and in part +the fifteenth, and which so greatly assisted the English in their +conflicts with the French. Joan of Arc was made, as might have been +expected, the subject of numerous chronicles and memoirs which have come +down to us under the names of Cousinot, Cochon, and Berry. The Constable +of Richemont, who had the credit of overthrowing the last remnant of +English domination at the battle of Formigny, found a biographer in +Guillaume Gruel. + +Lastly have to be mentioned three curious works of great value and +interest bearing on this time. These are the journals of a citizen of +Paris[141] (or two such), which extend from 1409 to 1422, and from 1424 +to 1440, and the so-called _Chronique scandaleuse_ of Jean de Troyes +covering the reign of Louis XI. These, with the already-mentioned +chronicle of Juvenal des Ursins, are filled with the minutest +information on all kinds of points. The prices of articles of +merchandise, the ravages of wolves, etc., are recorded, so that in them +almost as much light is thrown on the social life of the period as by a +file of modern newspapers. The chronicle of Jean Chartier, brother of +Alain, that of Molinet in continuance of Chastellain, and the short +memoirs of Villeneuve, complete the list of works of this class that +deserve mention. + +Examples of the three great French historians of the middle ages +follow:-- + + +VILLEHARDOUIN. + + La velle de la saint Martin vindrent devant Gadres en + Esclavonie, si virent la cite fermee de halz murs et de + haltes torz, et pour noiant demandissies plus bele ne plus + fort ne plus riche. et quant li pelerin la virent, il se + merveillerent mult et distrent li uns a l'autre 'coment + porroit estre prise tel vile par force, se diex meismes nel + fait?' Les premieres nes vindrent devant la vile et + aencrerent et atendirent les autres et al matin fist mult + bel jor et mult cler, et vinrent les galies totes et li + huissier et les autres nes qui estoient arrieres, et + pristrent le port par force et rompirent la chaaine qui mult + ere forz et bien atornee, et descendirent a terre, si que li + porz fu entr'aus et la vile. lor veissiez maint chevalier et + maint serjant issir des nes et maint bon destrier traire des + huissiers et maint riche tref et maint pavellon. + + Einsine se loja l'oz et fu Gadres assegie le jor de la saint + Martin. a cele foiz ne furent mie venu tuit li baron, ear + encor n'ere mie venuz li marchis de Montferrat qui ere remes + arriere por afaire que il avoit. Estiennes del Perche fu + remes malades en Venise et Mahis de Monmorenci, et quant il + furent gari, si s'en vint Mahis de Monmorenci apres l'ost a + Gadrez; mes Estienes del Perche ne le fist mie si bien, quar + il guerpi l'ost et s'en ala en Puille sejorner. avec lui + s'en ala Rotrox de Monfort et Ives de la Ille et maint + autre, qui mult en furent blasme, et passerent au passage de + marz en Surie. + + L'endemain de la saint Martin issirent de cels de Gadres et + vindrent parler le duc de Venise qui ere en son paveillon, + et li distrent que il li rendroient la cite et totes les + lor choses sals lor cors en sa merci. et li dus dist qu'il + n'en prendroit mie cestui plet ne autre, se par le conseil + non as contes et as barons, et qu'il en iroit a els parler. + + Endementiers que il ala parler as contes et as barons, icele + partie dont vos avez oi arrieres, qui voloient l'ost + depecier, parlerent as messages et lor distrent 'por quoi + volez vos rendre vostre cite? li pelerin ne vos assaldront + mie ne d'aus n'avez vos garde, se vos vos poez defendre des + Venisiens, dont estes vos quites.' et ensi pristrent un + d'aus meismes qui avoit non Robert de Bove, qui ala as murs + de la vile et lor dist ce meismes. Ensi entrerent li message + en la vile et fu li plais remes. Li dus de Venise com il + vint as contes et as barons, si lor dist 'seignor, ensi + voelent cil de la dedanz rendre la cite sals lor cors a ma + merci, ne je ne prendroie cestui plait ne autre se per voz + conseill non' et li baron li respondirent 'sire, nos vos + loons que vos le preigniez et si le vos prion.' et il dist + que il le feroit. Et il s'en tornerent tuit ensemble al + paveillon le duc por le plait prendre, et troverent que li + message s'en furent ale par le conseil a cels qui voloient + l'ost depecier. E dont se dreca uns abes de Vals de l'ordre + de Cistials, et lor dist 'seignor, je vos deffent de par + l'apostoile de Rome que vos ne assailliez ceste cite, quar + ele est de crestiens et vos iestes pelerin.' Et quant ce oi + li dus, si en fu mult iriez et destroiz et dist as contes et + as barons 'seignor, je avoie de ceste vile plait a ma + volonte, et vostre gent le m'ont tolu et vos m'aviez convent + que vos le m'aideriez a conquerre, et je vos semoing que vos + le facoiz.' + + Maintenant li conte et li baron parlerent ensemble et cil + qui a la lor partie se tenoient, et distrent 'mult ont fait + grant oltrage cil qui ont cest plait desfet, et il ne fu + onques jorz que il ne meissent paine a cest ost depecier. or + somes nos honi, se nos ne l'aidons a prendre.' Et il vienent + al duc et li dient 'sire, nos le vos aiderons a prendre por + mal de cels qui destorne l'ont.' Ensi fu li consels pris; et + al matin alerent logier devant les portes de la vile, et si + drecierent lor perrieres et lor mangonials et lor autres + engins dont il avoient assez; et devers la mer drecierent + les eschieles sor les nes. lor commencierent a la vile a + geter les pieres as murz et as lors. Ensi dura cil asals + bien por v jors et lor si mistrent lors trencheors a une + tour, et cil commencierent a trenchier le mur. et quant cil + dedenz virent ce, si quistrent plait tot atretel com il + l'avoient refuse par le conseil a cels qui l'ost voloient + depecier. + + +JOINVILLE. + + Au mois d'aoust entrames en nos neis a la Roche de + Marseille: a celle journee que nous entrames en nos neis, + fist l'on ouvrir la porte de la nef, et mist l'on touz nos + chevaus ens, que nous deviens mener outre mer; et puis + reclost l'on la porte et l'enboucha l'on bien, aussi comme + l'on naye un tonnel. pour ce que, quant le neis est en la + grant mer, toute la porte est en l'yaue. Quant li cheval + furent ens, nostre maistres notonniers escria a ses + notonniers qui estoient ou bec de la nef et lour dist 'est + aree vostre besoingne?' et il respondirent 'oil, sire, + vieingnent avant clerc et li provere.' Maintenant que il + furent venu, il lour escria 'chantez de par dieu'; et il + s'escrierent tuit a une voiz '_veni creator spiritus_.' et + il escria a ses notonniers 'faites voile de par dieu'; et il + si firent. et en brief tens li venz se feri ou voile et nous + ot tolu la veue de la terre, que nous ne veismes que ciel et + yaue: et chascun jour nous esloigna li venz des pais ou nous + avions estei neiz. et ces choses vous moustre je que cil + est bien fol hardis, qui se ose mettre en tel peril atout + autrui chatel ou en pechie mortel; ear l'on se dort le soir + la ou on ne set se l'on se trouvera ou font de la mer au + matin. + + En la mer nous avint une fiere merveille, que nous trouvames + une montaigne toute ronde qui estoit devant Barbarie. nous + la trouvames entour l'eure de vespres et najames tout le + soir, et cuidames bien avoir fait plus de cinquante lieues, + et lendemain nous nous trouvames devant icelle meismes + montaigne; et ainsi nous avint par dous foiz ou par trois. + Quant li marinnier virent ce, il furent tuit esbahi et nous + distrent que nos neis estoient en grant peril; ear nous + estiens devant la terre aus Sarrazins de Barbarie. Lors nous + dist uns preudom prestres que on appeloit doyen de Malrut, + ear il n'ot onques persecucion en paroisse. ne par defaut + d'yaue ne de trop pluie ne d'autre persecucion, que aussi + tost comme il avoit fait trois processions par trois + samedis, que diex et sa mere ne le delivrassent. Samedis + estoit: nous feismes la premiere procession entour les dous + maz de la nef; je meismes m'i fiz porter par les braz, pour + ce que je estoie grief malades. Onques puis nous ne veismes + la montaigne, et venimes en Cypre le tiers samedi. + + +FROISSART. + + Je fuis adont infourme par le seigneur d'Estonnevort, et me + dist que il vey, et aussi firent plusieurs, quant + l'oriflambe fut desploiee et la bruine se chey, ung blanc + coulon voller et faire plusieurs volz par dessus la baniere + du roy; et quant il eut assez vole, et que on se deubt + combatre et assambler aux ennemis, il se print a seoir sur + l'une des bannieres du roy; dont on tint ce a grant + signiffiance de bien. Or approchierent les Flamens et + commenchierent a jetter et a traire de bombardes et de + canons et de gros quarreaulx empenez d'arain; ainsi se + commenca la bataille. Et en ot le roy de France et ses gens + le premier encontre, qui leur fut moult dur; ear ces + Flamens, qui descendoient orgueilleusement et de grant + voulente, venoient roit et dur, et boutoient en venant de + l'espaule et de la poitrine ainsi comme senglers tous + foursenez, et estoient si fort entrelachies tous ensemble + qu'on ne les povoit ouvrir ne desrompre. La fuirent du coste + des Francois par le trait des canons, des bombardes et des + arbalestres premierement mort: le seigneur de Waurin, + baneret, Morelet de Halwin et Jacques d'Ere. Et adont fut la + bataille du roy reculee; mais l'avantgarde et l'arrieregarde + a deux lez passerent oultre et enclouirent ces Flamens, et + les misrent a l'estroit. Je vous diray comment sur ces deux + eles gens d'armes les commencierent a pousser de leurs + roides lances a longs fers et durs de Bourdeaulx, qui leur + passoient ces cottes de maille tout oultre et les perchoient + en char; dont ceulx qui estoient attains et navrez de ces + fers se restraindoient pour eschiever les horions; ear + jamais ou amender le peuissent ne se boutoient avant pour + eulx faire destruire. La les misrent ces gens d'armes a tel + destroit qu'ilz ne se scavoient ne povoient aidier ne ravoir + leurs bras ne leurs planchons pour ferir ne eulz deffendre. + La perdoient les plusieurs force et alaine, et la + tresbuchoient l'un sur l'autre, et se estindoient et + moroient sans coup ferir. La fut Phelippe d'Artevelle encloz + et pouse de glaive et abatu, et gens de Gand qui l'amoient + et gardoient grant plente atterrez entour luy. Quant le page + dudit Phelippe vey la mesadventure venir sur les leurs, il + estoit bien monte sur bon coursier, si se party et laissa + son maistre, ear il ne le povoit aidier; et retourna vers + Courtray pour revenir a Gand. + + (A)insi fut faitte et assamblee celle bataille; et lors que + des deux costez les Flamens furent astrains et encloz, ilz + ne passerent plus avant, ear ilz ne se povoient aidier. + Adont se remist la bataille du roy en vigeur, qui avoit de + commencement ung petit bransle. La entendoient gens d'armes + a abatre Flamens en grant nombre, et avoient les plusieurs + haches acerees, dont ilz rompoient ces bachinets et + eschervelloient testes; et les aucuns plommees, dont ilz + donnoient si grans horrions, qu'ilz les abatoient a terre. A + paines estoient Flamens cheuz, quant pillars venoient qui + entre les gens d'armes se boutoient et portoient grandes + coutilles, dont ilz les partueoient; ne nulle pitie n'en + avoient non plus que se ce fuissent chiens. La estoit le + clicquetis sur ces bacinets si grant et si hault, d'espees, + de haches, et de plommees, que l'en n'y ouoit goutte pour la + noise. Et ouy dire que, se tous les heaumiers de Paris et de + Brouxelles estoient ensemble, leur mestier faisant, ilz + n'euissent pas fait si grant noise comme faisoient les + combatans et les ferans sur ces testes et sur ces bachinets. + La ne s'espargnoient point chevalliers ne escuiers ainchois + mettoient la main a l'euvre par grant voulente, et plus les + ungs que les autres; si en y ot aucuns qui s'avancerent et + bouterent en la presse trop avant; ear ilz y furent encloz + et estains, et par especial messire Loys de Cousant, ung + chevallier de Berry, et messire Fleton de Revel, filz au + seigneur de Revel; mais encoires en y eut des autres, dont + ce fut dommage: mais si grosse bataille, dont celle la fut, + ou tant avoit de pueple, ne se povoit parfurnir et au mieulx + venir pour les victoriens, que elle ne couste grandement. + Car jeunes chevalliers et escuiers qui desirent les armes se + avancent voulentiers pour leur honneur et pour acquerre + loenge; et la presse estoit la si grande et le dangier si + perilleux pour ceulx qui estoient enclos ou abatus, que se + on n'avoit trop bonne ayde, on ne se povoit relever. Par ce + party y eut des Francoiz mors et estains aucuns; mais plente + ne fut ce mie; ear quant il venoit a point, ilz aidoient + l'un l'autre. La eut ung molt grant nombre de Flamens occis, + dont les tas des mors estoient haulx et longs ou la bataille + avoit este; on ne vey jamais si peu de sang yssir a tant de + mors. + + Quant les Flamens qui estoient derriere veirent que ceulx + devant fondoient et cheoient l'un sus l'autre et que ilz + estoient tous desconfis, ilz s'esbahirent et jetterent leurs + plancons par terre et leurs armures et se misrent a la + fuitte vers Courtray et ailleurs. Ilz n'avoient cure que + pour eulx mettre a sauvete. Et Franchois et Bretons apres, + quy les chassoient en fossez et en buissons, en aunois et an + mares et bruieres, cy dix, cy vingt, cy trente, et la les + recombatoient de rechief, et la les occioient, se ilz + n'estoient les plus fors. Si en y eut ung moult grant nombre + de mors en la chace entre le lieu de la bataille et + Courtray, ou ilz se retraioient a saulf garant. Ceste + bataille advint sur le Mont d'Or entre Courtray et Rosebeque + en l'an de grace nostre seigneur, mil iij'c. iiij'xx. et + II., le jeudi devant le samedi de l'advent, le xxvij'e. + jour de novembre, et estoit pour lors le roy Charles de + France ou xiiij'e. an de son eage. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[131] The chronicle of the pseudo-Turpin is of little real importance in +the history of French literature, because it is admitted to have been +written in Latin. The busy idleness of critics has however prompted them +to discuss at great length the question whether the _Chanson de Roland_ +may not possibly have been composed from this chronicle. The facts are +these. Tilpin or Turpin was actually archbishop of Rheims from 753-794, +but nobody pretends that the chronicle going under his name is +authentic. All that is certain is that it is not later than 1165, and +that it is probably not earlier than the middle, or at most the +beginning, of the eleventh century, while the part of it which is more +particularly in question is of the end of that century. _Roland_ is +almost certainly of the middle at latest. Curiosity on this point may be +gratified by consulting M. Gaston Paris, _De pseudo-Turpino_, Paris, +1865, or M. Leon Gautier, _Epopees Francaises_, Paris, 1878. But, from +the literary point of view, it is sufficient to say that, while _Turpin_ +is of the very smallest literary merit, _Roland_ is among the capital +works of the middle ages. + +[132] Ed. N. de Wailly. Paris, 1874. + +[133] Ed. P. Paris. 2 vols., 1879-80. It is characteristic of the middle +ages that this work usually bore the title of _Roman d'Eracle_, for no +other reason than that the name of Heraclius occurs in the first +sentence. + +[134] Ed. N. de Wailly. Paris, 1874. Besides the _Histoire de St. +Louis_, Joinville has left an interesting _Credo_, a brief religious +manual written much earlier in his life. + +[135] Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 20 vols., Brussels. Ed. S. Luce, Paris, +in course of publication. The edition of Buchon, 3 vols., Paris, 1855, +is still the best for general use. Froissart's poems give many +biographical details which are interesting, but unimportant. He wandered +all his life from court to court, patronised and pensioned by kings, +queens, and princes. He was successively _cure_ of Lestines and canon of +Chimay. In early life he was much in England, being specially patronised +by Edward III. and Philippa. + +[136] _Old Mortality_, chap. 35. + +[137] Ed. Buchon. Paris, 1858. + +[138] Chastellain has been fortunate, like most Flemish writers, in +being excellently and completely edited (by M. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 8 +vols., Brussels). + +[139] Ed. Michaud et Poujoulat. + +[140] Ed. Michaud et Poujoulat. + +[141] Ed. Michaud et Poujoulat, in whose collection most of the many +authors here mentioned will be also found. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +MISCELLANEOUS PROSE. + + +[Sidenote: General use of Prose.] + +It was natural, and indeed necessary, that, when the use of prose as an +allowable vehicle for literary composition was once understood and +established, it should gradually but rapidly supersede the more +troublesome and far less appropriate form of verse. Accordingly we find +that, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, the amount of prose +literature is constantly on the increase. It happens, however, or, to +speak more precisely, it follows that this miscellaneous prose +literature is of much less importance and of much less interest than the +contemporary and kindred literature in verse. For in the nature of +things much of it was occupied with what may be called the journey-work +of literature,--the stuff which, unless there be some special attraction +in its form, grows obsolete, or retains a merely antiquarian interest in +the course of time. There was, moreover, still among the chief patrons +of literature a preference for verse which diverted the brightest +spirits to the practice of that form. Yet again, the best prose +composition of the middle ages, with the exception of a few works of +fiction, is to be found in its chronicles, and these have already been +noticed. A review, therefore, much less minute in scale than that which +in the first ten chapters of this book has been given to the mediaeval +poetry of France, will suffice for its mediaeval prose, and such a +review will appropriately close the survey of the literature of the +middle ages. + +[Sidenote: Prose Sermons. St. Bernard.] + +[Sidenote: Maurice de Sully.] + +[Sidenote: Later Preachers. Gerson.] + +It has already been pointed out in the first chapter that documentary +evidence exists to prove the custom of preaching in French (or at least +in _lingua romana_) at a very early date. It is not, however, till many +centuries after the date of Mummolinus, that there is any trace of +regularly written vernacular discourses. When these appear in the +twelfth century the Provencal dialects appear to have the start of +French proper. Whether the forty-four prose sermons of St. Bernard which +exist were written by him in French, or were written in Latin and +translated, is a disputed point. The most reasonable opinion seems to be +that they were translated, but it is uncertain whether at the beginning +of the thirteenth or the middle of the twelfth century. However this may +be, the question of written French sermons in the twelfth century does +not depend on that of St. Bernard's authorship. Maurice de Sully, who +presided over the See of Paris from 1160 to 1195, has left a +considerable number of sermons which exist in manuscripts of very +different dialects. Perhaps it may not be illegitimate to conclude from +this, that at the time such written sermons were not very common, and +that preachers of different districts were glad to borrow them for their +own use. These also are thought to have been first written in Latin and +then translated. But whether Maurice de Sully was a pioneer or not, he +was very quickly followed by others. In the following century the number +of preachers whose vernacular work has been preserved is very large; the +increase being, beyond all doubt, partially due to the foundation of the +two great preaching orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. The existing +literature of this class, dating from the thirteenth, the fourteenth, +and the early fifteenth centuries, is enormous, but the remarks made at +the beginning of this chapter apply to it fully. Its interest is almost +wholly antiquarian, and not in any sense literary. Distinguished names +indeed occur in the catalogue of preachers, but, until we come to the +extreme verge of the mediaeval period proper, hardly one of what may be +called the first importance. The struggle between the Burgundian and +Orleanist, or Armagnac parties, and the ecclesiastical squabbles of the +Great Schism, produced some figures of greater interest. Such are Jean +Petit, a furious partisan, who went so far as to excuse the murder of +the Duke of Orleans, and Jean Charlier, or Gerson, one of the most +respectable and considerable names of the later mediaeval literature. +Gerson was born in 1363, at a village of the same name in Lorraine. He +early entered the College de Navarre, and distinguished himself under +Peter d'Ailly, the most famous of the later nominalists. He became +Chancellor of the University, received a living in Flanders, and for +many years preached in the most constantly attended churches of Paris. +He represented the University at the Council of Constance, and, becoming +obnoxious to the Burgundian party, sought refuge with one of his +brothers at Lyons, where he is said to have taught little children. He +died in 1429. Gerson, it should perhaps be added, is one of the numerous +candidates (but one of the least likely) for the honour of having +written the _Imitation_. He concerns us here only as the author of +numerous French sermons. His work in this kind is very characteristic of +the time. Less mixed with burlesque than that of his immediate +successors, it is equally full of miscellaneous, and, as it now seems, +somewhat inappropriate erudition, and far fuller of the fatal +allegorising and personification of abstract qualities which were in +every branch of literature the curse of the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries. Yet there are passages of real eloquence in Gerson, though +perhaps the chief literary point about him is the evidence he gives of +the insufficiency of the language in its then condition for serious +prose work. + +[Sidenote: Moral and Devotional Treatises.] + +[Sidenote: Translators.] + +[Sidenote: Political and Polemical Works.] + +This is indeed the lesson of most of the writing which we have to notice +in this chapter. Next to sermons may most naturally be placed devotional +and moral works, for, as may easily be imagined, theology and +philosophy, properly so called, did not condescend to the vulgar tongue +until after the close of the period. Only treatises for the practical +use of the unlearned and ignorant adopted the vernacular. Of such there +are manuals of devotion and sketches of sacred history which date from +the thirteenth century, besides numerous later treatises, among the +authors of which Gerson is again conspicuous. The most popular, perhaps, +and in a way the most interesting of all such moral and devotional +treatises, is the book of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry[142], written +in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. This book, destined for +the instruction of the author's three daughters, is composed of Bible +stories, moral tales from ordinary literature and from the writer's +experience, precepts and rules of conduct, and so forth; in short, a +Whole Duty of Girls. Most however of the works of this sort which were +current were, as may be supposed, not original, but translated, and +these translations played a very important part in the history of the +language. The earliest of all are translations of the Bible, especially +of the Psalms and the book of Kings, the former of which may perhaps +date from the end of the eleventh century. Translations of the fathers, +and of the Lives of the Saints, followed in such numbers that, in 1199, +Pope Innocent III. blamed their indiscriminate use. The translation of +profane literature hardly begins much before the thirteenth century. In +this it becomes frequent; and in the following many classical writers +and more mediaeval authors in Latin underwent the process. But it was +not till the close of the fourteenth century that the most important +translations were made, and that translation began to exercise its +natural influence on a comparatively unsophisticated language, by +providing terms of art, by generally enriching the vocabulary, and by +the elaboration of the peculiarities of syntax and style necessary for +rendering the sentences of languages so highly organised as Latin and +Greek. Under John of Valois and his three successors considerable +encouragement was given by the kings of France to this sort of work, and +three translators, Pierre Bersuire, Nicholas Oresme, and Raoul de +Presles, have left special reputations. The eldest of these, Pierre +Bersuire or Bercheure, a friend of Petrarch, was born in 1290, and +towards the end of his life, about 1352, translated part of Livy. +Nicholas Oresme, the date of whose birth is unknown, but who entered the +College de Navarre in 1348, and is likely to have been at that time +thirteen or fourteen years old, and who became Dean of Rouen and Bishop +of Lisieux, translated, in 1370 and the following years, the _Ethics_, +_Politics_, and _Economics_ of Aristotle (from the Latin, not the +Greek). He died in 1382. Oresme was a good writer, and particularly +dexterous in adopting neologisms necessary for his purpose. Raoul de +Presles executed translations of the Bible and of St. Augustine's _De +Civitate Dei_. All these writers furnished an enlarged vocabulary to +their successors, the most remarkable of whom were the already mentioned +Christine de Pisan and Alain Chartier. The latter is especially +noteworthy as a prose writer, and the comments already made on his style +and influence as a poet apply here also. His _Quadriloge Invectif_ and +_Curial_, both satirical or, at least, polemical works, are his chief +productions in this kind. Raoul de Presles also composed a polemical +work, dealing chiefly with the burning question of the papal and royal +powers, under the title of _Songe du Verger_. + +[Sidenote: Codes and Legal Treatises.] + +It might seem unlikely at first sight that so highly technical a subject +as law should furnish a considerable contingent to early vernacular +literature; but there are some works of this kind both of ancient date +and of no small importance. England and Normandy furnish an important +contingent, the 'Laws of William the Conqueror' and the _Coutumiere +Normandie_ being the most remarkable: but the most interesting document +of this kind is perhaps the famous _Assises de Jerusalem_, arranged by +Godfrey of Bouillon and his crusaders as the code of the kingdom of +Jerusalem in 1099, and known also as the _Lettres du Sepulcre_, from the +place of their custody. The original text was lost or destroyed at the +capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187; but a new _Assise_, compiled +from the oral tradition of the jurists who had seen and used the old, +was written by Philippe de Navarre in 1240, or thereabouts, for the use +of the surviving Latin principalities of the East. This was shortly +afterwards enlarged and developed by Jean d'Ibelin, a Syrian baron, who +took part in the crusade of St. Louis. These codes concerned themselves +only with one part of the original _Lettres du Sepulcre_, the laws +affecting the privileged classes; but the other part, the _Assises des +Bourgeois_, survives in _Le Livre de la Cour des Bourgeois_, which has +been thought to be older than the loss of the original. These various +works contain the most complete account of feudal jurisprudence in its +palmy days that is known, for the still earlier Anglo-Norman laws +represent a more mixed state of things. It was especially in Cyprus that +the Jerusalem codes were observed. The chief remaining works of the +same kind which deserve mention are the _Etablissements de St. Louis_ +and the _Livre de Justice et de Plet_, which both date from the time of +Louis himself; the _Conseil_, a treatise on law by Pierre de Fontaines, +who died in 1289, and the _Coutumes du Beauvoisis_ of Philippe de +Beaumanoir, who wrote in 1283. The legal literature of the fourteenth +century is abundant, but possesses considerably less interest. + +[Sidenote: Miscellanies and Didactic Works.] + +Last of all, before coming to prose fiction, a vast if not very +interesting class of miscellaneous prose work must be mentioned. The +word class has been used, but perhaps improperly, for classification is +almost impossible. Books of accounts and domestic economy of all sorts +(generally called _livres de raison_) were very common; treatises of all +kinds of more general character on household management abounded. We +have a _Menagier de Paris_, a _Viandier de Paris_, both of the +fourteenth century. But much earlier the orderly and symmetrical spirit +which has always distinguished the French makes itself apparent in +literature. The _Livre des Metiers de Paris_ of Etienne Boileau, dating +from the thirteenth century, gives a complete idea of the organisation +of guilds and trades at that time. An innumerable multitude of treatises +on the minor morals, on love, on manners, exists in manuscript, and in +rare instances in print. The _Tresors_, or compendious encyclopaedias, +which have already been noticed in verse, began in the thirteenth +century to be composed in prose, the most remarkable being that of +Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, who avowedly used French as his +vehicle of composition, because it was the most commonly read of +European languages. This book was written apparently about or before +1270. Nor did the separate arts lack illustration in prose. Medicine and +alchemy, astronomy and poetry, war and chess, had their treatises, while +Bestiaries and Lapidaries are almost as numerous in prose as in verse. +Finally, there is the important category of books of travel. There are a +certain number of voyages to the Holy Land[143]; some miscellaneous +travels mostly, though not universally, translated from the Latin; and +last, but not least, the great book of Marco Polo, which seems to have +been written originally in French, the author, when in captivity at +Genoa, having dictated it to Rusticien of Pisa, who also figures as a +compiler of late versions of the Arthurian legend, and who thus had some +skill in French composition. + +[Sidenote: Fiction] + +The prose fiction of the period has been kept to the last, because it +expresses a different order of literary endeavour from those divisions +which have hitherto been treated. The language of the middle ages was +ill-suited for work other than narrative; for narrative work it was +supremely well adapted. Yet the prose fiction which we have is not on +the whole equal in merit to the poetry, though in one or two instances +it is of great value. The medium of communication was not generally +known or used until the period of decadence had been reached, and the +peculiar defects of mediaeval literature, prolixity and verbiage, show +themselves more conspicuously and more annoyingly in prose than in +verse. We have, however, some remarkable work of the later periods, and +in the latest of all we have one writer, Antoine de la Salle, who +deserves to rank with the great chroniclers as a fashioner of French +prose. + +The French prose fiction of the middle ages resolves itself into several +classes: the early Arthurian Romances already noticed; the scattered +tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which are chiefly to +be studied in two excellent volumes of the _Bibliotheque +Elzevirienne_[144]; the versions of such collections of legends, chiefly +oriental in origin, as the _History of the Seven Wise Men_ and the +_Gesta Romanorum_; the longer classical romances in prose; the late +prose _remaniements_ of the great verse epics and romances of the +twelfth century; and the more or less original work of the fifteenth +century, when prose was becoming an independent and coequal literary +exponent. The first class requires no further mention; of the third, the +editions of the _Roman des Sept Sages_, by M. Gaston Paris[145], and of +the _Violier des Histoires Romaines_, by M. Gustave Brunet[146], may be +referred to as sufficient instances; of the fourth a very interesting +specimen has been made accessible by the publication of the prose _Roman +de Jules Cesar_ of Jean de Tuim[147], a free version from Lucan made +apparently in the course of the thirteenth century, and afterwards +imitated by the author of the verse romance; the fifth, though very +numerous, are not of much value, though the great romance of +_Perceforest_ and a few others may be excepted from this general +condemnation. The second and the last deserve a longer mention. + +The tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as published by +MM. Moland and Hericault, are eight in number. Those of the second +volume are on the whole inferior in interest to those of the first. They +consist of _Asseneth_, a graceful legend of the marriage of Joseph with +the daughter of the Egyptian high-priest; _Troilus_, interesting chiefly +as a prose version of Benoist de Ste. More's legend of _Troilus and +Cressida_, through the channel of Guido Colonna and Boccaccio; and a +very curious English story, that of the rebel Fulk Fitzwarine. The +thirteenth-century tales consist of _L'Empereur Constant_, the story +with which Mr. Morris has made English readers familiar under the title +of the 'Man born to be King;' of a prose version of the ubiquitous +legend of _Amis et Amiles_; of _Le roi Flore et la belle Jehanne_, a +kind of version of _Griselda_, though the particular trial and +exhibition of fidelity is quite different; of the _Comtesse de +Ponthieu_, the least interesting of all; and lastly, of the finest prose +tale of the French middle ages, _Aucassin et Nicolette_. In this +exquisite story Aucassin, the son of the count of Beaucaire, falls in +love with Nicolette, a captive damsel. It is very short, and is written +in mingled verse and prose. The theme is for the most part nothing but +the desperate love of Aucassin, which is careless of religion, which +makes him indifferent to the joy of battle and to everything, except +'Nicolette ma tres-douce mie,' and which is, of course, at last +rewarded. But the extreme beauty of the separate scenes makes it a +masterpiece. + +[Sidenote: Antoine de la Salle.] + +Antoine de la Salle is one of the most fortunate of authors. The +tendency of modern criticism is generally to endeavour to prove that +some famous author has been wrongly credited with some of the work which +has made his fame. Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Rabelais, have all had +to pay this penalty. In the case of Antoine de la Salle, on the +contrary, critics have vied with each other in heaping unacknowledged +masterpieces on his head. His only acknowledged work is the charming +romance of _Petit Jean de Saintre_[148]. The first thing added to this +has been the admirable satire of the _Quinze Joyes du Mariage_[149], the +next the famous collection of the _Cent Nouvelles_[150], and the last +the still more famous farce of _Pathelin_[151]. There are for once few +or no external reasons why these various attributions should not be +admitted, while there are many internal ones why they should. Antoine de +la Salle was born in 1398, and spent his life in the employment of +different kings and princes;--Louis III of Anjou, King of Naples, his +son the good King Rene, the count of Saint Pol, and Philip the Good of +Burgundy, who was his natural sovereign. Nothing is known of him after +1461. Of the three prose works which have been attributed to him--there +are others of a didactic character in manuscript--the _Quinze Joyes du +Mariage_ is extremely brief, but it contains the quintessence of all the +satire on that honourable estate which the middle ages had elaborated. +Every chapter--there is one for each 'joy' with a prologue and +conclusion--ends with a variation on this phrase descriptive of the +unhappy Benedict, 'est sy est enclose dans la nasse, et a l'aventure ne +s'en repent point et s'il n'y estait il se y mettroit bientot; la usera +sa vue en languissant, et finira miserablement ses jours.' The satire is +much quieter and of a more humorous and less boisterous character than +was usual at the time. The _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ are to all intents +and purposes prose _fabliaux_. They have the full licence of that class +of composition, its sparkling fun, its truth to the conditions of +ordinary human life. Many of them are taken from the work of the Italian +novelists, but all are handled in a thoroughly original manner. In style +they are perhaps the best of all the late mediaeval prose works, being +clear, precise, and definite without the least appearance of baldness or +dryness. _Petit Jehan de Saintre_ is, together with the _Chronique de +Messire Jacques de Lalaing_[152] of Georges Chastellain (a delightful +biography, which is not a work of fiction), the hand-book of the last +age of chivalry. Jehan de Saintre, who was a real person of the +preceding century, but from whom the novelist borrows little or nothing +but his name, falls in love with a lady who is known by the fantastic +title of 'la dame des belles cousines.' He wins general favour by his +courtesy, true love, and prowess; but during his absence in quest of +adventures, his faithless mistress betrays him for a rich abbot. The +latter part of this book exhibits something of the satiric intention, +which was never long absent from the author's mind; the former contains +a picture, artificial perhaps, but singularly graceful, of the elaborate +religion, as it may almost be called, of chivalry. Strikingly evident in +the book is the surest of all signs of a dying stage of society, the +most delicate observation and sympathetic description joined to +sarcastic and ironical criticism. + +As examples of this prose literature we may take a fragment of one of +the sermons attributed to St. Bernard (twelfth century), an extract from +_Aucassin et Nicolette_ (thirteenth century), and one from the _Curial_ +of Alain Chartier (early fifteenth century):-- + + +ST. BERNARD. + + Granz est ceste mers, chier frere, et molt large, c'est + ceste presente vie ke molt est amere et molt plaine de granz + ondes, ou trois manieres de gent puyent solement + trespesseir, ensi k'il delivreit en soient, et chascuns en + sa maniere. Troi homme sunt: Noe, Daniel et Job. Li primiers + de cez trois trespesset a neif, li seconz par pont et li + tierz par weit. Cist troi homme signifient trois ordenes ki + sunt en sainte eglise. Noe conduist l'arche par mei lo peril + del duluve, en cui je reconois aparmenmes la forme de ceos + qui sainte eglise ont a governeir. Daniel, qui apeleiz est + bers de desiers, ki abstinens fut et chastes, il est li + ordenes des penanz et des continanz ki entendent solement a + deu. Et Job, ki droituriers despensiers fut de la sustance + de cest munde, signifiet lo feaule peule qui est en + mariaige, a cuy il loist bien avoir en possession les choses + terrienes. Del primier et del secont nos covient or parler, + ear ci sunt or de present nostre frere, et ki abbeit sunt si + cum nos, ki sunt del nombre des prelaiz; et si sunt assi ci + li moine ki sunt de l'ordene des penanz dont nos mismes, qui + abbeit sommes, ne nos doyens mies osteir, si nos par + aventure, qui jai nen avignet, nen avons dons oblieit nostre + profession por la grace de nostre office. Lo tierz ordene, + c'est de ceos ki en mariaige sunt, trescorrai ju or + briement, si cum ceos qui tant nen apartienent mies a nos + cum li altre. c'est cil ordenes ki a vveit trespesset ceste + grant meir; et cist ordenes est molt peneuous et perillous, + et ki vait par molt longe voie, si cum cil ki nule sente ne + quierent ne nule adrece. En ceu appert bien ke molt est + perillouse lor voie, ke nos tant de gent i veons perir, dont + nos dolor avons, et ke nos si poc i veons de ceos ki ensi + trespessent cum mestiers seroit; ear molt est gries chose + d'eschuir l'abysme des vices et les fosses des criminals + pechiez entre les ondes de cest seule, nomeyement or en cest + tens ke li malices est si enforciez. + + +_AUCASSIN ET NICOLETTE._ + + Aucasins fu mis en prison si com vos aves, oi et entendu, et + Nicolete fu d'autre part en le canbre. Ce fu el tans d'este, + el mois de mai, que li jor sont caut, lonc et cler, et les + nuis coies et series. Nicolete jut une nuit en son lit, si + vit la lune luire cler par une fenestre, et si oi le + lorseilnol canter en garding, se li sovint d'Aucasin son ami + qu'ele tant amoit. ele se comenca a porpenser del conte + Garin de Biaucaire qui de mort le haoit; si se pensa qu'ele + ne remanroit plus ilec, que s'ele estoit acusee et li quens + Garins le savoit, il le feroit de male mort morir. ele senti + que li vielle dormoit qui aveuc li estoit. ele se leva, si + vesti un bliaut de drap de soie que ele avoit molt bon; si + prist dras de lit et touailes, si noua l'un a l'autre, si + fist une corde si longe conme ele pot, si le noua au piler + de le fenestre, si s'avala contreval le gardin, et prist se + vesture a l'une main devant et a l'autre deriere; si + s'escorca por le rousee qu'ele vit grande sor l'erbe, si + s'en ala aval le gardin. Ele avoit les caviaus blons et + menus recerceles, et les ex vairs et rians, et le face + traitice et le nes haut et bien assis, et les levretes + vermelletes plus que n'est cerisse ne rose el tans d'este, + et les dens blans et menus, et avoit les mameletes dures qui + li souslevoient sa vesteure ausi com ce fuissent II nois + gauges, et estoit graille parmi les flans, qu'en vos dex + mains le peuscies enclorre; et les flors des margerites + qu'ele ronpoit as ortex de ses pies, qui li gissoient sor le + menuisse du pie par deseure, estoient droites noires avers + ses pies et ses ganbes, tant par estoit blance la mescinete. + Ele vint au postic; si le deffrema, si s'en isci par mi les + rues de Biaucaire par devers l'onbre, ear la lune luisoit + molt clere, et erra tant qu'ele vint a le tor u ses amis + estoit. Li tors estoit faele de lius en lius, et ele se + quatist deles l'un des pilers. si s'estraint en son mantel, + si mist sen cief par mi une creveure de la tor qui vielle + estoit et anciienne, si oi Aucasin qui la dedens pleuroit et + faisoit mot grant dol et regretoit se douce amie que tant + amoit. et quant ele l'ot asses escoute, si comenca a dire. + + +ALAIN CHARTIER. + + La court, affin que tu l'entendes, est ung couvent de gens + qui soubz faintise du bien commun sont assemblez pour eulx + interrompre; ear il n'y a gueres de gens qui ne vendent, + achaptent ou eschangent aucunes foiz leurs rentes ou leurs + propres vestemens; ear entre nous de la court nous sommes + marchans affectez qui achaptons les autres gens et + autresfoiz pour leur argent nous leur vendons nostre + humanite precieuse. Nous leur vendons et achaptons autruy + par flaterie ou par corrupcions; mais nous scavons tres bien + vendre nous mesmes a ceulx qui ont de nous a faire. Combien + donc y peus tu acquerir qui es certain sans doubte et sans + peril? veulx tu aller a la court vendre ou perdre ce bien de + vertu, que tu as acquis hors d'icelle court? Certes, frere, + tu demandes ce que tu deusses reffuser, tu te fies en ce + dont tu te deusses deffier et fiches ton esperance en ce que + te tire a peril. Et se tu y viens, la court te servira de + tant de mensonges controverses d'une part, et de l'autre de + bailler tant de tours et de charges que tu auras dedans toy + mesmes bataille continuelle et soussiz angoisseux et pour + certain homme qui pourra bonnement dire que ceste vie fust + bieneuree qui par tant de tempestes est achatee et en tant + de contrarietez esprouvee. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[142] Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1854. + +[143] A good example of these is the _Saint Voyage de Jerusalem_ of the +Seigneur d'Anglure (1385), edited by MM. Bonnardot and Longnon. Paris, +1878. + +[144] _Nouvelles du 13'e et du 14'e siecle._ Ed. Moland et Hericault. 2 +vols. Paris, 1856. + +[145] Paris, 1876. + +[146] Paris, 1858. + +[147] Ed. Settegast. Halle, 1881. + +[148] Ed. Guichard. Paris, 1843. + +[149] Ed. Jannet. Paris, 1853; 2nd ed. 1857. + +[150] Ed. Wright. Paris, 1858. + +[151] Ed. Fournier, _Theatre Francais avant la Renaissance_. Paris, n. d. + +[152] Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, viii. 1-259. + + + + +INTERCHAPTER I. + +SUMMARY OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE. + + +In the foregoing book a view has been given of the principal +developments of mediaeval literature in France. The survey has extended, +taking the extremest chronological limits, over some eight centuries. +But, until the end of the eleventh, the monuments of ancient French +literature are few and scattered, and the actual manuscripts which we +possess date in hardly any case further back than the twelfth. In +reality the history of mediaeval literature in France is the history of +the productions of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and early +fifteenth centuries with a long but straggling introduction, ranging +from the eighth or even the seventh. Its palmy time is unquestionably in +the twelfth and the thirteenth. During these two hundred years almost +every kind of literature is attempted. Vast numbers of epic poems are +written; one great story, that of Arthur, exercises the imagination as +hardly any other story has exercised it either in ancient or in modern +times; the drama is begun in all its varieties of tragedy, comedy, and +opera; lyric poetry finds abundant and exquisite expression; history +begins to be written, not indeed from the philosophic point of view, but +with vivid and picturesque presentment of fact; elaborate codes are +drawn; vernacular homilies, not mere rude colloquial discourses, are +composed; the learning of the age, such as it is, finds popular +treatment; and in particular a satiric literature, more abundant and +more racy if less polished than any that classical antiquity has left +us, is committed to writing. It is often wondered at and bewailed that +this vigorous growth was succeeded by a period of comparative stagnation +in which little advance was made, and in which not a little decided +falling off is noticeable. Except the formal lyric poetry of the +fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and the multiplied dramatic +energy of the latter, nothing novel or vigorous appears for some hundred +and forty years, until the extreme verge of the period, when the +substitution of the prose tale, as exemplified in the work attributed to +Antoine de la Salle, for the verse Fabliau, opens a prospect which four +centuries of progress have not closed. The early perfection of Italian, +a language later to start than French, has been regretfully compared +with this, and the blame has been thrown on the imperfection of +mediaeval arrangements for educating the people. The complaint is +mistaken, and almost foolish. It is not necessary to look much further +than Italian itself to see the Nemesis of a too early development. +French, like English, which had a yet tardier literary growth, has +pursued its course unhasting, unresting, to the present hour. Italian +since the close of the sixteenth century has contributed not a single +masterpiece to European literature, and not much that can be called good +second-rate. It is not impossible that the political troubles of +France--the Hundred Years' War especially--checked the intellectual +development of the country, but if so, the check was in the long run +altogether salutary. The middle ages were allowed to work themselves +out--to produce their own natural fruit before the full influx of +classical literature. What is more, a breathing time was allowed after +the exhaustion of the first set of influences, before the second was +felt. Hence the French renaissance was a far more vigorous growth than +the renaissance of Italy, which displays at once the signs of precocity +and of premature decay. But we are more immediately concerned at the +present moment with the literary results of the middle ages themselves. +It is only of late years that it has been possible fully to estimate +these, and it is now established beyond the possibility of doubt that to +France almost every great literary style as distinguished from great +individual works is at this period due. The testimony of Brunetto Latini +as to French being the common literary tongue of Europe in the +thirteenth century has been quoted, and those who have read the +foregoing chapters attentively will be able to recall innumerable +instances of the literary supremacy of France. It must of course be +remembered that she enjoyed for a long time the advantage of enlisting +in her service the best wits of Southern England, of the wide district +dominated by the Provencal dialects, and of no small part of Germany and +of Northern Italy. But these countries took far more than they gave: the +Chansons de Gestes were absorbed by Italy, the Arthurian Romances by +Germany; the Fabliaux crossed the Alps to assume a prose dress in the +Southern tongue; the mysteries and miracles made their way to every +corner of Europe to be copied and developed. To the origination of the +most successful of all artificial forms of poetry--the sonnet--France +has indeed no claim, but this is almost a solitary instance. The three +universally popular books (to use the word loosely) of profane +literature in the middle ages, the epic of Arthur, the satire of Reynard +the Fox, the allegorical romance of the Rose, are of French origin. In +importance as in bulk no literature of these four centuries could dare +to vie with French. + +This astonishing vigour of imaginative writing was however accompanied +by a corresponding backwardness in the application of the vernacular to +the use of the exacter and more serious departments of letters. Before +Comines, the French chronicle was little more than gossip, though it was +often the gossip of genius. No philosophical, theological, ethical, or +political work deserving account was written in French prose before the +beginning of the sixteenth century. The very language remained utterly +unfitted for any such use. Its vocabulary, though enormously rich in +mere volume, was destitute of terms of the subtlety and precision +necessary for serious prose; its syntax was hardly equal to anything but +a certain loose and flowing narration, which, when turned into the +channel of argument, became either bald or prolix. The universal use of +Latin for graver purposes had stunted and disabled it. At the same time +great changes passed over the language itself. In the fourteenth century +it lost with its inflections not a little of its picturesqueness, and +had as yet hit upon no means of supplying the want. The loose +orthography of the middle ages had culminated in a fantastic redundance +of consonants which was reproduced in the earliest printed books. This, +as readers of Rabelais are aware, was an admirable assistance to +grotesque effect, but it was fatal to elegance or dignity except in the +omnipotent hands of a master like Rabelais himself. In the fifteenth +century, moreover, the stereotyped forms of poetry were losing their +freshness and grace while retaining their stately precision. The faculty +of sustained verse narrative had fled the country, only to return at +very long intervals and in very few cases. The natural and almost +childish outspokenness of early times had brought about in all +departments of comic literature a revolting coarseness of speech. The +farce and the prose tale almost outdo the more naif _fabliau_ in this. +Nothing like a critical spirit had yet manifested itself in matters +literary, unless the universal following of a few accepted models may be +called criticism. The very motives of the mediaeval literature, its +unquestioning faith, its sense of a narrow circle of knowledge +surrounded by a vast unknown, its acceptance of classes and orders in +church and state (tempered as this acceptance had been by the sharpest +satire on particulars but by hardly any argument on general points), +were losing their force. Everything was ready for a renaissance, and the +next book will show how the Renaissance came and what it did. + + + + +BOOK II. + +THE RENAISSANCE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +VILLON, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + +[Sidenote: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance.] + +[Sidenote: Characteristics of Fifteenth-century Literature.] + +To determine at what period exactly mediaeval literature ceases in +France and modern literature begins, is not one of the easiest problems +of literary history. It has sometimes been solved by the obvious +expedient of making out of the fifteenth century a period of transition, +sometimes by continuing the classification of 'mediaeval' until the time +when Marot and Rabelais gave unmistakeable evidence of the presence and +working of the modern spirit. Perhaps, however, there may, after all, +have been something in the instinct which, in words clumsily enough +chosen, made Boileau date modern French poetry from Villon[153], and +there can hardly be any doubt that, as far as spirit if not form goes, +modern French prose dates from Comines. These two contemporary authors, +moreover, have in them the characteristic which perhaps more than any +other distinguishes modern from mediaeval literature, the predominance +of the personal element. In their works, especially if Villon be taken +with the immediately preceding and partially contemporary Charles +d'Orleans, a difference of the most striking kind is noticeable at once. +It is not that the prince who served the god Nonchaloir so piously is +deficient in personal characteristics or personal attractiveness, but +that his personality is still, so to speak, generic rather than +individual. He is still the Trouvere of the nobler class, dallying with +half-imaginary woes in the forms consecrated by tradition to the record +of them. Not so the vagabond whose words after four centuries appeal +directly to the spirit of the modern reader. That reader is cut off from +Charles d'Orleans' world by a gulf across which he can only project +himself by a great effort of study or of sympathetic determination. The +barriers which separate him from Villon are slight enough, consisting +mostly of trifling changes in language and manners which a little +exertion easily overcomes. + +The latter portion of the fifteenth century, or, to speak more +correctly, its last two-thirds, have frequently been described as a +'dead season' in French literature. The description is not wholly just. +Even if, according to the plan just explained, we throw Charles +d'Orleans and Antoine de la Salle, two names of great importance, back +into the mediaeval period, and if we allow most of the chroniclers who +preceded Comines to accompany them, there are still left, before the +reign of Francis the First witnessed the definite blooming of the +Renaissance in France, the two names of consummate importance which +stand at the head of this chapter, a few minor writers of interest such +as Coquillart, Baude, Martial d'Auvergne, an interesting group of +literary or at least oratorical ecclesiastics, and a much larger and, +from a literary point of view, more important group of elaborate +versifiers, the so-called _grands rhetoriqueurs_ who preceded the +Pleiade in endeavouring to Latinise the French tongue, and whose stiff +verse produced by a natural rebound the easy grace of Clement Marot. +Each of these persons and groups will demand some notice, and the +mention of them will bring us to the Renaissance of which the subjects +of this chapter were the forerunners. + +[Sidenote: Villon.] + +Francois Villon[154], or Corbueil, or Corbier, or de Montcorbier, or des +Loges, was certainly born at Paris in the year 1431. Of the date of his +death nothing certain is known, some authorities extending his life +towards the close of the century in order to adjust Rabelais' anecdotes +of him[155], others supposing him to have died before the publication of +the first edition of his works in 1489. That Villon was not his +patronymic, whichsoever of his numerous aliases may really deserve that +distinction, is certain. He was a citizen of Paris and a member of the +university, having the status of _clerc_. But his youth was occupied in +other matters than study. In 1455 he killed, apparently in self-defence, +a priest named Philip Sermaise, fled from Paris, was condemned to +banishment in default of appearance, and six months afterwards received +letters of pardon. In 1456 a faithless mistress, Catherine de +Vausselles, drew him into a second affray, in which he had the worst, +and again he fled from Paris. During his absence a burglary committed in +the capital put the police on the track of a gang of young +good-for-nothings among whom Villon's name figured, and he was arrested, +tried, tortured, and condemned to death. On appeal, however, the +sentence was commuted to banishment. Four years after he was in prison +at Meung, consigned thither by the Bishop of Orleans, but the king, +Louis the Eleventh, set him free. Thenceforward nothing certain is known +of him. He had at one time relations with Charles d'Orleans. Such are +the bare facts of his singular life, to which the peculiar character of +his work has directed perhaps disproportionate attention. This work +consists of a poem in forty stanzas of eight octosyllabic lines (each +rhymed a, b, a, b, b, c, b, c) called the _Petit Testament_[156]; of a +poem in 173 similar stanzas called the _Grand Testament_, in which about +a score of minor pieces, chiefly ballades or rondeaux, are inserted; of +a _Codicil_ composed mainly of ballades; of a few separate pieces, and +of some ballades in _argot_, collectively called _Le Jargon_. Besides +these there are doubtful pieces, including a curious work called _Les +Repues Franches_, which describes in octaves like those of the +Testaments the swindling tricks of Villon and his companions, an +excellent Dialogue between two characters, the Seigneurs de Mallepaye +and Baillevent, and a still better Monologue entitled _Le Franc Archier +de Bagnolet_. The Little Testament was written after the affair with +Catherine de Vausselles, the Great Testament after his liberation from +the Bishop's Prison at Meung. Many of the minor poems contain allusions +which enable us to fix them to various events in the poet's life. The +first edition of his works was, as has been said, published in 1489. In +1533 he had the honour of having Marot for editor, and up to the date of +the Bibliophile Jacob's edition of 1854 (since when there have been +several editions), the number had reached thirty-two. + +The characteristics of Villon may be looked at either technically or +from the point of view of the matter of his work. He had an +extraordinary mastery of the most artificial forms of poetry which have +ever been employed. The rondel, which Charles d'Orleans wrote with so +much grace, he did not use, but his rondeaux are generally exquisite. +The ballade, however, was his special province. No writer has ever got +the full virtue out of the recurrent rhymes and refrains, which are the +special characteristics of the form, as Villon has. No one has infused +into a mere string of names, such as his famous _Ballade des Dames du +Temps Jadis_ and others, such exquisitely poetical effects by dint of an +epithet here and there and of a touching burden. But the matter of his +verse is in many ways perfectly on a level with its manner. No one +excels him in startling directness of phrase, in simple but infinite +pathos of expression. Of the former, the sudden cry of the Belle +Heaulmiere after the recital of her former triumphs-- + + Que m'en reste-t-il? honte et peche; + +and the despairing conclusion of the lover of La Grosse Margot-- + + Je suis paillard, paillardise me suit-- + +are examples in point; of the latter the line in the rondeau to Death-- + + Deux etions et n'avions qu'un coeur. + +No one has bolder strokes of the picturesque, as for instance-- + + De Constantinoble + L'emperier aux poings dores; + +and no one can render the sombre horror of a scene better than Villon +has rendered it in the famous epitaph of the gibbeted corpses-- + + La pluie nous a debues et laves, + Et le soleil desseches et noircis, + Pies, corbeaulx nous out les yeux caves + Et arraches la barbe et les sourcils. + +These are some of Villon's strongest points. Yet in his comparatively +limited work--limited in point of bulk and peculiar in style and +subject--he has contrived to show perhaps more general poetical power +than any other writer who has left so small a total of verse. The note +of his song is always true and always sweet; and despite the intensely +allusive character of most of it, and the necessary loss of the key to +many of the allusions, it has in consequence continued popular through +all changes of language and manners. Of very few French poets can it be +said as of Villon that their charm is immediate and universal, and the +reason of this is that his work is full of touches of nature which are +universally perceived, as well as distinguished by consummate art of +expression. In the great literature which we are discussing, the latter +characteristic is almost universally present, the former not so +constantly. + +[Sidenote: Comines.] + +The literary excellence of Comines[157] is of a very different kind from +that of Villon, but he represents the changed attitude of the modern +spirit towards practical affairs almost as strongly as Villon does the +change in its relations to art and sentiment. Philippe de Comines was +born, not at the chateau of the same name which was then in the +possession of his uncle, but at Renescure, not very far from Hazebrouck. +His family name was Vandenclyte, and his ancestors (Flemings, as their +name implies) had been citizens of Ghent before they acquired seignorial +position and rank. The education of Comines was neglected (he never +possessed any knowledge of Latin), and his heritage was heavily +encumbered. He was born before 1447, and entered the service of Philip +of Burgundy and of his son Charles of Charolais, the future Charles le +Temeraire. Comines was present at Montlhery and at the siege of Liege, +while he played a considerable part in the celebrated affair of +Peronne, when Louis XI. was in such danger. Before 1471 he had been +charged with several important negotiations by Charles, now duke, in +France, England, and Spain. But, either personally disobliged by +Charles, or, as seems most likely from the Memoirs, presaging with the +keen, unscrupulous intelligence of the time the downfall of the headlong +prince, he quitted Burgundy and its master in 1472 and entered the +service of Louis, from whom he had already accepted a pension. He was +richly rewarded, married an heiress in Poitou, and at one time enjoyed +the forfeited fief of Talmont, a domain of the first importance, which +he afterwards had to restore to its rightful owners, the La Tremouilles. +The accession of Charles VIII. was not favourable to him, and, having +taken part against the Lady of Beaujeu, he was imprisoned and deprived +of Talmont. But with his usual sagacity, he had in the Duke of Orleans, +afterwards Louis XII., chosen the representative of the side destined to +win in the long run. The Italian wars gave scope to his powers. He was +sent to Venice, was present at the battle of Fornovo, and met +Machiavelli at Florence. In the reign of Louis XII. he received new +places and pensions, and he died in 1511 aged at least sixty-four. + +Comines is not a master of style, though at times the weight of his +thought and the simplicity of his expression combine to produce an +effect not unhappy. He has odd peculiarities of diction, especially +inversions of phrase and sudden apostrophes which enliven an otherwise +rather awkward manner of writing. Thus, in describing the bad education +of the young nobles of his time, he says, 'de nulles lettres ils n'ont +connaissance. Un seul sage homme on ne leur met a l'entour.' And in his +account of the operations before the battle of Morat he says, 'Il (the +Duke of Burgundy) sejourna a Losanne en Savoie ou vous monseigneur de +Vienne le servites d'un bon conseil en une grande maladie qu'il eut de +douleur et de tristesse.' On the whole, however, no one would think of +reading Comines for the merit, or even the quaintness of his style, nor +can he be commended as a vivid, even if an inelegant describer. The +gallant shows which excited the imaginations of his predecessors, the +mediaeval chroniclers from Villehardouin to Froissart, find in him a +clumsy annalist and a not too careful observer. His interest is +concentrated exclusively on the turns of fortune, the successes of +statecraft, and the lessons of conduct to be noticed in or extracted +from the business in hand. With this purpose he is perpetually +digressing. The affairs of one country remind him of something that has +happened in another, and he stops to give an account of this. To a +certain extent the mediaeval influence is still strong on Comines, +though it shows itself in connection with evidences of the modern +spirit. He is religious to a degree which might be called ostentatious +if it were not pretty evidently sincere; and this religiosity is shown +side by side with the exhibition of a typically unscrupulous and +non-moral, if not positively immoral, statecraft. Again, his reflexions, +though usually lacking neither in acuteness nor in depth, are often +appended to a commonplace on the mutability of fortune, the error of +anger, the necessity of adapting means to ends, and so forth. Everywhere +in Comines is evident, however, the anti-feudal and therefore +anti-mediaeval conception of a centralised government instead of a loose +assemblage of powerful vassals. The favourite mediaeval ideal, of which +Saint Simon was perhaps the last sincere champion, finds no defence in +Comines; and it seems only just to allow him, in his desertion of the +Duke of Burgundy, some credit for drawing from the anarchy of the Bien +Public, and from his observations of Germany, England, and Spain, the +conclusion that France must be united, and that union was only possible +for her under a king unhampered by largely appanaged and only nominally +dependent princes. It should be said that the Memoires of Comines are +not a continuous history. The first six books deal with the reign of +Louis XI. from 1465 to 1483. But the seventh is busied with Charles the +Eighth's Italian wars only, the author having passed over the period of +his own disgrace. Besides the Memoirs we possess a collection of +_Lettres et Negotiations_.[158] + +[Sidenote: Coquillart.] + +There are three persons who, while of very much less importance than +those just introduced to the reader, deserve a mention in passing as +characteristic and at the same time meritorious writers, during the +second and third quarters of the fifteenth century, the extreme verge of +which the life of all three appears to have touched. These are +Guillaume Coquillart, Henri Baude, and Martial d'Auvergne. All three +were poets, all three have been somewhat over-praised by the scholars +who in days more or less recent have drawn them from their obscurity, +but all three made creditable head against what was mistaken and absurd +in the literary fashions of the time. In the writings of all of them +moreover there is to be found something, if not much, which is +positively good, and which deserves the attention, hardly perhaps of the +general reader, but of students of literature. Coquillart[159] was a +native, and for great part of his life an inhabitant, of Rheims. The +extreme dates given for his birth and death are 1421 and 1510, but there +is in reality, as is usual in the case of all men of letters before the +sixteenth century, very little solid authority for his biography. It may +be mentioned that Marot declares him to have cut short his life by +gaming. A life can hardly be said to be cut short at ninety, nor is that +an age at which gaming is a frequent ruling passion. All that can be +said is that he was certainly, as we should now say, in the civil +service of the province of Champagne during the reign of Louis XI., that +like many other men of the time he united ecclesiastical with legal +functions, being not only a town-councillor but a canon, and that he has +left satirical works of some merit and importance. These last alone +concern us much. His chief production is a poem entitled _Les Droits +Nouveaux_, in octosyllabic verses, not arranged in stanzas of definite +length, but, on the other hand, interlacing the rhymes, and not in +couplets after the older fashion. The plan of this poem is by no means +easy to describe. It is partly a social satire, partly a professional +lampoon on the current methods of learning and teaching law, partly a +political diatribe on the alterations introduced into provincial and +national life and polity under Louis XI. Not very different in character +and exactly similar in form, except that it is arranged as the age would +have said _par personnages_, that is to say semi-dramatically, is the +_Plaidoyer de la Simple et de la Rusee_. The _Blason des Armes et des +Dames_ takes up a mediaeval theme in a mediaeval style. The _procureurs_ +(advocates) of arms and of ladies endeavour to show each that his +client--war or love--deserves the chief attention of a prince. Here, as +elsewhere with Coquillart, though of course more covertly, satire +dominates. But the best of the pieces attributed to Coquillart are his +monologues. There are three of these, the _Monologue Coquillart_, the +_Monologue du Puys_, and the _Monologue du Gendarme Casse_. This last is +a ferocious satire on its subject, coarse in language, like most of the +author's poems, but full of rude vigour. The professional soldier as +distinguished from the feudal militia or the train-bands of the towns +was odious to the later middle ages. + +[Sidenote: Baude.] + +Henri Baude[160] is a still less substantial figure. He seems to have +been an _elu_ (member of a provincial board) for the province of +Limousin, but to have lived mostly at Paris. He was born at Moulins +towards the beginning of the second quarter of the century, and formed +part of the poetical circle of Charles d'Orleans in his old age. He had +troubles with lawless seigneurs and with the police of Paris; he finally +succeeded in obtaining the protection of the Duke of Bourbon, and he did +not die till the end of the century. Only a selection from his poems has +yet been published. The chief thing remarkable about them (they are +mostly occasional and of no great length) is the plainness, the +directness, and, in not a few cases, the elegance of the diction, which +differs remarkably from the cumbrous phrases and obscure allusive +conceits of the time. Many of them are personal appeals for protection +and assistance, others are satirical. Baude had a peculiar mastery of +the rondeau form. His rondeau to the king, expressing a sentiment often +uttered by lackpenny bards in the days of patrons, is a good example of +his style, though it is hardly as simple and devoid of obscurity as +usual. + +[Sidenote: Martial d'Auvergne.] + +Martial d'Auvergne[161], or Martial de Paris (for by an odd chance both +of these local surnames are given him, probably from the fact that, like +Baude, he was a native of the centre of France and spent his life in +the capital), like Coquillart and Baude, was something of a lawyer by +profession, and has left work in prose as well as in verse. He certainly +died in 1508, and, as he is spoken of as _senio confectus_, he cannot +have been born much later than 1420, especially as his poem, the +_Vigilles de Charles VII._, was written on the death of that prince in +1461. This poem is of considerable extent, and is divided into nine +'Psalms' and nine 'Lessons.' The staple metre is the quatrain, but +detached pieces in other measures occur. A complete history of the +subject is given, and in some of the digressions there are charming +passages, notably one (given by M. de Montaiglon) on the country life. +Another very beautiful poem, commonly attributed to Martial, is entitled +_L'Amant rendu Cordelier au service de l'Amour_, a piece of amorous +allegory at once characteristic of the later middle ages, and free from +the faults usually found in such work. A prose work of a somewhat +similar kind, entitled _Arrets d'Amour_, is known to be Martial's. In no +writer is there to be found more of the better part of Marot, as in the +light skipping verses:-- + + Mieux vault la liesse, + L'accueil et l'addresse, + L'amour et simplesse, + De bergers pasteurs, + Qu'avoir a largesse + Or, argent, richesse, + Ne la gentillesse + De ces grants seigneurs. + + Car ils ont douleurs + Et des maulx greigneurs, + Mais pour nos labeurs + Nous avons sans cesse + Les beaulx pres et fleurs, + Fruitages, odeurs + Et joye a nos coeurs + Sans mal qui nous blesse. + +There is something of the old _pastourelles_ in this, and of a note of +simplicity which French poetry had long lost. + +[Sidenote: The Rhetoriqueurs.] + +Such verse as this of Martial d'Auvergne was, indeed, the exception at +the time. The staple poetry of the age was that of the _grands +rhetoriqueurs_, as it has become usual to call them, apparently from a +phrase of Coquillart's. Georges Chastellain[162] was the great master of +this school. But to him personally some injustice has been done. His +pupils and successors, however, for the most part deserve the ill repute +in which they are held. This school of poetry had three principal +characteristics. It affected the most artificial forms of the artificial +poetry which the fourteenth century had seen established, the most +complicated modulations of rhyme, such as the repetition, twice or even +thrice at the end of a line, of the same sound in a different sense, and +all the other puerilities of this particular Ars Poetica. Secondly, it +pursued to the very utmost the tradition of allegorising, of which the +_Roman de la Rose_ had established the popularity. Thirdly, it followed +the example set by Chartier and his contemporaries of loading the +language as much as possible with Latinisms, and in a less degree, +because Greek was then but indirectly known, Graecisms. These three +things taken together produced some of the most intolerable poetry ever +written. The school had, indeed, much vitality in it, and overlapped the +beginnings of the Renaissance in such a manner that it will be necessary +to take note of it again in the next chapter. Some, however, of its +greatest lights belonged to the present period. Such were Robertet, a +heavy versifier and the author of letters not easily to be excelled in +pedantic coxcombry, who enjoyed much patronage, royal and other; +Molinet, a direct disciple of Chastellain, and, like him, of the +Burgundian party; and Meschinot (died 1509), a Breton, who has left us +an allegorical work on the 'Spectacles of Princes,' and poems which can +be read in thirty different ways, any word being as good to begin with +as any other. Such also was the father of a better poet than himself, +Octavien de Saint Gelais (1466-1502), who died young and worn out by +debauchery. Jean Marot, the father of Clement, was a not inconsiderable +master of the ballade, and has left poems which do not show to great +disadvantage by the side of those of his accomplished son. But the +leader of the whole was Guillaume Cretin (birth and death dates +uncertain), whom his contemporaries extolled in the most extravagant +fashion, and whom a single satirical stroke of Rabelais has made a +laughing-stock for some three hundred and fifty years. The rondeau +ascribed to Raminagrobis, the 'vieux poete francais' of +_Pantagruel_[163], is Cretin's, and the name and character have stuck. +Cretin was not worse than his fellows; but when even such a man as Marot +could call him a _poete souverain_, Rabelais no doubt felt it time to +protest in his own way. Marot himself, it is to be observed, confines +himself chiefly to citing Cretin's _vers equivoques_, which of their +kind, and if we could do otherwise than pronounce that kind hopelessly +bad, are without doubt ingenious. His poems are chiefly occasional +verse, letters, _debats_, etc., besides ballades and rondeaux of all +kinds. + +[Sidenote: Chansons du XV'eme Siecle.] + +One charming book which has been preserved to us gives a pleasant +contrast to the formal poetry of the time. The _Chansons du XV'eme +Siecle_, which M. Gaston Paris has published for the Old French Text +Society[164], exhibit informal and popular poetry in its most agreeable +aspect. They are one hundred and forty-three in number, some of them no +doubt much older than the fifteenth century, but certainly none of them +younger. There are _pastourelles_, war-songs, love-songs in great +number, a few patriotic ditties, and a few which may be called pure +folksongs, with the story half lost and only a musical tangle of words +remaining. Nothing can be more natural and simple than most of these +pieces. + +[Sidenote: Preachers.] + +Few of the miscellaneous branches of literature at this time deserve +notice. But there was a group of preachers who have received attention, +which is said by students of the whole subject of the mediaeval pulpit +in France to be disproportionate, but which they owe perhaps not least +to the citations of them in a celebrated and amusing book of the next +age, the _Apologie pour Herodote_ of Henri Estienne. These are Menot +(1440-1518) and Maillard the Franciscans, and Raulin (1443-1514), a +doctor of the Sorbonne. These preachers, living at a time which was not +one of popular sovereignty, did not meddle with politics as preachers +had done in France before and were to do again. But they carried into +the pulpit the habit of satirical denunciation in social as well as in +purely religious matters, and gave free vent to their zeal. No +illustrations of the singular licence which the middle ages permitted on +such occasions are more curious than these sermons. Not merely did the +preachers attack their audience for their faults in the most outspoken +manner, but they interspersed their discourses (as indeed was the +invariable custom throughout the whole middle ages) with stories of all +kinds. In Raulin, the gravest of the three, occurs the famous history of +the church bells, which reappears in Rabelais, _a propos_ of the +marriage of Panurge. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[153] + + Villon sut le premier, dans ces siecles grossiers, + Debrouiller l'art confus de nos vieux romanciers. + + _Art Poet._ Ch. 1. + +[154] Ed. P. L. Jacob. Paris, 1854. Villon's life has been the subject +of numerous elaborate investigations, the latest and best of which is +that of A. Longnon. Paris, 1877. Dr. Bijvanck, a Dutch scholar, has +dealt since with the MSS. + +[155] One of these anecdotes makes him patronised by Edward the _Fifth_ +of England. But the very terms of it are unsuitable to that king. + +[156] The reader may be reminded that the _Testament_ was a recognised +mediaeval style. It was satirical and allegorical, the legacies which it +gave being mostly indicative of the legatee's weaknesses or personal +peculiarities. + +[157] Ed. Chantelauze. Paris, 1881. Also usefully in Michaud et +Poujoulat. + +[158] Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 2 vols. Brussels, 1867-8. + +[159] Ed. Hericault. 2 vols. Paris, 1857. + +[160] Edited in part by J. Quicherat. Paris, 1856. + +[161] Martial d'Auvergne had the exceptional good luck to be reprinted +in the 18th century (_Vigilles_ 1724, _Arrets_ 1731), but he has not +recently found an editor, though an edition of the _Amant rendu +Cordelier_ has been for some time due from the Societe des Anciens +Textes. The notice by M. de Montaiglon (the promised editor of the +edition just mentioned) in Crepet's _Poetes Francais_, i. 427, has been +chiefly used here for facts. + +[162] Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, as previously cited. For the remainder +of the poets reviewed in this paragraph, few of whom have found modern +editors, see Crepet, _Poetes Francais_, vol. i. + +[163] iii. 21. + +[164] Paris, 1876. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MAROT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. + + +[Sidenote: Hybrid School of Poetry.] + +The beginnings of the Renaissance in France manifest, as we should +expect, a mixture of the characteristics of the later middle ages and of +the new learning. In those times the influence of reforms of any kind +filtered slowly through the dense crust of custom which covered the +national life of each people, and there is nothing surprising in the +fact that while Italy felt the full influence of the influx of classical +culture in the fifteenth century, that influence should be only +partially manifest in France during the first quarter of the sixteenth, +while it was not until the century was more than half over that it +showed itself in England. The complete manifestation of the combined +tendencies of mediaeval and neo-pagan thought was only displayed in +Shakespeare, but by that time, as is the wont of all such things, it had +already manifested itself partially, though in each part more fully and +characteristically, elsewhere. It is in the literature of France that we +find the most complete exposition of these partial developments. Marot, +Ronsard, Rabelais, Calvin, Garnier, Montaigne, will not altogether make +up a Shakespeare, yet of the various ingredients which go to make up the +greatest of literary productions each of them had shown, before +Shakespeare began to write, some complete and remarkable embodiment. It +is this fact which gives the French literature of the sixteenth century +its especial interest. Italy had almost ceased to be animated by the +genius of the middle ages before her literature became in any way +perfect in form, and the survival of the classical spirit was so strong +there that mediaeval influence was never very potent in the moulding of +the national letters. England had lost the mediaeval differentia, owing +to religious and political causes, before the Renaissance made its way +to her shores. But in France the two currents met, though the earlier +had lost most of its force, and, according to the time-honoured +parallel, flowed on long together before they coalesced. In the +following chapters we shall trace the history of this process, and here +we shall trace the first stage of it in reference to French poetry. In +the period of which Marot is the representative name, the earlier force +was still dominant in externals; in that of which Ronsard is the +exponent, the Greek and Latin element shows itself as, for the moment, +all-powerful. + +[Sidenote: Jean le Maire.] + +[Sidenote: Jehan du Pontalais.] + +Between the _rhetoriqueurs_ proper, the Chastellains and the Cretins and +the Molinets on the one hand, and Marot and his contemporaries and +disciples on the other, a school of poets, considerable at least in +numbers, intervened. The chief of these was Jean le Maire des +Belges[165]. He was the nephew of Molinet, and his birth at Belges or +Bavia in Hainault, as well as his literary ancestry and predilections, +inclined him to the Burgundian, or, as it was now, the Austrian side. +But the strong national feeling which was now beginning to distinguish +French-speaking men threw him on the side of the King of Paris, and he +was chiefly occupied in his serious literary work on tasks which were +wholly French. His _Illustrations des Gaules_ is his principal prose +work, and in this he displays a remarkable faculty of writing prose at +once picturesque and correct. The titles of his other works (_Temple +d'Honneur et de Vertu_, etc.) still recall the fifteenth century, and +the Latinising tradition of Chartier appears strong in him. But at the +same time he Latinises with a due regard to the genius of the language, +and his work, pedantic and conceited as it frequently is, stands in +singular contrast to the work of some of his models. Something not +dissimilar, though in this case the _rhetoriqueur_ influence is less +apparent, may be said of Pierre Gringore, whose true title to a place in +a history of French literature is, however, derived from his dramatic +work, and who will accordingly be mentioned later. Nor had the tradition +of Villon, overlaid though it was by the abundance and popularity of +formal and allegorising poetry, died out in France. At least two +remarkable figures, Jehan du Pontalais and Roger de Collerye, represent +it in the first quarter of the century. The former indeed[166] owes his +place here rather to a theory than to certain information; for if M. +d'Hericault's notion that Jehan du Pontalais is the author of a work +entitled _Contreditz du Songecreux_ be without foundation, Jehan falls +back into the number of half mythical Bohemians, bilkers of tavern bills +and successful out-witters of the officers of justice, who possess a +shadowy personality in the literary history of France. _Les Contreditz +du Songecreux_ ranks among the most remarkable examples of the liberty +which was accorded to the press under the reign of Louis XII., a king +who inherited some affection for literature from his father, Charles +d'Orleans, and a keen perception of the importance of literary +co-operation in political work from his ancestor, Philippe le Bel, and +his cousin Louis XI. In precision and strikingness of expression Jehan +recalls Villon; in the boldness of his satire on the great and the +bitterness of his attacks on the character of women he recalls Antoine +de la Salle and Coquillart. A trait illustrating the former power may be +found in the line descriptive of the hen-pecked man's condition-- + + Tous ses cinq sens lui fault retraire. + +while his attacks on the nobility are almost up to the level of Burns-- + + Noblesse enrichie Richesse ennoblie Tiennent leurs estatz, + Qui n'a noble vie Je vous certifie Noble n'est pas. + +[Sidenote: Roger de Collerye.] + +[Sidenote: Minor Predecessors of Marot.] + +Roger de Collerye[167] was a Burgundian, living at the famous and vinous +town of Auxerre, and he has celebrated his loves, his distress, his +amiable tendency to conviviality, in many rondeaux and other poems, +sometimes attaining a very high level of excellence. 'Je suis +Bon-temps, vous le voyez' is the second line of one of his irregular +ballades, and the nickname expresses his general attitude well enough. +Mediaeval legacies of allegory, however, supply him with more unpleasant +personages, Faute d'Argent and Plate-Bourse, for his song, and his +mistress, Gilleberte de Beaurepaire, appears to have been anything but +continuously kind. Collerye has less perhaps of the _rhetoriqueur_ +flavour than any poet of this time before Marot, and his verse is very +frequently remarkable for directness and grace of diction. But like most +verse of the kind it frequently drops into a conventionality less +wearisome but not much less definite than that of the mere allegorisers. +Jehan Bouchet[168], a lawyer of Poitiers (not to be confounded with +Guillaume Bouchet, author of the _Serees_), imitated the _rhetoriqueurs_ +for the most part in form, and surpassed them in length, excelling +indeed in this respect even the long-winded and long-lived poets of the +close of the fourteenth century. Bouchet is said to have composed a +hundred thousand verses, and even M. d'Hericault avers that he read +two-thirds of the number without discovering more than six quotable +lines. Such works of Bouchet as we have examined fully confirm the +statement. Still, he was an authority in his way, and had something of a +reputation. His fanciful _nom de plume_ 'Le Traverseur des Voies +Perilleuses' is the most picturesque thing he produced, and is not +uncharacteristic of the later middle age tradition. Rabelais himself, +who was a fair critic of poetry when his friends were not concerned, but +who was no poet, and was even strikingly deficient in some of the +characteristics of the poet, admired and emulated Bouchet in heavy +verse; and a numerously attended school, hardly any of the pupils being +worth individual mention, gathered round the lawyer. Charles de Bordigne +is only remarkable for having, in his _Legende de Pierre Faifeu_, united +the _rhetoriqueur_ style with a kind of Villonesque or rather +pseudo-Villonesque subject. The title of the chief poems of Symphorien +Champier, _Le Nef des Dames Amoureuses_, sufficiently indicates his +style. But Champier, though by no means a good poet, was a useful and +studious man of letters, and did much to form the literary _cenacle_ +which gathered at Lyons in the second quarter of the century, and which, +both in original composition, in translations of the classics, and in +scholarly publication of work both ancient and modern, rendered +invaluable service to literature. Gratien du Pont[169] continued the now +very stale mediaeval calumnies on women in his _Controverses des Sexes +Masculin et Feminin_. Eloy d'Amerval, a Picard priest, also fell into +mediaeval lines in his _Livre de la Deablerie_, in which the personages +of Lucifer and Satan are made the mouthpieces of much social satire. +Jean Parmentier, a sailor and a poet, combined his two professions in +_Les Merveilles de Dieu_, a poem including some powerful verse. A +vigorous ballade, with the refrain _Car France est Cymetiereaux +Anglois_, has preserved the name of Pierre Vachot. But the remaining +poets of this time could only find a place in a very extended literary +history. Most of them, in the words of one of their number, took +continual lessons _es oeuvres Cretiniques et Bouchetiques_, and some +of them succeeded at last in imitating the dulness of Bouchet and the +preposterous mannerisms of Cretin. Perhaps no equal period in all early +French history produced more and at the same time worse verse than the +reign of Louis XII. Fortunately, however, a true poet, if one of some +limitations, took up the tradition, and showed what it could do. Marot +has sometimes been regarded as the father of modern French poetry, +which, unless modern French poetry is limited to La Fontaine and the +poets of the eighteenth century, is absolutely false. He is sometimes +regarded as the last of mediaeval poets, which, though truer, is false +likewise. What he really was can be shown without much difficulty. + +[Sidenote: Clement Marot.] + +Clement Marot[170] was a man of more mixed race than was usual at this +period, when the provincial distinctions were still as a rule maintained +with some sharpness. His father, Jean Marot, a poet of merit, was a +Norman, but he emigrated to Quercy, and Marot's mother was a native of +Cahors, a town which, from its Papal connections, as well as its +situation on the borders of Gascony, was specially southern. Clement was +born probably at the beginning of 1497, and his father educated him with +some pains in things poetical. This, as times went, necessitated an +admiration of Cretin and such like persons, and the practice of +rondeaux, and of other poetry strict in form and allegorical in matter. +As it happened, the discipline was a very sound one for Marot, whose +natural bent was far too vigorous and too lithe to be stiffened or +stunted by it, while it unquestionably supplied wholesome limitations +which preserved him from mere slovenly facility. It is evident, too, +that he had a sincere and genuine love of things mediaeval, as his +devotion to the _Roman de la Rose_ and to Villon's poems, both of which +he edited, sufficiently shows. He 'came into France,' an expression of +his own, which shows the fragmentary condition of the kingdom even at +this late period, when he was about ten years old. His father held an +appointment as 'Escripvain' to Anne of Brittany, and accompanied her +husband to Genoa in 1507. The University of Paris, and a short sojourn +among the students of law, completed Clement's education, and he then +became a page to a nobleman, thus obtaining a position at court or, at +least, the chance of one. It is not known when his earliest attempt at +following the Cretinic lessons was composed; but in 1514, being then but +a stripling, he presented his _Jugement de Minos_ to Francois de Valois, +soon to be king. A translation of the first Eclogue of Virgil had even +preceded this. Both poems are well written and versified, but decidedly +in the _rhetoriqueur_ style. In 1519, having already received or assumed +the title of 'Facteur' (poet) to Queen Claude, he became one of the +special adherents of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the famous sister of +Francis, from whom, a few years later, we find him in receipt of a +pension. He also occupied some post in the household of her husband, the +King of Navarre. In 1524 he went to Italy with Francis, was wounded and +taken prisoner at Pavia, but returned to France the next year. +Marguerite's immediate followers were distinguished, some by their +adherence to the principles of the Reformation, others by free thought +of a still more unorthodox description, and Marot soon after his return +was accused of heresy and lodged in the Chatelet. He was, however, soon +transferred to a place of mitigated restraint, and finally set at +liberty. About this time his father died. In 1528 he obtained a post and +a pension in the King's own household. He was again in difficulties, but +again got out of them, and in 1530 he married. But the next year he was +once more in danger on the old charge of heresy, and was again rescued +from the _chats fourres_ by Marguerite. He had already edited the _Roman +de la Rose_, but no regular edition of his own work had appeared. In +1533 came out not merely his edition of Villon, but a collection of his +own youthful work under the pretty title _Adolescence Clementine_. In +1535 the Parliament of Paris for a fourth time molested Marot. +Marguerite's influence was now insufficient to protect him, and the poet +fled first to Bearn and then to Ferrara. Here, under the protection of +Renee de France, he lived and wrote for some time, but the persecution +again grew hot. He retired to Venice, but in 1539 obtained permission to +return to France. Francis gave him a house in the Faubourg Saint +Germain, and here apparently he wrote his famous Psalms, which had an +immense popularity; these the Sorbonne condemned, and Marot once more +fled, this time to Geneva. He found this place an uncomfortable sojourn, +and crossed the Alps into Piedmont, where, not long afterwards, he died +in 1544. + +Marot's work is sufficiently diverse in form, but the classification of +it adopted in the convenient edition of Jannet is perhaps the best, +though it neglects chronology. There are some dozen pieces of more or +less considerable length, among which may specially be mentioned _Le +Temple de Cupido_, an early work of _rhetoriqueur_ character for the +most part, in dizains of ten and eight syllables alternately, a Dialogue +of two Lovers, an Eclogue to the King; _L'Enfer_, a vigorous and +picturesque description of his imprisonment in the Chatelet, and some +poems bearing a strong Huguenot impression. Then come sixty-five +epistles written in couplets for the most part decasyllabic. These +include the celebrated _Coq-a-l'Ane_, a sort of nonsense-verse, with a +satirical tendency, which derives from the mediaeval _fatrasie_, and was +very popular and much imitated. Another mediaeval restoration of +Marot's, also very popular and also much imitated, was the _blason_, a +description, in octosyllables. Twenty-six elegies likewise adopt the +couplet, and show, as do the epistles, remarkable power over that form. +Fifteen ballades, twenty-two songs in various metres, eighty-two +rondeaux, and forty-two songs for music, contain much of Marot's most +beautiful work. His easy graceful style escaped the chief danger of +these artificial forms, the danger of stiffness and monotony; while he +was able to get out of them as much pathos and melody as any other +French poet, except Charles d'Orleans and Villon. Numerous _etrennes_ +recall the _Xenia_ of Martial, and funeral poems of various lengths and +styles follow. Then we have nearly three hundred epigrams, many of them +excellent in point and elegance, a certain number of translations, the +Psalms, fifty in number, certain prayers, and two versified renderings +of Erasmus' _Colloquies_. + +It will be seen from this enumeration that the majority of Marot's work +is what is now called occasional. No single work of his of a greater +length than a few hundred lines exists; and, after his first attempts in +the allegorical kind, almost all his works were either addressed to +particular persons, or based upon some event in his life. Marot was +immensely popular in his lifetime; and though after his death a +formidable rival arose in Ronsard, the elder poet's fame was sustained +by eager disciples. With the discredit of the Pleiade, in consequence of +Malherbe's criticisms, Marot's popularity returned in full measure, and +for two centuries he was the one French poet before the classical period +who was actually read and admired with genuine admiration by others +besides professed students of antiquity. Since the great revival of the +taste for older literature, which preceded and accompanied the Romantic +movement, Marot has scarcely held this pride of place. The Pleiade on +the one hand, the purely mediaeval writers on the other, have pushed him +from his stool. But sane criticism, which declines to depreciate one +thing because it appreciates another, will always have hearty admiration +for his urbanity, his genuine wit, his graceful turn of words; and his +flashes of pathos and poetry. + +It is, as has been said, one of the commonplaces of the subject to speak +of Marot as the father of modern French poetry; the phrase is, like all +such phrases, inaccurate, but, like most such phrases, it contains a +certain amount of truth. To the characteristics of the lighter French +poetry, from La Fontaine to Beranger, which has always been more popular +both at home and abroad than the more ambitious and serious efforts of +French poets, Marot does in some sort stand in a parental relation. He +retained the sprightliness and sly fun of the Fabliau-writers, while he +softened their crudity of expression, he exchanged clumsiness and +horse-play for the play of wit, and he emphasised fully in the language +the two characteristics which have never failed to distinguish it since, +elegance and urbanity. His style is somewhat pedestrian, though on +occasion he can write with exquisite tenderness, and with the most +delicate suggestiveness of expression. But as a rule he does not go +deep; ease and grace, not passion or lofty flights, are his strong +points. Representing, as he did, the reaction from the stiff forms and +clumsily classical language of the _rhetoriqueurs_, it was not likely +that he should exhibit the tendency of his own age to classical culture +and imitation very strongly. He and his school were thus regarded by +their immediate successors of the Pleiade as rustic and uncouth singers, +for the most part very unjustly. But still Marot's work was of less +general and far-reaching importance than that of Ronsard. He brought out +the best aspect of the older French literature, and cleared away some +disfiguring encumbrances from it, but he imported nothing new. It would +hardly be unjust to say that, given the difference of a century in point +of ordinary progress, Charles d'Orleans is Marot's equal in elegance and +grace, and his superior in sentiment, while Marot is not comparable to +Villon in passion or in humour. His limitation, and at the same time his +great merit, was that he was a typical Frenchman. A famous epigram, +applied to another person two centuries later, might be applied with +very little difficulty or alteration to Marot. He had more than anybody +else of his time the literary characteristics which the ordinary +literary Frenchman has. We constantly meet in the history of literature +this contrast between the men who are simply shining examples of the +ordinary type, and men who cross and blend that type with new +characters and excellences. Unquestionably the latter are the greater, +but the former cannot on any equitable scheme miss their reward. It must +be added that the positive merit of much of Marot's work is great, +though, as a rule, his longer pieces are very inferior to his shorter. +Many of the epigrams are admirable; the Psalms, which have been unjustly +depreciated of late years by French critics, have a sober and solemn +music, which is almost peculiar to the French devotional poetry of that +age; the satirical ballade of _Frere Lubin_ is among the very best +things of its kind; while as much may be said of the rondeaux 'Dedans +Paris' in the lighter style, and 'En la Baisant' in the graver. Perhaps +the famous line-- + + Un doux nenny avec un doux sourire, + +supposed to have been addressed to the Queen of Navarre, expresses +Marot's poetical powers as well as anything else, showing as it does +grace of language, tender and elegant sentiment, and suppleness, ease, +and fluency of style. + +[Sidenote: The School of Marot.] + +Marot formed a very considerable school, some of whom directly imitated +his mannerisms, and composed _blasons_[171] and _Coq-a-l'Ane_ in +emulation of their master and of each other, while others contented +themselves with displaying the same general characteristics, and setting +the same poetical ideals before them. Among the idlest, but busiest +literary quarrels of the century, a century fertile in such things, was +that between Marot and a certain insignificant person named Francois +Sagon, a belated _rhetoriqueur_, who found some other rhymers of the +same kind to support him. One of Marot's best things, an answer of which +his servant, Fripelipes, is supposed to be the spokesman, came of the +quarrel; but of the other contributions, not merely of the principals, +but of their followers, the _Marotiques_ and _Sagontiques_, nothing +survives in general memory, or deserves to survive. Of Marot's +disciples, one, Mellin de Saint Gelais, deserves separate mention, the +others may be despatched in passing. Victor Brodeau, who, like his +master, held places in the courts both of Marguerite and her brother, +wrote not merely a devotional work, _Les Louanges de Jesus Christ notre +Seigneur_, which fairly illustrates the devotional side of the Navarrese +literary coterie, but also epigrams and rondeaux of no small merit. +Etienne Dolet, better known both as a scholar and translator, and as the +publisher of Marot and (surreptitiously) of Rabelais, composed towards +the end of his life poems in French, the principal of which was taken in +title and idea from Marot's _Enfer_, and which, though very unequal, +have passages of some poetical power. Marguerite herself has left a +considerable collection of poems of the most diverse kind and merit, the +title of which, _Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses_[172], is +perhaps not the worst thing about them. Farces, mysteries, religious +poems, such as _Le Triomphe de l'Agneau_, and _Le Miroir de l'Ame +Pecheresse_, with purely secular pieces on divers subjects, make up +these curious volumes. Not a few of the poems display the same nobility +of tone and stately sonorousness of verse, which has been and will be +noticed as a characteristic of the serious poetry of the age, and which +reached its climax in Du Bartas, D'Aubigne, and the choruses of Garnier +and Montchrestien. Bonaventure des Periers, an admirable prose writer, +was a poet, though not a very strong one. Francois Habert, 'Le Banni de +Liesse,' must not be confounded with Philippe Habert, author of a +remarkable _Temple de la Mort_ in the next century. Gilles Corrozet, +author of fables in verse, who, like many other literary men of the +time, was a printer and publisher as well, Jacques Gohorry, a pleasant +song writer, Gilles d'Aubigny, Jacques Pelletier, Etienne Forcadel, +deserve at least to be named. Of more importance were Hugues Salel, +Charles Fontaine, Antoine Heroet, Maurice Sceve. All these were members +of the Lyonnese literary coterie, and in connection with this Louise +Labe also comes in. Salel, famous as the first French translator of the +Iliad, or rather of Books I-XII thereof, distinguished himself as a +writer of _blasons_ in imitation of Marot, as well as by composing many +small poems of the occasional kind. Charles Fontaine exhibited the fancy +of the time for conceits in the entitling of books by denominating his +poems _Ruisseaux de la Fontaine_, and was one of the chief champions on +Marot's side in the quarrel with Sagon, while he afterwards defended the +_style Marotique_ against Du Bellay's announcement of the programme of +the Pleiade. But perhaps he would hardly deserve much remembrance, save +for a charming little poem to his new-born son, which M. Asselineau has +made accessible to everybody in Crepet's _Poetes Francais_[173]. He also +figures in a literary tournament very characteristic of the age. La +Borderie, another disciple of Marot, had written a poem entitled _L'Amye +de Cour_, which defended libertinism, or at least worldly-mindedness in +love, in reply to the _Parfaite Amye_ of Antoine Heroet, which exhibits +very well a certain aspect of the half-amorous, half-mystical sentiment +of the day. Fontaine rejoined in a _Contr'Amye de Cour_. Maurice Sceve +is also a typical personage. He was, it may be said, the head of the +Lyonnese school, and was esteemed all over France. He was excepted by +the irreverent champions of the Pleiade from the general ridicule which +they poured on their predecessors, and was surrounded by a special body +of feminine devotees and followers, including his kinswomen Claudine and +Sibylle Sceve, Jeanne Gaillarde, and above all Louise Labe. Sceve's +poetical work is strongly tinged with classical affectation and Platonic +mysticism; and his chief poem, _De l'Objet de la plus haute Vertu_, +consists of some four hundred and fifty dizains written in what in +England and later has been, not very happily, called a metaphysical +style. Last of all comes the just-mentioned Louise Labe, 'La belle +Cordiere,' one of the chief ornaments of Lyons, and the most important +French poetess of the sixteenth century. Louise was younger, and wrote +later than most of the authors just mentioned, and in some respects she +belongs to the school of Ronsard, like her supposed lover, Olivier de +Magny. But the Lyons school was essentially _Marotique_, and much of the +style of the elder master is observable in the writings of Louise[174]. +She has left a prose _Dialogue d'Amour et de Folie_, three elegies, and +a certain number of sonnets. Her poems are perhaps the most genuinely +passionate of the time and country, and many of the sonnets are +extremely beautiful. The language is on the whole simple and elegant, +without the over-classicism of the Pleiade, or the obscurity of her +master Sceve. Strangely enough the poems of this young Lyonnese lady +have in many places a singular approach to the ring of Shakespeare's +sonnets and minor works, and that not merely by virtue of the general +resemblance common to all the love poetry of the age, but in some very +definite traits. Her surname of 'La belle Cordiere' came from her +marriage with a rich merchant, Ennemond Perrin by name, who was by trade +a ropemaker. Her poems have had their full share of the advantages of +reprints, which have of late years fallen to the lot of +sixteenth-century authors in France. + +[Sidenote: Mellin de St. Gelais.] + +Mellin de Saint Gelais[175], the last to be mentioned but the most +important of the school of Marot, has been very variously judged. The +mere fact that he was probably the introducer of the sonnet into France +(the counter claim of Pontus de Tyard seems to be unfounded) would +suffice to give him a considerable position in the history of letters. +But Mellin's claims by no means rest upon this achievement. He was a man +of higher position than most of the other poets of the time, being the +reputed son of Octavien de Saint Gelais, and himself enjoying a good +deal of royal favour. In his old age, as the representative of the +school of Marot, he had to bear the brunt of the Pleiade onslaught, and +knew how to defend himself, so that a truce was made. He was born in +1487, and died in 1558. His name is also spelt Merlin, and even Melusin, +the Saint Gelais boasting descent from the Lusignans, and thus from the +famous fairy heroine Melusine. In his youth he spent a good deal of time +in Italy, at the Universities of Bologna and Padua. On returning to +France, he was at once received into favour at court, and having taken +orders, obtained various benefices and appointments which assured his +fortune. It is remarkable that though he violently opposed Ronsard's +rising favour at court, both the Prince of Poets and Du Bellay +completely forgave him, and pay him very considerable compliments, the +latter praising his 'vers emmielles,' the former speaking, even after +his death, of his proficiency in the combined arts of music and poetry. +Saint Gelais was a good musician, and an affecting story is told of his +swan-song, for which, as for other anecdotes, there is no space here. +His work, though not inconsiderable in volume, is, even more than that +of Marot and other poets of the time and school, composed for the most +part of very short pieces, epigrams, rondeaux, dizains, huitains, etc. +These pieces display more merit than most recent critics have been +disposed to allow to them. The style is fluent and graceful, free from +puns and other faults of taste common at the time. The epigrams are +frequently pointed, and well expressed, and the complimentary verse is +often skilful and well turned. Mellin de Saint Gelais is certainly not a +poet of the highest order, but as a court singer and a skilful master of +language he deserves a place among his earlier contemporaries only +second to that of Marot. + +[Sidenote: Miscellaneous Verse. Anciennes Poesies Francaises.] + +Something of the same sort may be said of all the writers in verse of +the first half of the century. Their importance is chiefly relative. Few +of their works are conceived or executed on a scale sufficient to +entitle them to the rank of great poets, and, saving always Marot, the +excellence even of the trifling compositions to which they confined +themselves is very unequal and intermittent. But all are evidences of a +general diffusion of the literary spirit among the people of France, and +most of them in their way, and according to their powers, helped in +perfecting the character of French as a literary instrument. The advance +which the language experienced in this respect is perhaps nowhere better +shown than in the miscellaneous and popular poetry of the time, a vast +collection of which has been made accessible by the reprinting of rare +or unique printed originals in the thirteen volumes of MM. de Montaiglon +and de Rothschild's _Anciennes Poesies Francaises_, published in the +_Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_[176]. This flying literature, as it is well +called in French, lacks in most cases the freshness and spontaneity of +mediaeval folk-song. But it has in exchange gained in point of subject a +wide extension of range, and in point of form a considerable advance in +elegance of language, absence of commonplace, and perfection of +literary form and style. The stiffness which characterises much +mediaeval and almost all fifteenth-century work has disappeared in great +measure. The writers speak directly and to the point, and find no +difficulty in so using their mother tongue as to express their +intentions. The tools in short are more effective and more completely +under the control of the worker. A certain triviality is indeed +noticeable, and the tendency of the middle ages to perpetuate favourite +forms and models is by no means got rid of. But much that was useless +has been discarded, and of what is left a defter and more distinctly +literary use is made. Had French remained as Marot left it, it would +indeed have been unequal to the expression of the noblest thoughts, the +gravest subjects, to the treatment and exposition of intricate and +complicated problems of life and mind. But in his hands it attained +perhaps the perfection of usefulness as an exponent of the pure _esprit +gaulois_, to use a phrase which has been tediously abused by French +writers, but which is expressive of a real fact in French history and +French literature. It had been suppled and pointed: it remained for it +to be weighted, strengthened, and enriched. This was not the appointed +task of Marot and his contemporaries, but of the men who came after +them. But what they themselves had to do they did, and did it well. To +this day the lighter verse of France is more an echo of Clement Marot +than of any other man who lived before the seventeenth century, and, +with the exception of his greater follower, La Fontaine, of any man who +came after him at any time[177]. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[165] _De_ Belges, though the less usual, is the more accurate form. We +are at length promised a complete edition of him in the admirable series +of the Belgian Academy, one of the best in appearance and editing, and +by far the cheapest of all such series. He was born in 1475, held posts +in the household of the Governors of the Netherlands, was +historiographer to Louis XII., and died either in 1524 or in 1548. + +[166] See _Poetes Francais_, i. 532. It is perhaps well to say that M. +C. d'Hericault, though a very agreeable as well as a very learned +writer, is particularly open to the charge that his geese are swans. + +[167] Ed. C. d'Hericault. Paris, 1855. + +[168] See _Poetes Francais_, vol. i. _ad fin._, for the poets mentioned +in this paragraph and others of their kind. + +[169] He was in his old age conspicuous among the enemies of Etienne +Dolet. See _Etienne Dolet_, by R. C. Christie. London, 1880. + +[170] Ed Jannet et C. d'Hericault. 4 vols. Paris, 2nd ed. 1873. M. +d'Hericault has prefixed a much larger study of Marot than is to be +found here to his edition of the 'beauties' of the poet, published by +Messrs. Garnier. The late M. Guiffrey published two volumes of a costly +and splendid edition, which his death interrupted. + +[171] The _blason_ (description) was a child of the mediaeval _dit_. +Marot's examples, _Le beau Tetin_ and _Le laid Tetin_, were copied _ad +infinitum_. The first is panegyric, the second abuse. + +[172] Ed. Frank. 4 vols. Paris, 1873-4. + +[173] i. 651. + +[174] Ed. Tross. Paris, 1871. + +[175] Ed. Blanchemain, 3 vols. Paris, 1873. + +[176] This great collection, which awaits its completion of glossary, +etc., was published between 1855 and 1878, and is invaluable to any one +desiring to appreciate the general characteristics of the poetical +literature of the time. + +[177] Much help has been received in the writing of this chapter, and +indeed of this book, from the excellent work of MM. Hatzfeld and +Darmesteter, _Le Seizieme Siecle en France_ (Paris, 1878), one of the +best histories extant in a small compass of a brief but important period +of literature. We may hope for a still more elaborate study of the same +subject in English from Mr. Arthur Tilley, of King's College, Cambridge. +An introductory volume to this study appeared in 1885. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. + + +[Sidenote: Fiction at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.] + +At the beginning of the sixteenth century prose fiction in France was +represented by a considerable mass of literature divided sharply into +two separate classes of very different nature and value. On the one hand +the prose versions of the Chansons de Gestes and the romances, Arthurian +and adventurous, which had succeeded the last and most extensive verse +rehandlings of these works in the fourteenth century, made up a +considerable body of work, rarely possessing much literary merit, and +characterised by all the faults of monotony, repetition, and absence of +truthful character-drawing which distinguish late mediaeval work. On the +other hand, there was a smaller body of short prose tales[178] sometimes +serious in character and of not inconsiderable antiquity, more +frequently comic and satirical, and corresponding in prose to the +Fabliaux in verse. It has been pointed out that in the hands, real or +supposed, of Antoine de la Salle this latter kind of work had attained a +high standard of perfection. But it was as yet extremely limited in +style, scope, and subject. Valour, courtesy, and love made up the list +of subjects of the serious work, and the stock materials for satire, +women, marriage, priests, etc., that of the comic. Although we have some +lively presentment of the actual manners of the time in Antoine de la +Salle, it is accidental only, and of its thoughts on any but the stock +subjects we have nothing. There was thus room for a vast improvement, +or rather for a complete revolution, in this particular class of work, +and this revolution was at a comparatively early period of the new +century effected by the greatest man and the greatest book of the French +Renaissance. + +[Sidenote: Rabelais.] + +Francois Rabelais[179] was born at Chinon about 1495 (the alternative +date of 1483 which used to be given is improbable if not impossible), +and at an early age was destined to the cloister. He not only became a +full monk, but also took priest's orders. Before he was thirty he +acquired the reputation of a good classical scholar, and this seems to +have brought him into trouble with his brethren the Cordeliers or +Franciscans, who were at this time among the least cultivated of the +monastic orders. With the consent of the Pope he migrated to a +Benedictine convent, and became canon at Maillezais. This migration, +however, did not satisfy him, and before long he quitted his new convent +without permission and took to the life of a wandering scholar. The +tolerance of the first period of the Renaissance however still existed +in France, and he suffered no inconvenience from this breach of rule. +After studying medicine and natural science under the protection of +Geoffrey d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, he went to Montpellier to +continue these studies, and in the early years of the fourth decade of +the century practised regularly at Lyons. He was attached to the suite +of Cardinal du Bellay in two embassies to Rome, returned to Montpellier, +took his doctor's degree, and again practised in several cities of the +South. Towards 1539 Du Bellay again established him in a convent, +probably as a safeguard against the persecution which was then +threatening. But the conventual life as then practised was too repugnant +to Rabelais to be long endured, and he once more set out on his travels, +this time in Savoy and Italy, the personal protection of the king +guaranteeing him from danger. He then returned to France, taking however +the precaution to soften some expressions in his books. At the death of +Francis he retired first to Metz, and then to Rome, still with Du +Bellay. The Cardinal de Chatillon, soon after gave him the living of +Meudon, which he held with another in Maine for a year or two, +resigning them both in 1551, and dying in 1553. Such at least are the +most probable and best ascertained dates and events in a life which has +been overlaid with a good deal of fiction, and many of the facts of +which are decidedly obscure. Rabelais did not very early become an +author, and his first works were of a purely erudite kind. During his +stay at Lyons he seems to have done a good deal of work for the +printers, as editor and reader, especially in reference to medical +works, such as Galen and Hippocrates. He edited too, and perhaps in part +re-wrote, a prose romance, _Les Grandes et Inestimables Chroniques du +Grant et Enorme Geant Gargantua_. This work, the author of which is +unknown, and no earlier copies of which exist, gave him no doubt at +least the idea of his own famous book. The next year (1532) followed the +first instalment of this--_Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes Restitue en Son +naturel avec ses Faicts et Proueses Espouvantables_. Three years +afterwards came _Gargantua_ proper, the first book of the entire work as +we now have it. Eleven years however passed before the work was +continued, the second book of _Pantagruel_ not being published till +1546, and the third six years later, just before the author's death, in +1552. The fourth or last book did not appear as a whole until 1564, +though the first sixteen chapters had been given to the world two years +before. This fourth book, the fifth of the entire work, has, from the +length of time which elapsed before its publication and from certain +variations which exist in the MS. and the first printed editions, been +suspected of spuriousness. Such a question cannot be debated here at +length. But there is no external testimony of sufficient value to +discredit Rabelais' authorship, while the internal testimony in its +favour is overwhelming[180]. It may be said, without hesitation, that +not a single writer capable of having written it, save Rabelais himself, +is known to literary history at the time. It has been supposed, with a +good deal of probability, that the book was left in the rough. The +considerable periods which, as has been mentioned, intervened between +the publications of the other books seem to show that the author +indulged a good deal in revision; and, as the third book was only +published just before his death, he could have had little time for this +in the case of the fourth. This would account for a certain appearance +of greater boldness and directness in the satire as well as for +occasional various readings. In genius both of thought and expression +this book is perhaps superior to any other; and, if it were decided that +Rabelais did not write it, much of what are now considered the +Rabelaisian characteristics must be transferred to an entirely unknown +writer who has left not the smallest vestige of himself or his genius. +It is not possible to give here a detailed abstract of _Gargantua_ and +_Pantagruel_: indeed, from the studied desultoriness of the work, any +such abstract must of necessity be nearly as long as the book +itself[181]. It is sufficient to say that both Gargantua and his son +Pantagruel are the heroes of adventures, designedly exaggerated and +burlesqued from those common in the romances of chivalry. The chief +events of the earlier romance are, first, the war between Grandgousier, +Gargantua's father, the pattern of easy-going royalty, and Picrochole, +king of Lerne, the ideal of an arbitrary despot intent only on conquest; +and, secondly, the founding of the Abbey of Thelema, a fanciful +institution, in which Rabelais propounds as first principles everything +that is most opposed to the forced abstinence, the real self-indulgence, +the idleness and the ignorance of the debased monastic communities he +knew so well and hated so much. Pantagruel is Gargantua's son, and, like +him, a giant, but the extravagances derived from his gianthood are not +kept up in the second part as they are in the first. A very important +personage in _Pantagruel_ is Panurge, a singular companion, whom +Pantagruel picks up at Paris, and who is perhaps the greatest single +creation of Rabelais. Some ideas may have been taken for him from the +Cingar of Merlinus Coccaius, or Folengo, a Macaronic Italian poet[182], +but on the whole he is original, and is hardly comparable to any one +else in literature except Falstaff. The main idea of Panurge is the +absence of morality in the wide Aristotelian sense with the presence of +almost all other good qualities. After a time, in which Pantagruel and +his companions (among whom, as in the former romance, Friar John is the +embodiment of hearty and healthy animalism, as Panurge is of a somewhat +diseased intellectual refinement) are engaged in wars of the old romance +kind, a whim of Panurge determines the conclusion of the story. He +desires to get married; and an entire book is occupied by the various +devices to which he resorts in order to determine whether it is wise or +not for him to do so. At last it is decided that a voyage must be made +to the oracle of the Dive Bouteille. The last two books are occupied +with this voyage, in which many strange countries are visited, and at +last, the oracle being reached, the word _Trinq_ is vouchsafed, not +only, it would seem, to solve Panurge's doubts, but also as a general +answer to the riddle of the painful earth. + +Besides his great work, Rabelais was the author of a few extant letters, +and probably of a good many that are not extant, of a little burlesque +almanack called the _Pantagrueline Prognostication_, which is full of +his peculiar humour, of a short work entitled _Sciomachie_, describing a +festival at Rome, and of a few poems of no great merit. In _Gargantua_ +and _Pantagruel_, however, his whole literary interest and character are +concentrated. Few books have been the subject of greater controversy as +to their meaning and general intention. The author, as if on purpose to +baffle investigation, mixes up real persons mentioned by their real +names, real persons mentioned in transparent allegory, and entirely +fictitious characters, in the most inextricable way. Occasionally, as in +his chapters on education, he is perfectly serious, and allows no touch +of humour or satire to escape him. Elsewhere he indulges in the wildest +buffoonery. Two of the most notable characteristics of Rabelais are, +first, his extraordinary predilection for heaping up piles of synonymous +words, and huge lists of things; secondly, his habit of indulging in the +coarsest allusions and descriptions. Both of these were to some extent +mere exaggerations of his mediaeval models, but both show the peculiar +characteristics of their author. The book as a whole has received the +most various explanations as well as the most various appreciations. It +has been regarded as in the main a political and personal satire, in +every incident and character of which some reference must be sought to +actual personages and events of the time; as an elaborate pamphlet +against the Roman Catholic Church; as a defence of mere epicurean +materialism, and even an attack on Christianity itself; as a huge piece +of mischief intended to delude readers into the belief that something +serious is meant, when in reality nothing of the kind is intended. Even +more fantastic explanations than these have been attempted; such, for +instance, as the idea that the voyage of Pantagruel is an allegorical +account of the processes employed in the manufacture of wine. The true +explanation, as far as there is any, of the book seems, however, to be +not very difficult to make out, provided that the interpreter does not +endeavour to force a meaning where there very probably is none. The form +of it was pretty well prescribed by the old romances of adventure, and +must be taken as given to Rabelais, not as invented by him for a special +purpose; a war, a quest, these are the subjects of every story in verse +and prose for five centuries, and Rabelais followed the stream. But when +he had thus got his main theme settled, he gave the widest licence of +comment, allusion, digression, and adaptation to his own fancy and his +own intellect. Both of these were typical, and, except for a certain +deficiency in the poetical element, fully typical of the time. Rabelais +was a very learned man, a man of the world, a man of pleasure, a man of +obvious interest in political and ecclesiastical problems. He was +animated by that lively appetite for enjoyment, business, study, all the +occupations of life, which characterised the Renaissance in its earlier +stages, in all countries and especially in France. Nor had science of +any kind yet been divided and subdivided so that each man could only +aspire to handle certain portions of it. Accordingly, Rabelais is +prodigal of learning in season and out of season. But independently of +all this, he had an immense humour, and this pervades the whole book, +turning the preposterous adventures into satirical allegories or half +allegories, irradiating the somewhat miscellaneous erudition with +lambent light, and making the whole alive and fresh to this day. The +extreme coarseness of language, which makes Rabelais difficult to read +now-a-days, seems to have arisen from a variety of causes. The essence +of his book was exaggeration, and he exaggerated in this as in other +matters. His keen appetite for the ludicrous, and a kind of +shamelessness which may have been partly due to individual peculiarity, +but had not a little also to do with his education and studies, inclined +him to make free with a department of thought where ludicrous ideas are, +as it has been said, to be had for the picking up by those whom shame +does not trouble at the expense of those whom it does. But besides all +this, there was in Rabelais a knowledge of human nature, and a faculty +of expressing that knowledge in literary form, in which he is inferior +to Shakespeare alone. Caricatured as his types purposely are, they are +all easily reducible to natural dimensions and properties; while +occasionally, though all too rarely, the author drops his mask and +speaks gravely, seriously, and then always wisely. These latter passages +are, it may be added, unsurpassed in mere prose style for many long +years after the author's death. + +Altogether, independently of the intrinsic interest of Rabelais' work, +we go to him as we can go to only some score or half score of the +greatest writers of the world, for a complete reflection of the +sentiment and character of his time. As with all great writers, what he +shows is in great part characteristic of humanity at all times and in +all places, but, as also with all great writers except Shakespeare, more +of it is local and temporary merely. This local and temporary element +gives him his great historical importance. Rabelais is the literary +exponent of the earlier Renaissance, with its appetite for the good +things of the world as yet unblunted. Yet even in him there is a +foretaste of satiety, and the Oracle of the Bottle has something, for +all its joyousness, of the conclusion of the Preacher. + +The popularity of Rabelais was immense, and of itself sufficed to +protect him against the enmity which his hardly veiled attacks on +monachism, and on other fungoid growths of the Church, could not have +failed to attract. In such a case imitation was certain, and, long +before the genuine series of the Pantagrueline Chronicles was +completed, spurious supplements and continuations appeared, all of them +without exception worthless. A more legitimate imitation coloured the +work of many of the fiction writers of the remaining part of the +century, though the tradition of short story writing, on the model of +the Fabliaux and of the Italian tales borrowed from them, continued and +was only indirectly affected by Rabelais. In this latter class one +mediocre writer and two of the greatest talent--of talent amounting +almost to genius--have to be noticed. In 1535, Nicholas of Troyes, a +saddler by trade, produced a book entitled _Grand Parangon de Nouvelles +Nouvelles_, in which he followed rather, as his title indicates, the +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ than any other model. His sources seem to +have been the _Decameron_ and the _Gesta Romanorum_ principally, though +some of his tales are original. Very different books are the _Contes_ of +Marguerite de Navarre, usually termed the 'Heptameron,' and the _Contes +et Joyeux Devis_ of her servant Bonaventure des Periers. Neither of +these books was published till a considerable period after the death, +not merely of Rabelais, but of their authors. + +[Sidenote: Bonaventure des Periers.] + +There are few persons of the time of whom less is known than of +Bonaventure des Periers[183], and, by no means in consequence merely of +this mystery, there are few more interesting. He must have been born +somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and his friend +Dolet calls him _Aeduum poetam_, which would seem to fix his birth +somewhere in the neighbourhood at least of Autun. He was undoubtedly one +of the literary courtiers of Marguerite d'Angouleme. Finally, it seems +that in the persecution which, during the later years of Francis I.'s +reign, came upon the Protestants and freethinkers, and which the +influence of Marguerite was powerless to prevent, he committed suicide +to escape the clutches of the law. Henri Estienne, however, attributes +the act to insanity or delirium. However this may be, there is no doubt +that Des Periers was a remarkable example of a humanist. He was +certainly a good scholar, and he was also a decided freethinker. He has +left poems of some merit, but not great perhaps, some translations and +minor prose pieces, but certainly two works of the highest interest, the +_Cymbalum Mundi_ (1537) and the _Nouvelles Recreations et Joyeux Devis_ +(1558). The _Cymbalum Mundi_ betrays the influence of Lucian, which was +also very strong on Rabelais. It is a work in dialogue, satirising the +superstitions of antiquity with a hardly dubious reference to the +religious beliefs of Des Periers' own day. The _Nouvelles Recreations et +Joyeux Devis_ are compact of less perilous stuff, while they exhibit +equal and perhaps greater literary skill. They consist of a hundred and +twenty-nine short tales, similar in general character to those of the +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ and other collections. Although, however, a +great licence of subject is still allowed, the language is far less +coarse than in the work of Antoine de la Salle, while the literary +merits of the style are very much greater. Des Periers was beyond all +doubt a great master of half-serious and half-joyous French prose. Nor +is his matter much less remarkable than his style. Like Rabelais, but +with the difference that his was a more poetical temperament than that +of his greater contemporary, he has sudden accesses of seriousness, +almost of sentiment. At these times the spirit of the French +Renaissance, in its more cultivated and refined representatives, comes +out in him very strongly. This spirit may be defined as a kind of +cultivated sensuality, ardently enamoured of the beautiful in the world +of sense, while fully devoted to intellectual truth, and at the same +time always conscious of the nothingness of things, the instant pressure +of death, the treacherousness of mortal delights. The rare sentences in +which Des Periers gives vent to the expression of this mental attitude +are for the most part admirably written, while as a teller of tales, +either comic or romantic, he has few equals and fewer superiors. + +[Sidenote: The Heptameron.] + +The same spirit which has just been described found even fuller +expression, with greater advantages of scale and setting, in the +_Heptameron_[184] of Marguerite of Navarre. The exact authorship of this +celebrated book is something of a literary puzzle. Marguerite was a +prolific author, if all the works which were published under her name be +unhesitatingly ascribed[185] to her. Besides the poems printed under the +pretty title of _Les Marguerites de la Marguerite_, she produced many +other works, as well as the _Heptameron_ which was not given to the +world until after her death (1558). The House of Valois was by no means +destitute of literary talent. But that which seems most likely to be the +Queen's genuine work hardly corresponds with the remarkable power shown +in the _Heptameron_. On the other hand, Marguerite for years maintained +a literary court, in which all the most celebrated men of the time, +notably Marot and Bonaventure des Periers, held places. If it were +allowable to decide literary questions simply by considerations of +probability, there could be little hesitation in assigning the entire +_Heptameron_ to Des Periers himself, and then its unfinished condition +would be intelligible enough. The general opinion of critics, however, +is that it was probably the result of the joint work of the Queen, of +Des Periers, and of a good many other men, and probably some women, of +letters. The idea and plan of the work are avowedly borrowed from +Boccaccio, but the thing is worked out with so much originality that it +becomes nothing so little as an imitation. A company of ladies and +gentlemen returning from Cauterets are detained by bad weather in an +out-of-the-way corner of the Pyrenees, and beguile the time by telling +stories. The interludes, however, in which the tale-tellers are brought +on the stage in person, are more circumstantial than those of the +Decameron, and the individual characters are much more fully worked out. +Indeed, the mere setting of the book, independently of its seventy-two +stories (for the eighth day is begun), makes a very interesting tale, +exhibiting not merely those characteristics of the time and its society +which have been noticed in connection with the _Contes et Joyeux Devis_, +but, in addition, a certain religiosity in which that time and society +were also by no means deficient, though it existed side by side with +freethinking of a daring kind and with unbridled licentiousness. The +head of the party, Dame Oisille, is the chief representative of this +religious spirit, though all the party are more or less penetrated by +it. The subjects of the tales do not differ much from those of +Boccaccio, though they are, as a rule, occupied with a higher class of +society, and of necessity display a more polished condition of manners. +They are much longer than the anecdotes of the _Contes et Joyeux Devis_, +and generally, though not always, deal with something like a connected +story instead of with mere isolated traits or apophthegms. The best of +them are animated by the same spirit of refined voluptuousness which +animates so much of the writing and art of the time, and which may +indeed be said to be its chief feature. But this spirit has seldom been +presented in a light so attractive as that which it bears in the +_Heptameron_. + +[Sidenote: Noel du Fail.] + +[Sidenote: G. Bouchet.] + +[Sidenote: Cholieres.] + +The influence of Rabelais on the one hand, of the _Heptameron_ on the +other, is observable in almost all the work of the same kind which the +second half of the sixteenth century produced. The fantastic buffoonery +and the indiscriminate prodigality of learning, which were to the +outward eye the distinguishing characteristics of _Pantagruel_, found +however more imitators than the poetical sentiment of the _Heptameron_. +The earliest of the successors of Rabelais was Noel du Fail, a gentleman +and magistrate of Britanny, who, five years before the master's death, +produced two little books, _Propos Rustiques_[186] and _Baliverneries_, +which depict rural life and its incidents with a good deal of vividness +and colour. The imitation of Rabelais is very perceptible, and sometimes +a little irritating, but the work on the whole has merit, and abounds in +curious local traits. The _Propos Rustiques_, too, are interesting +because they underwent a singular travesty in the next century, and +appeared under a new and misleading title. Much later, near forty years +afterwards in fact, Du Fail produced the _Contes d'Eutrapel_[187], which +are rather critical and satirical dialogues than tales. There is a good +deal of dry humour in them. The provinciality to be noticed in Du Fail +was still a feature of French literature; and in this particular +department it long continued to be prominent, perhaps owing to the +example of Rabelais, who, wide as is his range, frequently takes +pleasure in mixing up petty local matters with his other materials. +Thus, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Guillaume Bouchet (to +be carefully distinguished from Jean Bouchet, the poet of the early +sixteenth century) wrote a large collection of _Serees_[188] (Soirees), +containing gossip on a great variety of subjects, mingled with details +of Angevin manners; and Tabourot des Accords composed his _Escraignes +Dijonnaises_. A singular book, or rather two singular books[189], _Les +Matinees_ and _Les Apres-Dinees_, were produced by a person, the +Seigneur de Cholieres, of whom little else is known. Cholieres is a bad +writer, and a commonplace if not stupid thinker; but he tells some +quaint stories, and his book shows us the deep hold which the example of +Rabelais had given to the practice of discussing grave subjects in a +light tone. + +[Sidenote: Apologie pour Herodote.] + +[Sidenote: Moyen de Parvenir.] + +There remain two books of sufficient importance to be treated +separately. The first of these is the _Apologie pour Herodote_[190] +(1566) of the scholar Henri Estienne. In the guise of a serious defence +of Herodotus from the charges of untrustworthiness and invention +frequently brought against him Estienne indulges in an elaborate +indictment against his own and recent times, especially against the +Roman Catholic clergy. Much of his book is taken from Rabelais, or from +the _Heptameron_; much from the preachers of the fifteenth century. Its +literary merit has been a good deal exaggerated, and its extreme +desultoriness and absence of coherence make it tedious to read for any +length of time, but it is in a way amusing enough. Much later (1610) the +last--it may almost be said the first--echo of the genuine spirit of +Rabelais was sounded in the _Moyen de Parvenir_[191] of Beroalde de +Verville. This eccentric work is perhaps the most perfect example of a +_fatrasie_ in existence. In the guise of guests at a banquet the author +brings in many celebrated persons of the day and of antiquity, and +makes them talk from pillar to post in the strangest possible fashion. +The licence of language and anecdote which Rabelais had permitted +himself is equalled and exceeded; but many of the tales are told with +consummate art, and, in the midst of the ribaldry and buffoonery, +remarks of no small shrewdness are constantly dropped as if by accident. +There seems to have been at the time something not unlike a serious idea +that the book was made up from unpublished papers of Rabelais himself. +All external considerations make this in the highest degree unlikely, +and the resemblances are obviously those of imitation rather than of +identical authorship. But undoubtedly nothing else of the kind comes so +near to the excellences of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[178] Among these may be mentioned the charming story of _Jehan de +Paris_ (ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1874), which M. de Montaiglon has clearly +proved to be of the end of the fifteenth century. It is a cross between +a Roman d'aventures and a nursery tale, telling how the King of France +as 'John of Paris' outwitted the King of England in the suit for the +hand of the Infanta of Spain. + +[179] Ed. Jannet and Moland. 7 vols. (2nd ed.) Paris, 1873. Also ed. +Marty-Laveaux, vols. 1-4. Paris, 1870-81. + +[180] The question has been again discussed since the text was written +by M. Paul Lacroix (Paris, 1881), whose facts and arguments fully bear +out the view taken here. The other side is taken, though not very +decidedly, in the fourth volume of M. Marty-Laveaux' edition. The two +contain a tolerably complete survey of the question. + +[181] The best general commentary on Rabelais is that of M. J. Fleury. 2 +vols. St. Petersburg, 1876-7. + +[182] For an excellent account of Folengo, see Symonds' _Renaissance in +Italy_, vol. v. chap. 14. + +[183] Ed. Lacour. 2 vols. Paris, 1866. + +[184] Ed. Leroux de Lincy. 3 vols. Paris, 1855. + +[185] She was born in 1492, and was thus two years older than her +brother Francis I. She married first the Duke d'Alencon, then Henri +d'Albert King of Navarre. Her private character has been most unjustly +attacked. She died in 1549. Marguerite is spoken of by four surnames; de +Valois from her family; d'Angouleme from her father's title; d'Alencon +from her first husband's; and de Navarre from that of her second. In +literature, to distinguish her from her great-niece, the first wife of +Henri IV., Marguerite d'Angouleme is the term most commonly used. + +[186] Ed. La Borderie. Paris, 1878. The bibliography of this book is +very curious. + +[187] Ed. Hippeau. 2 vols. Paris, 1875. + +[188] Ed. Roybet. Paris. In course of publication. + +[189] Ed. Tricotel. 2 vols. Paris, 1879. + +[190] Ed. Ristelhuber. 2 vols. Paris, 1879. + +[191] Ed. Jacob. Paris, 1868. It is possibly not Beroalde's. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE PLEIADE. + +[Sidenote: Character and Effects of the Pleiade Movement.] + +Almost exactly at the middle of the sixteenth century a movement took +place in French literature which has no parallel in literary history, +except the similar movement which took place, also in France, three +centuries later. The movement and its chief promoters are indifferently +known in literature by the name of the _Pleiade_, a term applied by the +classical affectation of the time to the group of seven men[192], +Ronsard, Du Bellay, Belleau, Baif, Daurat, Jodelle, and Pontus de Tyard, +who were most active in promoting it, and who banded themselves together +in a strict league or _coterie_ for the attainment of their purposes. +These purposes were the reduction of the French language and French +literary forms to a state more comparable, as they thought, to that of +the two great classical tongues. They had no intention (though such an +intention has been falsely attributed to them both at the time and +since) of defacing or destroying their mother-tongue. On the contrary, +they were animated by the sincerest and, for the most part, the most +intelligent love for it. But the intense admiration of the severe +beauties of classical literature, which was the dominant literary note +of the Renaissance, translated itself in their active minds into a +determination to make, if it were possible, French itself more able to +emulate the triumphs of Greek and of Latin. This desire, even if it had +borne no fruit, would have honourably distinguished the French +Renaissance from the Italian and German forms of the movement. In Italy +the humanists, for the most part, contented themselves with practice in +the Latin tongue, and in Germany they did so almost wholly. But no +sooner had the literature of antiquity taken root in France than it was +made to bear _novas frondes et non sua poma_ of vernacular literature. +There were some absurdities committed by the Pleiade no doubt, as there +always are in enthusiastic crusades of any kind: but it must never be +forgotten that they had a solid basis of philological truth to go upon. +French, after all, despite a strong Teutonic admixture, was a Latin +tongue, and recurrence to Latin, and to the still more majestic and +fertile language which had had so much to do in shaping the literary +Latin dialect, was natural and germane to its character. In point of +fact, the Pleiade made modern French--made it, we may say, twice over; +for not only did its original work revolutionise the language in a +manner so durable that the reaction of the next century could not wholly +undo it, but it was mainly study of the Pleiade that armed the great +masters of the Romantic movement, the men of 1830, in their revolt +against the cramping rules and impoverished vocabulary of the eighteenth +century. The effect of the change indeed was far too universal for it to +be possible for any Malherbe or any Boileau to overthrow it. The whole +literature of the nation, at a time when it was wonderfully abundant and +vigorous, 'Ronsardised' for nearly fifty years, and such practice at +such a time never fails to leave its mark. The actual details of the +movement cannot better be given than by going through the list of its +chief participators. + +[Sidenote: Ronsard.] + +[Sidenote: The Defense et Illustration de la Langue Francaise.] + +Pierre de Ronsard[193], Prince of Poets[194], was born at La +Poissonniere, in the Vendomois, or, as it was then more often called, +the Gatinais, on the banks of the river Loir, in 1524. He died in his +own country in the year 1585, acknowledged, not merely in France but out +of it, as the leader of living poets. His early life, however, was +rather that of a man of action than of a poet, and one of the most +studious of poets. His father was an old courtier and servant of +Francis I., whose companion in captivity he had been, and Ronsard +entered upon court life when he was a boy of ten years old. He visited +Scotland and England in the suite of French ambassadors, and remained +for some considerable time in Great Britain. He was also attached to +embassies in Flanders, Holland, and Germany. But before he was of age he +fell ill, and though he recovered, it was at the cost of permanent +deafness, which incapacitated him for the public service. He threw +himself on literature for a consolation, and under the direction of +Daurat, a scholar of renown, studied for years at the College Coqueret. +Here Du Bellay, Belleau, Baif, were his fellow-students, and the four +with their master, with Etienne Jodelle, and with Pontus de Tyard, +afterwards bishop of Chalon, formed, as has been said, the Pleiade +according to the most orthodox computation. The idea conceived and +carried out in these studious years (by Ronsard himself and Du Bellay +beyond all doubt in the first place) was the reformation of French +language and French literature by study and imitation of the ancients. +In 1549 the manifesto of the society issued, in the shape of Du Bellay's +_Defense et Illustration de la Langue Francaise_, and in 1550 the first +practical illustration of the method was given by Ronsard's _Odes_. The +principles of the _Defense et Illustration_ may be thus summarised. The +author holds that the current forms of literature, dizains, rondeaus, +etc., are altogether too facile and easy, that the language used is too +pedestrian, the treatment wanting in gravity and art. He would have Odes +of the Horatian kind take the place of Chansons, the sonnet, _non moins +docte que plaisante invention Italienne_, of dizains and huitains, +regular tragedy and comedy of moralities and farces, regular satires of +Fatrasies and Coq-a-l'ane. He takes particular pains to demonstrate the +contrary proposition to Wordsworth's, and to prove that merely natural +and ordinary language is not sufficient for him who in poesy wishes to +produce work deserving of immortality. He ridicules the mediaeval +affectations and conceits of some of the writers of his time, who gave +themselves such names as 'Le Banni de Liesse,' 'Le Traverseur des Voies +Perilleuses,' etc. He speaks, indeed, not too respectfully of mediaeval +literature generally, and uses language which probably suggested Gabriel +Harvey's depreciatory remarks about the _Fairy Queen_ forty years later. +In much of this there is exaggeration, and in much more of it mistake. +By turning their backs on the middle ages--though indeed they were not +able to do it thoroughly--the Pleiade lost almost as much in subject and +spirit as they gained in language and formal excellence. The laudation +of the sonnet, while the ballade and chant royal, things of similar +nature and of hardly less capacity, are denounced as _epiceries_, +savours of a rather Philistine preference for mere novelty and foreign +fashions. But, as has been already pointed out, Du Bellay was right in +the main, and it must especially be insisted on that his aim was to +strengthen and reform, not to alter or misguide, the French language. +The peroration of the book in a highly rhetorical style speaks of the +writer and his readers as having 'echappe du milieu des Grecs et par les +escadrons Romains pour entrer jusqu'au sein de la tant desiree France.' +That is to say, the innovators are to carry off what spoils they can +from Greece and Rome, but it is to be for the enrichment and benefit of +the French tongue. Frenchmen are to write French, not Latin and Greek; +but they are to write it not merely in a conversational way, content as +Du Bellay says somewhere else, 'n'avoir dit rien qui vaille aux neuf +premiers vers, pourvu qu'au dixieme il y ait le petit mot pour rire.' +They are to accustom themselves to long and weary studies, 'ear ce sont +les ailes dont les escripts des hommes volent au ciel,' to imitate good +authors, not merely in Greek and Latin, but in Italian, Spanish, or any +other tongue where they may be found. Such was the manifesto of the +Pleiade; and no one who has studied French literature and French +character, who knows the special tendency of the nation to drop from +time to time into a sterile self-admiration, and an easy confidence that +it is the all-sufficient wonder of the world, can doubt its wisdom. +Certainly, whatever may be thought of it in the abstract, it was +justified of its children. The first of these was, as has been said, +Ronsard's _Odes_, published in 1550. These he followed up, in 1552, by +_Les Amours de Cassandre_, in 1553 by a volume of _Hymnes_, as well as +by _Le Bocage Royal_, _Les Amours de Marie_, sonnets, etc., all of +which were, in 1560, republished in a collected edition of four +volumes. From the first Ronsard had been a very popular poet at court, +where, according to a well-known anecdote, Marguerite de Savoie, the +second of the Valois Marguerites, snatched his first volume from Mellin +de Saint Gelais, who was reading it in a designed tone of burlesque, and +reading it herself to her brother Henry II. and the court, obtained a +verdict at once for the young poet. The accession of Charles IX. brought +Ronsard still more into favour, and during the next ten years he +produced many courtly poems of the occasional kind, besides others to +suit his own pleasure. In 1572 the first part of his most ambitious, but +perhaps least successful, work appeared. This was the _Franciade_, a +dull epic. At the death of Charles, Ronsard retired to his native +province, where he had an abbacy, Croix-Val. Here all his poetical +powers returned, and in his last _Amours, Sonnets to Helene_, and other +pieces, some of his very best work is to be found. The year before his +death he produced an edition of his works much altered, but by no means +invariably improved. + +There are few poets to whose personal merits there is more unanimity of +trustworthy testimony than there is to those of Ronsard. From the time +of his betaking himself to literary work, he seems to have been wholly +given to study, and to the contemplation of natural beauty. Although +jealous of his own great reputation, and liable to be nettled when it +was imperilled, as it was by Du Bartas, he was as a rule singularly +placable in literary quarrels. The story of his quarrelling with +Rabelais is late, unsupported, and to all appearance fabulous; while, on +the other hand, the passages which have been supposed to reflect on the +Pleiade in the writings of Rabelais can, for chronological reasons, by +no possibility refer to Ronsard or his friends. Lastly, the poet appears +to have had no thought of writing for gain, and though, like all his +contemporaries, he did not scruple to solicit favours from the king, he +was in no way importunate or servile. But while his personal character, +as well as the extraordinary esteem in which he was held by all his +contemporaries, has never been seriously contested, critical estimates +of his literary work have strangely varied. To his own age he was the +'Prince of Poets.' His successor, Malherbe, behaved to him as certain +popes are reported to have behaved to their predecessors, +excommunicating him in the literary sense. Boileau, with his usual +ignorance of French literature before his own day, described his work in +lines which French schoolboys long learnt by heart, and which are as +false in fact as they are imbecile in criticism. Fenelon was almost the +only sincere partisan he had for two centuries. But when the Romantic +movement began Ronsard was for a while almost restored to the position +he held in his lifetime, and his works became a kind of Bible to the +disciples of Sainte-Beuve and the followers of Hugo. The strong +mediaeval revival which accompanied the movement was however +unfavourable to Ronsard, and he has again sunk, though not very low, in +the general estimation of French critics. The history is curious, and as +a literary phenomenon instructive. But it is not difficult for an +impartial judge to place Ronsard in his true position. His main defects +are two: he was too much a poet of malice prepense, and yet he wrote on +the whole too fluently. The mass of his work is great, and it is not +always, nor perhaps very often, animated by those unmistakable and +universal poetical touches which in the long run will alone suffice to +induce posterity to keep a writer on its shelf of great poets. Yet these +touches are by no means wanting in Ronsard. Many of his sonnets, +especially the famous and universally admired 'Quand vous serez bien +vieille,' not a few of his odes, especially the equally famous +'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose,' rank among those poems of which it +can only be said that they could not be better, and detached passages +innumerable deserve hardly lower praise. But it is when Ronsard is +viewed from the standpoint of a thoroughly instructed historical +criticism that his real greatness appears. It is when we look at the +poets that came before him and at those who came after him that we see +the immense benefit he conferred upon his successors, and upon the +language which those successors illustrated. The result of his classical +studies was little less than the introduction of an entirely new rhythm +into French poetry: let it be observed that a new rhythm, and not merely +new metre, is what is spoken of. Since the disuse of the +half-inarticulate but sweet rhythmical varieties of the mediaeval +pastourelles and romances a great monotony had come upon French poetry. +The fault of the artificial forms of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and +early sixteenth centuries, the _epiceries_ of Du Bellay's scornful +allusion, was that they induced their writers to concentrate their +attention on the arrangement of the rhymes and stanzas, to the neglect +of the individual line, the rhythm of which was but too frequently lame, +stiff, and prosaic in the extreme. With Marot and Saint Gelais the +introduction of less formal patterns, dizains, huitains, etc., had had +the additional drawback of making the individual verse even more prosaic +and pedestrian, though it may be somewhat less stiff. Now the line is, +after all, the unit of poetry, and all reform must start with it. It is +the great glory of Ronsard that his reform did so start. From his time +French poetry reads quite differently. Perhaps this was due to his study +of the Horatian quantity-metres, where every syllable has to give its +quota to the effect of the line as well as every line its quota to the +effect of the stanza. But whether it was this or something else, the +effect is indisputable. To this must be added a liberal, though in +Ronsard's own case not excessive, importation of new words from Greek +and Latin, a bold and striking mode of expression, the retention of many +picturesque old words which the senseless folly of the +seventeenth-century reformers banished, and, above all, a great +indulgence in diminutives, which give a most charming effect to the +lighter verse of Ronsard and his friends, and which also were cut off by +the indiscriminate and 'desperate hook' of Malherbe and Boileau. So +great were the formal changes and improvements thus introduced, that +French poetry takes a new colour from the age of Ronsard, a colour which +in its moments of health it has ever since displayed. + +[Sidenote: Du Bellay.] + +Next to Ronsard, and perhaps above him, if uniform excellence rather +than bulk and range of work is considered, ranks Joachim du Bellay[195]. +He was a connection, though it does not seem quite clear what +connection, of the Cardinal du Bellay to whom Rabelais was so long +attached, and whose house included other illustrious members. Probably +he was a cousin of the cardinal and of his two brothers the memoir +writers. His youth was rendered troublesome by illness and law +difficulties, but at last he was able with Ronsard, whose junior he was +by a little, to give himself up to study under Daurat. His prose +manifesto has already been dealt with, and almost immediately afterwards +he in some sort anticipated Ronsard's poetical carrying out of his +principles by a volume of _Sonnets to Olive_, the anagram of a certain +Mademoiselle de Viole. The sonnet, however, was not such an absolute +novelty as the ode, having been introduced already by Mellin de Saint +Gelais. Shortly afterwards he went to Italy with the Cardinal du Bellay, +a proceeding which did not bring him good luck. The intriguing diplomacy +of the papal court displeased him, and he soon lost his cousin's favour. +A volume of sonnets entitled _Regrets_, full of vigour and poetry, dates +from this time. But Du Bellay, deprived of the protection of the most +powerful member of his family, again fell into difficulties, and finally +died in 1560 at the age of thirty-five. His Roman sojourn has given +birth to perhaps the finest of his works, _Les Antiquites de Rome_, +Englished by Spenser under the slightly altered title of 'The Ruins of +Rome.' Du Bellay's works are not extensive, and indeed they could hardly +be so, considering the shortness of his life and the interruptions of +business and study which even that short life underwent. But he is +undoubtedly the member of the group whose work keeps at the highest +level. Nor is his excellence limited to one or two tones. For grace and +simplicity his _Vanneur_, his _Epitaphe d'un Chat_, and several others +of his _Jeux Rustiques_ challenge comparison. He had a strong vein of +satire, which he showed in denouncing fawning poetasters as well as the +corrupt and intriguing hangers on of the Papal court. His sonnets to +Olive have the finest flavour of the peculiarly cultivated and graceful +voluptuousness which has been noted as one of the distinguishing marks +of the French Renaissance. His _Antiquites de Rome_ exhibit even more +strongly another of those distinguishing marks, the melancholy sense of +death, destruction, and nothingness; indeed, as the _Heptameron_ is the +typical prose work of this period, so Du Bellay's poems may be taken as +its typical poetry. He has been called the Apollo of the Pleiade, but he +should with justice be called its Mercury as well, for, as he was +perhaps its best poet, so he was certainly its best prose writer. It is +unlucky that he was less favoured by fate and fortune than any other of +the greater writers of the century. + +[Sidenote: Belleau.] + +The position of best poet of the Pleiade--Ronsard, the greatest, having +mingled a good deal of alloy with his gold--has been sometimes disputed +for Remy Belleau[196]. It is certain that his 'Avril' holds with Du +Bellay's 'Vanneur' and Ronsard's already-mentioned 'Quand vous serez +bien vieille,' the rank of the best known and best liked poems of the +school. Belleau, whose life was extremely uneventful, was born at +Nogent-le-Rotrou in 1528, and was attached during nearly the whole of +his life to the household of Remy de Lorraine, Marquis d'Elbeuf, and his +son Charles, Duc d'Elbeuf, whose education he superintended and in whose +house he spent his days. He died in 1577 and received an elaborate +funeral, being carried to the grave by his brother stars, Ronsard and +Baif, and by two of the younger disciples of the Pleiade, Desportes and +Jamyn. Belleau was the chief purely descriptive poet and the chief +poetical translator of the Pleiade. He began by a collection of poems +entitled _Petites Inventions_ (short descriptive pieces), and by a +translation of Anacreon. In 1565 a more ambitious work, the _Bergerie_, +made its appearance. This is a mixture of prose and poetry, describing +country life and its attractions. It is in this that the famous 'Avril' +occurs, and there are other detached pieces not much inferior. In 1566 +another rather curiously conceived work made its appearance, the _Amours +et Nouveaux Echanges de Pierres Precieuses_. As a whole this is perhaps +his best book. Besides these, Belleau also translated or paraphrased the +_Phenomena_ of Aratus, _Ecclesiastes_, and the _Song of Solomon_. He +deserves to rank with not a few poets who have often attained a fair +secondary position in the art, and whose special faculty disposes them +to patient and ingenious description in more or less poetical verse. The +stately and at the same time flexible rhythm, the brilliant and varied +vocabulary which the Pleiade used, lent themselves not ill to this task, +and Belleau's talent, learning, and industry enabled him to give an +unusually equable charm to his work. But he is altogether too +occasional, too void of the higher poetical sentiment, and too limited +in range, to be ranked with Ronsard or with Du Bellay. His peculiar +quality of patient labour stood him in good stead in composing a +Macaronic poem on the Huguenots, which is by no means without value. + +[Sidenote: Baif.] + +Jean Antoine de Baif[197] was a man of more varied talent than Belleau, +and his history and personality are more interesting. He was the natural +son of Lazare de Baif, French ambassador at Venice, and of a noble lady +of that city. Marriage was impossible, for Lazare de Baif, who was +himself a man of letters, was in orders; but he did his best for his +son, and in 1547, when he was still very young, left him a considerable +fortune. Baif was, except Jodelle, the youngest member of the Pleiade, +but he early distinguished himself by his expertness in the classical +languages. He began in French, like the majority of his school, with a +collection of sonnets and other pieces, entitled _Les Amours de Meline_, +and he followed them up with the _Amours de Francine_. Francine is said +to have had over her predecessor the advantage or disadvantage of +existing. Baif then turned to the new theatre, which his comrade Jodelle +had introduced, and translated or adapted several plays of Plautus, +Terence, and Sophocles, but these will be noticed elsewhere. He returned +to poetry proper in _Les Passe-Temps_, a poetical miscellany of merit. +Lastly, in 1581, appeared a curious work, entitled _Les Mimes_, composed +of octosyllabic dizains, half-moral, half-satirical in tone and subject. +Baif, who was thought by some of his contemporaries to write even better +in Latin than in French, was a chief defender of the often-mooted though +preposterous plan of adjusting modern languages to the exact metres of +the ancients. This idea, which somewhat later seduced no less a man than +Spenser for a time, and with him many of the brightest wits in England, +is perhaps almost more hopeless in French than in our own tongue, owing +to the omnipotence of accent and the habit of slurring almost all the +syllables of a word except one. But it was frequently entertained at +different times through the century, and is said by Agrippa d'Aubigne to +have been started as early as 1530 by a certain Mousset, of whom there +is no other trace. Baif, who was also a spelling reformer, wrote a good +deal of verse in the metres he advocated, but with no greater success +than the other adventurous persons who have attempted the same _tour de +force_. He is also said to have conceived the idea of an Academy, and to +have in many other ways shown himself an active and ardent reformer of +letters. It is for this alertness of spirit and general proficiency in +literary craftsmanship that Baif is memorable, rather than for supreme +or even remarkable poetical power. His epitaphs are among his best work, +probably owing to his careful study of the hardly-to-be-surpassed +examples of this kind of composition which the classical languages +afford. He was a diligent panegyrist of country life and country ways, +but no single work of his in this class comes up to the masterpieces of +Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Belleau. Range, variety, and inventiveness of +spirit are Baif's chief merits. + +[Sidenote: Daurat, Jodelle, Pontus de Tyard.] + +The three remaining members of the group may be disposed of more +rapidly. Daurat, the eldest, and in a sense the master of all, was, as +far as regards French composition, the dark star of the Pleiade, for he +wrote nothing of importance in the vernacular. Jodelle was a voluminous +writer, but his dramatic importance so far exceeds his merely poetical +value that he will be best treated of when we come to discuss the +Theatre of the Renaissance. A somewhat curious instance of his poetical +energy is to be found in his unfinished, indeed hardly begun, +_Contre-Amours_. All the rest had started with a volume of verse in +praise of some real or imaginary mistress, so Jodelle determined to +write one against an unkind lady. The seventh member of the Pleiade, +Pontus de Tyard, was the eldest save Daurat, the longest-lived and the +highest in station, while he was also in a way the most original, having +published his first book before the appearance of the _Defense et +Illustration_. He was born at Bissy, near Macon, and, having been +appointed Bishop of Chalon, died in 1603, last of the group. Poetry was +only part of his literary occupations, and literary work itself by no +means absorbed him. But his _Erreurs Amoureuses_, addressed to a certain +Pasithee, and other works, give him fair rank in the school. He has been +erroneously credited with the introduction of the sonnet into France, +an honour which is probably due, as has been more than once observed, to +Saint Gelais. But if he did not introduce the form, he at least +contributed one of its most striking examples in his beautiful Sonnet to +'Sleep,' a favourite subject of the age both in France and England. + +The Pleiade proper by no means monopolised all the poetical talent of +the period. Indeed, there can be no surer testimony to the real strength +of the movement than the universal adherence which was given to its +methods by those who were in no sense bound to it by personal +connection. A second Pleiade might be made up of members who had almost +as much poetical talent as the actual titular stars. Magny, Tahureau, Du +Bartas, D'Aubigne, Desportes, Bertaut, had each of them talent not far +inferior to that of Du Bellay and of Ronsard, and equal to that of the +five minor members. Garnier was immensely Jodelle's superior in his own +line. Jamyn, Durant, Passerat, the two La Tailles, Vauquelin de la +Fresnaye, even La Boetie, who had, as far as can be made out, far more +vocation in poetry than in prose, are names at least equal to those of +Pontus de Tyard or Baif. But they did not form part of the energetic +_coterie_ who started and pushed the movement, and so they have lacked +the reputation which the combined and successful effort of the Seven has +given them. Yet Du Bartas is the one French poet of the sixteenth +century who wrote a poem on the great scale with success, and D'Aubigne +ranks with Regnier and Victor Hugo in the strength and vigour of his +verse. + +[Sidenote: Magny.] + +Olivier de Magny[198] was a kind of petted child of the Pleiade. His +_Amours_ are prefaced by commendatory verses, among which compositions +of four out of the seven--Ronsard, Baif, Belleau and Jodelle--figure, +and he was as strenuous in carrying out the recommendations of Du +Bellay's _Illustration_ as any of the seven themselves. His _Amours_ +just mentioned, his _Odes_, his _Gayetes_ even, testify to the obedient +admiration which young verse-writers often show for the leading poets of +their day. But there is no servile imitation in Magny. His life was +short, and the dates of its beginning and ending are not exactly known, +though he died in 1560. He was a lover of Louise Labe, and was worthy +of her, poetically speaking. He was born, like Marot, at Cahors; he went +to Rome, like many other literary men of his time, on a diplomatic +errand; and his works were all published between 1553 and his death. The +_Odes_ are the best of them; the _Gayetes_ are light and lively enough; +and in both his volumes of sonnets, but especially in the _Soupirs_, +excellent examples of the form are to be found. Magny had a strong +feeling for the formal art of poetry, and it was thus natural that he +should eagerly embrace the gospel of Ronsard. But besides this, he had a +true poetical imagination, and a real command of poetical language. A +sonnet in dialogue, which greatly attracted the admiration of Colletet, +the historian of French poetry in the next age, is perhaps not much more +than a _tour de force_. But many of his other pieces show real feeling, +and have a certain youthfulness about them which suits well with the +sentiments they express, and the ardour of literary as well as amatory +devotion which the poet endeavours to convey. + +[Sidenote: Tahureau.] + +Still younger and probably still more short-lived, but superior as a +poet, was Jacques Tahureau[199]. He was born at Le Mans of a noble +family, and died at the age of twenty-eight. But his life, if short, was +a happy one, and, like most of his contemporaries, he published a volume +of amatory sonnets under the title, gracefully affected even for that +age of graceful affectation, of _Mignardises Amoureuses de l'Admiree_. +Unlike many of the heroines of the Pleiade and their satellites, who are +either known or shrewdly suspected to have been imaginary, the _Admiree_ +of Tahureau was a real person. What is more, he married her, and they +lived together for three years before his early death. Before the +_Mignardises_, he had published a _Premier Recueil_, and after them he +produced a third volume of odes, sonnets, etc. All three display the +same peculiarities, and these peculiarities are sufficiently remarkable. +Tahureau was named by the flattery and the classical fancies of his +contemporaries the French Catullus, and the parallel is not so rash as +might be thought. It is true that it came originally from Du Bellay in +one of his satirical veins. But a later poetical critic, Vauquelin de la +Fresnaye, is more precise in his description, and oddly enough uses the +very term which was afterwards applied in England to Shakespeare's +youthful sonnets. Tahureau, he says:-- + + Nous affrianda tous au sucre de cet art. + +The author of the _Mignardises_ is indeed somewhat 'sugared' in his +style of writing; but there are genuine passion and genuine poetical +feeling as well in his verse. Of the minor poets of the time he is +probably the best. + +[Sidenote: Minor Ronsardists.] + +Before noticing the four remaining poets who have been mentioned as +occupying the highest places next to the Pleiade itself, a brief review +of the minor poets until the end of the century may be given. Etienne de +la Boetie wrote poems which, though they have some of the stiffness and +a little of the hollowness of his _Contre-un,_ possess a certain +grandeur of sentiment and a knack of diction other than commonplace, +which explain Montaigne's admiration. Claude Buttet is chiefly +remarkable for having made a curious attempt to combine the classicism +of the new school with the romanticism of the old. He wrote Sapphics in +rhyme, an idea sufficiently ingenious, but hardly successful. Yet it is +fair to remember that some of the varieties of Leonine verse lacked +neither force nor elegance. The truth is, that these classic metres are +so alien to all modern tongues, that, rhymed or unrhymed, they are +doomed to failure. Jean de la Peruse was, like Magny and Tahureau, a +poet who died before he had reached his term. At twenty-five few men +have left lasting works. Yet La Peruse not only produced a tragedy of +some merit, but minor poems promising more. Jean Doublet was a much +older man, and is chiefly noticeable as an example of the writers who, +beginning with Marot, or even with Cretin, and the Rhetoriqueurs for +models, bowed to the overmastering influence of the Pleiade. Docility of +this kind, however, rarely promises much poetical worth, and Doublet was +not a great poet; but his poems, which have had better fortune in the +way of reprints than those of greater men, show power of versification. + +Amadis Jamyn was a somewhat more distinguished poet than those who have +just been mentioned. Born in 1540, he came to Paris, when the triumph +and supremacy of Ronsard was completely assured, and was taken under +the protection of the Prince of Poets. He was also honoured, as we have +seen, by being allowed to stand by the side of Ronsard, of Baif, of +Desportes, at the funeral of Remy Belleau. He translated the last twelve +books of the Iliad to complete Salel, and began a translation of the +Odyssey; besides which he wrote a poem on the Chase, another on +Generosity, and, like everybody else at the time, abundance of +miscellaneous pieces. He was a good scholar, and there was more ease in +his verse than is usually to be found in his contemporaries (save the +greatest of them), who too often allowed their classical studies to +stiffen and starch their verse. Another admirable poet, though of no +great compass, was the dramatist Grevin. His _Villanesques_, a modified +form of the favourite Villanelle, which had survived the other +_epiceries_ condemned by Du Bellay, are singularly graceful and tender, +epithets which are also applicable to his _Baisers_. The brothers La +Taille also, like Grevin, are chiefly known as dramatists. Jean de la +Taille, though but a boy of ten years old when the _style Marotique_ was +swept out of fashion, had sufficient independence to compose _blasons_ +(and very pretty ones) of the daisy and the rose. Others of his poems +have mediaeval forms or settings, but he imitated Ronsard in his _Mort +de Paris_, and Du Bellay in his _Courtisan Retire_. The works of Jacques +de la Taille, who died young, were chiefly epigrams. Guy du Faur de +Pibrac wrote moral quatrains, which had a great vogue, and which in a +way deserved it. Nicolas Rapin was, with the exception of Passerat, the +chief of the poets of the _Menippee_, a remarkable group, who will be +noticed further when we come to that singular production. But Passerat +himself deserves more notice than simply as a political satirist and a +famous Latin scholar. Of all the poets of the sixteenth century before +Regnier and after Marot, Passerat was the one who possessed most comic +talent. His works are full of little touches which exhibit this, while +at the same time he was a master of the graceful love of poetry which +imitation of the ancients had made fashionable. His Villanelle 'J'ai +perdu ma Tourterelle' is probably the most elegant specimen of a +poetical trifle that the age produced, and has of late years attracted +great admiration. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, a lawyer, the author of an +Art of Poetry, and of the first satires, so called, in French, had a +good deal of poetical power, which he expended chiefly on pastoral +subjects; but unfortunately his command of language and style was by no +means always equal to his command of fresh and agreeable imagery and +sentiment. + +[Sidenote: Du Bartas.] + +Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas[200], the 'Protestant Ronsard,' was born +in 1544 at Montfort, near Auch, served Henry of Navarre in war and +diplomacy, was wounded at Ivry, and died of his wounds in 1590. His +first work was _Judith_; then followed _La Premiere Semaine_, and next +_Uranie_, _Le Triomphe de la Foi_, and the _Seconde Semaine_. He also +wrote numerous smaller poems, including one on the battle of Ivry. The +'First Week of Creation' is his greatest and most famous work. It went +through thirty editions in a few years; was translated into English by +Sylvester, gave not a little inspiration to Milton, and was warmly +admired by Goethe. Ronsard at first eagerly welcomed Du Bartas; but his +jealousy being aroused by the pretensions of the Calvinist party to set +up their poet as a rival to himself, he resented this in an indignant +and vigorous address to Daurat, which contains some very just criticisms +on Du Bartas. Nevertheless the merits of the latter are extremely great, +and his personage and work very interesting. It has been said of him +that he represents, in the first place, the extreme development of the +Ronsardising innovation; in the second place, the highest literary +culture attained by the French Calvinists. Inferior to D'Aubigne in +knowledge of the world, in the choice of subjects perennially +interesting, and in terse vigour of expression, Du Bartas was the +superior of the great Protestant satirist in picturesqueness, in +imagination, and in facility of descriptive power. The stately and +gorgeous abundance of the vocabulary with which the Hellenising and +Latinising innovations of the Pleiade enriched the French language +supplied him with colours and material to work with, and his own genius +did the rest. His attempt to naturalise Greek compounds, such as +'Aime-Lyre,' 'Donne-Ame,' and the rest, has done him more harm than +anything else; but his combination of classical learning, with the +varied colour and vivid imagination of the middle age and the +Renaissance, often results in extraordinarily striking expressions. +_L'Eschine azuree_, for instance, is a singularly picturesque, if also +somewhat barbaric, reminiscence of [Greek: eurea nota thalasses]: the +enforcement of the idea of _hora novissima tempora pessima_ in the four +following lines is admirable:-- + + Nos execrables moeurs, dedans Gomorrhe apprises, + Les troublees saisons, les civiles fureurs, + Les menaces du ciel, sont les avant-coureurs + De Christ, qui vient tenir ses dernieres assises. + +In such a passage again as the following, the power and simplicity of +the diction can escape no reader; the piling up of the strokes is worthy +of Victor Hugo:-- + + Les etoiles cherront. Le desordre, la nuict, + La frayeur, le trespas, la tempeste, le bruit, + Entreront en quartier. + +All that was wanting to make Du Bartas a poet of the first rank was some +faculty of self-criticism; of natural _verve_ and imagination as well as +of erudition he had no lack, but in critical faculty he seems to have +been totally deficient. His beauties, rare in kind and not small in +amount, are alloyed with vast quantities of dull absurdity. + +[Sidenote: D'Aubigne.] + +[Sidenote: Desportes.] + +Agrippa d'Aubigne[201] was a few years Du Bartas' junior, and long +outlived him. He was an important prose-writer as well as poet, and his +long life was as full of interesting events as of literary occupations. +At six years old he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; a year or two later +his father made him swear, in presence of the gibbeted corpses of the +unsuccessful conspirators of Amboise, to revenge their death. Shortly +afterwards he narrowly escaped the stake. For a time he dwelt with Henry +of Navarre at the court of Charles IX., and there thoroughly imbued +himself with the Ronsardising tradition. But he soon escaped with his +master, and for years was a Calvinist irreconcileable, always for war to +the knife, and as rude and bold in the council chamber as in the field. +The death of his master was unfortunate for D'Aubigne; but, though he at +first opposed the regency of Marie de Medicis, he made terms for +himself. The publication, however, of his 'History' brought enemies on +him, and he fled to Geneva, finishing his days there. His prose works +are too numerous to mention separately: the chief besides his histories +are the _Confession de Sancy_ and the _Aventures du Baron de Faeneste_, +both satirical in character and full of vigour. He began as a poet by +poems in the lighter Pleiade style, but his masterpiece is the strange +work called _Les Tragiques_. This consists of seven books, amounting to +not much less than ten thousand lines, and entitled _Miseres_, +_Princes_, _La Chambre Doree_, _Les Feux_, _Les Fers_, _Vengeance_, +_Jugement_. The poem is half historical and half satirical, dealing with +the religious wars, the persecution of the Huguenots, the abuses of the +administration, and of contemporary manners, etc. Nothing equal to the +best verses of this singular book had yet been seen in France, and not +much equal to them has been produced since. The tone of sombre and +impressive declamation had been to some extent anticipated by Du Bartas, +but chiefly for purposes of description. D'Aubigne turned it to its +natural use in invective, and the effect is often extraordinarily fine. +Very copious citation would be necessary to show its excellence: but +before Victor Hugo there is nothing in French equal to D'Aubigne at his +best in point of clangour of sound and impetuosity of rhythm. It is +noteworthy that Du Bartas' _Semaine_, with the _Tragiques_ and the +tragedies of Garnier, finally established the Alexandrine as the +indispensable metre for serious and impassioned poetry in France. +Hitherto the decasyllable and the dodecasyllable had been used +indiscriminately, and Ronsard's _Franciade_ is written in the former. +But after the three poets just mentioned, the Alexandrine became +invariable; the decasyllable being left for light and occasional work, +as a sort of medium in usage as in bulk between the Alexandrine and the +octosyllable. The truth is that, until the improvements of language and +style which the Pleiade had introduced, the Alexandrine couplet had not +had either suppleness or dignity enough for the work. It was lumbering +and disjointed. As soon, however, as the classical turn, inseparable +from a specially classical metre, had been given to the language, it at +once took its place and has ever since kept it, though in the century +succeeding it was deprived of much of its force by arbitrary rules. The +lines of Boileau condemning Ronsard[202] have inseparably connected +Desportes and Bertaut, and have given them a position in literary +history which is as intrinsically inaccurate as it is unduly high. +Neither approaches Du Bartas or D'Aubigne in poetical excellence or in +adroit carrying out of Ronsardism. But neither was in the least made +_retenu_ by Ronsard's failure, and it did not enter the head of +themselves or any of their contemporaries, till their last days, that +Ronsard had failed. Philippe Desportes[203] was a very unclerical +cleric, a successful courtier and diplomatist, a great favourite with +the ladies of the court. He was also a poet of little vigour, but of +great sweetness, much elegance of style and form, and extraordinary +neatness, if not originality, of expression. With Jamyn he was the most +prominent of Ronsard's own particular disciples. His poetical works are +sharply divided, like those of Herrick and Donne and some other poets, +on the one hand, into poems of a very mundane character, collections of +sonnets after the Pleiade fashion to real or imaginary heroines, +celebrations of the ladies and the _mignons_ of the court of Henri III., +imitations of Italian verse, and the like; on the other, into devotional +poems, which include some translations of the Psalms of not a little +merit. Personally Desportes appears to have been a self-seeker and a +sycophant; not without good nature, but covetous, intriguing, corrupt, +given to base compliances. He was Du Bellay's _poete courtisan_ in the +worst sense of the phrase[204]. But working at leisure and with care, +and undistracted by any literary or sentimental enthusiasm, he found +means to give to his work a polish and correctness which many of his +contemporaries of greater talent did not, or could not, give. In this +fact the explanation of Boileau's commendation--for it is no doubt +meant, relatively speaking, for commendation--is probably to be found. + +[Sidenote: Bertaut.] + +Jean Bertaut was, to use a metaphor frequently employed in literary +history, the 'moon' of Desportes. Like him, he is a poet rather elegant +than vigorous, rather correct than spirited. Like him, he wrote light +verse and devotional poems, and, as in the case of Desportes, the +religious poems are--rather contrary to the reader's expectation--the +best of the two. His work, however, was even more limited in amount than +that of his contemporary. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[192] The list is sometimes given rather differently; instead of Jodelle +and Pontus de Tyard, Scevole de St. Marthe and Muretus are substituted. +But the enumeration in the text is the accepted one. + +[193] Ed. Blanchemain. 8 vols. Paris, 1857-67. + +[194] The term usually applied to him by contemporaries. + +[195] Ed. Marty-Laveaux. 2 vols. Paris, 1866-7. + +[196] Ed. Gouverneur. 3 vols. Paris, 1866. + +[197] Not recently re-edited in full. In selection by Becq de +Fouquieres. Paris, 1874. + +[198] Recently edited in 5 vols. by Courbet. Paris, v. d. + +[199] Ed. Blanchemain. 2 vols. Geneva, 1869. + +[200] Du Bartas, always unjustly treated in France, probably from a +curious tradition of mingled sectarian and literary jealousy, has not +been reprinted of late years. The edition used is that of 1610-1611. +Paris, 2 vols, folio. + +[201] Ed. Reaume and de Caussade. Vols. 1-4. Paris, 1873-7. There is +another volume to follow. + +[202] Here are these celebrated lines:-- + + Ronsard, qui le suivit, par une autre methode + Reglant tout, brouilla tout, fit un art a sa mode, + Et toutefois longtemps eut un heureux destin. + Mais sa muse en Francais parlant Grec et Latin + Vit dans l'age suivant, par un retour grotesque, + Tomber de ses grands mots le faste pedantesque. + Ce poete orgueilleux, trebuche de si haut, + Rendit puis retenus Desportes et Bertaut. + + _Art Poet._, Chant i. + +[203] Ed. Michiels. Paris, 1858. + +[204] He was not a courtier for nothing. He held numerous abbacies, and +Charles IX. is said to have given him 800 gold pieces, Henri III. 10,000 +crowns of silver, in each case for a poetical offering of very small +bulk. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE THEATRE FROM GRINGORE TO GARNIER. + + +[Sidenote: Gringore.] + +It so happened that the mediaeval theatre closed, as far as its +exclusive possession of the stage is concerned, with one of the most +remarkable of all its writers. Pierre Gringore[205], who towards the +close of his career preferred the spelling Gringoire, was a Norman by +birth. His poetical and dramatic capacity has been considerably +exaggerated by the learned but crotchety scholar who was at first +charged with the joint editorship of his works in the Bibliotheque +Elzevirienne. But, when the hyperboles of M. Charles d'Hericault are +reduced to their simplest terms, Gringore remains a remarkable figure. +It is to him that we owe the only complete and really noteworthy +tetralogy, composed of _cry_, sotie, morality, and farce, which exists +to show the final result of the mediaeval play--the _Jeu du Prince des +Sots_. To him is also due the most remarkable of the sixteenth-century +mysteries, that of _Saint Louis_; and his miscellaneous poems, as yet +not fully collected, show us a man of letters possessed of no small +faculty for miscellaneous work. Gringore first emerges as a pamphleteer +in verse, on the side of the policy of Louis XII. He held the important +position of _mere sotte_ in the company of persons who charged +themselves with playing the sotie, and Louis perceived the advantages +which he might gain by enlisting such a writer on his side. Gringore's +early works are allegorical poems of the kind which the increasing +admiration of the _Roman de la Rose_, joined to the practice of the +Rhetoriqueurs, had made fashionable in France; but they are directly +political in tone, and an undercurrent of dramatic intention is always +manifest in them. _Les folles Entreprises_ is a very remarkable work. It +might be described as a series of monologues of the kind usual and +already described, but continuous, and having the independent parts +bound to each other by speeches of the author _in propria persona_. The +titles of the separate sections--_L'Entreprise des folz Orgueilleux_, +_Reflexions de l'Auteur sur la Guerre d'Italie_, _le Blason de +Pratique_, _Balade et Supplication a la Vierge Marie_ (_et se peult +Interpreter sur la Royne de France_), etc.--explain the plan of this +curious book as well as any laboured analysis could do. The author takes +what he considers to be the chief grievances in Church and State, and +dilates upon them in the manner, half moralising, half allegoric, which +was popular. An argument of _Les folles Entreprises_ would, however, +require considerable space. It enters into the most recondite +theological questions, and of its general tone the heading of the last +chapter tells as good a story as anything else can do: 'Comme le +tres-chrestien roy et Justice relevent Foy qui estait abattu par +Richesse et Papelardise.' Other works of the same semi-dramatic, +semi-poetical kind are even more directly political in substance: _Les +Entreprises de Venise_; _La Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs_ (Pope Julius), +etc. Sometimes, as in _La Coqueluche_, the author becomes a simple +chronicler describing incidents of his time. Indeed it would hardly be +an exaggeration to describe Gringore's work as the result of a kind of +groping after journalism condemned by the circumstances of the time to +the most awkward and inappropriate form. In his definitely dramatic work +the same practical tendency reappears. The tetralogy is of a directly +politico-social kind. The _cry_, a summons in ironical terms to _sots_ +of all kinds to come and hear their lesson; the sotie, an audacious +satire on the state of things; the morality, in which the very names of +the personages--Peuple Francois, Peuple Italique, Divine Pungnicion, +etc.--speak for themselves, all show this tendency; and even the _bonne +bouche_ at the end, the farce (which is altogether too Rabelaisian in +subject for description here), seems to illustrate the motto--a very +practical one--'Il faut cultiver son jardin.' Less directly the same +purpose can be traced in the _Mystere de Monseigneur Saint Loys_. This +is a picture of the ideal patriot king doing judgment and justice, and +serving God by his voyages over sea, and his punishments of blasphemers +and loose livers at home. + +[Sidenote: The last Age of the Mediaeval Theatre.] + +The first two quarters, and especially the first quarter, of the century +contributed plentifully to the list of mysteries, moralities, and +farces. The dates of the latter are not easy to ascertain, and it is +probable that most of them are older than the present period. The taste +for very lengthy mysteries and moralities, however, had by no means died +out, and some of the mysteries, notably those of Antoine Chevallet, are +of considerable merit. To the sixteenth century too belongs what is +probably the longest of all moralities, that on _The Just and Unjust +Man_, which contains 36,000 lines, besides the _Mundus_, _Caro_, _et +Daemonia_, and the _Condamnation de Banquet_ already described. + +This school was continued, though under some difficulties, until a late +period of the century. It had two things in its favour; it was extremely +popular, and it lent itself, far more than the stately rival soon to be +discussed, to the political and social uses which had long been +associated with the stage in the mind of audiences. In Beza's tragedy of +_Abraham Sacrifiant_, a kind of union takes place between the two +styles. But even the triumph of the Pleiade did not at once abolish the +mysteries which were still legal in the provinces, which had a strong +hold on the fancy of the populace, and which some men of letters who +were themselves much indebted to the new movement, notably Vauquelin de +la Fresnaye, upheld with pen as well as with tongue. Thomas Le Coq, a +beneficed clerk of Falaise, wrote a really remarkable play, _Cain_, of +the purest mystery kind, in 1580; and the troubles of the League brought +forth a large number of pieces which approached much nearer to the +mediaeval drama, and especially to the mediaeval drama in the form which +Gringore had given it, than to the model of Jodelle. + +[Sidenote: Beginnings of the Classical Drama.] + +It was, however, this model which had the seeds of life in it, and which +was destined to serve as the pattern for the French drama of the future. +In the manifesto of the Pleiade Du Bellay gave especial prominence to +the drama among the literary kinds, in which French had need of +strengthening from classical sources. The classical tragedy in the +classical language, and even in translation, was already no stranger to +French audiences, and the principle of constructing modern vernacular +plays on the same model had become familiar to the upper and learned +classes by the practice of the Italians, with which they had become +acquainted, partly through the numerous visits, friendly and hostile, +paid by Frenchmen to Italy in the early years of the sixteenth century, +partly through the reproduction of these Italian plays at the courts of +Francis I. and Henri II. This reproduction of foreign work was not +confined to the court, for in 1548 the town of Lyons greeted Catherine +de Medicis with an Italian play acted by an Italian company. As for +translations of classical drama, Lazare de Baif translated the _Electra_ +as early as 1537, and Buchanan, Muretus, and others composed Latin plays +for their pupils to act. In all these plays, Latin, Italian, and +French-translation, the influence of the tragedian Seneca was paramount, +and this influence made an enduring mark on the future drama of France. +Greek, though it was ardently studied, was, from the purely literary +point of view, little comprehended by the French humanists, and of the +three tragedians Euripides was the only one who made much impression +upon them. Seneca, as the only extant Latin tragedian, had a monopoly of +the classical language which they understood best and revered most +heartily. His model was also peculiarly imitable. The paucity of action, +the strict observation of certain easily observable rules, the regular +and harmonious but easily comprehensible system of his choruses, the +declamatory style and strong ethical temper of his sentiments, all +appealed to the French Renaissance. Within a year or two from the time +when Du Bellay had sounded the note of innovation, Jodelle answered the +summons with a tragedy and a comedy at the same time. + +[Sidenote: Jodelle.] + +Etienne Jodelle[206], Seigneur de Lymodin, was one of the youngest of +Ronsard's fellows. He was born at Paris in 1532, and was thus barely +twenty years old when, in 1552, he founded at once modern French tragedy +with his _Cleopatre_, and modern French comedy with his _Eugene_. The +representation was a great success, and obtained for the author from the +King, Henri II., besides many compliments, the sum of five hundred +crowns. The success of the plays also brought about an incident famous +in French literary history of the anecdotic kind. The seven determined +to celebrate the occasion by a country excursion, and on the way to +Arcueil they unluckily met a flock of goats. Deeply imbued as they all +were with classical fancies, it was almost inevitable that the idea of a +Dionysiac festival should strike them, and a goat was caught, crowned +with flowers and solemnly paraded, Ronsard himself officiating as the +god. This harmless freak was represented by the zealots of the time as +an impious pagan orgie, in which the goat had been actually sacrificed +to a false god, and the reputation of the brotherhood sank almost +equally with Catholics and Protestants. Six years after, Jodelle +produced his second tragedy, _Didon_, also with great success. But he +was not a fortunate person. The miscarriage of a pageant of which he had +the direction alienated the favour of the court from him, and he was too +proud or too careless to solicit its grace. He was a loose and reckless +liver, and receives from Pierre de l'Estoile a character which very +probably is unduly harsh. However this may be, he died at the age of +forty, indigent and ruined in constitution. His literary activity was +great, but only a small part of his work survives, and his three plays +are the only important portion of this. + +The comedy has some impression of classical study, though very much less +than the two tragedies. It is, unlike the indigenous farce, divided +regularly into acts and scenes; it is much longer than the native +comedy, and some of the characters show, though faintly and at a +distance, some traces of a reading of Terence. But it retains the +octosyllabic metre, and its general scheme, despite a somewhat greater +involution of plot and multiplicity of characters, is that of a farce. +Eugene, the hero, a rich and luxurious churchman, is in love with Alix, +whom, to save appearances, he has married to a wittol of the name of +Guillaume. Alix, however, has several other lovers, among whom is +Florimond a soldier, the rejected suitor of Helene, Eugene's sister. +These personages are completed by Maitre Jean, the abbe's chaplain and +general factotum, a creditor of Guillaume's, some servants of the +soldier Florimond, etc. The plot is very simple, consisting of hardly +anything but the return of Florimond from the wars, and his wrath at +discovering Alix's relations not merely with Guillaume but with Eugene. +He is finally made happy with Helene. Alix takes the wise resolution to +be less prodigal of her affections, and the play ends. Some detached +passages, especially the opening scene, in which the lazy, dissolute +life of wealthy churchmen is very pointedly satirised, are amusing +enough, and the characters of the chaplain and the husband are not far +from _la vraie comedie_. The tragedies are indirectly of more +importance, but intrinsically much duller reading. Instead, however, of +cleaving, as _Eugene_ does, closely to the lines of the existing drama, +the innovation in them is of the boldest kind. The octosyllabic verse, +hitherto sacred to drama, is exchanged in _Cleopatre_ for a mixture of +the decasyllabic and the Alexandrine, some scenes being written in the +one, others in the other. Nor is the tentative character of the work +only thus indicated; for the rhymes follow different systems in the +different scenes. In _Didon_, however, Jodelle settled down to the +unbroken Alexandrine with alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, +which has remained the standard vehicle of French tragedy ever since. +His general scheme follows that of Seneca closely, and his choruses are +written in stanzas of short verses regularly arranged. The matter of +both plays is taken with tolerable exactness, in the one case from +Plutarch, in the other from Virgil; but a somewhat full analytic +description of the first French tragedy must be given. _Didon_ is +something of an advance in versification, as has been pointed out, but +in other respects it is perhaps inferior to _Cleopatre_. + +The piece begins with a prologue to the king, and then the first act +opens with a long soliloquy from the ghost of Antony. Long speeches, it +should be said, are the bane of this early French tragedy, and for +nearly a century the evil increased instead of diminishing. Cleopatra, +Charmium, and Eras then appear, for the play follows Plutarch strictly +enough. The queen expresses her despair, and announces her intention to +die. The first act is concluded by a long chorus of Alexandrian women, +who bewail the shortness of life in six-syllable quatrains. The second +act, like the first (unless the monologue of the ghost is counted in +this latter), consists of only a single scene and a chorus. The scene is +between Octavian, Agrippa, and Proculeius, who argue about the probable +fate of Cleopatra. The conqueror is disposed to mercy and to regret for +Antony's death, but his officers are less amiably minded. They agree, +however, that Cleopatra will have to be watched for fear of suicide. The +chorus now is nominally divided into strophes and antistrophes, but +these are really only uniform stanzas of six six-syllable lines each, +with the rhymes arranged a, b, a, b, c, c, and there is no epode. The +third act contains the interview of Octavian with Cleopatra, the +surrender of the treasures, and the treachery of Seleucus. The chorus +takes part in this scene both by a short song and a longer one in +couplets, but arranged in eight-line stanzas, which is preceded by a +dialogue with Seleucus. The act thus consists of two scenes. In the +fourth act Cleopatra repeats and regularly matures her resolve of death. +It contains two choric pieces of some beauty. The first is an undivided +song in sixes and fours; the second has a regular arrangement of +strophe, antistrophe, and epode three times repeated, consisting of +five-syllable lines, of which the strophe and antistrophe contain eleven +each and the epode eight, arranged--strophe and antistrophe a, b, a, b, +c, c, d, d, e, e, d, epode a, b, a, b, c, c, d, d. The fifth act is very +short, containing a recital by Proculeius of the Queen's death, and a +choric lament in quatrains. It will thus be seen that the action in the +piece is very small, except in the brawl with Seleucus; that the chorus +has the full importance which it possessed in the classical tragedy; and +that, owing to the few changes of scene and the other restrictions +imposed upon himself by the poet, the dramatic capabilities of the plan +are not a little limited. The same state of things continued to be the +case during the whole duration of the school whose master Jodelle was. +Style and versification were sometimes better, sometimes worse than his; +but, with comparatively few exceptions, the general conception was the +same, long monologues, few characters, an almost total defect of action, +which is conducted by the aid of messengers, etc. + +[Sidenote: Minor Pleiade Dramatists.] + +The fervent spirit of imitation which characterised the satellites of +the Pleiade has already been noticed more than once. But in no +department was it more marked than in that of drama. Jean de la Peruse, +who, like many of the Pleiade poets, died very young, produced a _Medea_ +imitated from Seneca, and Charles Toustain an _Agamemnon,_ also taken +from the same author. Jacques de la Taille at a very early age wrote a +_Darius_ and an _Alexander_, besides a _Didon_, which is lost. These +pieces have some merit, and it is noteworthy that the metre varies, as +in Jodelle's model. A slight eccentricity of realism, however, has been +Jacques de la Taille's chief passport to a place in the history of +French literature. The death of Darius occurs in the middle of the word +_recommandation_, + + Mes enfants et ma femme aie en recommanda ... + Il ne put achever, ear la mort l'en garda. + +It is perhaps not insignificant that the verse is completed if the word +is not. + +Of this immediate group of Jodelle's followers, however, the most +remarkable before Garnier was Jacques Grevin, who was noteworthy both as +a dramatist and as a poet. Grevin was a Protestant and a practitioner of +medicine, in which capacity he accompanied Marguerite de France, Duchess +of Savoy, to Turin, and died there, at the age of thirty. Before he was +twenty he wrote a tragedy, _La Mort de Cesar,_ which has considerable +merit, and two comedies, _Les Esbahis_ and _La Tresoriere_, which are +perhaps better still. Jean de la Taille, the brother of Jacques, but a +better poet and a better dramatist, wrote _Saul Furieux_ and _Les +Gabaonites_, two of the numerous sacred tragedies which have always +found favour in France, and the tradition of which it has been sought to +revive even in our own day. The theatre, like the pulpit, was used as an +engine by the Leaguers, but nothing of much value resulted from this. + +[Sidenote: Garnier.] + +Although many of the practitioners of this classical tragedy, notably +Jodelle, Grevin, and Jean de la Taille, produced work of interest and +merit, it contributed only one name which can properly be called great +to literary history. This was that of Robert Garnier[207], who brought +the form to the highest perfection of which it was capable in its +earliest state. Garnier was born at La Ferte Bernard in 1545, and died, +apparently in his native province of Maine, in 1601. He was a lawyer of +some distinction, being a member of the Paris bar, then Lieutenant +Criminel at Le Mans, and finally Councillor of State. He was an +immediate disciple and favourite of Ronsard, who has spoken of him in +those terms of magnificent eulogy of which he was liberal, but which +here, if somewhat exaggerated, are by no means altogether misplaced. His +dramatic works, extending to eight plays, were all composed in his +earlier manhood, between 1568 and 1580. There is, however, a wide +difference between the first six plays and the last two. The former, +_Porcie_, _Cornelie_, _Marc-Antoine_, _Hippolyte_, _La Troade_, and +_Antigone_, are all, as their titles show clearly, tragedies of +antiquity closely modelled on Seneca and Euripides, especially Seneca. +The _Cornelie_, it may be observed, was translated into English by Kyd. +They do not differ much in arrangement from each other, or from +Jodelle's _Cleopatre_. In his two last plays, however, produced in 1580, +much greater power and originality appear. These were _Les Juives_, a +Biblical tragedy on the fate of Zedekiah and Jerusalem, and +_Bradamante_, a romantic tragi-comedy on a subject taken from Ariosto. +The latter was apparently the first of its kind, dramatists having +hitherto confined themselves to classical, contemporary, and Biblical +subjects. There is, moreover, a curious incident connected with it. It +contains no choruses, and in the preface of the published edition the +manager is requested to have the want supplied in case of its being +acted. Here too appears the confidant, a dubious present to the French +theatre, but one of no small importance. The play is a remarkable one. +The mixture of comic with tragic models gives the author much more +liberty, of which he duly avails himself; the scenes are more numerous, +the action more lively and complicated, the interest in every way +greater. Yet it would seem, from the remark made above, that there was +some doubt in the mind of the author whether it would ever be acted. Nor +does it seem to have had much, if any, effect on the general character +of stage plays. These continued to follow the Jodelle model until Hardy +brought in the influence of Spain. Of that model _Les Juives_ is +assuredly the masterpiece. The choruses are of great beauty, admirably +diversified in metre and rhythm, and occasionally all but equalling the +best lyrics of the Pleiade. There is interest in the story, which deals +with the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar on the Jewish king, and its chief +drawback is its unrelieved gloom. The first act too, which consists of a +monologue by the Prophet (unnamed) relieved only by the chorus, is +justly open to that charge of monotony and absence of action, which is +the great drawback of this class of drama. Subsequently, however, a real +interest is created in the question whether the conqueror will or will +not give up his sanguinary purposes in consequence of the remonstrances +of his general, Nebuzaradan, and the entreaties of Zedekiah's mother and +his own Queen. The stiffness of the dialogue, which is remarkable in +most of the tragedies of the period, is here a good deal softened. The +speeches are still sometimes too long--Garnier was indeed a great +offender in this way, and in his _Hippolyte_ has inflicted an unbroken +monologue of nearly two hundred lines on the hapless spectators. But +very frequently the dialogue is fairly kept up, and sufficiently varied +by the avoidance of the practice of concluding the speeches uniformly at +the end of lines. + +[Sidenote: Defects of the Pleiade Tragedy.] + +On the whole, however, despite the literary excellence of at least some +of the work composing it, it is impossible to give high rank as drama to +the model of Jodelle. Although the unities were not by any means +followed with the strictness which prevailed afterwards, the caution of +Horace about awkward transactions on the stage was rigidly observed, +and, with the usual illegitimate inference, carried out so as almost to +exclude all action whatever. The personages were generally few, the acts +divided into but a scene or two at most, the set _tirades_ mercilessly +long, and the whole thing, as it would appear to a modern spectator, +dull and spiritless. + +[Sidenote: Pleiade Comedy.] + +[Sidenote: Larivey.] + +The dramatists of the Pleiade school, though they chiefly cultivated +tragedy, did not by any means neglect comedy, their leader, Jodelle, +having, as has been shown, set them the example in both kinds. Their +comedy was, however, for some time a somewhat indeterminate kind of +composition, and did not for the most part show much sign of the +extraordinary excellence which French comedy was to attain in the next +century. They seem to have hesitated between three models, the +indigenous farce, the Italian comedy, which was a graft on the Latin, +and the Latin comedy of Plautus and Terence itself. Yet _Eugene_, as has +been said, is a great deal better as a play than either _Didon_ or +_Cleopatre_. Its manner was closely imitated in the already-mentioned +comedies of Grevin. The _Reconnue_ of Belleau is a work of merit. Baif +turned the _Miles Gloriosus_ into French under the title of +_Taillebras_, which was acted with the curious accompaniment of choruses +composed by, among others, Desportes, Belleau, and Ronsard himself. All +these pieces kept the octosyllabic verse which the farce had +consecrated. Afterwards it became fashionable to write comedies in +prose. Jean de la Taille thus gave _Les Corrivaux_, Odet de Turnebe _Les +Mecontents_, Francois d'Amboise _Les Napolitaines_. But the chief comic +author of the century, a better playwright than Garnier himself, was +Pierre Larivey, who also wrote in prose[208]. He was born at Troyes +about 1540, and died probably in the second decade of the seventeenth +century. His father was an Italian, of the famous printer family of the +Giunti, and on settling in France he had dubbed himself L'Arrive, which +soon took the less recognisable form under which the dramatist is known. +Pierre Larivey held a canonry at Troyes, and translated many Italian +books of the most diverse kinds into French. Among these were numerous +comedies, and the genius of the translator for his task in this case +produced what are in effect as original compositions as most plays which +call themselves original. Larivey took the utmost liberties with his +models, adding, dropping, altering, exactly as he pleased, and writing +his adaptations in a style excellent for the purpose. He produced twelve +plays, of which nine are extant, _Le Laquais_, _La Veuve_, _Les +Esprits_, _Le Morfondu_, _Les Jaloux_, _Les Escoliers_, published in +1579, and _Constance_, _Le Fidele_, _Les Tromperies_, published in 1611. +Each of these has an Italian original. But, as the originals themselves +are frequently derived from classical sources, Larivey very often seems +to be imitating these latter. A nearly complete idea of the character of +his best piece, _Les Esprits_, may be obtained by those who know the +_Aulularia_ and _Andria_, and, on the other hand, the _Ecole des Maris_ +and _L'Avare_, for he stands about midway between the classical comedies +of Latin and French. Moliere found a good deal of his property in +Larivey, and so did other French comic authors. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[205] Ed. Hericault, Montaiglon, and Rothschild. 2 vols. Paris. +1858-1877. + +[206] _Ancien Theatre Francais_, vol. iv. + +[207] A good modern edition has appeared by Foerster. Heilbronn, 1882. + +[208] _Ancien Theatre Francais_, vol. vi. vii. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +CALVIN AND AMYOT. + + +[Sidenote: Prose Writers of the Renaissance.] + +It has been pointed out that Rabelais, in his capacity of representative +author of the French Renaissance, exhibits all the characteristics of +that Renaissance--its interest, half-enthusiastic and half-sceptical, in +religious and philosophical questions, its devotion to ancient +literature and learning, and the ardent zest with which it attacked at +once the business and the pleasures of the world. The four most +remarkable of the remaining prose authors of the century illustrate +these characteristics as vividly but less universally. Montaigne indeed +is almost as complete a representative of the entire character for the +last half of the century as Rabelais is of the first. But even in him +one note, the note of sceptical philosophy, is more dominant than any to +be found in Rabelais. In the same way Calvin was the first, if not the +most distinguished, of theologians who wrote modern French prose; Amyot +the representative of erudition; and Brantome of that attention to +mundane business and pleasure which produced so many admirable +memoir-writers. Round each of the four, but especially round Amyot and +Brantome, numerous figures, sometimes of hardly less magnitude, have to +be grouped. Chronological reasons, and the convenience of subdividing +the subject, make it, however, advisable to take Calvin and Amyot first, +leaving the authors of the _Essais_ and the _Dames Galantes_ with their +train for another chapter. + +[Sidenote: Calvin.] + +Jean Calvin[209] was born in 1509, at Noyon, in Picardy, where his +father held the post of procurator-fiscal to the bishop. He took orders +very early, and obtained some preferment. Before long, by a transition +very usual in that age, he exchanged divinity for law; but his interest +was still in the former study, and he eagerly embraced the Reformed +doctrines. Like other French reformers, he was at first rewarded by the +favour of Francis and his sister Marguerite, but the tide soon turned, +and he left France in 1534 for Basle. It is said that it was not till +then that he learnt Hebrew. At Basle his _Institution_ was published. +After a year or two he went to Italy, where he was received by the +Duchess of Ferrara, Renee of France, the steadiest of all the royal +patrons of the French reformers. At last he established himself at +Geneva, where, as is well known, he succeeded in setting up a kind of +theocratic tyranny, which was for centuries the model and pattern of his +faithful followers the Scotch Presbyterians. He was once banished, but +recalled, and exercised his sway for about a quarter of a century. Into +the too famous and much argued matters of his relations with Servetus, +his intrigues with the French inquisitors to establish a kind of +_Zollverein_ of persecution and the like, there is no need to enter +here. He died in 1564. Calvin's greatest work in literature, as in +theology, is the _Institution of the Christian Religion_, which, as has +been said, was published at Basle in 1536. It was written in Latin, but +four years later was republished in French, the author himself being the +translator. The minor works of Calvin, both in Latin and French, are +very numerous, but from the point of view of literary history they may +be neglected, except certain satirical pamphlets wherein the writer +displayed a considerable command of vigorous, if occasionally clumsy, +satire and invective. The scurrility with which the debates of the +Reformation were carried on on both sides is but too well known. Calvin +was not so guilty in this respect as Luther, but he must bear a +considerable portion of the blame. What is really valuable in Calvin's +satiric style may be found more worthily represented in the less +abstract passages of the _Institution_, notably the Address to the King. + +The _Institution_ itself is beyond all question the first serious work +of great literary merit, not historical, in the history of French prose. +It is strongly Latinised in form and construction, as might indeed be +expected considering the circumstances of its production. But the point +in which it differs from preceding works in which the classical +influence is prominent, is that the author no longer attempts to give +his classical colour by means of wholesale importations of terms. The +vocabulary, though rich and varied, is still in the main genuine French, +and the Latinism is more observable in occasional constructions and in +the architecture of the clauses than in the mere selection of words. +This clause-architecture was a matter of the last importance, for it was +exactly in this respect that French, like most of the vernacular +tongues, was deficient. The entirely artless and mainly conversational +array of the sentence which, out of verse, had hitherto been common, +served for narrative well enough, but not at all for argument or +discussion. Calvin threw his French clauses into the mould in which his +Latin had been cast, and without unduly stiffening them produced a +regularity of form which was entirely novel. Even when his sentences are +of considerable length, there is clearness and simplicity in them, which +in some languages, English for instance, was not generally reached in +prose till much later. It is remarkable, too, that the besetting sin of +serious French prose, its tendency to the declamatory, is well kept +under by Calvin. Next to the graceful stateliness of his phrase, its +extreme sobriety, not rejecting legitimate ornament, but seldom or never +trespassing into the rhetorical, has to be observed. Considering that +the whole of it was written before the author was seven-and-twenty, it +is perhaps the most remarkable work of its particular kind to be +anywhere found--the merits being those of full maturity and elaborate +preparation rather than of youthful exuberance. The book consists of +four parts; the first on God, the second on the Atonement, or rather on +the Mediatorial Office of Christ, the third on the results of that +Office, the fourth on Church Government. Its end, it need hardly be +said, is double--the establishment in the most rigorous form of the +doctrine of predestination and original sin, and the destruction of the +sacramental and sacerdotal doctrines of the Catholic Church. + +[Sidenote: Minor Reformers and Controversialists.] + +Despite the fervid interest taken in religious disputation and the +masterly example which Calvin had set both to friends and foes, theology +proper did not contribute very much of value to literature during the +period. Beza wrote chiefly in Latin, his _Histoire des Eglises +Reformees_ being the chief exception. Pierre Viret, a Swiss by birth, +who passed the last twenty years of his life at various towns in the +south of France as a preacher and theological teacher, wrote a +considerable number of treatises, both serious and satirical. The titles +of some of the latter, _L'Alchimie du Purgatoire_, _La Cosmographie +Infernale_, etc., are characteristic of the time. But Viret's literary +merit was not remarkable. This kind of theological pasquinading was in +great favour throughout the period, and authors of very various merit, +such as Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde, Dore, Claude de Saintes, Arthus +Desire, and others, contributed plentifully to it. But the interest of +their work is for the most part historical and antiquarian only. The +title of 'Protestant Rabelais' has been absurdly given to Marnix. It is +only so far deserved that the scurril language and gross images which +with the master were but accessories, were with the pupil the main +point. In the latter part of the century, after the quieting of the +troubles of the League, two more serious disputants arose, each of +considerable literary eminence. These were on the Protestant side, +Philippe de Mornay, better known as Duplessis-Mornay, who distinguished +himself equally as a soldier, a diplomatist, and a man of letters, and +the still more famous Cardinal Du Perron, a converted Calvinist, who was +supposed to be the most expert controversialist of a time which was +nothing if not controversial. The chief theological work of +Duplessis-Mornay was his _Traite de la Verite de la Religion +Chretienne_. The chief written theological work of Du Perron was a +_Traite du Sacrement de l'Euchariste_, in reply to a work on the same +subject by Mornay. + +[Sidenote: Preachers of the League.] + +Between the controversies of the earlier part of the century and those +of the latter, preaching, if not dogmatic theology, held an important +place because of its political bearing. The pulpit style of the +sixteenth century was for the most part an aggravation of that (already +described) of the fifteenth, the acrimony of sectarian and factious +partisanship leading the preachers to indulge in every kind of verbal +excess. During the League the partisans of that organisation, especially +in Paris, were perpetually excited against Henri III. and his successor +by the most atrocious pulpit diatribes, the chief artists in which were +Boucher, Rose, Launay, Feuardent, and Genebrard. The literary value of +these furious outpourings however is very small. After their cessation a +reaction set in, and for some time before the splendid period of pulpit +eloquence, which lasted from St. Francis de Sales to Massillon, the +general style of French homiletics was dull and laboured. + +[Sidenote: Amyot.] + +Jacques Amyot[210] was born at Melun in 1513, and belonged to the lowest +class. He was educated as a servitor at the famous College de Navarre, +and took his degree in arts at the age of nineteen. He then held various +tutorships and attracted the notice of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, the +constant patroness of men of letters, who gave him a Readership at +Bourges. After some years of University teaching in the classics, he +began his series of translations with the _Theagenes and Chariclea_ in +1546. This was three years in advance of Du Bellay's manifesto, and +though not a few translations had already appeared, none had even +approached Amyot's in elegance. As usual at the time his literary +reputation was rewarded by Church preferment and employment in the +diplomatic service. He was also made tutor to Charles IX. and Henri of +Anjou. His elder pupil, when he came to the throne, made him, first, +Grand Almoner of France, and then Bishop of Auxerre, while Henri III. +added the honour of a commandership in the order of the Holy Ghost. For +a time, in the midst of the troubles of the League, Amyot was driven +from his palace, but he returned and died, at the full age of fourscore, +in 1594. + +Besides the work of Heliodorus, Amyot translated Diodorus Siculus +(1554), _Daphnis and Chloe_, Plutarch's _Lives_ (1559), and Plutarch's +_Morals_ (1574). It may seem at first sight that his selection of +authors to translate was somewhat peculiar. It was however, either by +accident or design, singularly well suited to the age which he +addressed. The positive merit of Heliodorus, and still more of Longus, +is certainly greater than is usually admitted nowadays. But for that +time they were peculiarly suited (and especially Longus) by their +combination of romantic and adventurous description with graceful +pictures of nature and amatory interludes. Plutarch, on the other hand, +expressed, more than any other author, the practical and moralising +spirit which accompanied this taste for romance. Montaigne confessed +that he could not do without Plutarch, and it may be doubted whether any +other single author of antiquity, after the Ciceronian mania was over, +exercised such an influence as Plutarch, through Amyot, North, and +Shakespeare (a direct succession of channels), upon France and England. + +The merit of the translator had not a little to do with the success of +the books. Here is the testimony of the greatest in a literary sense of +Amyot's readers. 'I give,' says Montaigne, 'and I think I am right in +doing so, the palm to Jacques Amyot over all French writers, not only +for the simplicity and purity of his vocabulary, in which he surpasses +all others, nor for his industry in so long a task, nor for the depth of +his learning which has enabled him to expound so happily a writer so +thorny and crabbed. I am above all grateful to him for having selected +and chosen a book so worthy and so suitable as a present to his country. +We dunces were lost had not this book plucked us out of the mire. Thanks +to it, we dare to speak and to write. By it ladies are in a position to +give lessons to schoolmasters. It is our very breviary.' This praise, +which is not exaggerated in itself, and still less when taken as an +expression of the feeling of the time, refers of course to the +'Plutarch,' and in estimating it it is necessary to take account of +Montaigne's especial affection for the author translated. But if we take +in the lighter work, and especially the _Daphnis and Chloe_, Amyot will +stand higher, not lower. His merit is not so much that he has known how +to adjust himself and his style to two very different authors, but that +in rendering both those authors he has written French of a most original +model and of the greatest excellence. The common fault of translation, +the insensible adoption of a foreign idiom--especially difficult to +avoid at a time when no classical standards or models of the tongue used +by the translator exist--is here almost entirely overcome. The style of +Amyot, who had little before him, if Calvin and Rabelais be excepted, +but the clumsy examples of the _rhetoriqueur_ school, is, as Montaigne +justly says, perfectly simple and pure; and so little is it tinged +either with archaism or with classicism that the seventeenth century +itself, unjust as it was for the most part towards its predecessors, +acknowledged its merit. + +[Sidenote: Minor Translators.] + +[Sidenote: Dolet.] + +Although Amyot was by far the most considerable of the French +translators of the sixteenth century, he was not by any means the first. +Claude de Seyssel translated many Greek authors, Pierre Saliat produced +a version of Herodotus, Lefevre d'Etaples was the author of the first +complete French translation of the Bible, and a cluster of learned +writers, some of them remarkable for other work, such as Bonaventure des +Periers, devoted themselves to Plato. Among these latter there is one +who was in many ways a typical representative of the time. Etienne +Dolet[211] was born at Orleans in 1509, lived a stormy life diversified +by many quarrels, literary and theological, did much service to +literature both in Latin and French, and, falling out with the powers +that were, was burnt (having first been, as a matter of grace and in +consequence of a previous recantation, hanged) in the Place Maubert, at +Paris, on his birthday, August 3, 1554. Dolet had written many Latin +speeches and tractates in the Ciceronian style--that of a curious +section of humanists who entertained an exclusive and exaggerated +devotion to Cicero. Then, becoming himself a master-printer, he wrote +several small treatises on French grammar, some poems, a short history +of Francis the First, and finally, a translation of the Platonic or +Pseudo-Platonic _Axiochus_, which was the proximate cause of his death. +He was one of the earliest of the French humanist students to devote +himself to the vernacular, and, though his short and troubled life did +not enable him to perfect his French style, he is very interesting as a +specimen. His friendship with Marot and Rabelais had in each case an +unhappy end. In the latter this was due to a pirated edition of +_Pantagruel_ and _Gargantua_, which reproduced expressions that +Rabelais, in the rising storm of persecution, had been anxious to +modify. As a Latin scholar Dolet was accurate and sound. His +translations suffer somewhat from the want of a sufficiently definite +and flexible French style, but the striving after such a style is +apparent in them. + +Dolet and the other persons just mentioned had translated for the most +part prose into prose. Sanxon, Hugues Salel, Lazare de Baif, Sibilet, +and others, translated verse into verse; but the theory of French +versification had not as yet been sufficiently studied to make the +attempt really profitable. After the innovations of the Pleiade many of +Ronsard's followers bent themselves to the same task with a better +equipment and with more success. Almost all the poets mentioned +elsewhere executed translations of more or less merit. + +[Sidenote: Fauchet.] + +From a literary point of view, however, the exercises of the century, in +what may be called applied scholarship, were, leaving out of sight for +the moment Amyot's work, and also that, presently to be mentioned, of +Herberay, of greater merit than its pure translations. All the mediaeval +legends, assigning classical or semi-classical origins to the +populations of France, were resumed and amplified by Jean Lemaire de +Belges, in the first years of the century, in his _Illustrations des +Gaules_. Lemaire belongs, as has been said elsewhere, for the most part +to the earlier school of the Rhetoriqueurs, but his literary power was +considerable. The style of research, mingling as it did antiquarian and +historical elements with a strong infusion of what was purely literary, +was illustrated during the period by three persons who deserve special +mention. Claude Fauchet is a name of great importance in French literary +history. So long as mediaeval literature actually flourished we should +expect to find, and we do find, no attention paid to its history and +development. Fauchet was the first person, so far as is known, who +devoted himself to something like a critical examination of its +results; and as many of the materials which he had at his disposal have +perished, his work, with all its drawbacks, is still very valuable. His +_Antiquites Gauloises et Francoises_ are purely historical, but display +a sound spirit of criticism. His _Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et +Poesie Francoise, Ryme et Romans, plus les Noms et Sommaires des +Oeuvres de CXXVII Poetes Francois vivans avant l'an MCCC_, is a work +for its period (1581) almost unique. Philologically, of course, Fauchet +is far from infallible, as, for instance, in his theory, obviously +indefensible, that French is a cross between the tongues of the Gauls +and the Romans. But his 'Noms et Sommaires' are actually taken from the +study of manuscripts; and, as the works of the Trouveres had, with few +exceptions, long dropped out of sight, except in late fifteenth-century +prose versions, the attempt to make them known was as salutary as it was +bold. + +[Sidenote: Pasquier.] + +Fauchet unfortunately was not a good writer. This cannot be said of his +principal rival, or rather successor, Etienne Pasquier. Pasquier was +born at Paris in 1529, and early devoted himself to legal studies, which +he pursued all through his life. His most famous performance as an +advocate was his speech for the University of Paris against the Jesuits +in 1565. He afterwards took a vigorous part in the Royalist polemic +against the League. He did not die till 1615. His works, as yet +unpublished in a complete form, are in modern times accessible chiefly +in the selection of M. Leon Feugere[212]. They are voluminous, but by +far the most important (with the exception perhaps of the valuable +_Letters_) is the _Recherches de la France_. This is a somewhat +desultory but very interesting collection of remarks on politics, +history, social changes, and last, not least, literature. To us the most +attractive part of Pasquier's literary history is the account he gives +of the great poetical and literary movement of his own day, the +revolution of the Pleiade, or, as he describes it picturesquely, 'De la +Grande Flotte de Poetes que produisit le Regne du Roi Henry Deuxieme.' +But his notes on the previous history of literature in France, though +necessarily based on somewhat imperfect knowledge, are full of +interest, and not destitute of instruction, such, for instance, as his +chapters on the farce of _Pathelin_, on Provencal poetry, on the formal +measures of the fourteenth century, etc. Pasquier's style is very +delightful. Despite his erudition, and even what may be called his +Ronsardising, he does not aim at the new severity and classicism. But +his manner is exceedingly picturesque, perfectly clear, and +distinguished by a sort of gossiping ingenuousness without any lack of +dignity, the secret of which the sixteenth and early seventeenth +centuries in France and England seem to have possessed and carried off +with them. + +[Sidenote: Henri Estienne.] + +The third of three not dissimilar names is that of Henri Estienne. His +remarkable _Apologie pour Herodote_, like not a few other works of the +same kind, would be less remarkable if it were stripped of borrowed +plumes; but his three treatises on French linguistics, the _Traite de la +Conformite du Francais avec le Grec_, the _Precellence de la Langue +Francaise_, and the _Nouveaux Dialogues de Langage Francais Italianise_, +would give him a considerable place in the history of French literature +if he had written no _Apologie_ and published no _Thesaurus_. All three +works are more or less directed against the Italianising mania of the +day. + +[Sidenote: Herberay.] + +Here, perhaps, better than elsewhere, may be mentioned the name of one +of the best, if not the best, purely narrative writer of French prose +during the century, Herberay des Essarts. It is to Herberay that the +famous romance of _Amadis of Gaul_ owes most of its fame. According to +the most probable story, the _Amadis_ was originally translated by the +Spaniard Montalvo from a lost Portuguese original of the fourteenth +century. There is absolutely no trace of a French original, the +existence of which has been assumed by French critics. In form the +_Amadis_ is a long prose Roman d'Aventures, distinguished only from its +French companions and predecessors by a somewhat higher strain of +romantic sentiment, and by a greater abundance of giants, dwarfs, +witches, and other condiments, which, even in its most luxuriant day, +the simpler and more academic French taste had known how to do without, +or at most, to apply moderately. It had been continued in the Spanish by +more than one author, and was a very voluminous work when, in 1540, +Herberay undertook to give a French version of it. He, in his turn, had +continuators, but none who equalled his popularity or power. Readers of +the Spanish complain that Herberay has not been a faithful translator, +and, in particular, that he has been guilty of no few anachronisms. He +probably troubled himself very little about exact fidelity or strict +local and temporal colour. But he ranks, in order of time, second only +to Calvin in the production of a clear, elegant, and scholarly French +prose style. The book became immensely popular. It is said that it was +the usual reading book for foreign students of French for a considerable +period, and it was highly thought of by the best critics (such as +Pasquier) of its own and the next generation. It had moreover a great +influence on what came after it. To no single book can be so clearly +traced the heroic romances of the early seventeenth century. + +[Sidenote: Palissy.] + +It may seem somewhat premature to speak of scientific writers in the +sixteenth century. Yet there are three who usually and deservedly hold a +place in French literary history, and who cannot be conveniently classed +under any other head. There are few better known names of the time than +Bernard Palissy. His famous enamels are no doubt partly the cause of +this, but other artists as great or greater are not nearly so living to +us as this maker of pottery. He was born in or about 1510, at a village, +Chapelle Broin, near Agen, and he died in the Bastile, in 1589, a +prisoner for his Protestantism. Catherine de Medicis had saved him from +the massacre of St. Bartholomew. His long life was occupied mainly in +art and scientific researches, partly also in lecturing on natural +history and physics, and in writing accounts of his investigations, +which are not very voluminous, but which possess an extraordinary +vividness of style and description. His treatise on pottery, the _Art de +la Terre_, contains the passage which has become classical, describing +his desperate efforts to discover the secret of the Italian enamellers. +He also wrote a _Recepte veritable par laquelle tous les hommes de la +France pourront apprendre a multiplier et a augmenter leurs Tresors_, +and, some ten years before his death, a _Discours admirable de la Nature +des Eaux et Fontaines_. His literary work is an almost unique mixture of +research with genuine literary fancy. + +[Sidenote: Pare.] + +Ambroise Pare, also a famous name, was born about the same time as +Palissy, and died the year after him. A freethinker in his way, he +escaped all temptation to embrace the dangerous heresy which was so +fatal, or, at least, so inconvenient, to many other men of science and +letters, and for the last forty years of his life he was court-surgeon. +His literary work is not inconsiderable in amount, consisting, as might +be expected, chiefly of professional treatises. The most interesting of +his books, however, from a general point of view, and, as it happens, +also by far the best written, is his _Apologie et Voyages_, a kind of +autobiography which contains a large collection of anecdotes and +details, not unimportant for the history of the time, as well as of much +personal interest. The style of this book is often vivid and +picturesque, as well as clear and precise. + +[Sidenote: Olivier de Serres.] + +It was fitting that agriculture, which is the staple industry of France, +should contribute to her literature at this period--the most genuine and +exuberant period of its history, if not that which produced the most +minutely finished work. The _Theatre de l'Agriculture et du Menage des +Champs_ of Olivier de Serres was published in the last year of the +century. The author was a native of the town of Villeneuve du Berg, in +the present department of Ardeche. He was a Protestant and a great +favourite of Henri IV., to whom he was useful in developing Sully's +plans of internal economy. The _Theatre de l'Agriculture_ was long the +classic book on the subject, and the author has been honoured, in quite +recent times, by statues and other demonstrations. Like most books of +the kind, it is much overlaid with erudition, but this only adds to its +picturesqueness; and, as the author's precepts were founded on a life's +experience of his subject, it certainly cannot be reproached with a want +of practical knowledge and aim. + +Not a few other authors would require notice, if space permitted, in +this class of scientific and erudite authors, particularly in the class +of linguistics and literature. Such is Geoffroy Tory, a printer, +grammarian, and prose-writer of merit in the early part of the century, +who anticipated Rabelais in his protest against the indiscriminate +Latinisation of the later Rhetoriqueurs. Not a few other writers, such +as Pelletier and Fontaine, busied themselves during the period with +grammar and prosody; while towards the close of it, the first French +bibliographers of eminence, La Croix du Maine, and Du Verdier, made +their appearance. But the works of all these, as rather ancillary to +literature than actually literary, must here be passed over. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[209] Cauvin or Chauvin is the more correct form, but the Latinised +Calvinus made Calvin more usual. Calvin's works are voluminous. The +_Institution_ was published in convenient shape at Paris in 1859. + +[210] Most of Amyot is accessible only in the old editions. A beautiful +edition of the _Daphnis and Chloe_ has been published by L. Glady. +London, 1878. + +[211] Dolet's works are not easily to be found except in public +libraries. The standard book on him is that of Mr. R. C. Christie +(London, 1880), one of the best monographs on French literary history to +be found in any language. + +[212] 2 vols. Paris, 1849. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MONTAIGNE AND BRANTOME. + + +[Sidenote: Disenchantment of the late Renaissance.] + +A period of enthusiasm passes naturally and almost necessarily into one +of scepticism, and it is in no way surprising that the prominent +literary figure of the second half of the sixteenth century in France +should have taken for his motto rather 'Que sais-je?' than, like +Rabelais, 'Sursum Corda.' The early hopes of the Renaissance had been +curiously disappointed. The Reformation had resulted not merely in cruel +and destructive civil war, but in the formation, in too many cases, of a +Protestantism not less imperious and far more illiberal than the +Catholicism against which it protested. The economic and social effects +of the discovery of the New World had been equally discouraging, and +even the recovery of classical learning had produced a race of pedants +almost as trifling as the last doting defenders of scholasticism. The +evils of the civil state of France, moreover, drove nearly all the best +men into the sect of _Politiques_, or Trimmers, who avowedly regarded +high questions of truth and faith as subordinate to a politic +opportunism. The age had not lost its power of enjoyment of affairs and +of pleasure, but its appetite for higher things was somewhat blunted. In +this state of matters a few persons, of whom Montaigne was incomparably +the most important, philosophised sceptically about life, and a great +many, of whom Brantome is the most typical, took pleasure in describing +the ways and acts of an aristocracy which combined extraordinary luxury +and corruption with great love of wit, singular intellectual ability, +and a keen interest in war and business. + +[Sidenote: Montaigne.] + +Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne[213], was born, 'between eleven and +twelve o'clock of the day' (the detail is characteristic), on the 28th +of February, 1533, at the _chateau_ from which he derived his name, and +which he has made illustrious. Montaigne is situated in the old province +of Perigord, or, according to modern nomenclature, in the department of +Dordogne and the arrondissement of Bergerac. It is at no great distance +from Bordeaux. The family was long believed from a phrase of Montaigne's +own to have been of English extraction, introduced during the long +tenure of Aquitaine by our sovereigns. But recent and industrious +researches have shown that it may with greater probability have been of +local origin and yeoman _status_. Pierre Eyquem, the father, had filled +many important municipal offices at Bordeaux. Michel was his third son +among nine children, but by the death of his elder brothers he inherited +the family estate. He was educated early, and after the manner of a time +when education was a subject on which almost all men of independent +thought rode hobbies. Latin he learnt by conversation at a very early +age, Greek as a kind of amusement. At the mature age of six he was +placed at the College de Guyenne in Bordeaux, not the least famous of +the famous schools of the time, for there it was that Buchanan, Muretus, +and Guerente, by the Latin plays which they wrote for their scholars to +act, introduced the Senecan drama into France and showed the way to the +French tragedy of the Pleiade. Seven years of study completed +Montaigne's school education at the age of thirteen, when nowadays boys +quit their preparatory cradles. He was set to work at law, but little +positive is known of him for many years. In 1554, being then twenty-one, +he was made counsellor in the Bordeaux _Parlement_, and in 1566 he +married Francoise de la Chassaigne, daughter of one of his colleagues. +Except casual references in the _Essays_, which are seldom precise, all +we know of him during these years is his friendship with Etienne de la +Boetie. He almost certainly served one or more campaigns; but the most +positive thing that can be said of his middle life is that, according to +an existing inscription of his own, he finally retired, in 1571, on his +thirty-eighth birthday, to the _chateau_ which had become his by his +father's death two years previously. He had already translated the +_Theologia Naturalis_ of Raymond de Sebonde. In the year of his +retirement he edited the works of La Boetie. But he now began a much +more important task. The first two books of the _Essais_ appeared in +1580; and immediately afterwards Montaigne, who suffered from severe +internal disorders, undertook a long journey into Italy, Switzerland, +and Germany, which occupied nearly a year and a-half. While sojourning +at the baths of Lucca, he received the news of his appointment as mayor +of Bordeaux, and hastened home. In 1588 he published the third Book of +the _Essays_, and had troubles with the Leaguers in Paris. Four years +afterwards, on the 13th September, 1592, he died of quinsy. Although +Montaigne's municipal and legal appointments at Bordeaux are all that we +know him to have enjoyed, he is styled 'gentleman in ordinary to the +king,' and letters extant from and to Charles IX., Henri III., and Henri +IV., show him to have enjoyed a considerable social as well as literary +position. He was a knight of the Order of St. Michael. By his wife he +had several children, but all died young, except one daughter, who +survived him and left offspring. His adopted daughter, however, +Mademoiselle de Gournay, a celebrated character of the next age, and the +first editor of his complete works after his death, is better known. + +A complete abstract of Montaigne's work cannot be here attempted, and +indeed no such thing is possible, because the work itself is absolutely +destitute of general plan and exhibits no unity but a unity of spirit +and treatment. Whether Montaigne himself invented the famous title +_Essays_ or not, is a matter of the very smallest importance. It is +certain that he was the first to give the word its modern meaning, +though he dealt with his subjects in a spirit of audacious +desultoriness, which many of his successors have endeavoured to imitate, +but which few have imitated successfully. His nominal subject is, as a +rule, merely a starting-point, or at the most a text. He allows himself +to be diverted from it by any game which crosses his path, and diverges +as readily from his new direction. Abundant citation from the classics +is one of his chief characteristics; but the two main points which +differentiate him are, first, the audacious egotism and frankness with +which he discourses of his private affairs and exhibits himself in +undress; secondly, the flavour of subtle scepticism which he diffuses +over his whole work. Both these are susceptible of a good deal of +misconstruction, and both no doubt have been a good deal misconstrued. +His egotism, like most egotism, is a compound of frankness and +affectation, and its sincerity is not, as an attraction, equal to the +easy garrulity for which it affords an occasion of display. His +scepticism, however, is altogether _sui generis_. It is not exuberant, +like that of Rabelais, nor sneering, like that of Voltaire, nor +despairing, like that of Pascal, nor merely inquisitive and scholarly, +like that of Bayle. There is no reason for disbelieving Montaigne's +sincere and conscious orthodoxy in the ecclesiastical sense. But his own +temperament, assisted no doubt by the political and ecclesiastical +circumstances already described, by indifferent bodily health, and by +the period, if not exactly of excess, at any rate of free living, in his +younger days, to which he so constantly alludes, had produced in him a +general feeling that the _pros_ and _cons_ of different opinions and +actions balance each other more evenly than is generally thought. He +looks on life with a kind of ironical enjoyment, and the three books of +his _Essays_ might be described as a vast gallery of pictures +illustrating the results of his contemplations. + +There are some considerable differences between the earlier and later +_Essays_, one of the most obvious of which concerns the point of length. +Thus the first book consists of fifty-seven essays, occupying rather +more than 500 pages[214], or an average of less than ten pages each. The +second (exclusive of the long 'Apologie de Raymond Sebonde,' which +occupies 300 pages by itself) contains thirty-six essays, of nearly 500 +pages in all, or about twelve pages each. These books were published +together, and may be presumed to have been written more or less at the +same time. But the third and last book, though it contains full 550 +pages, has only thirteen essays, which thus average more than forty +pages each, though their length is very unequal. Montaigne had, no +doubt, found that his pillar-to-post method of discourse was +sufficiently attractive to make fresh starting-points and definite +titles unnecessary; thus in the third book, his subjects (at least his +professed subjects) are sometimes much wider, and sometimes much more +whimsical, than in the two first. Oedipus himself could hardly divine +the actual subject of the essay 'Sur des Vers de Virgile,' or guess that +a paper 'Sur les Coches' would in reality busy itself with the question +what virtues are most proper to a sovereign. On the other hand, such +large titles as 'De la Vanite de l'Experience,' etc. give room for +almost any and every excursion. All these are in the last book; the +shorter essays of the two first for the most part deal more definitely +with their nominal subjects, which are most frequently moral brocards: +such as 'Le Profit de l'Un est Dommage de l'Autre,' 'Par Divers Moyens +on arrive a Pareille Fin,' etc. + +In a literary history, however, of the scale and plan of this present, +the question of Montaigne's subjects and sentiments, interesting as it +is, must not be allowed to obscure the question of the expression which +he gave to these sentiments. His book is of the greatest importance in +the history of French style, of an importance indeed which has been by +no means invariably recognised by French literary historians themselves. +It must be remembered that he at once attained, and never lost, an +immense popularity. Thus the comparative oblivion which, owing to the +reforms of the early seventeenth century and the brilliant period of +production which followed them, overtook most of the men of the +Renaissance, did not touch Montaigne. He, with Rabelais, remained a well +of undefiled French, which all the artificial filtering of Malherbe and +Boileau could not deprive of its refreshing and fertilising power. +Writing, too, at a period subsequent, instead of anterior to the +innovations of the Pleiade, Montaigne was able to incorporate, and thus +to save, not a few of the neologisms which, valuable as they were, the +purists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries neglected. Many +words which his immediate contemporaries, and still more his successors, +condemned, have made good their footing in the language, owing beyond +all doubt to his influence. His style, too, was valuable for something +else besides its vocabulary. It entered so seldom into the plan of +Rabelais to write in any other than a burlesque tone, that he was rarely +able to display his own incomparable faculty of writing ordinary French, +pure, vigorous, graceful, and flexible at once. The tale-tellers and +memoir-writers of the time matured an excellent narrative style, but one +less suited for other forms of writing. The theologians often obeyed the +Latinising influence too implicitly. But Montaigne, with his wide +variety of subject, required and wrought out for himself a corresponding +variety of style. His very discursiveness and the constant flow of new +thoughts that welled up in him helped him to avoid the great curse of +all the vulgar tongues in the Renaissance--the long jointed sentence; +the easy colloquial manner at which he aimed reflected itself in a style +less familiar indeed than avowed burlesque, but at the same time more +familiar than any writer had before used in treating of similar +subjects. Yet no one was more capable than Montaigne, on the rare +occasions when he judged it proper, of showing his mastery of sustained +and lofty eloquence. The often-quoted passage in which he rebukes the +vanity of man (who, without letters patent or privilege, assumes to +himself the honour of being the only created being cognisant of the +secret of the universe) yields to nothing that had been written or was +to be written for many years, fertile as the sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries were in both its characteristics, solemnity and +dignity of expression. That a book which was thus rich in vocabulary, +richer still in idiosyncrasy of expression, gracefully familiar in +general style, and admirably eloquent in occasional passages, should at +once become popular, and should remain so, could not be without a happy +effect on the general standard of literary taste and the general +acquaintance with the capabilities of the French language. That +Montaigne himself was a sound critical judge and not merely a lucky +practitioner of style, may be judged from his singling out Amyot as the +great master of it among his own immediate predecessors. In so far, +indeed, as prose style goes, master and scholar must undoubtedly take +rank at the head of all the writers of the century when bulk and variety +of examples are taken into account. + +[Sidenote: Charron.] + +Although, as has been already noted, Montaigne has many sides, his most +striking peculiarity may be said to be the mixture of philosophical +speculation, especially on ethical and political topics, with attention +to the historical side of human life both in the past and in the +present. He was, however, by no means the only teacher of ethics and +political philosophy in his century. His own mantle was taken up, or +attempted to be taken up, by Pierre Charron[215]. Born at Paris in 1541, +he was thoroughly educated; studied law, in which he proceeded to a +doctor's degree, and was called to the Paris bar, but then suddenly +entered the Church, and became renowned as a preacher. He even thought +of embracing the monastic life--a waste of ability which the +ecclesiastical authorities, conscious of their need of eloquent +advocates, did not permit. Charron belonged rather to the moderate or +_politique_ party than to the fanatics of Catholicism, and he directly +attacked the League in his _Discours Chretiens_, published in 1589. Five +years later appeared a regular theological treatise entitled _Les Trois +Verites_, affirming, first, the unity of God, and consequently of +orthodox religion; secondly, the sole authority of Christianity among +religions; thirdly, the sole authority of Catholicism among Christian +churches and sects. He held various preferments, and was a member of the +special synod held to admit Henri IV. to the Roman communion. The only +work by which he is generally remembered, the treatise _De la Sagesse_, +was published in 1601. Charron died two years later, after preparing a +second and somewhat altered edition of the book. Charron was a personal +friend of Montaigne, was undoubtedly his disciple, and borrowed largely, +and in many cases verbally, from the _Essais_. His book, however, is far +inferior both in style and matter to his master's, and Pope's praise of +'more wise Charron' can be due only to the fact that it is much more +definitely sceptical. In curious contrast to its author's dogmatically +theological treatise, _De la Sagesse_ goes to prove that all religions +are more or less of human origin, and that they are all indebted one to +the other. The casuistry of the Renaissance on these points was, +however, peculiar; and it has been supposed, with great show of reason, +that Charron regarded orthodoxy as a valuable and necessary condition +for the common run of men, while the elect would prefer a refined +Agnosticism. + +[Sidenote: Du Vair.] + +These sceptical opinions were by no means the invention of Montaigne; +they were part of the new learning grafted by the study of the classics +on the thought of the middle ages, and had been long anticipated, not +merely in Italy but in France itself. The poet and tale-teller, +Bonaventure des Periers, had, as has been said, almost directly +satirised Christianity in the _Cymbalum Mundi_, which created so great a +scandal. On the other hand, Guillaume du Vair, a lawyer and speaker of +eminence, sought, by combining Stoicism and Christianity, to oppose this +sceptical tendency. Du Vair was a writer of great merit, who exactly +reversed the course of Charron, beginning with theology and ending with +law, though he died in double harness, as keeper of the Seals and bishop +of Lisieux. His moral works[216] were numerous: _Sainte Philosophie_, +_De la Philosophie des Stoiques_, _De la Constance et Consolation des +Calamites Publiques_. He translated, not merely Epictetus, which may be +regarded as part of his ethical work, but numerous speeches of the Greek +and Latin orators. He was himself a great speaker, and his best work is +his _Discours sur la Loi Salique_, which contributed powerfully to the +overthrow of the project for recognising the Infanta as Queen of France. +He also wrote a regular treatise on French oratory. The style of Du Vair +is modelled with some closeness on his classical patterns, but without +any trace of pedantry. + +[Sidenote: Bodin and other Political Writers.] + +A greater name than Du Vair's in purely philosophical politics is that +of Jean Bodin[217], the author of the only work of great excellence on +the science of politics before the eighteenth century. Bodin was born at +Angers in 1530, became a lawyer, was king's procureur at Laon, and died +there in 1596. His great work, entitled after Plato _La Republique_, +appeared in 1578. It was first published in French, but afterwards +enlarged and reissued by the author in Latin. Bodin follows both Plato +and Aristotle to some extent, but especially Aristotle, in his approach +and treatment of his subject. But, unlike his masters, Bodin declares +for absolute monarchy, of course wisely and temperately administered. +The general literary sentiment was perhaps the other way. The affection +of Montaigne, and a certain fertility of rhetorical commonplace which +has always seduced Frenchmen in political matters, have given undue +reputation to the _Contre-un_ or _Discours de la Servitude volontaire_ +of Etienne de la Boetie[218]. In reality it is but a schoolboy theme, +recalling the silly chatter about Harmodius and Brutus which was popular +at the time of the Revolution. Many other political works were published +in the course of the religious wars, but having been for the most part +written in Latin, or translated by others than their authors, they do +not concern us. The excellent Michel de l'Hospital, however, published +many speeches, letters, and pamphlets on the side of conciliation, for +the most part better intended than written; and the famous Protestants +La Noue and Duplessis-Mornay were frequent writers on political +subjects. + +[Sidenote: Brantome.] + +The complement and counterpart of this moralising on human business and +pleasure is necessarily to be found in chronicles of that business and +that pleasure as actually pursued. In these the sixteenth century is +extraordinarily rich. Correspondence had hardly yet attained the +importance in French literature which it afterwards acquired, but +professed history and, still more, personal memoirs were largely +written. The name of Brantome[219] has been chosen as the central and +representative name of this section of writers, because he is on the +whole the most original and certainly the most famous of them. His work, +moreover, has more than one point of resemblance to that of the great +contemporary author with whom he is linked at the head of this chapter. +Brantome neither wrote actual history nor directly personal memoirs. His +work rather consists of desultory biographical essays, forming a curious +pendant to the desultory moral essays of Montaigne. But around him rank +many writers, some historians pure and simple, some memoir-writers pure +and simple, of whom not a few approach him in literary genius, and +surpass him in correctness and finish of style, while almost all exceed +him in whatever advantage may be derived from uniformity of plan, and +from regard to the decencies of literature. + +Pierre de Bourdeilles (who derived the name by which he is, and indeed +was during his lifetime, generally known from an abbacy given to him by +Henri II. when he was still a boy) was born about 1540, in the province +of Perigord, but the exact date and place of his birth have not been +ascertained. He was the third son of Francois, Comte de Bourdeilles, and +his mother, Anne de Vivonne de la Chataigneraie, was the sister of the +famous duellist whose encounter with Jarnac his nephew has described in +a well-known passage. In the court of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the +literary nursery of so great a part of the talent of France at this +time, he passed his early youth, went to school at Paris and at +Poitiers, and was made Abbe de Brantome at the age of sixteen. He was +thus sufficiently provided for, and he never took any orders, but was a +courtier and a soldier throughout the whole of his active life. Indeed +almost the first use he made of his benefice was to equip himself and a +respectable suite for a journey into Italy, where he served under the +Marechal de Brissac. He accompanied Mary Stuart to Scotland, served in +the Spanish army in Africa, volunteered for the relief of Malta from the +Turks, and again for the expedition destined to assist Hungary against +Soliman, and in other ways led the life of a knight-errant. The +religious wars in his own country gave him plenty of employment; but in +the reigns of Charles IX. and Henri III. he was more particularly +attached to the suite of the queen dowager and her daughter Marguerite. +He was, however, somewhat disappointed in his hopes of recompense; and +after hesitating for a time between the Royalists, the Leaguers, and the +Spaniards, he left the court, retired into private life, and began to +write his memoirs, partly in consequence of a severe accident. He seems +to have begun to write about 1594, and he lived for twenty years longer, +dying on the 15th of July, 1614. + +The form of Brantome's works is, as has been said, peculiar. They are +usually divided into two parts, dealing respectively with men and women. +The first part in its turn consists of many sub-divisions, the chief of +which is made up of the _Vies des Grands Capitaines Etrangers et +Francais_, while others consist of separate disquisitions or essays, +_Des Rodomontades Espagnoles_, 'On some Duels and Challenges in France' +and elsewhere, 'On certain Retreats, and how they are sometimes better +than Battles,' etc. Of the part which is devoted to women the chief +portion is the celebrated _Dames Galantes_, which is preceded by a +series of _Vies des Dames Illustres_, matching the _Grands Capitaines_. +The _Dames Galantes_ is subdivided into eight discourses, with titles +which smack of Montaigne, as thus, 'Qu'il n'est bien seant de parler mal +des honnestes dames bien qu'elles fassent l'amour,' 'Scavoir qui est +plus belle chose en amour,' etc. These discourses are, however, in +reality little but a congeries of anecdotes, often scandalous enough. +Besides these, his principal works, Brantome left divers _Opuscula_, +some of which are definitely literary, dealing chiefly with Lucan. None +of his works were published in his lifetime, nor did any appear in print +until 1659. Meanwhile manuscript copies had, as usual, been multiplied, +with the result, also usual, that the text was much falsified and +mutilated. + +The great merit of Brantome lies in the extraordinary vividness of his +powers of literary presentment. His style is careless, though it is +probable that the carelessness is not unstudied. But his irregular, +brightly coloured, and easily flowing manner represents, as hardly any +age has ever been represented, the characteristics of the great society +of his time. It is needless to say that the morals of that time were +utterly corrupt, but Brantome accepts them with a placid complacency +which is almost innocent. No writer, perhaps, has ever put things more +disgraceful on paper; but no writer has ever written of such things in +such a perfectly natural manner. Brantome was in his way a +hero-worshipper, though his heroes and heroines were sometimes oddly +coupled. Bayard and Marguerite de Valois represent his ideals, and a +good knight or a beautiful lady _de par le monde_ can do no wrong. This +unquestioning acceptance of, and belief in, the moral standards of his +own society, give a genuineness and a freshness to his work which are +very rare in literature. Few writers, again, have had the knack of +hitting off character, superficially it is true, yet with sufficient +distinction, which Brantome has. There is something individual about all +the innumerable characters who move across his stage, and something +thoroughly human about all, even the anonymous men and women, who appear +for a moment as the actors in some too frequently discreditable scene. +With all this there is a considerable vein of moralising in Brantome +which serves to throw up the relief of his actual narratives. He has +sometimes been compared to Pepys, but, except in point of garrulity and +of readiness to set down on paper anything that came into their heads, +there is little likeness between the two. Brantome was emphatically an +_ecrivain_ (unscholarly and Italianised as his phrase sometimes appears, +if judged by the standards of a severer age), and some of the best +passages from his works are among the most striking examples of French +prose. + +[Sidenote: Montluc.] + +Next to Brantome, and in some respects above him, though of a somewhat +less remarkable idiosyncrasy, come Montluc, La Noue, and D'Aubigne, with +Marguerite de Valois not far behind. Blaise de Lasseran-Massencome, +Seigneur de Montluc[220], was a typical _cadet de Gascogne_, though he +was not, strictly speaking, a cadet, being the eldest son of a +fortuneless house. He became page to Antoine of Lorraine, and made his +first campaign under the orders of Bayard, fighting through the whole of +the Italian war, and being knighted on the field at Cerisoles. In the +next reign he was promoted to high command, and held Sienna against the +Imperialists with distinguished gallantry and skill. When the civil war +broke out he was made Governor of Guyenne, where he maintained order +with the strong hand, 'heading and hanging' Catholics and Protestants +alike, if they showed signs of disloyalty. Ruthless as he was, he was +one of the few great officers who refused to participate in the massacre +of St. Bartholomew. He was made a marshal in 1574, and died three years +later. Montluc's Memoirs are purely military, and the most famous +description of them is that of Henri IV., who called them the soldier's +Bible. His style is concise, free from the slightest attempt at +elaborate ornament, but admirably picturesque and clear. His account of +his exploit at Sienna is one of the capital chapters of French military +history. But almost any page of Montluc possesses eminently the +characteristics which great generals from Caesar downwards have almost +uniformly displayed, when they possess any literary talent at all. The +words and sentences are marshalled and managed like an army; everything +goes straight to the point; there is no confusion, and the whole +complicated scene is as clear as a geometrical diagram. + +[Sidenote: La Noue.] + +The Memoirs of La Noue are usually spoken of separately, though in +reality they form a part of his _Discours Politiques et Militaires_. +Francois de la Noue, called Bras-de-Fer (a surname which he deserved not +metaphorically, but literally, having had to replace one of his arms +shot off during a siege), was a Breton, and of a good family. He was +born in 1531, fought through the religious wars, escaped St. Bartholomew +by being Alva's prisoner in Flanders, took an active part against the +League, and died at the siege of Lamballe, Aug. 4, 1591. His defence of +La Rochelle was one of the chief of his many feats of arms. The +'Discourses' were published during his life. They are of a more +reflective character than those of Montluc, and display much greater +mental cultivation. The style is not quite so vivid, the sentences are +longer and more charged with thought. La Noue, in short, is a +philosophical soldier and a politician. His style is perhaps less +archaic than that of any of his contemporaries, and is distinguished by +a remarkable strength, sobriety, and precision. He was very highly +thought of by both political parties, and was not unfrequently employed +in schemes of mediation. It is a pleasant story, and not irrelevant in a +history of literature, that a scheme for his assassination during one of +his visits to Paris was discovered by Brantome, who warned his future +craftsfellow of it. + +[Sidenote: Agrippa d'Aubigne.] + +Agrippa d'Aubigne belongs to this section of the subject by his _Vie a +ses Enfants_, often called his memoirs, by his _Histoire Universelle_, +and by a great number of letters. The same qualities which distinguish +D'Aubigne in verse are recognisable in his prose, his passionate and +insubordinate temper, the keenness of his satire, the somewhat turbid +grandeur of his style and images, the vigour and picturesqueness of +occasional traits. The _Histoire Universelle_ and the _Vie a ses +Enfants_ were both works written in old age, but there is hardly any +sign of failing power in them. The _Vie_ in particular contains many +passages, such as the vision of his mother and the passionate charge +which his father laid upon him at the sight of the victims of the +Amboise conspiracy, which rank very high among the prose of the century. +The _Histoire Universelle_, like the book which Raleigh wrote almost at +the same time, and under not dissimilar circumstances, is necessarily in +great part a compilation, but has many passages worthy of its author at +his best. + +[Sidenote: Marguerite de Valois.] + +The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois contain what is perhaps the +best-known and oftenest quoted passage of any memoirs of the time, that +in which the Princess describes the night of St. Bartholomew. There are +not many such stirring passages in them, but throughout Marguerite gives +evidence of the remarkable talent which distinguished the Valois. Her +evident object is to justify herself, and this makes the book somewhat +artificial. It is dedicated to Brantome, but shows in its manner rather +the influence of Ronsard and the Pleiade by the classical correctness of +the style, the absence of archaisms, and the precision and form of the +sentences. According to the principles of the school, the vocabulary is +simple and vernacular enough, for the Pleiade regarded ornate +classicisms of language as proper to poetry. + +In a rank not much below those mentioned must be placed the so-called +_Memoires de Vieilleville_, the _Chronologies_ of Palma-Cayet, the +_Registres-Journaux_ of Pierre de l'Estoile, the Letters of +Duplessis-Mornay, Cardinal d'Ossat, and Henri IV. himself, and the +_Negotiations_ of the President Jeannin. + +[Sidenote: Vieilleville.] + +The Marechal de Vieilleville was one of the foremost French generals of +the sixteenth century, and, considering the violent and unscrupulous +ways of the time, he had a good reputation for moderation, probity, and +patriotism, as well as for courage and ability. His Memoirs are not his +own work, but that of his secretary and lifelong companion, Vincent +Carloix. They have some of the defects of a deliberate panegyric; but +Carloix is a vigorous and able writer, who, without completely +emancipating himself from the tyranny of the long involved sentence, +contrives to write clearly, and often with much picturesque effect. + +[Sidenote: Palma-Cayet.] + +Pierre Victor Palma-Cayet was of mean extraction, but received a good +education, and was introduced by La Noue to Jeanne d'Albret as a +suitable assistant-tutor for her son. After the accession of his pupil, +he was appointed to various offices, one of which, that of Chronologer +Royal, no doubt occasioned the odd titles of his two principal works, +_Chronologie Novenaire_ and _Chronologie Septenaire_, which give the +history of Henri's reign, dividing it into two portions, the one of nine +years, the other of seven. Cayet also wrote several minor works, and +divides with D'Aubigne the doubtful honour of being the author of the +_Divorce Satirique_, a scurrilous pamphlet against Marguerite. The +_Chronologies_ are extremely full of matter, and admirably precise in +their information, but their literary value is not great. + +[Sidenote: Pierre de l'Estoile.] + +From this point of view Pierre de l'Estoile[221] is of a higher class. +He was a lawyer of rank and an indefatigable writer. Day by day he put +down in his _Tablettes_ all sorts of public and private affairs, as well +as literary extracts, obituary notices, and, in short, almost the entire +material of a modern newspaper. Pierre de l'Estoile, much more than +Brantome, is the French Pepys. Although occasionally prejudiced, the +writer seems to have been acute and well-informed, and his manner of +dealing with his heterogeneous materials is light and lively. + +[Sidenote: D'Ossat.] + +Of the three correspondence-writers just mentioned, though Henri himself +is a vigorous and fertile writer, the most important by far is Cardinal +D'Ossat. He was born in the south of France in 1536, and had not, unlike +many of the diplomatist ecclesiastics of the period, the advantage of +high birth. Like many of his contemporaries, he began as a lawyer and +only subsequently took orders. He began diplomatic life as Secretary to +the Archbishop of Toulouse, who was ambassador at Rome, and later on +conducted the negotiations which led to the conversion of Henri IV. He +then became Bishop of Rennes and cardinal. His letters are almost +entirely devoted to subjects connected with his profession, and have +always held a position as one of the earliest models of diplomatic +writing. D'Ossat's style, especially in respect of its vocabulary, was +long regarded as a pattern, but it has less character than that of some +other sixteenth-century writers. + +[Sidenote: Sully.] + +The last two books to be named belong, in point of date, to the next +century, but were written by, or for, men who were emphatically of the +sixteenth. The extraordinary form of Sully's Memoirs is well known. They +are neither written as if by himself, nor of him as by a historian of +the usual kind. They are directly addressed to the hero in the form of +an elaborate reminder of his own actions. 'You then said this;' 'his +Majesty thereupon sent you there;' 'when you were two leagues from your +halting-place, you saw a courier coming,' etc. It is needless to say +that this manner of telling history is in the highest degree unnatural +and heavy, and, after the first quaintness of it wears off, it makes the +book very hard to read. It contains, however, a very large number of +short memoirs and documents of all kinds, in which the elaborate farce +of 'Vous' is perforce abandoned. It shows Sully as he was--a great and +skilful statesman: but it does not give a pleasant idea of his +character. + +[Sidenote: Jeannin.] + +Pierre Jeannin was, like D'Ossat, a diplomatist in the service of Henri +IV. He had previously discharged many legal functions of importance, and +subsequently he was Controller-General of the Finances. His +_Negotiations_ contain the record of his proceedings on a mission to the +Netherlands to watch over the interests of France. The book consists of +letters, despatches, treaties, and such-like documents, very clear, +precise, and written in a remarkably simple and natural style. + +[Sidenote: Minor Memoir-writers.] + +There were many other writers of memoirs during the period, most of +whose works are comprised in the invaluable collections of Petitot, +Michaud, Poujoulat, and Buchon. But few of them require a separate +mention here. Guillaume and Martin du Bellay, two brothers, have left a +history of Francis I.'s reign, of which the part belonging to Guillaume +is only a small fragment of an immense work which he entitled _Les +Ogdoades_, it being divided into seven batches of eight books each. The +imitation of the classics is obvious, and the constant intrusion of +classical parallels rather tedious. The Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, +composed in great part of what we should call his secretary's +letter-book, are very voluminous, but not of much literary value. +Francois de Rabutin, author of _Commentaires des Guerres de la Gaule +Belgique_, has the fault, common to his time, of enormous sentences, but +is often lively and picturesque enough, as becomes a member of the +family of Madame de Sevigne and of Bussy-Rabutin. The famous Marshal de +Tavannes, on whom more than on any single man rests the blood of St. +Bartholomew's Day, found a biographer in his son Jean de Tavannes, whose +work, though somewhat too elaborate, is interesting. Another son, +Guillaume de Saulx-Tavannes, has written his own memoirs on a smaller +scale. The memoirs of Michel de Castelnau show more of the tradition of +Comines than most of their contemporaries, and are remarkably full of +political studies. Boyvin du Villars, of whom little is known, left +voluminous memoirs which have some literary merit. The last book of +memoirs of some size which needs to be mentioned, is that of Nicholas de +Neufville, Seigneur de Villeroy, a politician of eminence and a vigorous +writer. Some short pieces may be noticed, such as the Siege of Metz, by +Bertrand de Salignac, that of St. Quentin, by Coligny himself, the only +literary monument of the Admiral (an excellent specimen of the military +writing of the time), and a very curious history of Annonay in the +Vivarais by Achille Gamon, which gives perhaps the liveliest idea +obtainable of the sufferings of the French provincial towns during the +religious wars. + +[Sidenote: General Historians.] + +The general histories, which make up a second class of historical +writings, are, as a rule, of very much less value than these personal +memoirs. Not till the extreme end of the period did the historical +conception take a firm hold in De Thou, and the _Thuana_ was written in +Latin, which excludes it and its author from detailed notice here. +D'Aubigne's _Histoire Universelle_ of his own time has been mentioned +for convenience' sake already. Lancelot de la Popeliniere attempted in +the last quarter of the century a general history of France, and +incidentally of Europe during his own day. He is said to have spent all +his fortune on getting together the materials, but his literary powers +were small. About the same time Bernard Girard, Seigneur du Haillan, +published a history of France from the earliest times, which an extract +of Thierry's, giving the speeches of Charamond and Quadrek, Merovingians +of Du Haillan's own creation, who speak on the advantages of different +forms of government at the election of Pharamond, has made known to many +persons who never saw the original. The source of this grotesque +imagination is of course obvious to readers of Herodotus, and similar +imitation of classical models is frequent in Du Haillan's work. Francois +de Belleforest also wrote a general history of France, which was long +read, and the names of Du Tillet, Jean de Serres, Charron, Dupleix, etc. +may be mentioned. But they represent writers of little importance, +either from the point of view of history, or from that of literature. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[213] The standard edition until recently has been that of Le Clerc (4 +vols. Paris, 1866). That of Louandre in the Bibliotheque Charpentier is +handy and useful. MM. Courbet and Roger have begun a handsome edition. + +[214] The references are to the edition of Louandre. + +[215] _De la Sagesse._ 2 vols. Paris, 1789. + +[216] Ed. 1641. + +[217] Ed. 1578. + +[218] Ed. Feugere. Paris, 1846. + +[219] Ed. Buchon. 2 vols. Paris, 1839. The Societe de l'Histoire de +France has a voluminous edition on hand. Merimee, who was a great +admirer of Brantome, began an edition for the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, +but left it unfinished. + +[220] Montluc's _Memoirs_, as well as most of those mentioned below, +will be found in the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat. + +[221] The earlier editions of this writer are not complete. In 1875 a +full reprint was begun. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE _SATYRE MENIPPEE_. REGNIER. + + +[Sidenote: Satyre Menippee.] + +The period of the Renaissance in France closed with two works (one for +the most part in prose and due to various authors, the other wholly in +verse and the work of one only) which exhibit the highest excellence. +The _Satyre Menippee_ and the satires of Regnier are separated in point +of date of publication by some fifteen years, and the contributors to +the first-named work belong for the most part to an earlier generation, +and represent a less accomplished state of the language than the great +satirist who, after fifteen centuries, took up the traditions of his +Roman masters. But both are satirical in substance, though the +_Menippee_ is almost wholly political, and Regnier busies himself with +social and moral subjects only. Both possess in a high degree the +characteristics of the period which they close. Both exhibit a +remarkable power of treating ephemeral subjects in a manner calculated +to make their interest something more than ephemeral. Both have met with +the just reward of continuing to be popular even at times when the most +unjust unpopularity rested on work scarcely less excellent but less +calculated to please the taste of those who, however much they may +sympathise with the fashions of their own day, are unable to sympathise +with those of a day which is not theirs. + +The _Satyre Menippee_[222] was a remarkable, and, for those who take an +interest both in literature and in politics, a most encouraging instance +of the power of literary treatment at certain crises of political +matters. It appeared in 1594, at the crucial period of the League. For +years there had existed the party known for the most part +uncomplimentarily as _Les Politiques_. These persons professed +themselves unable to find, in the simple difference of Catholic _v._ +Protestant, a _casus belli_ for Frenchmen against Frenchmen. Their +influence, however, though it occasionally rose to the surface in the +days of Charles IX. and Henri III., had never been lasting, and they +laboured under the charge of being Laodiceans, trimmers, men who cared +for nothing but hollow peace and material prosperity. The assassination +of Henri III., and the open confederation between the Leaguers and the +Spanish party, at last gave them their opportunity, and it was seized +with an adroitness which would have been remarkable in a single man, but +which is still more remarkable in a group of men of very different +antecedents, professions, ages, and beliefs. The _Satyre Menippee_ is, +in fact, the first and most admirable example of the theory of the +modern newspaper--the theory that the combined ability of many men is +likely, on the whole, to treat complicated and ephemeral affairs better +than the limited, though perhaps individually greater, ability of any +one man. The _Menippee_, prose and verse, was due to the working of a +new Pleiade--Leroy, Gillot, Passerat, Rapin, Chrestien, Pithou, and +Durant. Most of them were lawyers, a few were more or less connected +with the Church. Pierre Leroy, a canon of Rouen, of whom nothing is +known, but whose character De Thou praises, is said to have planned the +book, and to have acted in some way as editor. Jacques Gillot, +clerk-advocate of the Parliament, received the literary conspirators in +his house. Passerat and Rapin represented the mixed classical and French +culture of the immediate companions of Ronsard. Florent Chrestien was a +converted Huguenot, much given to translation of ancient authors. Pithou +(the writer of the harangue of Claude d'Aubray, the most important piece +of the whole and containing the moral and idea of the book) was, like +Chrestien, a convert. He ranks as one of the most distinguished members +of the French bar, and had a deserved reputation for every kind of +learning in his time. Lastly, Durant, who contributed rather to the +appendix of the book than to the book itself, was an Auvergnat +gentleman, who preferred poetry to law, and justified his preference by +some capital work, partly of a satirical kind, partly of an elegant and +tender gallantry, anticipating, as has been justly said, the eighteenth +century in elegance, and excelling it in tenderness. + +The plan of the _Menippee_ (the title of which, it is hardly necessary +to say, is borrowed from the name of the cynic philosopher celebrated by +Lucian) is for the time singularly original and bold; but the spirit in +which the subject is treated is more original still. Generally speaking, +the piece has the form of a _compte-rendu_ of the assembly of the states +at Paris. The full title is _De la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de +la Tenue des Etats de Paris_. The preface contains a sarcastic harangue +in orthodox charlatan style on the merits of the new Catholicon or +Panacea. Then comes a description (in which, as throughout the work, +actual facts are blended inextricably with satirical comment) of the +opening procession. To this succeeds a sketch of the tapestries with +which the hall of meeting was hung, all of which are, of course, +allegorical, and deal with murders of princes, betrayal of native +countries to foreigners, etc. Next comes _L'Ordre tenu pour les +Seances_, in which the chief personages on the side of the League are +enumerated in a long catalogue, every item of which contains some bitter +allusion to the private or public conduct of the person named. Seven +solemn speeches are then delivered by the Duke de Mayenne as lieutenant, +by the legate, by the Cardinal de Pelve, by the bishop of Lyons, by +Rose, the fanatical rector of the University, by the Sieur de Rieux, as +representative of the nobility; and, lastly, by a certain Monsieur +d'Aubray, for the _Tiers-Etat_. A burlesque _coda_ concludes the volume, +the joints of which are, first, a short verse satire on Pelve; secondly, +a collection of epigrams due to Passerat; and, thirdly, Durant's _Regret +Funebre a Mademoiselle ma Commere sur le Trepas de son Ane_, a +delightful satire on the Leaguers, which did not appear in the first +edition, but which yields to few things in the book. + +It has been said that the plan of the _Menippee_ has of itself not a +little originality. Satirical comment and travesty devoted to political +affairs had been common enough almost for centuries in France, but no +satire of the kind had hitherto flown so high, or with so well-organised +a flight. The seven speeches, which form the bulk of the book, display +moreover a remarkable variety and a still more remarkable combination of +excellences. The first six--those of Mayenne, the legate, Pelve, the +bishop of Lyons, Rose, and Rieux, none of which is long--are, without +exception, caricatures, and of that peculiar order of caricature in +which the victim is made, without a glaring violation of probability, to +render himself vile and ridiculous, and to give utterance to the satire +and invective which the author desires to pour upon him. Butler (who +beyond all doubt had the _Satyre Menippee_ in his mind when he projected +his own immortal travesty of the Puritan party) is the only writer who +has ever come near to its authors in this particular department of +satire. Treated as they were by different hands, there is a curiously +pleasing variety of style in the portraits. Mayenne uses a mixture of +aristocratic and somewhat haughty frankness with garrulous digression. +The two cardinals indulge in an astounding macaronic jargon, the one of +Italian mingled with Latin, the other of Latin mingled with French. The +bishop of Lyons, and Rose the rector, preach sermons, after the fashion +of the time, thickly larded with quotations, stories, and so forth. +Rieux (he was a noted bandit) expresses with soldierly frankness his +extreme surprise that he should have become a gentleman and the +representative of the nobility, and mildly reproaches Mayenne and the +League for not having given _carte-blanche_ to himself and his likes to +finish off the _Politiques_ bag-and-baggage. But in the last harangue, +that of the representative of the _Tiers-Etat_, Claude d'Aubray, which +is, as has been said, the work of Pithou, and which occupies something +like half the book, the tone is entirely altered. In this remarkable +discourse the whole political situation is treated seriously, and with a +mixture of practical vigour and literary skill of which there had hardly +been any precedent instance. D'Aubray denounces the condition of Paris +first, and the condition of the kingdom afterwards. The foreign +garrisons, the sufferings of private persons by the war, the deprivation +or suspension of privileges, are all commented upon. A remarkable +historical sketch of the religious wars follows, and then turn by turn +the speaker attacks those who have spoken before him, and exposes their +conduct. A vigorous sketch of 'Le Roy que nous voulons et que nous +aurons,' leads up to the announcement that this king is no other than +'Notre vray Roy legitime, naturel et souverain, Seigneur Henry de +Bourbon, cy-devant Roy de Navarre.' After this discomposing harangue the +assembly breaks up in some confusion. + +The _Satyre Menippee_ had an immense effect, and may, perhaps, be justly +described as the first example, in modern politics, of a literary work +the effect of which was really great and lasting. It is not surprising +that such should have been its fortune. For it is a remarkably happy +mixture of the older style of _gaulois_ jocularity (in which +exaggeration, personal attack, insinuations of a more or less scandalous +character and the like, furnished the attraction) and the newer style of +chastened and comparatively polished prose. The greater part of the +first six speeches are of a more antique cast than Montaigne; and though +the speech of D'Aubray exhibits a more elaborate and less familiar +style, it too is definitely plain and popular in manner. Although there +are the allusions usual at the time to classical subjects, the Pleiade +pedantry, with which at least two of the contributors, Passerat and +Rapin, were sufficiently imbued, is conspicuously absent. Rabelais is +frequently alluded to; and when the style of the book and the obvious +intention of appealing to the general, which it exhibits, are +considered, no better testimony to the popularity of _Gargantua_ and +_Pantagruel_ could be produced. The descriptions, too, have a +Rabelaisian minuteness and richness about them; and in the burlesque +parts the influence of that master is equally perceptible. But the +strictly practical point of view is always maintained; and the +temptation, always a strong one with French writers of the middle age +and Renaissance, to lose sight of this in endless developments of mere +amusing buffoonery, is constantly resisted. There is certainly less +exaggeration in the _Menippee_ than in _Hudibras_, though the personal +weaknesses of the innumerable individual persons satirised contribute +more to the general effect than they do in Butler's great satire. The +distinguishing trait of the _Satyre Menippee_, next to those already +mentioned, is the constant rain of slight ironical touches contributing +to the general effect. Thus the arms of the processioning Leaguers are, +'le tout rouille par Humilite Catholique;' the League scholastics and +preachers 'forment tous leurs arguments in _ferio_.' The deputies' +benches are covered with cloth, 'parsemees de croisettes de Lorraine et +de larmes miparties de vair et de faux argent.' These sure and rapid +touches distinguish the book strongly from nearly all mediaeval satire, +in which the satirists are wont, whenever they make a point, to dwell on +it, and expound it, and illustrate it, and make the most of it, until it +loses almost all its piquancy. Very different from this over-elaboration +is the confident irony of the _Menippee_, which trusts to the +intelligence of the reader for understanding and emphasis. 'Vous +prevoyez bien,' says Mayenne, 'les dangers et inconveniens de la paix +qui met ordre a tout, et rend le droit a qui il appartient.' Hardly even +Antoine de la Salle, and certainly no other among the authors of the +preceding centuries, would have ventured to leave this, obvious as it +seems now-a-days, to reach the reader by itself. + +[Sidenote: Regnier.] + +A similar but a still more remarkable, because an individually complete, +example of the combination of Gallican tradition with classical study +was soon afterwards shown by Mathurin Regnier[223]. Regnier was born at +Chartres on the 21st of December, 1573, his father being Jacques +Regnier, a citizen of position; his mother was Simonne Desportes, sister +of the poet. Jacques Regnier desired for his son the ecclesiastical, but +not the poetical, eminence of his brother-in-law, and Mathurin was +tonsured at nine years old. The boy, however, wished to follow his +uncle's steps in the other direction, and early began to write. It is +said that he wrote lampoons on the inhabitants of his native town, and, +repeating them to the frequenters of a tennis-court which his father had +built, got himself thus into trouble. His father's threats and +punishments, however, had no more effect than is usual in such cases, +and Regnier soon, but at a date not exactly known, betook himself to his +uncle at Paris. By Desportes, who was in favour with many high +personages, he was recommended to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, and took part +in that prelate's embassy to Rome in 1593. Joyeuse, however, did nothing +for him, and in 1601 he again went to Rome in the suite of Philippe de +Bethune. He returned before long, and, in 1604, a canonry, to the +reversion of which he had been presented long before, fell in. His first +collection of satires appeared in 1608. Five years afterwards, in 1613, +on the 22nd of October, he died at Rouen, having not quite completed his +fortieth year. His way of life had unfortunately been by no means +regular, and his early death is said to have been directly caused by his +excesses. + +In this short sketch almost everything that is known of Regnier, except +a few anecdotes, has been included, and the total is, it will be seen, +exceedingly meagre. Nor is his work abundant even for a man who died +comparatively young. Sixteen satires, three epistles, five elegies, and +a few miscellaneous pieces, make it up, and probably the total does not +exceed seven or eight thousand lines. The relative excellence of this +work is however exceedingly high. Regnier is almost the only French poet +before the so-called classical period who has continuously maintained +his reputation, and who has only been decried by a few eccentric or +incompetent critics. He was an ardent defender of the Ronsardising +tradition, yet Malherbe, whom he did not hesitate to attack, thought and +spoke highly of him. In the next age Boileau allotted to him a mixture +of praise and blame which is not too apposite, but in which the praise +far exceeds the blame, and elsewhere declared him to be the French +writer, before Moliere, who best knew human nature. The approval of +Boileau secured that of the eighteenth century, while Regnier's defence +of the Pleiade propitiated the first Romantics. Thus buttressed on +either side, he has had nothing to fear from literary revolutions. Nor +will any judgment which looks rather at merit than authority arrive at +an unfavourable conclusion respecting him. His satires are not indeed +absolutely the first of their kind in French. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, +Jean de la Taille, and above all, D'Aubigne, had preceded him. But in +breadth as well as, except in the case of D'Aubigne, in force, and above +all in even excellence and technical merit, he far surpassed those who +in a manner had shown him the way. His satire is exclusively social, and +thus it escapes one of the chief drawbacks of political satire, that of +dealing with matters of more or less ephemeral existence and interest. +He has indeed borrowed considerably from the ancients, but he has +almost always made his borrowings his own, and he has in some cases +improved on his originals. He has softened the exaggerated air of moral +indignation which his English contemporaries, Hall and Marston, borrowed +from Juvenal, and which sits so awkwardly on them and on many other +satirists. He has avoided such still more awkward followings as that +which made Pope upset all English literary history in order to echo +Horace's remarks about Rome and Greece. Sometimes he has fallen into the +besetting sin of his countrymen, the tendency to represent mere types or +even abstractions instead of lifelike individuals embodying the type, +but he has more often avoided it. His descriptive passages are of +extraordinary vigour and accuracy of touch, and his occasional strokes +are worthy of almost any satiric or didactic poet. He is perhaps +weakest, like all poets with the signal exception of Dryden, when he is +panegyrical. Yet his first satire--in the order of arrangement not of +writing--addressed to the King, Henri IV., has much merit. The second, +on poets, has more, and abounds in vigorous strokes, such as that of the +courtier bard who + + Meditant un sonnet, medite un eveche; + +and as the couplet which concludes a lively sketch of his diplomatic +experiences-- + + Mais instruit par le temps a la fin j'ai connu + Que la fidelite n'est pas grand revenu. + +This poem, which contains some humorous descriptions of the poverty of +poets, ends with an eloquent panegyric on Ronsard. The next, on 'La Vie +de la Cour,' attacks a very favourite subject of the age, and winds up +with an extremely well-told version of the fable of the beast of prey +and the mule whose name is written on its hoof. The fourth returns to +the subject of the poverty of poets. The fifth argues at some length, +and in a spirit not very far removed from that of Montaigne, the thesis +that 'Le gout particulier decide de tout.' It contains some of Regnier's +finest passages. A subject somewhat similar in kind, 'L'honneur ennemi +de la vie,' gives further occasion, in the sixth, for the display of +the moralising spirit of the age, which, in Regnier, takes the form of +a kind of epicurean pococurantism mingled with occasional bursts of +noble sentiment. The seventh is one of the most personal of all; it is +entitled 'L'amour qu'on ne peut dompter,' and is a comment on the text +_Video meliora proboque_. The eighth is one of the innumerable +imitations of the famous ninth satire of the first book of Horace, _Ibam +forte via sacra_, and perhaps the happiest of all such, though it is +difficult not to regret that Regnier should have devoted his too rare +moments of work to mere imitation. The ninth, however, is open to no +such charge. It is entitled _Le Critique outre_, and is an +extraordinarily vigorous and happy remonstrance against the intolerant +pedantry with which Malherbe was criticising the Pleiade. This satire is +addressed to Rapin, the veteran contributor to the _Menippee._ It is +impossible to describe the weak side of the reforms which Malherbe, and +after him Boileau, introduced into French poetry, better than in these +lines, which deserve citation for their literary importance:-- + + Cependant leur scavoir ne s'estend seulement + Qu'a regratter un mot douteux au jugement, + Prendre garde qu'un qui ne heurte une diphtongue; + Espier si des vers la rime est breve ou longue; + Ou bien si la voyelle, a l'autre s'unissant, + Ne rend point a l'oreille un vers trop languissant. + Ils rampent bassement, foibles d'inventions, + Et n'osent, peu hardis, tenter les fictions, + Froids a l'imaginer; ear s'ils font quelque chose + C'est proser de la rime, et rimer de la prose, + Que l'art lime et relime, et polit de facon, + Qu'elle rend a l'oreille un agreable son. + +The tenth satire, with its title 'Le souper ridicule,' seems to return +to Horace, but in reality the scene described has little in common with +the _Coena_ of Nasidienus. It affords Regnier an excellent opportunity +for displaying his talent for Dutch painting, but is in this respect +inferior to the sequel 'Le mauvais gite.' The subject of this is +sufficiently unsavoury, and the satire is almost the only one which in +the least deserves Boileau's strictures on the author's 'rimes +cyniques,' but the vigour and skill of the treatment are most +remarkable. The twelfth is short, and once more apologetically personal. +But the thirteenth is the longest, one of the most famous, and +unquestionably on the whole the best work of the author. It is entitled +'Macette,' and describes an old woman who hides vice under a +hypocritical mask and corrupts youth with her evil philosophy of the +world and its ways. Indebted in some measure to the _Roman de la Rose_ +for the idea of his central character, Regnier is entirely original in +his method of treatment. Nowhere are his verses more vigorous-- + + Son oeil tout penitent ne pleure qu'eau beniste. + L'honneur est un vieux saint que l'on ne chomme plus. + La sage se sait vendre ou la sotte se donne. + +Nowhere is Regnier so uniformly free from technical defects and from +colloquialisms in which he sometimes indulges. The fourteenth returns to +general and somewhat vague satire, dealing with the vanity of human +reason and conduct, while the fifteenth is once more personal, 'Le Poete +malgre soi.' Lastly, the sixteenth sums up the author's theoretical +philosophy in the opening line, 'N'avoir crainte de rien et ne rien +esperer.' + +The satires are in bulk and in importance so much the larger part of the +work of Regnier, and represent such an important innovation in French +literature, that it has seemed well to describe them with some +minuteness. The miscellaneous poems may be reviewed more rapidly, though +the best of them add very considerably to the poet's reputation, because +they show him in an entirely different light. Not a few of the elegies +are imitated from Ovid, and some of them might perhaps have been left +unwritten with advantage. Indeed, Regnier is here much more open to +Boileau's censure than in his more famous verse. But some lyrical pieces +exhibit his command of other measures besides the Alexandrine, and +afford occasion for the expression of a melancholy and genuine +sensibility which is not common in French poetry. The poem called +'Plainte' is very beautiful, and is written in a lyric stanza of much +more elaboration than any which was to be used in France for two +centuries. One of its peculiarities is a hemistich replacing the +expected fourth line of the stanza, which is of eight verses, with +singularly musical effect. A so-called 'Ode' is almost better, and ends +thus:-- + + Un regret pensif et confus + D'avoir este, et n'estre plus, + Rend mon ame aux douleurs ouverte; + A mes despens, las! je vois bien + Qu'un bonheur comme estoit le mien + Ne se cognoist que par la perte. + +Regnier was in many ways a fitting representative for the close of the +great poetical school of the sixteenth century. In manner he represented +the fusion of the purely Gallic school of Marot and Rabelais, with the +classical tradition of the Pleiade in its best form. His Alexandrines, +if not quite so vigorous as D'Aubigne's, have all the polish that could +be expected before the administration of Malherbe's rules. His lyric +measures have the boldness and harmony which those rules banished from +French poetry for full seven generations. In matter he displays a +singular mixture of acute observation and philosophic criticism with +ardent sensibility both to pleasure and pain. This, as has been +repeatedly pointed out, is the dominant temper of the French +Renaissance, and though in Regnier it shows something of the melancholy +of the decadence as compared with the springing hope of Rabelais and the +calm maturity of Montaigne, it is scarcely less characteristic. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[222] Ed. Labitte. Paris, 1869. + +[223] Ed. Courbet. Paris, 1875. In this edition some of the dates and +statements in the text, which have been generally accepted, are +contested. + + + + +INTERCHAPTER II. + +SUMMARY OF RENAISSANCE LITERATURE. + + +The literary movements of the sixteenth century in France and their +accomplishments--in other words, the course and result of the French +Renaissance--can be traced with greater ease and with more precision +than those of any other age of the literature. The movement is double, +but, unlike most movements, literary and other, it is not sufficiently +described as flux and reflux or action and reaction. The later or +Pleiade half of the century was in no sense a reaction against the first +or Marot-Rabelais half. If there is an appearance of opposition between +the two it is only because, both in Marot and in Rabelais, there was +actually a kind of reaction from the movement which faintly and +imperfectly foreshadowed that of the Pleiade, the _rhetoriqueur_ +pedantry of the writers from Chartier to Cretin. In this first half of +the century, while something of a protest was made by Rabelais +explicitly, and implicitly by Marot, against the indiscriminate +Latinising of the French tongue, very much more was done by their +contemporaries, and in a manner by Rabelais himself, in the way of +importing novelties of subject, style, and language, both from ancient +and modern sources. Long before Du Bellay wrote, Calvin had modelled the +first serious and scholarly work of French prose very closely on a Latin +pattern. The translators, with Etienne Dolet and Amyot at their head, +had begun to transfer to the vernacular, in versions or in original +work, the principles of style which they had admired and imitated in the +classics. On the other hand, Marot, representing the extreme vernacular +school, succeeded, tolerably early in the period, in refining and +chastening the language of the fifteenth century to such an extent that +his style, transmitted through La Fontaine, and then through the +lighter work of the eighteenth century, has retained a certain hold on +literature for its particular purpose almost to the present day. The +most remarkable writer, from the point of view of style, in this part of +the century is perhaps Bonaventure des Periers, who displays both the +vernacular purity free from classical mixture, and at the same time the +Renaissance admiration and imitation of the classics in a very high +degree. Yet the same lesson is taught by the prose of Des Periers as by +the verse of Marot. The language had not as yet arrived at its full +growth, it had not taken in its full supply of nourishment. It was +therefore not equal to the complete duties of a literary tongue. It +wanted enriching, strengthening, educating. + +This task it was which was performed, and performed on the whole with +remarkable skill and success, by the Pleiade movement. It is not easy to +fix on any period in the history of any other language in which, at an +interval of fifty years, the advance in the capacities, as distinguished +from the mere accomplishments of the tongue, is so noticeable as it is +in French between 1550 and 1600. It is not merely that between these +dates writers of talent and even genius may be mentioned by the dozen, +that the language can boast of having added to its stores the odes of +Ronsard, the sonnets of Du Bellay, the myriad graceful songs of the +lesser poets of the Pleiade, the stately descriptions of Du Bartas, the +fiery invective of D'Aubigne, the polished satire of Regnier, the essays +of Montaigne, the immortal pasquinades of the Menippee--it is that the +whole constitution and organisation of the language has been +strengthened and improved. That the secret of the Alexandrine has at +last been mastered means that the whole future course of French poetry +is in a manner mapped out. That lyric measures have been devised, +intricate, not merely in arrangement like those of the mediaeval forms, +but in harmony, means that at any future time French poets who choose to +recur to this storehouse may find the withal to equip themselves. That +the vocabulary has been enormously if somewhat indiscriminately +increased, means that writers in the future, at whatever loss they may +be for thought, need certainly be at no loss for words to express it. +But the gain is greater even than this. Not merely have the glossary, +the grammar, the prosody of the language been enriched, but entirely +new moulds in which literary work can be cast have been added to the +literature. The form of drama in which France was to achieve, with but +little formal alteration, some of her greatest literary triumphs, has +been discovered and acclimatised; the essay has become a recognised +thing; attempts at history proper as distinct from mere annals and +chronicles have been made. Literature, in short, is organised, and +literary labour works in matter roughly at least prepared and shaped. +One of the greatest drawbacks of mediaeval literature, the confusion of +styles, the handling of science in verse, of theology in terms taken +from amatory romances, of politics in 'dreams,' of social satire in +clumsy allegories, is cleared away. The form most suitable for every +kind of literary work has been more or less made clear to the literary +workman, and a plentiful supply of material in the shape of vocabulary +is at his disposal. + +That this great accomplishment is on the whole the doing of the Pleiade +in its larger sense, as designating and including the men of letters of +1550-1600, no impartial student of the period can doubt. But at the same +time there is no doubt either that their work was both incomplete and in +some respects open to grave objection. They had, like all reformers, +literary as well as political, neglected to preserve the historical +continuity, and deliberately turned their backs on the traditions of the +language and the literature. Their importations and imitations had been +sometimes unnecessary, sometimes awkward, sometimes absurd. The mass of +their contributions required examination, arrangement, and no doubt in +some cases rejection. Moreover, they had on the whole concentrated their +attention too much upon poetry; prose, the less exquisite but the more +useful instrument, had been comparatively neglected. Almost all styles +had been tried in it, but no general style nor the conditions of any had +been elaborated. In drama much remained to be done. The model was there +in the rough, but the workmen had been unskilful, and fifty years of +practice on the plan of Jodelle had not yet resulted in the composition +of one really dramatic play. In short, though the Pleiade movement had +begun by being nothing if not critical, it had not kept up the habit of +self-criticism. The application of this criticism was what was left for +the seventeenth century to supply, and at the same time the elaboration +of a complete and workman-like prose style. We shall see how early and +how eagerly this task was accepted, and how thoroughly it was carried +out; so thoroughly, that the seventeenth century is the age of perfect +French prose. But what was gained in prose was lost in poetry, and, +putting the dramatists aside, the drop in this respect from the +sixteenth to the seventeenth century is immense. The sixteenth is, +putting our own days out of question, the palmy time of poetry in +France. The urbanity of Marot, the stately grace of Ronsard and his +followers, the majesty of Du Bartas, the fire of D'Aubigne, the nervous +and yet effortless strength of Regnier, have never been surpassed, and +until the last half century they have rarely been equalled. If to this +be added the more irregular and unequal, but hardly inferior merits of +the best sixteenth-century prose, the inexhaustible humour of Rabelais, +the simplicity and varied colour of the great memoir-writers, the subtle +eloquence of Montaigne, it may perhaps seem that the period can contest +the primacy with any other. The dispute between it and its successor is, +however, only an instance of one which recurs again and again in +literature, and which neither need nor should be handled here at +length. + + + + +BOOK III. + +THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +POETS. + + +[Sidenote: Malherbe.] + +The history of the poetry of the seventeenth century in France naturally +and necessarily opens with Malherbe, though he was forty-five years old +at its beginning, and considerably the senior of Regnier, who has been +included among the poets of the Renaissance. Francois de Malherbe[224] +was born at Caen in 1555, being the eldest son of his father, another +Francois de Malherbe, and both on the father's and mother's side of +noble family. He was educated at his native town, in Germany and in +Paris, and when he was twenty-one he entered the army. He married in +1581, and had three children, two of whom died young--a circumstance not +immaterial in connection with his most famous poem, which is a +'Consolation' to a certain M. du Perier, whose daughter Marguerite had +died in her youth. He seems to have written verses tolerably early, but, +exercising on himself the same rigid principles of criticism which he +applied to others, he preserved none or hardly any of them. It was not +till he was past forty that his best-known poems were written, and the +whole amount of his surviving work is not large. During the first +two-thirds of his life he was not rich, for his patrimony was scanty, +and the death of the Grand Prior, Henri d'Angouleme, to whom he had +attached himself, deprived him of the chances of preferment. But in +1605 he was presented to Henri IV.; he soon afterwards received various +places, and for more than twenty years was a court favourite, and in a +way the autocrat of poetry. He died in 1628. + +It has been said that Malherbe's poetical work is by no means +voluminous: a small volume of two hundred pages, not very closely or +minutely printed, contains it all; and ingenious persons have calculated +that as a rule he did not write more than four or five verses a month. +Nor even of this carefully produced, and still more carefully weeded, +result is there much that can be read with pleasure by a modern student +of poetry. The verse by which Malherbe is best known, + + Et, rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses, + +is worth all the rest of his work, and it can hardly be said to be more +than a very graceful and touching conceit. But Malherbe's position in +the history of French poetry is a very important one. He deliberately +assumed the functions of a reformer of literature; and whatever may be +thought of the result of his reforms, their durability and the almost +entire acquiescence with which they were received prove that there must +have been something in them remarkably germane to the spirit and taste +and genius of the nation. His first attempt was the overthrow of the +Pleiade. He ridiculed their phraseology, frowned on their metres, and, +being himself destitute of the romantic inspiration which had animated +them, set himself to reduce poetry to carefully-worded metrical prose. +The story is always told of him that he went minutely through a copy of +Ronsard, striking out whatever he disapproved of; and when some one +pointed out the mass of lines that were left, that he drew his pen +(presumably across the title-page, for it is not obvious how else he +could have done it) through the rest at one stroke. The insolent folly +of this is glaring enough, for Malherbe is not worthy as a poet to +unloose the shoe-latchet of Ronsard. But the critic had rightly +appreciated his time. The tendency of the French seventeenth century in +poetry proper was towards the restriction of vocabulary and rhythm, the +avoidance of original and daring metaphor and suggestion, the perfecting +of a few metres (with the Alexandrine at their head) into a delicate +but monotonous harmony, and the rejection of individual licence in +favour of rigid rule. The influence of Boileau came rapidly to second +that of Malherbe, and the result is that not a single poet--the +dramatists are here excluded--of the seventeenth century in France +deserves more than fair second-class rank. La Fontaine, indeed, was a +writer of the greatest genius, but, though the form which his work takes +is metrical, the highest merits of poetry proper are absent. La +Fontaine, too, was himself, though an admirer of Malherbe, a rebel to +the Malherbe tradition, and delighted both in reading and imitating the +work of the Renaissance and the middle ages. But he is always clear, +precise, and matter-of-fact in the midst of fancy, never attaining to +the peculiar vague suggestiveness which constitutes the charm of poetry +proper. + +[Sidenote: The School of Malherbe.] + +[Sidenote: Vers de Societe.] + +[Sidenote: Voiture.] + +It was, however, impossible that so large a change should accomplish +itself at once, and signs of mixed influences appear accordingly in all +the poetical work of the first half of the century. Cardinal du Perron, +Malherbe's introducer at court, was himself a poet of merit, but rather +in the Pleiade style. His _Temple de l'Inconstance_, though rougher in +form, is more poetical in substance than anything, save a very few +pieces, of Malherbe's. Chassignet displayed some of the same +characteristics with a graver and more elegiac spirit. Gombaud is +chiefly remarkable as a sonneteer. The two most famous of the actual +pupils of Malherbe were Maynard and Racan. Maynard was a diplomatist and +lawyer of rank, who was born at Toulouse in 1582, and died in 1646. His +work is miscellaneous, and not very extensive, but it shows that he had +learned the secret of polished versification from Malherbe, and that he +was able to apply it with a good deal of vigour and of variety. Honorat +de Bueil, Marquis de Racan[225], was the author of a pastoral drama, +_Les Bergeries_, founded on, or imitated from, the _Astree_ of D'Urfe, +of an elaborate version of the Psalms, and of a considerable number of +the miscellaneous poems, _stances_, _odes_, _epitres_, etc., which were +fashionable. Racan, though his amiable private character and the +compliance of his principal work with a fashionable folly of the time +have caused him to be somewhat over-estimated traditionally, was a +thoroughly pleasing poet, with a great command of fluent and melodious +verse, a genuine love of nature, and occasionally a power of producing +poetry of a true kind which was shared by few of his contemporaries. The +remarkable author of _Tyr et Sidon_, Jean de Schelandre, produced, +besides his play, a considerable number of miscellaneous poems; but he +was a thorough reactionary, avowed his contempt of Malherbe, and +studied, not without success, Ronsard and his own coreligionist Du +Bartas as models. One of the most original, though at the same time one +of the most unequal poets of the early seventeenth century, was +Theophile de Viaud, often called Theophile[226] simply. He, too, was a +dramatist, but his dramas do not do him much credit, their style being +exaggerated and 'precious.' On the other hand, his miscellaneous poems, +though very unequal, include much work of remarkable beauty. The pieces +entitled 'La Solitude,' 'Sur une Tempete,' and the stanzas beginning +'Quand tu me vois baiser tes bras,' have all the fervour and +picturesqueness of the Pleiade without its occasional blemishes of +pedantic expression. Theophile was a loose liver and an unfortunate man. +He was accused, justly or unjustly, of writing indecent verses, was +imprisoned, and died young. All the poets hitherto mentioned were +writers of miscellaneous verse, who, except in so far as they held to +the elder tradition of Ronsard or the new gospel of Malherbe, can hardly +be said to have belonged to any school. Towards the middle of the +century, however, two well-defined fashions of poetry, with some minor +ones, distinguished themselves. There was, in the first place, the +school of the _coterie_ poets, who devoted themselves to producing _vers +de societe_, either for the ladies, or for the great men of the period. +The chief of this school was beyond all question Voiture[227]. This +admirable writer of prose and verse published absolutely nothing during +his lifetime, though his work was in private the delight of the salons. +That it should be, under the circumstances, somewhat frivolous is almost +unavoidable. But, especially after the cessation of the great flow of +inspiration which had characterised the sixteenth century, it was of no +small importance that the art of perfect expression should be cultivated +in French. Voiture was one of those who contributed most to the +cultivation of this art. His letters are as correct as those of Balzac, +and much less stilted; and of his poetry it is sufficient to say that +nothing more charming of the kind has ever been written than the sonnet +to Uranie, which stirred up a literary war, or the rondeau 'Ma foi c'est +fait de moi.' This last put once more in fashion a beautiful and +thoroughly French form, which it had been one of the worst deeds of the +Pleiade to make unfashionable. The chief rival of Voiture was Benserade, +a much younger man, whose sonnet on Job was held to excel, though it +certainly does not, that to Uranie. Benserade was of higher birth and +larger fortune than Voiture, and long outlived him. He was a great +writer of ballets or masques, and not unfrequently, like Voiture, showed +that a true poet underlay the fantastic disguises he put on. Around +these two are grouped numerous minor poets of different merit. +Boisrobert, the favourite of Richelieu and the companion of Rotrou and +Corneille in that minister's band of 'five poets;' Maleville, who in one +of the sonnet-tournaments of the time, that of the _Belle Matineuse_, +was supposed to have excelled even Voiture; Colletet, whose poems make +him less important in literature than his Lives of the French poets, +which unfortunately perished during the Commune before they had been +fully printed; Gomberville, more famous as a novelist; Sarrasin, an +admirable prose writer, and a clever composer of ballades and other +light verse; Godeau, a bishop and a very clever versifier; Blot, who was +rather a political than a social rhymer; Marigny, who was also famous +for his Mazarinades, but whose satirical power was by no means the only +side of his poetical talent; Charleval, whose personal popularity was +greater than his literary ability; Maucroix, the friend of La Fontaine; +Segrais, an eclogue writer of no small merit; Chapelle, an idle +epicurean, who derives most of his fame from the fact of his having been +intimate with all the foremost literary men of the time, and from his +having composed, in company with Bachaumont, a _Voyage_ in mixed prose +and verse, the form of which was long very popular in France and was +imitated with especial success by Anthony Hamilton and Voltaire; +Pavillon, who deserves a very similar general description, but who gave +no such single example of his abilities: all belong to this class. + +[Sidenote: Epic School. Chapelain.] + +Side by side with the frivolous school, but in curious contrast with it, +there existed a school of ponderous epic writers, the extirpation of +which is the best claim of Boileau to the gratitude of posterity. The +typical poets of this class are Georges de Scudery, the author of +_Alaric_, and Chapelain, the author of the _Pucelle_. Scudery was a +soldier and a man of considerable talent, who lacked nothing but +patience and the power of self-criticism to produce really good work. +Like his more famous sister, he had invention and literary facility. His +plays are not without merit in parts, and his epic of _Alaric_, amidst +astonishing platitudes and extravagances, has occasional good lines. But +Chapelain is by far the most remarkable figure of the school. He was +bred up to be a poet from his earliest age, and by a stroke of luck, +impossible in less anomalous times, he was taken at his own valuation +for years. _La Pucelle_ was quoted in manuscript, and anxiously expected +for half a short lifetime. It only appeared to be hopelessly damned. +There are passages in it of merit, but they are associated with lines +which read like designed burlesques. The onslaughts of Boileau have +created a kind of reaction in favour of Chapelain with some who disagree +with Boileau's poetical principles: but he is not defensible. His odes +are indeed tolerable in parts; not so the _Pucelle_, save, as has been +said, in occasional lines. The _Clovis_ of Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin is +worse than the _Pucelle_. On the other hand, the Pere le Moyne in his +_St. Louis_, taking apparently Du Bartas as his model, produced work +which, if not very readable as a whole, manifests real and very +considerable poetical talent. Lastly, Saint Amant in the _Moise Sauve_ +showed how far below himself a clever writer may be when he mistakes his +style. + +[Sidenote: Bacchanalian School. Saint Amant.] + +Saint Amant[228], who, to do him justice, did not call _Moise Sauve_ an +epic but an 'idylle heroique,' is the link between this school and a +third composed of purely convivial poets, who even in this century +furnished work of remarkable excellence, and who produced a numerous and +brilliant progeny in the next. Saint Amant's Anacreontic poems are of +great merit. Of the same class was Saint Pavin, who was not merely a +free liver, but a member of the small but influential free-thinking sect +which preceded and gave birth to the _Philosophes_ of the next century. +This time, moreover, was the period of a curious literary trick, the +resuscitation or forging of the convivial poems of Oliver Basselin by a +Norman lawyer of the name of Jean le Houx. A genuine and contemporary +Basselin, in the person of a carpenter named Adam Billaut, produced some +notable work of the same kind. Unfortunately the Anacreontic poetry of +this time suffers from the too frequent coarseness of its language; a +fault which indeed was not fully corrected until Beranger's days. + +[Sidenote: La Fontaine.] + +The members, however, of all these schools have long lost their hold on +all but students of literature, and, with the exception of La Fontaine +and Boileau, it is not easy to mention any non-dramatic poet of the +seventeenth century who has kept a place in the general memory. Jean la +Fontaine[229] was born at Chateau Thierry in Champagne in the year 1621, +and died at Paris in 1695. His father held a considerable post as ranger +of the neighbouring forests, an office which passed to his son. La +Fontaine seems to have been carelessly educated, but after a certain +time literature attracted him, and he began to study in a desultory +fashion, without however, as it would appear, being himself tempted to +write. At the age of six-and-twenty he married Marie Hericart, a girl of +sixteen, who is said to have been both amiable and beautiful, and not +long afterwards he was left his own master by his father's death. He was +suited very ill by nature either to fill a responsible office or to be +head of a house. The well-known stories of his absence of mind, his +simplicity, his indifference to outward affairs, have no doubt been +exaggerated, but there is, equally without doubt, a foundation of fact +in them. On the other hand, though the most serious charges against his +wife seem to rest on no foundation, it is certain that she had little +aptitude for housewifery. After a time the household was broken up, +though there was offspring of the marriage. A division of goods was +effected, and husband and wife separated, not to meet again except on +visits and for brief spaces of time, though they seem to have remained +on perfectly friendly terms. La Fontaine went to Paris, and very soon +attracted the notice of Fouquet, the magnificent superintendent of the +finances, who gave him a pension of a thousand livres and made him a +member of his literary household. Here La Fontaine began to write. At +the downfall of Fouquet he was constant to his friend, and produced the +best-known of his miscellaneous poems, the 'Pleurez, Nymphes de +Vaux[230].' The misfortune unsettled him for a time, and he travelled +about. But returning to his native place, he was taken into favour by +the Duchess of Bouillon, and this was the beginning of a series of +patronages which lasted till the end of his life. Once more visiting +Paris, he became a favourite with many men and women of rank, and began +his serious literary work by producing the first part of his _Contes_. +The remaining parts and the _Fables_ appeared at intervals during the +remainder of his life. His second visit to Paris brought about his +traditional association with Boileau, Moliere, and Racine, the four +meeting at regular intervals, either in taverns or at lodgings in the +Rue Vieux Colombier. During the later years of his life La Fontaine was +a confirmed Parisian. His office at Chateau Thierry had been sold, and +he was the guest of various hospitable persons, the chief of whom was +Madame de la Sabliere. In 1668 appeared the first part of the _Fables_ +with universal approval. But the free character of the _Contes_, and +still more the association of La Fontaine with some of the freethinkers +who were in ill-repute with the king's spiritual advisers, retarded his +admission to the Academy. When Colbert died, La Fontaine and Boileau +were the two candidates; an awkward accident, considering their +friendship, and the fact that the court was as decidedly for Boileau as +the Academy itself for La Fontaine. The latter was elected, but the king +delayed his assent, and even seemed likely to exercise a veto, when +fortunately a second vacancy occurred, and Boileau being elected, both +were approved by the king, Boileau warmly, La Fontaine with the +grudging terms 'Vous pouvez recevoir La Fontaine; il a promis d'etre +sage.' A curious warning of a similar tenor was contained in the +'Discours de Reception.' + +La Fontaine's work is considerable, including many miscellaneous poems, +the romance of _Psyche_, and various dramatic attempts which were more +or less failures. But the _Contes_ and the _Fables_ are the only works +which have held their ground with posterity, and it is upon them that +his reputation is justly based. The first part of the _Contes_ appeared +at the extreme end of 1664[231], the second in 1667, the third in 1671, +but the author added pieces in successive editions. The first part of +the _Fables_ appeared in 1668, dedicated to the Dauphin, the second in +1679, dedicated to Madame de Montespan, the third in 1693, dedicated to +the Duc de Bourgogne, who is said to have been taught by Fenelon to +delight in La Fontaine, and to have sent him just before his death all +the money he had. The two books are complementary to each other, and La +Fontaine's genius cannot be judged by either alone. It has been remarked +that he was a diligent though apparently a very desultory reader. He +read the Italians, and, apparently with still more relish and profit, +the works of the old French writers, to whom the Italians owed so much. +The spirit of the Fabliaux had been dead, or at any rate dormant, since +Marot and Rabelais; La Fontaine revived it. Even purists, like his +friend Boileau, admitted a certain archaism in lighter poetry, and La +Fontaine would in all probability have troubled himself very little if +they had not. His language is, therefore, more supple, varied, and racy +than even that of Moliere, and this is his first excellence. His second +is a faculty of easy narration in verse, which is absolutely unequalled +except perhaps in Pulci and Ariosto, while it is certainly unsurpassed +anywhere. His third distinguishing point is his power of insinuating, it +may be a satirical point, it may be a moral reflection, which is also +hardly equalled and as certainly unsurpassed. In the authors whom La +Fontaine followed, either deliberately or unconsciously, the models of +his tales and his fables were indiscriminately mingled; but he separated +them by so rigid a line that, while there is hardly a phrase in his +_Fables_ which is not suited _virginibus puerisque_, the _Contes_ are +not exactly a book for youth. In the latter the author has taken +subjects, always amusing but not unfrequently loose, from the old +fabulists, from Boccaccio, from the French prose tale-tellers of the +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ and similar collections, from Rabelais, from +a few Italian writers of the Renaissance, and has dressed them up in the +incomparable narrative of which he alone has the secret. Where he treads +in the steps of the greatest writers he is almost always best. 'Joconde' +supplies the opportunity of a remarkable comparison with Ariosto; 'La +Fiancee du Roi de Garbe' of a still more remarkable comparison with +Boccaccio. In this latter respect the palm of vivid and varied narration +is with La Fontaine, but he misses something of the spirit of the +original in his portrait of Alaciel; indeed La Fontaine's weakest point +is in the comparatively pedestrian character of his treatment. He has +little romance, and in translating, not merely the Italians but such +countrymen and women of his own as the authors of the Heptameron, he +loses the poetical charm which, as has been pointed out, graces and +saves the morality or immorality of the Renaissance. Therefore, despite +the wonderful variety and vivid painting of the _Contes_, presenting a +series of pictures which for these qualities have few rivals in +literature, the disapproval with which censors more rigid than Johnson +(whose excuse of Prior will fairly stretch to Prior's original) have +visited them is not altogether unjustifiable. + +The Fables, with hardly less excellence of the purely literary kind, are +fortunately free from the least vestige of any similar fault. La +Fontaine, instead of in the smallest degree degrading the beast-fable, +has, on the contrary, exalted it to almost the highest point of which it +is capable. Not many books have made and kept a more durable and solid +reputation. The few dissentient voices in the chorus of eulogy have been +those of eccentric crotcheteers like Rousseau, or sentimentalists like +Lamartine. It is, indeed, impossible to read the Fables without +prejudice and not be captivated by them. As mere narratives they are +charming, and the perpetual presence of an undercurrent of sly, +good-humoured, satirical meaning relieves them from all charge of +insipidity. La Fontaine, like Goldsmith, was with his pen in his hand as +shrewd and as deeply learned in human nature as without it he was simple +and _naif_. + +Something has to be said of the form and strictly poetical value of +these two remarkable books--as remarkable, let it be remembered, for +their bulk as for their excellence, for between them they cannot contain +much less than 30,000 verses. The measure is almost always an irregular +mixture of lines of different lengths, rhyming sometimes in couplets, +sometimes in interlaced stanzas, which La Fontaine established as the +vehicle of serio-comic narration. For this, in his hands, it is +extraordinarily well fitted. As for the strictly poetic value of the +work, it is perhaps significant that though he is, taking quantity and +excellence together, the most important non-dramatic writer of verse of +the whole century in France, he is rarely thought of (out of France) as +a poet. A poet, indeed, in the highest sense of the word he is not. He +has hardly any passion, evidences of it being almost confined to the +elegy to Fouquet and, perhaps, as M. Theodore de Banville pleads, to the +'Faucon' and 'Courtisane Amoureuse' of the _Contes_. He has no +indefinite suggestion of beauty; even his descriptions of nature, though +always accurate and picturesque, being somewhat prosaic. He may be said +to be a prose writer of the very first class who chose to write in +verse, and who justified his choice by a wonderful technical ability in +the particular form of verse which he used. There is no greater mistake +than the supposition that La Fontaine's verse-writing is mere facile +improvisation. + +[Sidenote: Boileau.] + +Nicolas Boileau[232], who was long known in France as the 'Law-giver of +Parnassus,' and who, perhaps, exercised a more powerful and lasting +influence over the literature of his native country than any other +critic has ever enjoyed, was born at Paris on All Saints' Day, 1636. His +father held the post of registrar of one of the numerous courts of law, +and his family had legal connections of wide range and long date. He +himself was brought up to the law, but had not the least inclination +for it; and at his father's death, which happened exactly when he +attained his majority, his inheritance was considerable enough to allow +him to do as he pleased. The family was a large one, and, according to a +custom of the time, the brothers, or at least some of them, were +distinguished by additional surnames. That which Nicolas +took--Despreaux--was, at any rate during his youth, more frequently used +than his patronymic, and has continued to be applied to him +indifferently, thereby causing some odd blunders on the part of ignorant +people. He himself sometimes signed Despreaux and sometimes +Boileau-Despreaux. Besides law, he had also studied theology, and, +though he never took orders, he enjoyed for a considerable time a priory +at Beauvais, the profits of which, however, he returned when he +definitely abandoned the idea of the church as a profession. He very +early made attempts in literature, and when he was a man of seven- or +eight-and-twenty, he joined La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere in the +celebrated society of four. Social and literary criticism was even thus +early his forte, and his first collections of Horatian satire were +published in 1666, though, owing to the influence of Chapelain, the +royal privilege was shortly after withdrawn from them. Boileau, however, +soon became a great favourite with the king, as, though in actual +conversation he retained his natural freedom of speech, he did not +hesitate to use the most grovelling flattery of expression in verse. +Pensions and places were given to him freely, so that, his own property +being not inconsiderable, he was one of the few wealthy men of letters +of the day. He was kept out of the Academy for some time by the fact +that he had libelled half its members and was unpopular with the other +half, but the royal influence at last got him in in 1684. In his later +years the morose arrogance, which was his chief characteristic, +increased on him, and was doubtless aggravated by the bad health from +which he suffered during the whole of his long life. He died in 1711, +having outlived all his friends except Louis himself. + +Boileau's works consist of twelve satires, of the same number of +epistles, of an _Art Poetique_, of the _Lutrin_, a serio-comic poem, of +two odes, and of three or four score epigrams and miscellaneous pieces +in verse, with a translation of Longinus on the Sublime, some short +critical dissertations, and a number of letters in prose. With the +exception of the _Lutrin_ it will be observed that almost all his +poetical work is very closely modelled on Horace. His satire is +extremely clever, but, as necessarily happens when the frame and manner +of one time are used for the circumstances of another, it is altogether +artificial. The Horatian satire is nothing if not personal, and as +Boileau (even more than Pope, who strongly resembles him) had a bad +heart, his personalities are unusually reckless and offensive. Thus in a +couplet against parasites he inserted at one time the name of Colletet +(son of the Colletet mentioned above), at another that of Pelletier, +though both were notoriously free from the vice, and guilty of no fault +except poverty and a disposition to produce indifferent verse. Boileau's +crusade, too, against the minor poets of his day was unfortunately +followed by his own production of a ridiculous ode, excellently +burlesqued by Prior, on the taking of Namur in 1692 by the French. This, +with certain pieces of Young's, is perhaps the most glaring example +extant of how a writer of great talent and literary skill may combine +the basest flattery with the most abjectly bad verse. But where he +confined himself to his proper sphere, Boileau exhibited no small power. +He was, in fact, a slashing reviewer in verse, and there has rarely been +so effective a practitioner of the craft. Narrow as was his idea of +poetry, it was perfectly clear and precise, and, as his pupil Racine +showed, he could teach it to others with the most striking success. _Le +Lutrin_, too, is a poem which, in a rather trivial kind, is something of +a masterpiece. Its subject, the quarrel of a chapter of ecclesiastics +about the position of a _lutrin_ (lectern), afforded Boileau plenty of +opportunity for introducing that sarcasm on the upper middle classes +which was his forte; the verse is polished and correct, the satire, +though rather facile and conventional, agreeable enough. His satires and +epistles are full of striking traits evidently studied from the life, +but he is always personal and almost always artificial, never rising to +the large satiric conception of Regnier or of Dryden. So, too, most of +the stories which are recorded of him (and they are many) are stories of +ill-natured remarks. In his heart of hearts he knew and acknowledged +the greatness of Corneille, yet formally and in public he could not +refrain from directing unjust satire at the veteran whose masterpieces +had been produced when he was in his cradle, in order to exalt his own +pupil Racine, whom he privately owned to be simply a very clever and +docile rhymester. He himself was very much the same with the exception +of the docility. His good sense, his talents, his eye for the +ludicrous--except in his own work--were admirable, and the ill-nature of +his satires, with their frequent injustice and the strange ignorance +they display of all literature except the Latin classics and French and +Italian contemporary authors, does not prevent their being excellent +examples of French and of the art of polite libelling. It is probable +that Boileau might have fared better but for his inconceivable folly in +attempting, in the Namur ode, a style for which he had not the least +aptitude, and for the parrot-like monotony with which Frenchmen before +1830, and even some of them since that date, have lauded and quoted him +and accepted his dicta. But the most lenient estimate of him can hardly +amount to more than that he was an excellent writer of prose and +pedestrian verse, a critic of singular acuteness within a narrow range, +and a satirist who had a keen eye for the ludicrous aspect of things and +persons, and a remarkable skill at reproducing that aspect in words. + +[Sidenote: Minor Poets of the later Seventeenth Century.] + +The list of poets of the century has to be completed by some of more or +less importance who flourished in the later days of Louis XIV., and, in +some few cases, outlived him. Brebeuf might have been mentioned before, +as he was Boileau's elder, and, dying young, did not reach even the most +brilliant period of the reign. But he is unlike any of the three schools +who have been described, and his language is more modern than that of +most of the poets who wrote before or during the Fronde. His principal +work is a translation of the _Pharsalia_, in which both the defects and +the merits of the original are represented with remarkable fidelity. +Boileau, who found fault with his _fatras obscur_, allowed him frequent +flashes of genius, and these flashes are rather more frequent than might +be supposed, being also of a kind which Boileau was not usually inclined +to recognise. Brebeuf is decidedly of what may be called the right +school of French poets, though he is one of the least of that school. +His minor poetry displays the same characteristics as his translation, +but is of less importance. Madame Deshoulieres, still more unjustly +criticised by Boileau, is unquestionably one of the chief poetesses of +France; indeed, with Louise Labe and Marceline Desbordes Valmore, she is +almost the only one of importance. Her poems, like those of most of her +contemporaries, are of the occasional order, and have too much in them +that is artificial, but frequently also they have real pathos and +occasionally not a little vigour. 'Le Songe' is a very admirable ode, +having some of the characteristics of the English Caroline school. +Racine himself, independently of his dramas, and the choruses inserted +in them, wrote some poetry, chiefly religious, which has his usual +characteristics of refinement in language and versification. Anthony +Hamilton has left some verses (notably an exquisite song, beginning +'Celle qu'adore mon coeur n'est ni brune ni blonde') as dainty and +original as his prose. At the end of the century two poets, whose names +always occur together in literary history, the Abbe de Chaulieu and the +Marquis de la Fare, close the record. They were not only alike in their +literary work, but were personal friends, and not the worst of +Chaulieu's pieces is an elegy on La Fare, whom, though the older man of +the two, he survived. They were both members of the libertine society of +the Temple, over which the Duke de Vendome presided, and which, somewhat +later, formed Voltaire. The verses of both were strictly occasional. +Chaulieu, like many men of letters of the time, published nothing during +his long life, though his poems were known to French society in +manuscript. Besides the verses on La Fare, Chaulieu's best poem is, +perhaps, that 'On a Country Life' (the author being an inveterate +inhabitant of towns). La Fare, on the other hand, is best known by his +stanzas to Chaulieu on 'La Paresse,' which he was well qualified to +sing, inasmuch as it is said that during many years of his long life he +did nothing but sleep and eat. The verses of the two continued to be +models of style, and (in a way) of choice of subject, during the whole +eighteenth century. Macaulay's rhetorical description of Frederic's +verses, as 'hateful to gods and men, the faint echo of the lyre of +Chaulieu,' is not quite just in its suggestion. Chaulieu, and still +more La Fare, wrote very fair occasional poetry. One curious application +of verse during this century requires mention in conclusion. This was +the Gazette, or rhymed news-letter, in which the gossip of the day, the +diversions of the court, etc., were recorded for the amusement and +instruction of great persons in the most pedestrian of octosyllables. +The chief writer of these trifles, which are very voluminous, and which +have preserved many curious particulars, was Loret, who was succeeded by +Robinet, Boursault, Laurent, and others. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[224] Ed. Lalanne. 5 vols. Paris, 1862 67; also (poems only) +conveniently by Jannet. Paris, 1874. Besides his verse Malherbe wrote +some translations of Seneca and Livy, and a great number of letters, +including many to Peiresc, a savant of the time who is best known from +Gassendi's _Life_ of him. + +[225] Ed. Latour. 2 vols. Paris, 1857. + +[226] Ed. Alleaume. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. + +[227] Ed. Ubicini. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. + +[228] Ed. Livet. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. + +[229] This is in reality the beginning of the _second_ line of the poem, +though it is often quoted as if it were the first. + +[230] Ed. Moland. 7 vols. Paris, 1879. Also ed. Regnier, vol. i. Paris, +1883. + +[231] In previous editions this date was, by an oversight, wrongly +printed as 1662. M. Scherer in correcting it has himself made a probable +mistake in giving '1665.' That date is on the title-page, but the +_acheve d'imprimer_ is dated Dec. 10, 1664, and as a second edition was +finished by Jan. 10, 1665, it is practically certain that the book was +out before the end of the year. + +[232] Ed. Fournier. Paris, 1873. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +DRAMATISTS. + + +While the influence of Malherbe was thus cramping and withering poetry +proper in France, it combined with some other causes to enable drama to +attain the highest perfection possible in the particular style +practised. In non-dramatic poetry, the only name of the seventeenth +century which can be said even to approach the first class is that of La +Fontaine, whose verse, except for its technical excellence, is almost as +near to prose as to poetry itself. But the names of Corneille, Racine, +and Moliere stand in the highest rank of French authors, and their works +will remain the chief examples of the kind of drama which they +professed. Nor is this difference in any way surprising. It has been +already shown that the style of drama introduced into France by the +Pleiade, and pursued with but little alteration afterwards, was a highly +artificial and a highly limited kind. It lent itself successfully to +comparatively few situations; it excluded variety of action on the +stage; it gave no opening for the display of complicated character. But +these very limitations made it susceptible of very high polish and +elaboration within its own limited range, and made such polish and +elaboration almost a necessity if it was to be tolerable at all. The +correct and cold language and style which Malherbe preached; the +regularity and harmony of versification on which he insisted; the strict +attention to rule rather than impulse which he urged, all suited a thing +in itself so artificial as the Senecan tragedy. They were not so +suitable to the more libertine genius of comedy. But here, fortunately +for France, the regulations were less rigid, and the abiding popularity +of the indigenous farce gave a healthy corrective. The astonishing +genius of Moliere succeeded in combining the two influences--the lawless +freedom of the old farce, and the ordered decency of the Malherbian +poetry. Even his theatre shows some sign of the taint with which +'classical' drama is so deeply imbued, but its force and truth almost or +altogether redeem the imperfections of its scheme. + +[Sidenote: Montchrestien.] + +We have seen that the early tragedy, which was more or less directly +reproductive of Seneca, attained its highest pitch in the work of +Garnier. This pitch was on the whole well maintained by Antoine de +Montchrestien, a man of a singular history and of a singular genius. The +date of his birth is not exactly known, but he was the son of an +apothecary at Falaise, and belonged to the Huguenot party. Duels and +lawsuits succeed each other in his story, and by some means or other he +was able to assume the title of Seigneur de Vasteville. In one of his +duels he killed his man, and had to fly to England. Being pardoned, he +returned to France and took to commerce. But after the death of Henri +IV. he joined a Huguenot rising, and was killed in October 1621. +Montchrestien wrote a treatise on Political Economy (he is even said to +have been the first to introduce the term into French), some poems, and +six tragedies, _Sophonisbe_, or _La Cartaginoise_, _Les Lacenes_, +_David_, _Aman_, _Hector_, and _L'Ecossaise_. Racine availed himself not +a little of _Aman_, but _L'Ecossaise_ is Montchrestien's best piece. In +it he set the example to a long line of dramatists, from Vondel to Mr. +Swinburne, who have since treated the story of Mary Queen of Scots. It +is not part of the merit of Montchrestien to have improved on the +technical defects of the Jodelle-Garnier model. His action is still +deficient, his speeches immoderately long. But his choric odes are of +great beauty, and his _tirades_, disproportionate as they are, show a +considerable advance in the power of indicating character as well as in +style and versification. Beyond this, however, the force of the model +could no further go, and some alteration was necessary. Indeed it is by +no means certain that the later plays of this class were ever acted at +all, or were anything more than closet drama. + +[Sidenote: Hardy.] + +[Sidenote: Minor predecessors of Corneille.] + +For a not inconsiderable time the fate of French tragedy trembled in +the balance. During the first thirty years of the seventeenth century +the most prominent dramatist was Alexandre Hardy[233]. He is the first +and not the least important example in French literary history of a +dramatic author pure and simple, a playwright who was a playwright, and +nothing else. Hardy was for years attached to the regular company of +actors who had succeeded the _Confrerie_ at the Hotel de Bourgogne, and +wrote or adapted pieces for them at the tariff (it is said) of fifty +crowns a play. His fertility was immense; and he is said to have written +some hundreds of plays. The exact number is variously stated at from +five to seven hundred. Forty-one exist in print. Although not destitute +of original power, Hardy was driven to the already copious theatre of +Spain for subjects and models. His plays being meant for acting and for +nothing else, the scholarly but tedious exercitations of the Pleiade +school were out of the question. Yet, while he introduced a great deal +of Spanish embroilment into his plots, and a great deal of Spanish +bombast into his speeches, Hardy still accepted the general outline of +the classical tragedy, and, though utterly careless of unity of place +and time, adhered for the most part to the perhaps more mischievous +unity of action. His best play, _Mariamne_, is powerfully written, is +arranged with considerable skill, and contains some fine lines and even +scenes; but, little as Hardy hampered himself with rules, it still has, +to an English reader, a certain thinness of interest. A contemporary of +Hardy's, Jean de Schelandre, made, in a play[234] which does not seem +ever to have been acted, a remarkable attempt at enfranchising French +tragedy with the full privileges rather of the English than of the +Spanish drama; but this play, _Tyr et Sidon_, had no imitators and no +influence, and the general model remained unaltered. But during the +first quarter of the century the theatre was exceedingly popular, and +the institution of strolling troops of actors spread its popularity all +over France. Nearly a hundred names of dramatic writers of this time are +preserved. Most of these, no doubt, were but retainers of the houses or +the troops, and did little but patch, adapt, and translate. But of the +immediate predecessors of Corneille, and his earlier contemporaries, at +least half-a-dozen are more or less known to fame, besides the really +great name of Rotrou. Mairet, Tristan, Du Ryer, Scudery, Claveret, and +D'Aubignac, were the chief of these. Mairet has been called the French +Marston, and the resemblance is not confined to the fact that both wrote +tragedies on the favourite subject of Sophonisba. The chief work of +Tristan, who was also a poet of some merit, was _Marianne_ (Mariamne), +very closely modelled on an Italian original, and much less vigorous, +though more polished than Hardy's play on the same subject. Du Ryer had +neither Mairet's vigour nor Tristan's tenderness, but he made more +progress than either of them had done in the direction of the completed +tragedy of Corneille and Racine. Scudery's _Amour Tyrannique_ is +vigorous and bombastic. Claveret and D'Aubignac (the latter of whom was +an active critic as well as a bad playwright) principally derive their +reputation, such as it is, from the acerbity with which they attacked +Corneille in the dispute about the Cid; nor should the name of Theophile +de Viaud be passed over in this connection. His _Pyrame et Thisbe_ is +often considered as almost the extreme example (though Corneille's +_Clitandre_ is perhaps worse) of the conceited Spanish-French style in +tragedy. The passage in which Thisbe accuses the poniard with which +Pyramus has stabbed himself of blushing at having sullied itself with +the blood of its master is a commonplace of quotation. Yet, like all +Theophile's work, _Pyrame et Thisbe_ has value, and so has the +unrepresented tragedy of _Pasiphae_. + +[Sidenote: Rotrou.] + +Among these forgotten names, and others more absolutely forgotten still, +that of Rotrou[235] is pre-eminently distinguished. Jean de Rotrou (the +particle is not uniformly allowed him) was born at Dreux in 1609, and +was thus three years younger than Corneille. He went earlier to Paris, +however, and at once betook himself to dramatic poetry, his +_Hypocondriaque_ being represented before he was nineteen. He formed +with Corneille, Colletet, Bois-Robert, and L'Etoile, the band of +Richelieu's 'Five Poets,' who composed tragedies jointly on the +Cardinal's plans[236]. He also worked unceasingly at the theatre on his +own account. Thirty-five pieces are certainly, and five more doubtfully, +attributed to him. For some time he had to work for bread, and the only +weakness charged against him, a mania for gambling, left him poor, and +perhaps prevented him from devoting to his work as much pains as he +might otherwise have given. After a time, however, he was pensioned, and +appointed to various legal posts which members of his family had +previously held at Dreux. His fidelity to his official duty was the +cause of his death. He was at Paris when a violent epidemic broke out at +Dreux. All who could left the town, and Rotrou was strongly dissuaded +from returning. But he felt himself responsible for the maintenance of +order, likely at such a time to be specially endangered. He returned at +once, caught the infection, and died. Rotrou's plays are too numerous +for a complete list of them to be here given, and by common consent two +of them, _Le Veritable Saint Genest_ and _Venceslas_, greatly excel the +rest, though vigorous verse and good scenes are to be found in almost +all. These plays, it should be observed, were not written until after +the publication of Corneille's early masterpieces, though Rotrou had +exhibited a play the year before the appearance of _Melite_. The two +poets were friends, and though Corneille in a manner supplanted him, +Rotrou was unwavering throughout his life in expressions of admiration +for his great rival. Of the two plays just mentioned, _Venceslas_ is the +more regular, the better adapted to the canons of the French stage, and +the more even in its excellence. _Saint Genest_ is perhaps the more +interesting. The central idea is remarkable. Genest, an actor, performs +before Diocletian a part in which he represents a Christian martyr. He +is miraculously converted during the study of the piece, and at its +performance, after astonishing the audience by the fervour and vividness +with which he plays his part, boldly speaks in his own person, and, +avowing his conversion, is led off to prison and martyrdom. Many of the +speeches in this play are admirable poetry, and the plot is far from +ill-managed. The play within a play, of which _Hamlet_ and the _Taming +of the Shrew_ are English examples, was, at this transition period, a +favourite stage incident in France. Corneille's _Illusion_ is the most +complicated example of it, but _Saint Genest_ is by far the most +interesting and the best managed. + +[Sidenote: Corneille.] + +There is every reason to believe that though, as has been said, Rotrou's +best pieces were influenced by Corneille, the greater poet owed +something at the beginning of his career to the example of his friend. +Pierre Corneille[237] was born at Rouen in 1606. His father, of the same +name, was an official of rank in the legal hierarchy; his mother was +named Marthe le Pesant. He was educated in the Jesuits' school, went to +the bar, and obtained certain small legal preferments which he +afterwards sold. He practised, but 'sans gout et sans succes,' says +Fontenelle, his nephew and biographer. His first comedy, _Melite_, is +said to have been suggested by a personal experience. It succeeded at +Rouen, and the author took it to Paris. His next attempt was a tragedy +or a tragi-comedy, _Clitandre_, of a really marvellous extravagance. It +was followed by several other pieces, in all of which there is +remarkable talent, though the author had not yet found his way. He found +it at last in _Medee_, where the famous reply of the heroine 'Que vous +reste-t-il?' 'Moi,' struck at once the note which no one but Corneille +himself and Victor Hugo has ever struck since, and which no one had ever +struck before. Corneille, as has been said above, was one of Richelieu's +five poets, but he was indocile to the Cardinal's caprices; and either +this indocility or jealousy set Richelieu against _Le Cid_. This great +and famous play was suggested by, rather than copied from, the Spanish +of Guillem de Castro. It excited an extraordinary turmoil among men of +letters, but the public never went wrong about it from the first. +Boileau's phrase-- + + Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrigue, + +is as sound in fact as it is smart in expression. The _Cid_ appeared in +1636, and for some years Corneille produced a succession of +masterpieces. _Horace_, _Cinna_, _Polyeucte_, _Le Menteur_ (a remarkable +comic effort, to which Moliere acknowledged his indebtedness), and +_Rodogune_, in some respects the finest of all, succeeded each other at +but short intervals. Half-a-dozen plays, somewhat inferior in actual +merit, and which had the drawback of coming before a public used to the +author and his method, followed, and the last and least good of them, +_Pertharite_, was damned. Corneille, always the proudest of writers, was +deeply wounded by this ill-success, and publicly renounced the stage. He +devoted himself for some years to a strange task, the turning of the +_Imitation_ of A'Kempis into verse. At last Fouquet, the Maecenas of the +day, prevailed on him to begin again. He did so with _Oedipe_, which +was successful. It was followed by many other plays, which had varying +fates. Racine, with a method refined upon Corneille's own, and a greater +sympathy with the actual generation, became the rival of the elder poet, +and Corneille did not obey the wise maxim, _solve senescentem_. Yet his +later plays have far more merit than is usually allowed to them. + +The private life of Corneille was not unhappy, though his haughty and +sensitive temperament brought him many vexations. His gains were small, +never exceeding two hundred louis for a play, and though this was +supplemented by occasional gifts from rich dedicatees and by a scanty +private fortune, the total was insufficient. 'Je suis saoul de gloire et +affame d'argent' is one of the numerous sayings of scornful discontent +recorded of him. He had a pension, but it was in his later days very ill +paid. Nor was he one of the easy-going men of letters who console +themselves by Bohemian indulgence. In general society he was awkward, +constrained, and silent: but his home, which was long shared with his +brother Thomas--they married two sisters--seems to have been a happy +one. He retained till his death in 1684, if not the favour of the King +and the general public, that of the persons whose favour was best worth +having, such as Saint-Evremond and Madame de Sevigne, and his own +confidence in his genius never deserted him. + +Corneille's dramatic career may be divided into four parts; the first +reaching from _Melite_ to _L'Illusion Comique_; the second (that of his +masterpieces), from the _Cid_ to _Rodogune_; the third, from _Theodore_ +to _Pertharite_; the fourth, that of the decadence, from _Oedipe_ to +_Surena_. The following is a list of the names and dates (these latter +being sometimes doubtful and contentious) of his plays. _Melite_, 1629, +a comedy improbable and confused in incident and overdone with verbal +_pointes_, but much beyond anything previous to it. _Clitandre_, 1630, a +tragedy in the taste of the time, one of the maddest of plays. _La +Veuve_, 1634, a comedy, well written and lively. _La Galerie du Palais_ +(same year), a capital comedy of its immature kind, bringing in the +humours of contemporary Paris. _La Suivante_, a comedy (same year), in +which the great character of the soubrette makes her first appearance. +_La Place Royale_, a comedy, 1635, duller than the _Galerie du Palais_, +which it in some respects resembles. _Medee_, a tragedy (same year), +incomparably the best French tragedy up to its date. _L'Illusion +Comique_, 1636, a tragi-comedy of the extremest Spanish type, +complicated and improbable to a degree in its action, which turns on the +motive of a play within a play, and produces, as the author himself +remarks, a division into prologue (Act i), an imperfect comedy (Acts +ii-iv), and a tragedy (Act v). _Le Cid_, 1636, the best-known if not the +best of Corneille's plays, and, from the mere playwright's point of +view, the most attractive. _Horace_, 1639, often, but improperly, called +_Les Horaces_, in which the Cornelian method is seen complete. The final +speech of Camille before her brother kills her was as a whole never +exceeded by the author, and the 'qu'il mourut' of the elder Horace is +equally characteristic. _Cinna_, 1639, the general favourite in France, +but somewhat stilted and devoid of action to foreign taste. _Polyeucte_, +1640, the greatest of all Christian tragedies. _La Mort de Pompee_, +1641, full of stately verse, but heavy and somewhat grandiose. _Le +Menteur_, 1642, a charming comedy, followed by a _Suite du Menteur_, +1643, not inferior, though the fickleness of public taste disapproved +it. _Theodore_, 1645, a noble tragedy, which only failed because the +prudery of theatrical precisians found fault with its theme--the +subjection of a Christian virgin to the last and worst trial of her +honour and faith. _Rodogune_, 1646, the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the style, +displaying from beginning to end an astonishing power of moving +admiration and terror. This play marks the climax of Corneille's +faculty. In _Heraclius_, 1647, no real falling-off is visible; indeed, +the character of Phocas stands almost alone on the French stage as a +parallel in some sort to Iago. _Andromede_, 1650, introduced a +considerable amount of spectacle and decoration, not unhappily. _Don +Sanche d'Aragon_, 1651, _Nicomede_, 1652, and _Pertharite_, 1653 (each +of which may possibly be a year older than these respective dates), show +what political economists might call the stationary state of the poet's +genius. The first two plays produced after the interval, _Oedipe_, +1659, and _La Toison d'Or_, 1660, both show the benefit of the rest the +poet had had, together with certain signs of advancing years. _La Toison +d'Or_, like _Andromede_, includes a great deal of spectacle, and is +rather an elaborate masque interspersed with regular dramatic scenes +than a tragedy. It is one of the best specimens of the kind. In +_Sertorius_, 1662, there are occasional passages of much grandeur and +beauty, but _Sophonisbe_, 1663, is hardly a success, nor is _Othon_, +1664. _Agesilas_, 1666, and _Attila_, 1667, have been (the latter +unfairly) damned by a quatrain of Boileau's. But _Tite et Berenice_, +1670, must be acknowledged to be inferior to the play of Racine in +rivalry with which it was produced. _Pulcherie_, 1672, and _Surena_, +1674, are last-fruits off an old tree, which, especially the second, are +not unworthy of it. Nor was Corneille's contribution to the remarkable +opera of _Psyche_, 1671, inconsiderable. This completes his dramatic +work, which amounts to thirty pieces and part of another. It should be +added that, to all the plays up to _La Toison d'Or_, he subjoined in a +collected edition very remarkable criticisms of them, which he calls +_Examens_. + +The characteristics of this great dramatist are perhaps more uniform +than those of any writer of equal rank, and there can be little doubt +that this uniformity, which, considering the great bulk of his work, +amounts almost to monotony, was the cause of his gradual loss of +popularity. We shall not here notice the points which he has in common +with Racine, as a writer of the French classical drama. These will come +in more suitably when Racine himself has been dealt with. In Corneille +the academic criticism of the time found the fault that he rather +excited admiration than pity and terror, and it held that admiration +was 'not a tragic passion.' The criticism was clumsy, and to a great +extent futile, but it has a certain basis of truth. It is comparatively +rare for Corneille to attempt, after his earliest period, to interest +his hearers or readers in the fortunes of his characters. It is rather +in the way that they bear their fortunes, and particularly in a kind of +haughty disdain for fortune itself, that these characters impress us. +Sometimes, as in the Cleopatre of _Rodogune_, this masterful temper is +engaged on the side of evil, more frequently it is combined with amiable +or at least respectable characteristics. But there is always something +'remote and afar' about it, and the application by La Bruyere of the +famous comparison between the Greek tragedians is in the main strictly +accurate. It follows that Corneille's demand upon his hearers or readers +is a somewhat severe one, and one with which many men are neither +disposed nor able to comply. It was a greater misfortune for him than +for almost any one else that the French and not the English drama was +the Sparta which it fell to his lot to decorate. His powers were not in +reality limited. The _Menteur_ shows an excellent comic faculty, and the +strokes of irony in his serious plays have more of true humour in them +than appears in almost any other French dramatist. Had the licence of +the English stage been his, he would probably have been able to impart a +greater interest to his plays than they already possess, without +sacrificing his peculiar faculty of sublime moral portraiture, and +certainly without losing the credit of the magnificent single lines and +isolated passages which abound in his work. The friendly criticism of +Moliere on these sudden flashes is well known. 'My friend Corneille,' he +said, 'has a familiar who comes now and then and whispers in his ear the +finest verses in the world, but sometimes the familiar deserts him, and +then he writes no better than anybody else.' The most fertile familiar +cannot suggest fifty or sixty thousand of these finest lines in the +world; and the consequence is that, what with the lack of central +interest which follows from Corneille's own plan, with the absence of +subsidiary interest and relief which is inevitable in the French +classical model, and with the drawbacks of his somewhat declamatory +style, there are long passages, sometimes whole scenes and acts, if not +whole plays of his, which are but dreary reading, and could hardly be, +even with the most appreciative and creative acting, other than dreary +to witness. It was Corneille's fault that, while bowing himself to the +yoke of the Senecan drama, he did not perceive or would not accept the +fact that there is practically but one situation, by the working out of +which that drama can be made tolerable to modern audiences. This +situation is love-making, which in real life necessitates a vast deal of +talking, and about which, even on the stage, a vast deal of talking is +admissible. The characters of the French classic or heroic play are +practically allowed to do nothing but talk, and the author who would +make them interesting must submit himself to his fate. Corneille would +not submit wholly and cheerfully, though he has, as might be expected, +been obliged to introduce love-making into most of his plays. + +To a modern reader the detached passages already referred to, and the +magnificent versification which is displayed in them, make up the real +charm of Corneille except in a very few plays, such as the _Cid_, +_Polyeucte_, _Rodogune_, and perhaps a few others. Du Bartas, D'Aubigne, +and Regnier, had indicated the capacities of the Alexandrine; Corneille +demonstrated them and illustrated them almost indefinitely. He did not +indulge in the pedantry of _rimes difficiles_, by which Racine attracted +his hearers, nor was his verse so uniformly smooth as that of his +younger rival. But what it lacked in polish and grace it more than made +up in grandeur and dignity. The best lines of Corneille, like those of +D'Aubigne, of Rotrou, from whom, comparatively stammering as was the +teacher, Corneille perhaps learnt the art, and of Victor Hugo, have a +peculiar crash of sound which hardly any other metre of any other +language possesses. A slight touch of archaism (it is very slight) which +is to be discovered in his work assists its effect not a little. The +inveterate habit which exists in England of comparing all dramatists +with Shakespeare has been prejudicial to the fame of Corneille with us. +But he is certainly the greatest tragic dramatist of France on the +classical model, and as a fashioner of dramatic verse of a truly +poetical kind he has at his best few equals in the literature of Europe. + +[Sidenote: Racine.] + +The character, career, and work of Racine were curiously different from +those of Corneille. Jean Racine[238] was more than thirty years younger +than his greater rival, having been born at La Ferte Milon, at no great +distance from Soissons, in 1639. His father held an official position at +this place, but he died, as Racine's mother had previously died, in the +boy's infancy, leaving him without any fortune. His grandparents, +however, were alive, and able to take care of him, and they, with other +relatives, willingly undertook the task. He was well educated, going to +school at Beauvais, from 1650 (probably) to 1655, and then spending +three years under the care of the celebrated Port Royalists, where he +made considerable progress. A year at the College d'Harcourt, where he +should have studied law, completed his regular education; but he was +always studious, and had on the whole greater advantages of culture than +most men of letters of his time and country. For some years he led a +somewhat undecided life. His relations did their best to obtain a +benefice for him, and in other ways endeavoured to put him in the way of +a professional livelihood; but ill-luck and probably disinclination on +his part stood in the way. He wrote at least two plays at a +comparatively early age which were refused, and are not known to exist, +and he produced divers pieces of miscellaneous poetry, especially the +'Nymphe de la Seine,' which brought him to the notice of Chapelain. At +last, in 1664, he obtained a pension of six hundred livres for an ode on +the king's recovery from sickness, and the same year _La Thebaide_ was +accepted and produced. For the next thirteen years plays followed in +rapid, but not too rapid succession. Racine was the favourite of the +king, and consequently of all those who had no taste of their own, as +well as of some who had, though the best critics inclined to Corneille, +between whom and Racine rivalry was industriously fostered. The somewhat +indecent antagonism which Racine had shown towards a man who had won +renown ten years before his own birth was justly punished in his own +temporary eclipse by the almost worthless Pradon. He withdrew disgusted +from the stage in 1677. About the same time he married, was made +historiographer to the king, and became more or less fervently devout. +Years afterwards, at the request of Madame de Maintenon, he wrote for +her school-girls at St. Cyr the dramatic sketch of _Esther_, and soon +afterwards the complete tragedy of _Athalie_, the greatest of his works. +Then he relapsed into silence as far as dramatic utterance was +concerned. He died in 1699. Thus he presented the singular spectacle, +only paralleled by our own Congreve, and that not exactly, of a short +period of consummate activity followed by almost complete inaction. That +this inaction was not due to exhaustion of genius was abundantly shown +by _Esther_ and _Athalie_. But Racine was of a peculiar and in many ways +an unamiable temper. He was very jealous of his reputation, acutely +sensitive to criticism, and envious to the last degree of any public +approbation bestowed on others. Having made his fame, he seems to have +preferred, in the language of the French gaming table, _faire +Charlemagne_, and to run no further risks. He had, however, worse +failings than any yet mentioned. Moliere gave him valuable assistance, +and he repaid it with ingratitude. With hardly a shadow of provocation +he attacked in a tone of the utmost acrimony the Port Royal fathers, to +whom he was under deep obligations. The charge of hypocrisy in religious +matters which has been brought against him is probably gratuitous, and, +in any case, does not concern us here. But his character in his literary +relations is far from being a pleasant one. + +The following is a list of Racine's theatrical pieces. _La Thebaide_, +1664, indicates with sufficient clearness the lines upon which all +Racine's plays, save the two last, were to be constructed--a minute +adherence to the rules, very careful versification and subordination of +almost all other interests to stately gallantry--but it is altogether +inferior to its successors. In _Alexandre le Grand_, 1665, the +characteristics are accentuated, and what Corneille disdainfully +called-- + + Le commerce rampant de soupirs et de flammes + +is more than ever prominent. In _Andromaque_, 1667, an immense advance +is perceptible. The characters become personally interesting (Hermione +is perhaps more attractive than any of Corneille's women), and a power +of passionate invective not unworthy to be compared with Corneille's, +but with more of a feminine character about it, appears. This was +followed by Racine's only attempt in the comic sock, _Les Plaideurs_, +1668, a most charming trifle which has had, and has deserved, more +genuine and lasting popularity than any of his tragedies. He returned to +tragedy, and rapidly showed the defects of the stereotyped mannerism +inevitably imposed on him by his plan. _Britannicus_, 1669, _Berenice_, +1670, _Bajazet_, 1672, and _Mithridate_, 1673, with all their perfection +of _technique_, announce, as clearly as anything can well do, the fatal +monotony into which French tragedy had once more fallen, and in which it +was to continue for a century and a half. _Iphigenie_, 1674, has much +more liveliness and variety, the deep pathos and terror of the situation +making even Racine's interminable love casuistry natural and +interesting. But _Phedre_, 1677, the last of the series, is +unquestionably the most remarkable of Racine's regular tragedies. By it +the style must stand or fall, and a reader need hardly go farther to +appreciate it. _Britannicus_ was indeed preferred by eighteenth-century +judges; but for excellence of construction, artful beauty of verse, +skilful use of the limited means of appeal at the command of the +dramatist, no play can surpass _Phedre_; and if it still is found +wanting, as it undoubtedly is by the vast majority of critics (including +nowadays a powerful minority even among Frenchmen themselves), the fault +lies rather in the style than in the author, or at least in the author +for adopting the style. _Esther_, 1689, and _Athalie_, 1691, on the +other hand, while retaining a certain similarity of form and machinery, +are radically different from the other plays. It is evident that Racine +before writing them had attentively studied the sixteenth-century drama, +to the strict form of which with its choruses he returns, and from which +he borrows, in some cases directly, the _Aman_ of Montchrestien having +clearly suggested passages in _Esther_. His great poetical faculty has +freer play; he escapes the monotonous 'soupirs et flammes' altogether, +and the result is in _Esther_ on the whole, in _Athalie_ wholly, +admirable. + +Racine's peculiarities as a dramatist have been already indicated, but +may now be more fully described. He was emphatically one of those +writers--Virgil and Pope are the other chief notable representatives of +the class--who, with an incapacity for the finest original strokes of +poetry, have an almost unlimited capacity for writing from models, for +improving the technical execution of their poems, and for adjusting the +conception of their pieces to their powers of rendering. These writers +are always impossible without forerunners, and not usually possible +without critics of the pedagogic kind. Racine was extraordinarily +fortunate in his forerunner, and still more fortunate in his critic. He +was able to start with all the advantages which thirty years of work on +the part of his rival, Corneille, gave him; and he had for his trainer, +Boileau, one of the most capable, if one of the most limited and +prejudiced, of literary schoolmasters. Boileau was no respecter of +persons, and arrogant as he was, he was rather an admirer of Racine than +of Corneille; yet, according to a well-known story, he distinguished +between the two by saying that Corneille was a great poet, and Racine a +very clever man, to whom he himself had taught the knack of easy +versification with elaborate rhyming. It is indeed in his versification +that both the strength and the weakness of Racine lie, and in this +respect he is an exact analogue to the poets mentioned above. He treated +the Alexandrine of Corneille exactly as Pope treated the decasyllable of +Dryden, and as Virgil treated the hexameter of Lucretius. In his hands +it acquired smoothness, softness, polish, and mechanical perfections of +many kinds, only to suffer at the same time a compensatory monotony +which, when the honied sweetness of it began to cloy, was soon +recognised as a terrible drawback. The extraordinary estimation in which +Racine is held by those who abide by the classical tradition in France +depends very mainly on the melody of his versification and rhymes, but +it does not depend wholly upon this. There must also be taken into +account the perfection of workmanship with which he carries out the idea +of the drama which he practised. What that ideal was must therefore be +considered. + +It must be remembered that the object of the French drama of Racine's +time was not in the least to hold the mirror up to nature. The model +which, owing to admiration of the classics, the Pleiade had almost at +haphazard followed, rendered such an object simply unattainable. The +so-called irregularity of the English stage, which used to fill French +critics with alternate wonder and disgust, is nothing but the result of +an unflinching adherence to this standard. It is impossible to reproduce +the _subtilitas naturae_ in its most subtle example--the character of +man--without introducing a large diversity of circumstance and action. +That diversity in its turn cannot be produced without a great +multiplication of characters, a duplication or triplication of plot, and +a complete disregard of pre-established 'common form.' Now this 'common +form' was the essence of French tragedy. Following, or thinking that +they followed, the ancients, French dramatists and dramatic critics +adopted certain fixed rules according to which a poet had to write just +as a whist-player has to play the game. There was to be no action on the +stage, or next to none, the interest of the play was to be rigidly +reduced to a central situation, subsidiary characters were to be avoided +as far as possible, the only means afforded to the personages of +explaining themselves was by dialogue with confidantes--the curse of the +French stage--and the only way of informing the audience of the progress +of the action was by messengers. Corneille accepted these limitations +partially, and without too much good-will, but he evaded the difficulty +by emphasising the moral lesson. The ethical standard of his plays is +perhaps higher on the whole than that of any great dramatist, and the +wonderful bursts of poetry which he could command served to sugar the +pill. But Racine was not a man of high moral character, and he was a man +of great shrewdness and discernment. He evidently distrusted the +willingness of audiences perpetually to admire moral grandeur, whether +he did or did not hold that admiration was not a tragic passion. +Probably he would have put it that it was not a passion that would draw. +Love-making, on the contrary, would draw, and love-making accordingly is +the staple of all his plays. But the defect which has attended all +French literature, which was aggravated enormously by this style of +drama, and which is noticeable even in his greater contemporaries, +Corneille and Moliere, manifested itself in his work almost inevitably. +If there is one fault to be found with the creations of French literary +art, it is that they run too much into types. It has been well said that +the duty of art is to give the universal in the particular. But to do +this exactly is difficult. It is the fault of English and of German +literature to give the particular without a sufficient tincture of the +universal, to lose themselves in mere 'humours.' It is the fault of +French literature to give the type only without differentiation. An +ill-natured critic constantly feels inclined to alter the lists of +Racine's dramatis personae, and instead of the proper names to +substitute 'a lover,' 'a mother,' 'a tyrant,' and so forth. So great an +artist and so careful a worker as Racine could not, of course, escape +giving some individuality to his creations. Hermione, Phedre, Achille, +Berenice, Athalie, are all individual enough of their class. But the +class is the class of types rather than of individuals. After long +debate this difference has been admitted by most reasonable French +critics, and they now confine themselves to the argument that the two +processes, the illustration of the universal by means of the particular, +and the indication of the particular by means of the universal, are +processes equally legitimate and equally important. The difficulty +remains that, by common consent of mankind--Frenchmen not +excluded--Hamlet, Othello, Falstaff, Rosalind, are fictitious persons +far more interesting to their fellow-creatures who are not fictitious +than any personages of the French stage. There is, moreover, a simple +test which can be applied. No one can doubt that, if Shakespeare had +chosen to adopt the style, and had accepted the censorship of a Boileau, +he could easily have written _Phedre_. It would be a bold man who should +say that Racine could, with altered circumstances but unaltered powers, +have written _Othello_. + +[Sidenote: Minor Tragedians.] + +The style of tragedy which was likely to be successful in France had +been pointed out so clearly by Corneille and by Racine that it could not +fail to find imitators. As usual, the weakness of the style was more +fully manifested by these imitators than its strength. The best of them +was Thomas Corneille, the younger brother of Pierre. A much more facile +versifier than his brother, he produced a large number of plays, of +which _Camma_, _Laodice_, _Ariane_, _Le Comte d'Essex_, have +considerable merit. Thomas Corneille succeeded his brother in the +Academy, and died at a great old age. He was an active journalist and +miscellaneous writer as well as a dramatist, and his principal +misfortune was that he had a brother of greater genius than himself. +Pradon, whose success against _Phedre_ so bitterly annoyed Racine, was a +dramatist of the third, or even the fourth class, though he enjoyed some +temporary popularity. Campistron, a follower rather than a rival of +Racine, was a better writer than Pradon, but pushed to an extreme the +softness and almost effeminacy of subject and treatment which made +Corneille contemptuously speak of his younger rival and his party as +'les doucereux.' Quinault, before writing good operas and fair comedies, +wrote bad tragedies. The only other authors of the day worth mentioning +are Duche and Lafosse. Lafosse is a man of one play, though as a matter +of fact he wrote four. In _Manlius_ he gave Roman names and setting to +the plot of Otway's _Venice Preserved_, and achieved a decided success. + +[Sidenote: Development of Comedy.] + +The history of French comedy is remarkably different from that of French +tragedy. In the latter case a foreign model was followed almost +slavishly; in the former the actual possessions of the language received +grafts of foreign importation, and the result was one of the capital +productions of European literature. Whether the popularity of the +indigenous farce of itself saved France from falling into the same false +groove with Italy it is not easy to say, but it is certain that at the +time of the Renaissance there was some danger. At first it seemed as if +Terence was to serve as a model for comedy just as Seneca served as a +model for tragedy. The first comedy, _Eugene_, is strongly Terentian, +though even here a greater freedom of movement, a stronger infusion of +local colour is observable than in _Didon_ or _Cleopatre_. So, too, when +the Italian Larivey adapted his remarkable comedies the vernacular +savour became still stronger. Yet it was very long before genuine comedy +was produced in France. The farces continued, and kinds of dramatic +entertainment, lower even than the farce, such as those which survive in +the work of the merry-andrew Tabarin[239], were relished. The Spanish +comedy, with its strong spice of tragi-comedy, was imitated to a +considerable extent. A few examples of the _Commedia erudita_, or +Terentian play, continued to be produced at intervals; and the stock +personages of the _Commedia dell'arte_, Harlequin, Scaramouch, etc., at +one time invaded France, and, under cover of the comic opera and the +_Foire_ pieces, made something of a lodgment. In the earlier years of +the seventeenth century, moreover, a considerable number of fantastic +experiments were tried. We have a _Comedie des Proverbes_, in which the +action is altogether subordinate to the introduction of the greatest +possible number of popular sayings; a _Comedie des Chansons_ spun out of +a vast and precious collection of popular songs; a _Comedie des +Comedies_, which is a cento made up of extracts from Balzac, the +moralist and letter-writer; a _Comedie des Comediens_, in which the +famous actors of the day are brought on the stage in their own +persons[240], etc., etc. While French comedy was thus endeavouring to +find its way in all manner of tentative and sometimes grotesque +experiments, dramatists of talent occasionally struck, as if by +accident, into some of the side paths of that way, and directed their +successors into the way itself. The early comedies of Corneille have +been spoken of; despite the improbability of their Spanish plots, they +show a distinct feeling after real excellence. The eccentric Cyrano de +Bergerac, especially in his _Pedant Joue_, furnished Moliere with hints, +and displayed considerable comic power. Scarron, a not dissimilar +person, whose _Roman Comique_ shows the interest he felt in the theatre, +also wrote comedies, the chief of which were extremely popular, the +character of Jodelet in the play of the same name (1645) becoming for +the time a stock one both in name and type. Scarron's other chief pieces +were _Don Japhet d'Armenie_, _L'Heritier ridicule_, _La Precaution +inutile_. It was in the _Menteur_ of Corneille that Moliere himself +considered that true comedy had been first reached, and it was this play +which set him on the track. But French comedy of the seventeenth +century, before Moliere, is one of the subjects which have hardly any +but a historical and antiquarian interest. Although far less artificial +than contemporary tragedy, it is inferior as literature. It was +attempted by writers of less power, and it is disfigured by too frequent +coarseness of language and incident. It was on the whole the lowest of +literary styles during the first half of the century. With Moliere it +became at one bound the highest. + +[Sidenote: Moliere.] + +Jean Baptiste Poquelin[241], afterwards called Moliere, was born at +Paris, probably in January 1622, in the Rue St. Honore. The Poquelin +family seem to have come from Beauvais. Some hypotheses as to a Scotch +origin have been disproved. Moliere's father was an upholsterer, holding +an appointment in the royal household, and of some wealth and position. +Moliere himself had every advantage of education, being at school at the +famous Jesuit College de Clermont, and afterwards studying philosophy +(under Gassendi) and law. He was, according to some accounts, actually +called to the bar. At his majority he seems to have received a +considerable share of his mother's fortune, and thus to have become +independent. He joined some other young men of fair position in +establishing a theatrical company called _L'Illustre Theatre_, which, +however, failed with heavy loss to him, notwithstanding the assistance +of a family of professional actors and actresses, one of whom, Madeleine +Bejart, figures prominently in his private history. He was not to be +thus disgusted with his profession. In 1646 he set out on a strolling +tour through the provinces, and was absent from the capital for nearly +thirteen years. The notices of this interesting part of his career which +exist are unfortunately few, and, like many other points connected with +it, have given rise to much controversy. It is sufficient to say that he +returned to Paris in 1658, and on the 24th of October performed with his +troupe before the court. He had long been a dramatist as well as an +actor, and had written besides minor pieces, most of which are lost, the +_Etourdi_ and the _Depit Amoureux_. Moliere soon acquired the favour of +the king, and the _Precieuses Ridicules_, the first of his really great +works, gained for him that of the public. In 1662 he married Armande +Bejart, the younger sister of Madeleine--a marriage which brought him +great unhappiness, though it was probably not without influence on some +of his finest work. The king was godfather to the first child of the +marriage, and Moliere was a prosperous man. He became valet-de-chambre +to Louis, and it was some insolence of his noble colleagues which is +alleged, in a late and improbable though famous story, to have +occasioned the incident of his partaking of the king's _en cas de nuit_. +The highest point of his genius was shortly reached; _Tartuffe_, the +_Festin de Pierre_, and _Le Misanthrope_ being the work of three +successive years, 1664-6. _Tartuffe_ brought him some trouble because it +was supposed to be irreligious in tendency, or at least to satirise the +profession of religion. These, his three greatest comedies, were not all +warmly received, and he fell back upon lighter work, producing in rapid +succession farce-comedies for the public theatre, and _divertissements_ +of divers kinds for the court until his death in February 1673, which +happened almost on the stage. + +The following is a complete list of Moliere's work which has come down +to us. During his provincial sojourn he had written many slight pieces +half-way in kind between the Italian comedy and the native farce. Of +these two only survive, _Le Medecin Volant_ and _La Jalousie du +Barbouille_. Both have considerable merit, and Moliere subsequently +worked up their materials, as no doubt he did those of the lost pieces. +_L'Etourdi_, 1653, is a regular comedy in five acts, still strongly +Italian in style and somewhat improbable in circumstances, but full of +sparkle and lively action and dialogue. _Le Depit Amoureux_, 1654, is +even better and more independent. Nothing had yet been seen on the +French stage so good as the quarrels and reconciliation of the quartette +of master, mistress, valet, and _soubrette_. But _Les Precieuses +Ridicules_, 1659, struck an entirely different note. The stage had been +employed often enough for personal satire, but it had not yet been made +use of for the actual delineation and criticism of contemporary manners +as manners and not as the foibles of individuals. The play was directed +against the affectations and unreal language of the members of literary +_coteries_ which, with that of the Hotel Rambouillet as the chief, had +long been prominent in French society. It has but a single act, but in +its way it has never been surpassed either as a piece of social satire +or a piece of brilliant dialogue illustrating ludicrous action and +character. _Sganarelle_, 1660, relapses into the commonplaces of farce, +and has no moral or satirical intention, but is amusing enough. _Don +Garcie de Navarre_, 1661, may be called Moliere's only failure. He +styles it a _comedie heroique_, and it is in fact a kind of anticipation +of Racine's manner, but applied to less serious subjects. The jealousy +of the hero is, however, the only motive of the piece, and its +exhibition is rather tiresome than anything else. The play is monotonous +and unrelieved by action. The genius of the author reappeared in its +appropriate sphere in _L'Ecole des Maris_ (same date), where a Terentian +suggestion is adapted and carried out with the greatest skill. Then, +still in the same prolific year, Moliere returned to social satire in +_Les Facheux_, an audacious lampoon on the forms of fashionable boredom +common among the courtiers of the time. In 1662 appeared _L'Ecole des +Femmes_, which is generally considered the best of Moliere's plays +before _Tartuffe_. A certain slyness about the character of Agnes is its +only drawback. This gave occasion to the brilliant and most amusing +_Critique de L'Ecole des Femmes_, 1663. Here the author is once more the +satirist of contemporary society, which he introduces as criticising his +own work. _L'Impromptu de Versailles_ (same date), according to a +curious habit which Moliere did not originate, brings the author himself +and his troupe in their own names and persons before the spectator. _Le +Mariage Force_, 1664, a slight piece, was worked up into a ballet for +the court. _La Princesse d'Elide_ (same date) is Moliere's most +important court piece, or _comedie-ballet_, and, though necessarily +artificial, has great beauty. Next in point of composition came _The +Hypocrite_, that is to say _Tartuffe_, but the difficulties which this +met with made _Le Festin de Pierre_, 1665, appear first. This is a +tragi-comic working up of the Don Juan story, and is of a different +class from any other of Moliere's comedies. It has been thought, but +without sufficient ground, that Moliere here gave expression to a +modified form of the freethinking which was so common at the time. It +may, perhaps, be more truly regarded as an excursion into romantic +comedy--the comedy which, like Shakespeare's work, is not directly +satiric on society or on individuals, but tells stories poetically and +in dramatic form with comic touches. It is noteworthy that Don Juan is +of all Moliere's heroes least exposed to the charge of being an +abstraction rather than a man. The pleasant trifle, _L'Amour Medecin_ +(same date), was succeeded by _Le Misanthrope_, 1666. Here Moliere's +special vein of satire was worked most deeply and to most profit, though +the reproach that the handling is somewhat too serious for comedy is not +undeserved. Alceste the impatient but not cynical hero, Celimene the +coquette, Oronte the fop, Eliante the reasonable woman, Arsinoe the +mischief-maker, are all immortal types. The admirable farce-comedy of +the _Medecin malgre Lui_ (same date), founded upon an old _fabliau_, +followed, and this was succeeded almost immediately by the graceful +pastoral of _Melicerte_, the amusing _Pastorale Comique_, and the slight +sketch of _Le Sicilien, ou L'Amour Peintre_. At last, in 1667, +_Tartuffe_ got itself represented. It is a vigorous and almost ferocious +satire on religious pretension masking vice, and many of its separate +strokes are of the dramatist's happiest. Here however, more than +elsewhere, is felt the drawback of the method. Comparing Tartuffe with +Iago, we have all the difference between a skilful but not wholly +probable presentation of wickedness in the abstract, and a picture of a +wicked man. In _Amphitryon_, 1668, Moliere measured himself with Plautus +and produced an admirable play. _George Dandin_ (same date), the working +up of _La Jalousie du Barbouille_, is one of the happiest of his +sketches of conjugal infelicity. Then came _L'Avare_ (same date), in +which Moliere was once more indebted to the ancients and to his French +predecessors, but in which he amply justified his borrowings. At this +time he extended his field and brought his knowledge of provincial and +bourgeois life to bear. _M. de Pourceaugnac_, 1669, is an ingenious +satire, pushed to the verge of burlesque and farce, on the country +squires of France. _Les Amants Magnifiques_, 1670, shows the writer once +more in his capacity of court playwright. But _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ +(same date) is the most audacious and by far the most successful of the +wonderful extravaganzas in which a sound and perennial motive of satire +on society is wrapped up, the theme this time being the bourgeoisie of +Paris, of which the author was himself a member. _Psyche_, 1671, is, +perhaps, the most remarkable example of collaboration in literature, +Moliere, Pierre Corneille, and Quinault, the greatest comic dramatist, +the greatest tragic dramatist, and the greatest opera librettist of the +day, having joined their forces with a result not unworthy of them. _Les +Fourberies de Scapin_ (same date) is again farce, but farce such as only +Moliere could write; and in _La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas_ (same date) the +theme of _M. de Pourceaugnac_ is taken up with a certain heightening of +colour and manner. _Les Femmes Savantes_, 1672, brings the reader back +to what is as emphatically 'la bonne comedie' as its original _Les +Precieuses Ridicules_. The tone and treatment are more serious than in +the older piece and deal with a different variety of feminine coxcombry, +but the effect is not less happy, and is free from the broader elements +of farce. Lastly, _Le Malade Imaginaire_, 1673, the swan-song of +Moliere, combined both his greatest excellences, the power of raising +audacious farce into the region of true comedy and the power of +satirising social abuses with a pitiless but good-humoured hand. The +main theme here is the absurdity of the current practice of medicine, +but as usual the genius of the writer veils the fact of the drama being +a drama with a purpose. + +The unique individuality and the extraordinary merit of the various +pieces which make up Moliere's theatre have made it necessary to give a +tolerably minute account of them, and that account will to a certain +extent dispense us from dealing with his general characteristics at +great length, especially as a few remarks on French comedy of the +Molieresque kind as a whole will have to be given at the end of this +chapter. Independently of the characters which Moliere shares with all +the great names of literature, his fertility and justness of thought, +the felicity of the expression in which he clothes it, and his accurate +observation of human life, there are two points in his drama which +belong, in the highest degree, to him alone. One is the extraordinary +manner in which he manages to imbue farce and burlesque with the true +spirit of refined comedy. This manner has been spoken of by unfriendly +critics as 'exaggerated,' but the reproach argues a deficiency of +perception. Even the most roaring farces of Moliere, even such pieces as +_M. de Pourceaugnac_ and the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, demand rank as +legitimate comedy, owing to his unmatched faculty of intimating a +general purpose under the cloak of the merely ludicrous incidents which +are made to surround the fortunes of a particular person. This general +purpose (and here we come to the second point) is invariably a moral +one. Of all dramatists, ancient and modern, Moliere is perhaps that one +who has borne most constantly in mind the theory that the stage is a +lay-pulpit and that its end is not merely amusement, but the reformation +of manners by means of amusing spectacles. Occasionally, no doubt, he +has pushed this purpose too far and has missed his mark. He has never +given us, and perhaps could not have given us, such examples of dramatic +poetry of the non-tragic sort as Shakespeare and Calderon have given. +Indeed, it seems to be a mistake to call Moliere a poet at all, despite +his extraordinary creative faculty. He was too positive, too much given +to literal transcription of society, too little able to convey the vague +suggestion of beauty which, as cannot be too often repeated, is of the +essence of poetry. But, if we are content to regard drama as a middle +term between poetry and prose, he, with the two poets just named, must +be appointed to the first place in it among modern authors. In +brilliancy of wit he is, among dramatists, inferior only to Aristophanes +and Congreve. But he took a less Rabelaisian licence of range than +Aristophanes, and he never, like Congreve, allows his action to drift +aimlessly while his characters shoot pleasantries at one another. If we +leave purely poetic merit out of the question and restrict the +definition of comedy to the dramatic presentment of the characters and +incidents of actual life, in such a manner as at once to hold the mirror +up to nature and to convey lessons of morality and conduct, we must +allow Moliere the rank of the greatest comic writer of all the world. +_Castigat ridendo mores_ is a motto which no one challenges with such a +certainty of victory as he. + +Although the number and the diversity of Moliere's works were well +calculated to encourage imitators, it was some time before the imitators +appeared. Unlike Racine, whose method was at once caught up, Moliere saw +during his lifetime no one who could even pretend to be a rival. Those +who are now classed as being in some degree of his time were for the +most part in their cradles when his masterpieces were being acted. +Regnard, the best of them, was born two years after the appearance of +_Le Depit Amoureux_ and only three years before the appearance of _Les +Precieuses Ridicules_. Baron was his pupil and adoring disciple. +Dufresny was but just of age, and Dancourt but ten years old, at his +death. Brueys and Palaprat (the Beaumont and Fletcher, _mutatis +mutandis_, of the French stage) did not make up their curious +association till long after that event, at the date of which Le Sage was +five years old. Quinault, Boursault, and Montfleury alone were in active +rivalry with him, and though none of them was destitute of merit, the +merit of none of them was in the least comparable to his. He owed this +advantage, for such it was, to his relatively early death and to the +wonderfully short space of time in which his masterpieces were produced. +Moliere is identified with the age of Louis XIV., yet _Les Precieuses +Ridicules_ was written years after the king's nominal accession, and +even after his actual assumption of the reins of government from the +hands of Mazarin, while _Le Malade Imaginaire_ was acted by its dying +author more than forty years before the great king's reign ended. + +[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Moliere.] + +The three authors just mentioned as actually contemporary with Moliere +require no very lengthy notice. Quinault may almost be said to have +founded a new literary school (in which none of his pupils has surpassed +him) by the excellence of his operas. Of these _Armida_ is held the +best. His comedies proper are not quite so good as his operas, but much +better than his tragedies. One of them, _L'Amant Indiscret_, supplied +Newcastle and Dryden with hints to eke out _L'Etourdi_, and most of them +show a considerable command of comic situation, if not of comic +expression. Montfleury, whose real name was Antoine Jacob, was, like +Moliere, an actor. He belonged to the old or rival company of the Hotel +de Bourgogne, and was born in 1640. He wrote sixteen comedies, partly on +contemporary subjects and partly adaptations of Spanish originals. The +two best are _La Femme Juge et Partie_ and _La Fille Capitaine_. They +belong to an older style of comedy than Moliere's, being both +extravagant and coarse, but there is considerable _vis comica_ in them. +Boursault, who was born in 1638 and died in 1701, had still more merit, +though he too was an enemy of Moliere. His _Mercure Galant_ is his +principal play, besides which _Esope a la Cour_, _Esope a la Ville_, and +_Phaeton_ may be mentioned. He was decidedly popular both as a man and a +writer. Vanbrugh imitated more than one of his plays. In all these +comedies a certain smack of the pre-Molieresque fancy for _Comedies des +Chansons_ and other _tours de force_ may be perceived. Besides these +three writers others of Moliere's own contemporaries wrote comedies with +more or less success. La Fontaine himself was a dramatist, though his +dramas do not approach his other work in excellence. Thomas Corneille +wrote comedies, but none of importance; and Campistron attained a +certain amount of success in comic as in tragic drama. No one of these, +however, approached the authors of the younger generation who have been +mentioned. + +[Sidenote: The School of Moliere-Regnard.] + +Jean Francois Regnard, the second of French comic dramatists in general +estimation (though it is doubtful whether any single piece of his equals +_Turcaret_), was born at Paris in 1656, and lived a curious life. He was +heir to considerable wealth and increased it, singular to say, by +gambling. He had also a mania for travelling, and when he was only +two-and-twenty was captured by an Algerian corsair and enslaved. After +some adventures of a rather dubious character he was ransomed, but +continued to travel for some years. At last he returned to France, +bought several lucrative offices and an estate in the country, and lived +partly there and partly at Paris, writing comedies and indulging largely +in the pleasures of the table. He died at his chateau of Grillon in +1710, apparently of a fit of indigestion; but various legends are +current about the exact cause of his death. He wrote twenty-three plays +(including one tragedy of no value) and collaborated with Dufresny in +four others. Many of these pieces were comic operas. At least a dozen +were represented by the 'Maison de Moliere.' The best of them are _Le +Joueur_, _Le Distrait_, _Les Menechmes_, _Le Legataire_, the first and +the last named being his principal titles to fame. Regnard trod as +closely as he could in the steps of Moliere. He was destitute of that +great dramatist's grasp of character and moral earnestness; but he is a +thoroughly lively writer, and well merited the retort of Boileau (by no +means a lenient critic, especially to the young men who succeeded his +old friend), when some one charged Regnard with mediocrity, 'Il n'est +pas mediocrement gai.' + +Baron the actor was born in 1643 and died in 1729, after having long +been the leading star of the French stage. He wrote, though it is +sometimes said that he was aided by others, seven comedies. One of +these, _L'Andrienne_, is a clever adaptation of Terence, and another, +_L'Homme aux Bonnes Fortunes_, has considerable merit in point of +writing and of that stage adaptability which few writers who have not +been themselves actors have known how to master. + +Charles Riviere Dufresny, a descendant of 'La Belle Jardiniere,' one of +Henri IV.'s village loves, was born in 1648 and died in 1724. He was a +great favourite of Louis XIV. and a kind of universal genius, devoting +himself by turns to almost every branch of literature and of the arts. +He was, however, incurably desultory, and was besides a man of +disorderly life. His comedies were numerous and full of wit and +knowledge of the world, but somewhat destitute of finish. Besides those +in which Regnard collaborated he was the author of eleven pieces, of +which _L'Esprit de Contradiction_, _Le Double Veuvage_, _La Coquette de +Village_, and _La Reconciliation Normande_ are perhaps the best. + +Florent Carton Dancourt was born in 1661 and died in 1725. He too was a +favourite of Louis XIV., but, unlike Dufresny, he was an actor as well +as an author. Towards the end of his days, having made a moderate +fortune, he betook himself to a country life and to the practice of +religious duties. His _theatre_ is considerable, extending to twelve +volumes. The great peculiarity of his comedies is that they deal almost +exclusively with the middle class. _Les Bourgeoises de Qualite_ and _Le +Chevalier a la Mode_, perhaps also _Le Galant Jardinier_ and _Les Trois +Cousines_, deserve mention. + +The collaboration of Brueys and Palaprat resulted in the modern version +of the famous mediaeval farce, _L'Avocat Pathelin_, and in an excellent +piece of the Moliere-Regnard type, _Le Grondeur_. Some other plays of +less merit were written by the friends, while each is responsible for +two independent pieces. Both were Provencals, David Augustin de Brueys +having been born at Aix in 1640, Jean Palaprat at Toulouse ten years +later. Brueys, who, as an abbe converted by Bossuet and engaged actively +in propagating his new faith, had some difficulty in appearing publicly +as a dramatic author, is understood to have had the chief share in the +composition of the joint dramas. + +[Sidenote: Characteristics of Molieresque Comedy.] + +The general characteristics of this remarkable comedy are not hard to +define. Based as it was, after Moliere had once set the example, on the +direct study of the actual facts of society and human nature, it could +not fail to appeal to universal sympathy in a very different degree from +the artificial tragedy which accompanied it. It was, moreover, far less +trammelled by rules than the sister variety of drama. Unities did not +press very heavily on the comic dramatist; his choice and number of +characters, his licence of action on the stage, and so forth, were +unlimited; he could write in prose or verse at his pleasure, and, if he +chose verse, he was bound to a much less monotonous kind of it than his +tragic brother. Consequently the majority of the objections which lie +against the masterpieces of Corneille and Racine, and which make the +work of their imitators almost unreadable, leave Moliere and his +followers unscathed. One drawback only remained, the drawback already +commented on in the case of tragedy, and admitted by French critics +themselves in some such terms as that Shakespeare took individuals, +Moliere took types. The advantage of the latter method for enforcing a +moral lesson is evident; its literary disadvantages are evident +likewise. It leads to an ignoring of the complexity of human nature and +to an unnatural prominence of the 'ruling passion.' The highest dramatic +triumphs of single character in comedy, Falstaff, Rosalind, Beatrice, +become impossible. As it has been remarked, the very titles of these +plays, _Le Misanthrope_, _Le Joueur_, _Le Grondeur_, show their defects. +No man is a mere misanthrope, a mere gambler, a mere grumbler; and the +dramatist who approaches comedy from the side of Moliere is but too apt +to forget the fact in his anxiety to enforce his moral and deepen the +strokes of his general type. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[233] Ed. Stengel. 5 vols. Marburg, 1884. Cf. Rigal, _Alexandre Hardy_. +Paris, 1889. + +[234] This singular work has been published in vol. 8 of the _Ancien +Theatre Francais_ in the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne. It consists of two +parts (or, as the author calls them, days), and fills some two hundred +pages. The traditions of the classical drama are thrown to the winds in +it, and the liberty of action, the abundance of personages, the bustle +and liveliness of the presentation are almost equal to those of the +contemporary English theatre. + +[235] Ed. Viollet-le-Duc. Also in a convenient selection of his best +plays, by L. de Ronchaud. Paris, 1882. + +[236] It is pretty generally known that Richelieu himself (besides other +dramatic work) composed the whole, or nearly the whole, of a play +_Mirame_, which he had sumptuously performed, and which was fathered by +Desmarest. It possessed no merit. + +[237] Ed. Marty-Laveaux. 12 vols. Paris, 1862-67. + +[238] Ed. Mesnard. 8 vols. Paris, 1867. + +[239] The work of (or attributed to) this singular and obscure person +has been edited by M. G. Aventin in 2 vols, of the Bibliotheque +Elzevirienne (Paris, 1858). The name was certainly assumed, and the date +and history of the bearer are quite uncertain. The third decade of the +seventeenth century seems to have been his most flourishing time. He was +the most remarkable of a class of charlatans, others of whom bore the +names of Gaultier-Garguille, Gros-Guillaume, etc., and the work which +goes under his name is typical of a large mass of _facetiae_. It +consists of dialogues between Tabarin and his master, of farcical +adventures in which figure Rodomont (the typical hero of romance) and +Isabelle (the typical heroine), etc., etc. + +[240] These will be found in the dramatic collection of the Bibliotheque +Elzevirienne already cited, as well as other pieces, of which the most +remarkable is the _Corrivaux_ of Troterel (1612). Saint-Evremond among +his earlier works produced a _Comedie des Academistes_, satirising the +then young Academy. + +[241] Ed. Moland. 7 vols. Paris, 1863. Ed. (in 'Grands Ecrivains' +series) Despois, Regnier, and Mesnard. Paris (in progress). + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +NOVELISTS. + + +[Sidenote: D'Urfe.] + +Prose fiction, for reasons which it is not at all hard to discover, is +in its more complete forms always a late product of literature. Up to +the beginning of the seventeenth century, France had known nothing of it +except the short prose tales which had succeeded the Fabliaux, and which +had been chiefly founded on imitation of the Italians, with the late and +inferior prose versions of the romances of chivalry, the isolated +masterpiece of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_, and the translated and +adapted versions of the _Amadis_ and its continuations. The imitation of +Spanish literature was constant in the early seventeenth century, and +the great wave of conceited style which, under the various names of +Euphuism, Gongorism, Marinism, invaded all the literary countries of +Europe, did not spare France. The result was a very singular class of +literature which, except for a few burlesque works, almost monopolised +the attention of novelists during the first half of the century. The +example of it was in a manner set by Honore d'Urfe in the _Astree_, +which was, however, rather pastoral than heroic. D'Urfe, who was a man +of position and wealth in the district of Forez, imagined, on the banks +of the Lignon, a stream running past his home, a kind of Arcadia, the +popularity of which is sufficiently shown by the adoption of the name of +the hero, Celadon, as one of the stock names in French for a lover. He +took, perhaps, some of his machinery from the _Aminta_ of Tasso and from +the other Italian pastorals, but he emulated the _Amadis_ in the +interminable series of adventures and the long-windedness of his +treatment. He had, however, some literary power, while the necessary +verisimilitude was provided for by the adaptation of numerous personal +experiences, and the book has preserved a certain reputation for +graceful sentiment and attractive pictures of nature. It was +extraordinarily popular at the time and long afterwards, so much so that +a contemporary ecclesiastic, Camus de Pontcarre, considered it necessary +to supply an antidote to the bane in the shape of a series of Christian +pastorals, the name of one of which, _Palombe_, is known, because of an +edition of it in the present century. + +[Sidenote: The Heroic Romances.] + +D'Urfe belonged as much to the sixteenth as to the seventeenth century, +though the _Astree_ was the work of the latter part of his life, and was +indeed left unfinished by him. It was shortly afterwards, under the +influence chiefly of the growing fancy for literary _coteries_, that the +heroic romance properly so called was born. This was usually a narration +of vast length, in which sometimes the heroes and heroines of classical +antiquity, sometimes personages due more or less to the author's +imagination, were conducted through a more than Amadis-like series of +trials and adventures, with interludes and a general setting of +high-flown gallantry. This latter possessed a complete jargon of its +own, and (though the hypothesis of its power over the classical French +drama is for the most part exaggerated) continued to exercise a vast +influence on literature and on society, even after Moliere had poured on +its chief practitioners and advocates the undying mockery of his +_Precieuses Ridicules_. There were three prominent authors in this +style, Mademoiselle de Scudery, La Calprenede, and Gomberville. +Mademoiselle de Scudery, known in the _coterie_ nomenclature of the time +as 'Sapho,' was the sister of Georges de Scudery, and a woman of +considerable talent and more considerable industry. Madeleine de Scudery +was born at Havre in 1607, and died at Paris in 1701, her life thus +covering nearly the whole of the century of which she was one of the +most conspicuous literary figures. She had no beauty--indeed she was +very ugly--but the eccentric military and literary reputation of her +brother and her own talents made her the centre and head of an important +_coterie_ in the capital. Her romances, the earliest of which was +_Ibrahim_, were published under her brother's name, but their +authorship was well known. She was extremely accomplished, not merely in +the accomplishments of a blue-stocking but in art, and even in +housewifery. After her series of romances was finished she published +many volumes, chiefly condensed or extracted from them, containing +_Conversations_ of the moral kind, which attracted attention from some +persons who had not condescended to the romances themselves. It ought +never to be forgotten that among the most fervent admirers of her books +and of their fellows was Madame de Sevigne, who was certainly almost as +acute in literary criticism as she was skilful in literary composition. +Her novels, the most famous of their class, are the _Grand Cyrus_, +otherwise _Artamene_, _Clelie_, _Ibrahim_, or the _Illustrious Bassa_, +and _Almahide_, the latter being partly, but chiefly in the name of the +heroine, the source of Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_. The _Grand Cyrus_ +is, at least by title, the best remembered, but it is in _Clelie_ that +the best-known and most characteristic trait appears, the delineation +and description namely of the _Carte de Tendre_[242]. Tendre is the +country of love, through which flows the river of Inclination watering +the villages of 'Pretty Verses,' 'Gallant Epistles,' 'Assiduity,' etc., +while elsewhere in the region are the less cheerful localities of +'Levity,' 'Indifference,' 'Perfidy,' and so forth. La Calprenede, a +Gascon by birth, was the author of _Cleopatre_ (which ranks perhaps with +_Cyrus_ as the chief example of the style), of _Cassandre_ and of +_Pharamond_. Gauthier de Coste (which was his personal name) figures, +like most of the notable persons of the middle of the century, in the +_Historiettes_ of Tallemant, who says of him, 'Il n'y a jamais eu un +homme plus Gascon que celui-ci.' The assertion is supported by some +characteristic but not easily quotable anecdotes. The criticism of +Tallemant, however, does not apply badly to the whole class of +compositions. 'Les heros,' says he, speaking of _Cassandre_, 'se +ressemblent comme deux gouttes d'eau, parlent tous _Phebus_ (the +euphuist jargon of the time), et sont tous des gens a cent mille lieues +au dessus des autres hommes.' Marin le Roy, Seigneur de Gomberville, who +was something of a Jansenist, attended rather to edification than +gallantry in his _Alcidiane_, _Caritee_, _Polexandre_, and _Cytheree_. +Though earlier in date he is inferior in power to Mademoiselle de +Scudery and to La Calprenede, the first of whom had some wit and much +culture, while La Calprenede possessed a decided grasp of heroic +character and some notion of the method of composing historical novels. +Gomberville, a man of wealth and position, was also a writer of moral +works. Putting the artificiality of the general style out of the +question, the chief fault to be found with these books is their enormous +length. They fill eight, ten, or even twelve volumes; they consist of +five, six, or even seven thousand pages, though the pages are not very +large and the print by no means close. Even the liveliest work--work +like Fielding's or Le Sage's--would become tiresome on such a scale as +this; and it is still incomprehensible how any one not having some +special object to serve by it could struggle through such enormous +wastes of verbiage and unreality as form the bulk of these novels. Even +when the passion for the heroic style strictly so called began to wane +no great improvement at first manifested itself. Catherine +Desjardins[243] (who wrote under the name of Madame de Villedieu) +produced numerous books (the chief of which is _Le Grand Alcandre_), not +indeed so absolutely preposterous in general conception, but even more +vapid and destitute of originality and distinction[244]. + +These impracticable and barren styles of fiction were succeeded in the +latter half of the century by something much better. The Picaroon +romance of Spain inspired Paul Scarron with the first of a long line of +novels which, in the hands of Le Sage, Defoe, Fielding, and Smollett, +enriched the literature of Europe with remarkable work. Madame de la +Fayette laid the foundation of the novel proper, or story of analysis of +character; and towards the close of the century the fairy tale attained, +in the hands of Anthony Hamilton, Perrault and Madame d'Aulnoy, its +most delightful and abundant development. + +[Sidenote: Scarron.] + +Paul Scarron was one of the most remarkable literary figures of the +century in respect of originality and eccentric talent, though few +single works of his possess formal completeness. He was of a family of +Piedmontese origin and very well connected, his father, of the same +name, being a member of the Parliament of Paris, and of sufficiently +independent humour to oppose Richelieu. Paul Scarron the younger (he had +had an elder brother of the same name who had died an infant) was born +in 1610, and his mother did not outlive his third year. His father +married again; the stepmother did not get on well with Paul, and he was +half obliged and half induced to become an abbe. For some years he lived +a merry life, partly at Rome, partly at Paris. But when he was still +young a great calamity fell on him. A cock-and-bull story of his having +disguised himself as a savage in a kind of voluntary tar-and-feather +suit, and having been struck with paralysis in consequence of plunging +into an ice-cold stream to escape the populace, is usually told, but +there seems to be no truth in it. An attack of fever, followed by +rheumatism and mismanaged by the physicians of the day, appears to have +been the real cause of his misfortune. At any rate, for the last twenty +years of his life he was hopelessly deformed, almost helpless, and +subject to acute attacks of pain. But his spirit was unconquerable. He +had some preferment at Le Mans and a pension from the queen, which he +lost on suspicion of writing _Mazarinades_. Besides these he had what he +called his 'Marquisat de Quinet,' that is to say, the money which Quinet +the bookseller paid him for his wares. In 1652 he astonished Paris by +marrying Francoise d'Aubigne, the future Madame de Maintenon, the +granddaughter of Agrippa d'Aubigne. The strange couple seem to have been +happy enough, and such unfavourable reports as exist against Madame +Scarron may be set down to political malice. But Scarron's health was +utterly broken, and he died in 1660 at the age of fifty. His work was +not inconsiderable, including some plays and much burlesque poetry, the +chief piece of which was his 'Virgil travestied,' an ignoble task at +best, but very cleverly performed. His prose, however, is of much +greater value. Many of his _nouvelles_, mostly imitated from the +Spanish, have merit, and his _Roman Comique_[245], though also inspired +to some extent from the peninsula, has still more. It is the unfinished +history of a troop of strolling actors, displaying extraordinary truth +of observation and power of realistic description in the style which, as +has been said, Le Sage and Fielding afterwards made popular throughout +Europe. + +[Sidenote: Cyrano de Bergerac.] + +With Scarron may be classed another writer of not dissimilar character, +but of far less talent, whose eccentricities have given him a +disproportionate reputation even in France, while they have often +entirely misled foreign critics. Cyrano de Bergerac was a Gascon of not +inconsiderable literary power, whose odd personal appearance, audacity +as a duellist, and adherence, after conversion, to the unpopular cause +of Mazarin, gave him a position which his works fail to sustain. They +are not, however, devoid of merit. His _Pedant Joue_, a comedy, gave +Moliere some useful hints; his _Agrippine_, a tragedy, has passages of +declamatory energy. But his best work comes under the head of fiction. +The _Voyages a la Lune et au Soleil_[246], in which the author partly +followed Rabelais, and partly indulged his own fancy for rodomontade, +personal satire, and fantastic extravagance, have had attributed to them +the great and wholly unmerited honour of setting a pattern to Swift. +Cyrano, let it be repeated, was a man of talent, but his powers (he died +before he was thirty-five) had not time to mature, and the reckless +boastfulness of his character would probably have disqualified him at +all times from adequate study and self-criticism. Personally, he is an +amusing and interesting figure in literary history, but he is not much +more. In company with him and with Scarron may be mentioned Dassoucy, +alternately a friend and enemy of Cyrano, and a light writer of some +merit. + +[Sidenote: Furetiere.] + +Charles Sorel, an exceedingly voluminous author, historiographer of +France, deserves mention in passing for his _Histoire Comique de +Francion_[247], in which, as in almost all the fictitious work of the +time, serious as well as comic, living persons are introduced. The +chief remarkable thing about _Francion_ is the evidence it gives of an +attempt at an early date (1623) to write a novel of ordinary manners. It +is a dull story with loose episodes. More interesting is Antoine +Furetiere, author of the _Roman Bourgeois_[248]. Furetiere, who was a +man of varied talent, holds no small place in the history of the +calamities of authors. He wrote poems, short tales, fables, satires, +criticisms. He is said to have given both Boileau and Racine not +inconsiderable assistance. Unfortunately for him, though he had been +elected an academician in 1662, he conceived and executed the idea of +outstripping his tardy colleagues in their dictionary work. He produced +a book of great merit and utility, but one which brought grave troubles +on his own head. It was alleged that he had infringed the privileges of +the Academy; he was expelled from that body, his own privilege for his +own book was revoked, and it was not published till after his death, +becoming eventually the well-known _Dictionnaire de Trevoux_. +Furetiere's side has been warmly taken in these days, and it has been +sought, not without success, to free him from the charge of all +impropriety of conduct, except the impropriety of continuing to be a +member of the Academy, while what he was doing could hardly be regarded +as anything but a slight on it. The _Roman Bourgeois_ is an original and +lively book, without any general plot, but containing a series of very +amusing pictures of the Parisian middle-class society of the day, with +many curious traits of language and manners. It was published in 1666. + +[Sidenote: Madame de la Fayette.] + +Of very different importance is the Countess de la Fayette, who has the +credit, and justly, of substituting for mere romances of adventure on +the one hand, and for stilted heroic work on the other, fiction in which +the display of character is held of chief account. In the school, +indeed, of which Scarron set the example in France, especially in _Gil +Blas_, its masterpiece, the most accurate knowledge and drawing of human +motives and actions is to be found. But it is knowledge and drawing of +human motives and actions in the gross rather than in particular. Gil +Blas, and even Tom Jones, are types rather than individuals, though the +genius of their creators hides the fact. It is, perhaps, an arguable +point of literary criticism, whether the persevering analysis of +individual, and more or less unusual, character does not lead novelists +away from the best path--as it certainly leads in the long run to +monstrosities of the modern French and English 'realist' type. But this +is a detail of criticism into which there is no need to enter here. It +is sufficient that the style has produced some of the most admirable, +and much of the most characteristic, work of the last century, and that +Madame de la Fayette is on the whole entitled to the credit of being its +originator. Her pen was taken up in the next century by the Abbe Prevost +and by Richardson, and from these three the novel, as opposed to the +romance, may be said to descend. The maiden name of Madame de la +Fayette[249] was Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, and she was born +at Paris in 1634. Her father was governor of Havre. She was carefully +brought up under Menage and Rapin, among others, and was one of the most +brilliant of the _precieuses_ of the Hotel Rambouillet. In 1655 she +married the Count de la Fayette, but was soon left a widow. After his +death she contracted a kind of Platonic friendship with La +Rochefoucauld, who was then in the decline of life, tormented with gout, +and consoling himself for the departure of the days when he was one of +the most important men in France by the composition of his undying +Maxims. She survived him thirteen years, and died herself in 1693. +During the whole of her life she was on the most intimate terms with +Madame de Sevigne, as well as with many of the foremost men of letters +of the time. In particular there are extant a large number of letters +between her and Huet, bishop of Avranches, one of the most learned, +amiable, and upright prelates of the age. Her first attempt at +novel-writing was _La Princesse de Montpensier_. This was followed by +_Zaide_, published in 1670, a book of considerable excellence; and this +in its turn by _La Princesse de Cleves_, published in 1677, which is one +of the classics of French literature. The book is but a small one, not +amounting in size to a single volume of a modern English novel, and this +must of itself have been no small novelty and relief after the +portentous bulk of the Scudery romances. Its scene is laid at the court +of Henri II., and there is a certain historical basis; but the principal +personages are drawn from the author's own experience, herself being the +heroine, her husband the Prince of Cleves, and Rochefoucauld the Duke de +Nemours, while other characters are identified with Louis XIV. and his +courtiers by industrious compilers of 'keys.' If, however, the interest +of the book had been limited to this it would now-a-days have lost all +its attraction, or have retained so much at most as is due to simple +curiosity. But it has far higher merits, and what may be called its +court apparatus, and the multitude of small details about court +business, are rather drawbacks to it now. Such charm as it has is +derived from the strict verisimilitude of the character drawing, and the +fidelity with which the emotions are represented. This interest may, +indeed, appear thin to a modern reader fresh from the works of those who +have profited by two centuries of progress in the way which Madame de la +Fayette opened. But when it is remembered that her book appeared thirty +years before _Gil Blas_, forty before the masterpieces of Defoe, and +more than half a century before the English novel properly so called +made its first appearance, her right to the place she occupied will +hardly be contested[250]. + +The precise origin of the fancy for writing fairy stories, which took +possession of polite society in France at the end of the seventeenth +century, has been the subject of much discussion, and cannot be said to +have been finally settled. Probably the fables of La Fontaine, which are +very closely allied to the style, may have given the required impulse. +As soon as an example was set this style was seen to lend itself very +well to the still surviving fancy for _coterie_ compositions, and the +total amount of work of the kind produced in the last years of the +seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth century must be enormous. +Much of it has not yet been printed, and the names of but few of the +authors are generally known, or perhaps worth knowing[251]. Three, +however, emerge from the mass and deserve attention--Anthony Hamilton, +Madame d'Aulnoy, and above all, Charles Perrault, the master beyond all +comparison of the style. + +[Sidenote: Fairy Tales.] + +Marie Catherine, Comtesse d'Aulnoy, was born about the middle of the +seventeenth century, and died in 1720. It is sufficient to say that +among her works are the 'Yellow Dwarf' and the 'White Cat,' stories +which no doubt she did not invent, but to which she has given their +permanent and well-known form. She wrote much else, memoirs and novels +which were bad imitations of the style of Madame de la Fayette, but her +fairy tales alone are of value. Anthony Hamilton was one of the rare +authors who acquire a durable reputation by writing in a language which +is not their native tongue. He was born in Ireland in 1646, and followed +the fortunes of the exiled royal family. He returned with Charles II., +but adhering to Catholicism, was excluded from preferment in England +until James II.'s reign, and he passed most of his time before the +Revolution, and all of it afterwards, in France. Hamilton produced +(besides many fugitive poems and minor pieces) two books of great note +in French, the _Memoires de Grammont_, his brother-in-law, which perhaps +is the standard book for the manners of the court of Charles II., and a +collection of fairy tales, less simple than those of Perrault and Madame +d'Aulnoy and more subordinated to a sarcastic intention, but full of wit +and written in French, which is only more piquant for its very slight +touch of a foreign element. Many phrases of Hamilton's tales have passed +into ordinary quotation, notably 'Belier, mon ami, tu me ferais plaisir +si tu voulais commencer par le commencement.' + +[Sidenote: Perrault.] + +The master of the style was, however, as has been said, Charles +Perrault, whose literary history was peculiar. He was born at Paris in +1628, being the son of Pierre Perrault, a lawyer, who had three other +sons, all of them of some distinction, and one of them, Claude Perrault, +famous in the oddly conjoined professions of medicine and architecture. +Charles was well educated at the College de Beauvais, and at first +studied law, but his father soon afterwards bought a place of value in +the financial department, and Charles was appointed clerk in 1662. He +received a curious and rather nondescript preferment (as secretary to +Colbert for all matters dependent on literature and arts), which, among +other things, enabled him to further his brother's architectural career. +In 1671 he was, under the patronage of Colbert, elected of the Academy, +into the affairs and proceedings of which he imported order almost for +the first time. He had done and for some time did little in literature, +being occupied by the duties which, under Colbert, he had as controller +of public works. But after a few essays in poetry, partly burlesque and +partly serious, notably a _Siecle de Louis XIV._, he embarked on the +rather unlucky work which gave him his chief reputation among his own +contemporaries, the _Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes_, in which he +took the part of the moderns. The dispute which followed, due +principally to the overbearing rudeness of Boileau, has had something +more than its proper place in literary history, and there is no need to +give an account of it. It is enough to say that while Boileau as far as +his knowledge went (and that was not far, for he knew nothing of +English, not very much of Greek, and it would seem little of Italian or +Spanish) had the better case, Perrault, assisted by his brother, made a +good deal the best use of his weapons, Boileau's unlucky 'Ode on Namur' +giving his enemies a great hold on him. After six years' fighting, +however, the enemies made peace, and, indeed, it does not seem that +Perrault at any time bore malice. He produced, besides some memoirs and +the charming trifles to be presently spoken of[252], a good many +miscellanies in prose and verse of no particular value, and died in +1703. + +His first tale, _Griselidis_ (in verse, and by no means his best), +appeared in 1691, _Peau d'Ane_ and _Les Souhaits Ridicules_ in 1694, _La +Belle au Bois Dormant_ in 1696, and the rest in 1697. These are _Le +Petit Chaperon Rouge_, _La Barbe Bleue_, _Le Maitre Chat ou le Chat +Botte_, _Les Fees_, _Cendrillon_, _Riquet a la Houppe_, and _Le Petit +Poucet_. It is needless to say that Perrault did not invent the subjects +of them. What he contributed was an admirable and peculiar narrative +style, due, as seems very probable, in great part to the example of La +Fontaine, but distinguished therefrom by all the difference of verse and +prose. The characteristics of this style are an extreme simplicity +which does not degenerate into puerility, great directness, and at the +same time vividness in telling the story, and a remarkable undercurrent +of wit which is never obtrusive, as is sometimes the case in the verse +tales. Perrault's stories deserve their immense popularity, and they +found innumerable imitators chiefly among persons of quality, who, as M. +Honore Bonhomme, the best authority on the obscurer fairy-tale writers, +observes, probably found an attraction in the style because of the way +in which it lent itself to cover personal satire. This, however, is +something of an abuse, and little or nothing of it is discernible in +Perrault's own work, though later, and especially in the eighteenth +century, it was frequently if not invariably present. + + +NOTE TO THE LAST THREE CHAPTERS. + +Although the list of names mentioned here under the respective heads of +poets, dramatists, and novelists is considerable, it is very far indeed +from being exhaustive. It may, indeed, be said generally that it is only +possible in this history, especially as we leave the invention of +printing farther and farther behind, to mention those names which have +left something like a memory behind them. The dramas and novels of the +seventeenth century are extremely numerous, and have been but very +partially explored. In regard to the poems there is an additional +difficulty. It was a fashion of the time to collect such things in +_recueils_--miscellaneous collections--in which the work of very large +numbers of writers, who never published their poems separately or +obtained after their own day any recognition as poets, is buried. +Specimens, published here and there by the laborious editors of the +greater classics in illustration of these latter, show that with +leisure, opportunity, and critical discernment, this little-worked vein +might be followed up not without advantage. But for such a purpose, as +for the similar exploration of many other out-of-the-way corners of this +vast literature, conditions are needed which are eminently 'the gift of +fortune.' These remarks apply more or less to all the following chapters +and books of this history. But they may find an appropriate place here, +not merely because it is from this period onwards that they are most +applicable, but because this special department of French literary +history--the earlier seventeenth century--contains, perhaps, the +greatest proportion of this wreckage of time as yet unrummaged and +unsorted by posterity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[242] Not _du_ Tendre, as it is often erroneously cited in French and +English works. + +[243] The learned editor of Tallemant des Reaux calls her Marie +Hortense. She also wrote verses and plays. There were many other romance +writers of the period now forgotten, or remembered only for other +things, such as the Abbe d'Aubignac. + +[244] I cannot boast of an intimate or exhaustive acquaintance with the +'heroic' romances; but I have taken care to satisfy myself of the +accuracy of the statements in the text. + +[245] Ed. Dillaye. 2 vols. Paris, 1881. + +[246] The full title is _Histoire Comique des Etats de la Lune et du +Soleil_. Cyrano's works have been edited by P. L. Jacob. 2 vols. Paris, +1858. + +[247] Ed. Colombey. Paris, 1877. + +[248] Ed. Jannet. 2 vols. Paris, 1878. + +[249] Ed. Garnier. Paris, 1864. + +[250] Madame de la Fayette also wrote _La Comtesse de Tende_, and +interesting Memoirs of Henrietta of England. _Zaide_ was published under +the name of Segrais, who was a _nouvelle_-writer of no great merit, +though a pleasant poet. + +[251] See H. Bonhomme, _Le Cabinet des Fees_. + +[252] Ed. Lefevre. Paris, 1875. Ed. Lang. Oxford, 1888. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS. + + +Although the seventeenth century did not witness the acceptance in +France of what may be called a philosophical conception of history, and +though few or none of the regular histories of the time (with the +exception of that of Mezeray) hold high rank as literature, no period +was more fruitful in memoirs, letters, and separate historical sketches +of the first merit. The names of Madame de Sevigne, of the Cardinal de +Retz, of La Rochefoucauld, and at the extreme end of the period of Saint +Simon, rank among those of the most original writers of France, while +the historical essay has rarely assumed a more thoroughly literary form +than in the short sketches of Retz, Sarrasin, and others. The subject of +the present chapter may, therefore, be divided into four parts, the +historians properly so called (the least interesting of the four), the +historical essayists, the memoir-writers, and the letter-writers, with +an appendix of erudite cultivators of historical science and of +miscellaneous authors of historical gossip and other matters. + +[Sidenote: General Historians. Mezeray.] + +[253]It is said not unfrequently that the only historical work of this +particular period, combining magnitude of subject with elevation and +originality of thought and literary excellence of expression, is +Bossuet's discourse on universal history. There is not a little truth in +the saying. Still there are a few authors whose work deserves mention. +The great history of De Thou was written in Latin. But the century +produced in Mezeray's History of France the first attempt of merit on +the subject. Francois Eudes de Mezeray was the son of a surgeon, who +seems to have been of some means and position. Mezeray was educated at +Caen (he was born in 1610), and he early betook himself to historical +studies. After beginning by supervising a translated history of the +Turks, he set to work on his masterpiece, the _History of France_, which +appeared in three huge and splendid folios in 1643, 1646, and 1651. He +was accused of treating his predecessors with too great contempt; but +this was more than justified by the superiority, not merely in style but +in historical conception and attention to documentary evidence, which he +showed. Mezeray had been protected and pensioned by Richelieu, but under +Mazarin he became a violent pamphleteer and author of _Mazarinades_. +Later, when Louis XIV. was settled on the throne, he published an +abridgment of his own history, in which the keen scent of Colbert +discovered uncourtly strictures on the fiscal abuses of the kingdom. +Mezeray refused to alter them, and was mulcted accordingly of part of +his pension. He died in 1683, having earned the title of the first +historian, worthy of the name, of France. With due allowance for his +period, he may challenge comparison with almost any of his successors, +though his style, excellent at its best, is somewhat unequal. Perefixe +(who may have been assisted by Mezeray) is responsible for a history of +Henri IV.; Maimbourg for a history of the League which has some interest +for Englishmen because Dryden translated it. The same great English +writer projected but did not accomplish a translation from a much more +worthless historian, Varillas, who is notorious among his class for +indifference to accuracy. It is indeed curious that this century, side +by side with the most laborious investigators ever known, produced a +school of historians who, with some merits of style, were almost +deliberately unfaithful to fact. If the well-known saying ('Mon siege +est fait') attributed to the Abbe Vertot is not apocryphal[254], he must +be ranked in the less respectable class. But his well-known histories, +the chief of which is devoted to the Knights of Malta, were not wholly +constructed on this principle. Pellisson wrote a history of the Academy, +of which he was secretary, and one of the living Louis XIV., which, as +might be expected, is little more than an ingenious panegyric. The Pere +Daniel wrote a history of France, the Pere d'Orleans one of the English +revolutions; while Rapin de Thoyras, a Huguenot and a refugee, had the +glory of composing in a foreign language the first book deserving the +title of a History of England. Superior to all these writers, except to +Mezeray, are the ecclesiastical historians Fleury and Tillemont. Fleury +was a good writer, very learned and exceedingly fair. Tillemont, with +less pretentions to style, is second to no writer of history in +learning, industry, accuracy, and judgment. + +[Sidenote: Historical Essayists.] + +[Sidenote: Saint Real.] + +The historical essay, like much else of value at the time, was in great +part due to the mania for _coteries_. In these select societies +literature was the favourite occupation, and ingenuity was ransacked to +discover forms of composition admitting of treatment in brief space and +of the display of literary skill. The personal 'portrait,' or elaborate +prose character, was of this kind, but the ambition of the competitors +soared higher than mere character-drawing. They sought for some striking +event, if possible contemporary, which offered, within moderate compass, +dramatic unity and scope for something like dramatic treatment. +Sometimes, as in the _Relation du Passage du Rhin_, by the Count de +Guiche, personal experiences formed the basis, but more frequently +passages in the recent history of other nations were chosen. Of this +kind was the _Conspiration de Walstein_ of Sarrasin, which, though +incomplete, is admirable in style. Better still is the _Conjuration de +Fiesque_ of the Cardinal de Retz, his first work, and one written when +he was but seventeen. Not a few of the scattered writings of Saint +Evremond may be classed under this head, notably the Letter to Crequi on +the Peace of the Pyrenees, which was the cause of his exile, though this +was rather political than historical. Towards the end of the century, +the Abbe Vertot preluded his larger histories by a short tract on the +revolutions of Portugal, and another on those of Sweden, which had both +merit and success. It will be observed that conspiracies, revolutions, +and such-like events formed the staple subjects of these compositions. +Of this class was the masterpiece of the style--the only one perhaps +which as a type at least merits something more than a mere mention--the +_Conjuration des Espagnols contre Venise_[255] of Saint Real, a piece +famous in French literature as a capital example of historical narration +on the small scale, and not unimportant to English literature as the +basis of Otway's principal tragedy. Cesar Vichard, Abbe de Saint Real, +was born at Chambery in 1631, and died at the same place in 1692. He was +sent early to Paris, betook himself to historical studies, and published +various works, including certain discourses on history, a piece on Don +Carlos, and the _Conjuration des Espagnols_ itself, which appeared in +1672. Shortly afterwards he visited London, and was for a time a member +of the _coterie_ of Saint Evremond and Hortense Mancini. He returned to +Paris and thence, in 1679, to his native town, where the Duke of Savoy +made him his historiographer and a member of the Academy of Turin. Not +long before his death he was employed in political work. Saint Real's +chief characteristics as a historian are the preference before +everything else of a dramatic conception and treatment, and the +employment of a singularly vivid and idiomatic style, simple in its +vocabulary and phrase and yet in the highest degree picturesque. He has +been accused of following his master, Varillas, in want of strict +accuracy, but in truth strict accuracy was not aimed at by any of these +essayists. Their object was to produce a creditable literary +composition, to set forth their subject strikingly and dramatically, and +to point a moral of some kind. In all three respects their success was +not contemptible. + +[Sidenote: Memoir-writers.] + +[Sidenote: Rohan] + +[Sidenote: Bassompierre.] + +The memoir-writers proper, who confine themselves to what they in their +own persons have done, heard, or thought, are, as has been said, of far +more importance. Their number is very great, and investigations into the +vast record treasures which, after revolutionary devastation, France +still possesses, is yearly increasing the knowledge of them. Only a +brief account can here be attempted of most of them; and where the +historical importance of the writer exceeds or equals his importance as +a literary figure, biographical details will be but sparingly given, as +they are easily and more suitably to be found elsewhere. The earliest +writer who properly comes within our century (the order of the +collection of Michaud and Poujoulat is followed for convenience sake) is +Francois Duval, Marquis de Fontenay Mareuil. Fontenay was a soldier, a +courtier, and a diplomatist, in which last character he visited England. +He has left us connected memoirs from 1609 to 1624, and some short +accounts of later transactions, such as the siege of La Rochelle, and +his own mission to Rome. Fontenay is a simple and straightforward +writer, full of good sense, and not destitute of narrative power. To +Paul Phelypeaux de Pontchartrain (1566-1621) we owe a somewhat jejune +but careful and apparently faithful account of the minority of Louis +XIII. A short and striking relation of the downfall of Concini is +supposed to be the work of Michel de Marillac, keeper of the seals +(1573-1632), afterwards one of the victims of Richelieu. Henri de Rohan +(1579-1638) is very far superior to the writers just named. Of the +greatest house, save one or two, in France, he travelled much, +distinguished himself in battle, both in foreign and civil war; was once +condemned to death, made head for a time against all the strength of +Richelieu; was near purchasing the principality of Cyprus from the +Venetians, and establishing himself in the east; was recalled, commanded +the French forces with brilliant success in the Valtelline, and met his +death under Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar at Rheinfeld. Besides his memoirs he +wrote a book called the _Parfait Capitaine_, and some others. The +memoirs extend from the death of Henri IV. to the year 1629, and have +all the vigour and brilliancy of the best sixteenth-century work of the +kind. A further account of the Valtelline campaign is also most probably +Rohan's, though it is not written in the first person, and has been +attributed to others. Of still greater personal interest are the memoirs +of Francois, Marechal de Bassompierre, another of the adversaries of +Richelieu, and who, less fortunate than Rohan, languished twelve years +in the Bastille. Few persons played a more active part in the first +years of the reign of Louis XIII. than Bassompierre, and no one has left +a livelier description, not merely of his own personal fortunes, but of +the personality of his contemporaries, the habits and customs of the +time, the wars, the loves, the intrigues of himself, his friends and his +enemies. He has not the credit of being very accurate, but he is +infinitely amusing. His memoirs were written during his sojourn in the +Bastille. This was terminated by the death of Richelieu, but +Bassompierre followed his enemy before very long in consequence of an +attack of apoplexy. + +In singular contrast to Bassompierre's work are the memoirs of another +chronicler of the same time, Francois Annibal, Marechal d'Estrees, +brother of the mistress of Henri IV. D'Estrees excludes all gossip, +confines himself strictly to matters of public business, and recounts +them apparently with scrupulous accuracy, and in a plain but clear and +sufficient style. Among the most curious and not the least interesting +of the works of this class are the memoirs of Pontis--one of the famous +solitaries of Port Royal in his old age. Pontis died at the age of +eighty-seven, and had been for fifty-six years in the army. His memoirs, +which are strictly confined to his personal experiences, obtained the +approbation of two such undeniably competent judges as Conde and Madame +de Sevigne, and are by no means unworthy of the honour. The actual +composition of the memoirs is said to be the work of Thomas du Fosse. +The memoirs called Richelieu's are different from all these, and, +notwithstanding their great extent and the illustrious name they bear, +of very inferior interest, at least from the literary point of view. +Richelieu's talents, it is sufficiently notorious, were not literary; +and even if they had been, but little of these memoirs comes from his +own hand. They are the work of secretaries, confidants, and +under-strappers of all sorts, writing at most from the cardinal's +dictation, and probably in many cases merely constructing _precis_ of +documents. There is, therefore, no need to dwell on them. + +In the memoirs of Arnauld d'Andilly and of his son, the Abbe Arnauld, +the personal interest and the abundance of anecdote and +character-drawing which characterise the memoir work of the time +reappear; the latter are, indeed, particularly full of them. Those of +the father are chiefly interesting, as exhibiting the curious mixture of +worldly and spiritual motives which played so large a part in the +history of the time. For Arnauld who was the fervent friend and disciple +of Saint Cyran, the practical founder of Jansenism in France, was also +an assiduous courtier of Gaston d'Orleans, and not too well satisfied +with the results of his courtiership. There are memoirs attributed to +Gaston himself, but they are almost certainly the work of another hand; +their historical value is not inconsiderable, but they have little +literary interest. Those of Marie, Duchess de Nemours, and daughter of +the Duke de Longueville, are short, but among the most interesting of +all those dealing with the Fronde, from the vividness and decision of +their personal traits. + +[Sidenote: Madame de Motteville.] + +More important still among the memoirs of this time are those of +Francoise Bertaut, Madame de Motteville, a member of the family of the +poet Bertaut. She was introduced by her mother, when very young, to Anne +of Austria, and soon became her most intimate confidante. The jealousy +of Richelieu banished her for a time from the court, and she married M. +de Motteville, a man of wealth and position in the civil service of the +province of Normandy. Shortly before Richelieu's death she lost her +husband; and as soon as Anne of Austria succeeded to the regency she was +recalled to court, and spent her time there during the queen's life. She +survived her mistress many years, and was a member of the society of +Madame de Sevigne. She died in 1689. Her memoirs, which were not +published till many years after her death, contain many curious +revelations of the court history of the time, for she was not only +intimate with Anne of Austria, but also with the unfortunate Henrietta +Maria of England, and with La Grande Mademoiselle. With the latter she +interchanged some curious and characteristic letters on a fantastic +project of Mademoiselle's for founding a new abbey of Thelema. The +general style of her memoirs is sober and intelligent, but it is injured +by the abundance of moral reflections, in matter according to the +taste, but in manner lacking much of the piquancy, of the time. These +memoirs are somewhat voluminous, and extend to the death of Anne of +Austria. Madame de Motteville, notwithstanding her affection for her +mistress, is one of the best authorities for the period of the Fronde, +because, unlike Retz and La Rochefoucauld, she was only secondarily +interested in the events she relates. Some curious details of the later +Fronde are found in the short memoirs of Pere Berthod, of whom nothing +is known. Of the Comte de Brienne, who was a favourite and minister of +Anne of Austria, and whose book contains much information on foreign, +and especially English affairs; of Montresor and Fontrailles, both +followers of Gaston of Orleans, and the latter the author of a relation +of the Cinq Mars conspiracy, short, but minute and striking; of La +Chatre, an industrious courtier and intriguer, and a vivid and +picturesque writer, whose work, as will presently be mentioned, became +entangled in a strange fashion with that of La Rochefoucauld; of the +great Turenne, a worthy follower of Montluc and Rohan in the art of +military writing, little more than mention can be made. There are some +military memoirs of interest, which go under the name of the Duke of +York (James II). + +[Sidenote: Cardinal de Retz.] + +The works and personages of some other writers demand a fuller notice. +Paul de Gondi[256], Cardinal de Retz, who occupies with Saint Simon, and +perhaps La Rochefoucauld, the first place among French memoir-writers of +the seventeenth century, was born in 1614, and died in 1679. He was a +younger son of an ancient and noble house, uniting French and Italian +honours, and was early destined for the church, for which probably no +churchman ever had less vocation. He intrigued in society and politics, +was a practised duellist, and though he was not more than seven-or +eight-and-twenty at Richelieu's death, had already caballed against him. +His appointment by Louis XIII., almost on his deathbed, to the +coadjutorship (involving the reversion) of the archbishopric of Paris, +which was then held by his uncle, a very old man of no personal capacity +or influence, put into his hands a formidable political weapon, and he +was not long in making use of it. He was more than any other man the +instigator of the Fronde, that singular alliance of the privileged +bourgeoisie of the great towns with the still more privileged nobility +against the royal authority as exercised through ministers. The history +of this confused and turbulent period is in great part the biography of +Retz. It is not easy to see that he had any definite political views +except the jealousy of Mazarin, which he shared with almost all his +order, an inveterate habit of insubordination, and a still more +inveterate habit of conspiracy. The Fronde was and could have been but a +failure, and Retz was a failure with it. He was for some time in exile, +but at last reconciled himself to the inevitable, and even enjoyed some +public employments under Louis XIV. His principal occupation, however, +was the payment of his enormous debts, which he effected with an honesty +not common at the time among his class by rigorously reducing his +expenditure, selling and mortgaging his numerous benefices, and, as +Madame de Sevigne put it, 'living for his creditors.' He is said thus to +have paid off four millions of francs, a vast sum for the time. +Meanwhile he was writing the Memoirs which, like the Maxims of his rival +and half-enemy, La Rochefoucauld, unexpectedly gained for him a higher +reputation in literature than he could have hoped for in politics. When +a mere boy he had shown in the _Conjuration de Fiesque_ no small +literary talent, and his sermons deepened the impression. His Memoirs, +however, are different in style from both. They are addressed to a lady +friend, and contain a most extraordinary mixture of anecdote, +description, personal satire, moral reflection, and political +portraiture. In the three points of anecdote, portrait-drawing, and +maxim-making, Retz has no rival except in the acknowledged masters of +each art respectively. + +The Memoirs of Guy Joly, a lawyer and the friend and confidant of Retz, +in a manner supplement this latter's work. Joly was faithful to his +master even in exile, but at last they quarrelled, and the Memoirs do +not always throw a very favourable light on the proceedings of the +turbulent cardinal. They are very well written. Claude Joly, the uncle +of Guy, an ecclesiastic, has also left anti-Mazarin writings of less +literary worth. + +[Sidenote: Mademoiselle.] + +Of very great importance historically, and by no means unimportant as +literature, are the Memoirs of Pierre Lenet, a man of business long +attached to the house of Conde. These memoirs are, in fact, memoirs of +the great Conde himself, until the peace of the Pyrenees. Personal and +literary interest both appear in a very high degree in the Memoirs of +Anne Marie Louise de Montpensier, commonly called La Grande +Mademoiselle. The only daughter of Gaston of Orleans and of the Duchess +de Montpensier, she inherited enormous wealth, and a position which made +it difficult for her to marry any one but a crowned head. In her youth +she was self-willed, and by no means inclined to marriage, and prince +after prince was proposed to her in vain. During the Fronde she took an +extraordinary part--heading armies, mounting the walls of Orleans by a +scaling ladder, and saving the routed troops of Conde, after the battle +of the Faubourg Saint Antoine, by opening the gates of Paris to them, +and causing the cannon of the Bastille to cover their flight. Mazarin +never forgave her this, nor perhaps did Louis XIV. When she was past +middle age, Mademoiselle conceived an unfortunate affection for Lauzun, +then merely a gentleman of the South named Puyguilhem. By dint of great +entreaties she obtained permission from the king to marry him, but the +combined efforts of the queen and the princes of the blood caused this +to be rescinded, and Lauzun was imprisoned in Pignerol. After many years +Mademoiselle purchased his release by making over a great part of her +immense possessions to Louis' bastard, the Duke du Maine, and secretly +married her lover, who was not only younger than herself, but a +notorious adventurer. He was basely ungrateful, and she separated from +him before her death. Her memoirs, which are voluminous, contain a +minute history of her singular life, written with not a little egotism, +but with all the vivacity and individuality of savour which characterise +the best work of the time. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about them +is that, although entirely occupied with herself and her fortunes, +Mademoiselle does not appear either to exaggerate her own merits, or to +disguise her faults. She photographs herself, which is not common. +Valentin Conrart, a man of letters, who figures repeatedly in the +history of the time, who was the real founder of the Academy, who +published but little in his lifetime, and who has only recently been the +subject of a sufficient study, left memoirs of no great length, but of +value in reference to the Fronde. The Marquis de Montglat, of whom not +much is known, wrote important military memoirs of the latter portion of +the Thirty Years' War, and of the campaigns between France and Spain, +which continued until the peace of the Pyrenees. + +[Sidenote: La Rochefoucauld.] + +The Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld[257] would have assured him a +considerable place in the history of literature, even had he never +written the _Maxims_, and the singular fate of these Memoirs would have +deserved notice even had they been far less intrinsically interesting in +matter and style than they are. The seventeenth century was the palmy +time of literary piracy, and this piracy was facilitated not merely by +the absence of any international copyright, but by the common habit of +circulating books in manuscript long before their appearance in print. +They were thus copied and re-copied, and the number of unauthorised +duplicates made it impossible for the author to protect his work. Not +unfrequently the difficulties of authors were increased by the custom +(inherited from the middle ages) of simultaneously or rather +continuously transcribing different works in the same large notebook, +without any very scrupulous attention to their separate origin, plan, +and authorship. When La Rochefoucauld, after the conclusion of the +Fronde and the triumph of Mazarin, retired in dudgeon and disgrace to +his estates, he devoted himself to the writing of memoirs, and the fact +soon became known. He succeeded once in preventing an unauthorised +publication at Rouen. But the Elzevirs (who were as much princes of +piracy as of printing) were beyond his reach, and in 1662 there appeared +a book purporting to be the Memoirs of M. L. R. F. This book excited +much indignation in the persons commented upon, and La Rochefoucauld +hastened to deny its authenticity, alleging that but a fraction was his, +and that garbled. His denial was very partially credited, and has +remained the subject of suspicion almost to the present day. Probably, +however, he was warned by the incident of the danger of this sort of +contemporary criticism, and no authentic edition was issued. After his +death a new turn of ill-luck befell him. A fresh recension of the +Memoirs was published, not indeed quite so incorrect as the first, but +still largely adulterated, nor was the injustice repaired until 1817, +and then not entirely. It is only within the last few years that the +publication of the Memoirs from a manuscript in the possession of his +representatives has finally established the text, and that laborious +enquiries have demonstrated the conglomerate character of the early +editions (which were made up of the work of La Rochefoucauld, of La +Chatre, of Vineuil, and of several other people, even such well-known +writers as Saint Evremond being laid under contribution), and the +justice of the author's repudiation. The genuine Memoirs are, however, +extremely interesting; they are less full, and perhaps less absolutely +frank than those of Retz, but they yield to these alone of the Fronde +chronicles in piquancy and interest, while their purely literary merit +is superior. The strange bird's-eye view of conduct and motives which +characterises the Maxims is already visible in them, as well as the +profundity of insight which accompanies width of range. The form is less +finished, but its capacities are seen. + +Jean Herault de Gourville stood to La Rochefoucauld in something like +the relation which Guy Joly bore to Retz, but was far more fortunate. +Born at La Rochefoucauld, without any advantages of family or fortune, +he began as a domestic of its seigneur. He passed from this service to +that of Conde and Mazarin, held public employments which enriched him, +became the friend of Fouquet, and escaped the general ruin which fell on +the superintendent's friends at his fall, married, it is said, secretly +a daughter of the house where he had served in a menial capacity, was +recalled honourably to his country, discharged important political and +diplomatic offices, lived on equal terms with the greatest nobles of the +court, and died full of years, riches, and honours, in 1703. His +Memoirs, which were written but a short time before his death, were +dictated to a secretary. They are of a somewhat gossiping character, but +full of curious information. The so-called memoirs of Omer Talon are +really accounts, written in a stilted and professional style, of the +proceedings of the Parliament of Paris. Henri de Guise, the last, the +least fortunate, but not the least remarkable of his famous family, has +left an account of the wild expedition which he made to Naples at the +time of the revolt of Masaniello, which is somewhat too long for the +subject. The Memoirs of the Marechal de Grammont were composed from his +papers by his second son, Louvigny, afterwards Duke de Grammont. The +eldest son, Count de Guiche, the most accomplished cavalier of the +earlier court of Louis XIV., died before his father. Guiche left a +brilliant relation (written some say on the spot and at once) of the +passage of the Rhine, an exploit much exaggerated by the king's +flatterers, but which was really a brilliant feat of arms, and was +mainly due to Guiche himself. Like those of Grammont, the Memoirs of the +Marechal du Plessis are not the work of the hero, but in this case a +professional man of letters--it is thought Segrais--seems to have been +called in. Their somewhat stilted regularity contrasts with the +irregular vigour of most of the work mentioned in this chapter. Some +anonymous _Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire du XVII'eme Siecle_, +though evidently a compilation, are not destitute of literary merit. +They seem to be extracted for the most part from works already +mentioned. The Memoirs of La Porte, the valet de chambre of Anne of +Austria and the youthful Louis XIV., are rather important to history +than to literature. Madame de la Fayette wrote Memoirs of Henrietta, the +daughter of Charles I., and the first wife of the Duke of Orleans, but +they are not equal to her novels in merit. The poet-Marquis La Fare +began memoirs on an extensive plan, but only completed a small part of +them. Those of the Duke of Berwick are justly considered models of +simple straightforward writing, of clear judgment, and of accurate +statement. The _Souvenirs_ of Madame de Caylus had the honour of having +Voltaire for their first editor, and deserved it. They are purely +personal, and might even be called frivolous, were it not for the +interest and historical importance of the society whose manners they +depict. The memoirs of Torcy give a clear and lucid account of the +negotiations in which that diplomatist was engaged. Last of this long +list come three works of value, the memoirs of Villars, Forbin, and +Duguay Trouin. The last two are among the somewhat rare records of +French prowess on sea. Both are somewhat boastful, and the memoirs of +Forbin, which are the longer and the more amusing of the two, are +suspected of some inaccuracy. They were not, it appears, the unaided +work of their nominal authors. The memoirs of Villars are of greater +historical importance, and of much literary interest. + +[Sidenote: Saint Simon.] + +A few authors, not included in the collection the order of which has +been followed, have now to be mentioned. Bussy Rabutin, cousin of Madame +de Sevigne, and one of the boldest, most unscrupulous, and most unlucky +of aspirants after fortune, has left a considerable number of letters +and memoirs in which he exposes his own projects and wrongs, and, above +all, a kind of scandalous chronicle called the _Histoire Amoureuse des +Gaules_, in which gossip against all the ladies of the court, not +excepting his own relations and friends, is pitilessly recorded. Bussy +had many of the family qualities which show themselves more amiably in +the cousin whom he libelled. His literary faculty was considerable, his +brain fertile in invention, and his tongue witty in expression; but he +made no very good use of his powers. The Marquis de Dangeau[258] has +left an immense collection of memoirs, describing in the minutest detail +the etiquette of the court of Louis XIV. and all that happened there for +years; but he had hardly any faculty of writing, and his work, except +for its matter, is chiefly remarkable because of the contrast which it +presents to a book which deals with much the same subject, and which has +yet to be noticed. This book, with grave defects and inequalities, +exhibits in the highest degree the merits of the class and period of +literature which is now under review. These are the skill shown by +writers in no respect professional, but trained to expression only by +literary amusements and the conversation of the salons; the keen insight +into motive and character; the intense interest and power of reflection +with which contemporary events are taken in and represented. + +Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de Saint Simon[259], was born at La Ferte +Vidame, the family seat, in 1675. The family was of very great antiquity +and unblemished _noblesse_, claiming descent from Charlemagne; the +dukedom and the peerage--it is to be remembered that peerage in France +has, or rather had under the old regime, an entirely different sense +from the modern English sense, referring not in the least to the +ennobling of the persons enjoying it, but to their admission into a kind +of great council of the kingdom which had indeed long lost its active +functions, but retained its dignity--were conferred only on Saint +Simon's father, a favourite and a faithful servant of Louis XIII. His +mother was Charlotte de l'Aubespine, of a family which had much +distinguished itself for several generations since the days of Francis +the First. Saint Simon was brought up by the Jesuits, went to the wars +in Flanders at the age of seventeen, and a year later succeeded to the +title and estates by the death of his father. Thus at the age of +eighteen he found himself in a position theoretically superior to every +man in France except the princes of the blood, and his few brother +peers--theoretically, for the rule of Louis did not admit of any real +exercise of the privileges of the peerage. Saint Simon, however, began +at once to show his devotion to the idol of his whole life--the status +of his order--by going to law with Luxembourg, the famous Marshal, on a +question of precedence and title of the most intricate kind. At the +Peace of Ryswick he left the army, to the displeasure of the king; but +he was none the less constant at court, though he could hardly be called +a courtier, and though his inveterate stickling for precedence +frequently brought down the king's wrath on his head. In 1705 he was +made ambassador to Rome, but the appointment was almost immediately +cancelled. Many years later, however, a similar, but greater, honour +fell to his lot. The death of Louis put power into the hands of Philippe +d'Orleans, who was a friend of Saint Simon's, and the latter enjoyed the +greatest triumph of his life by bringing about the degradation of the +'Bastards' (the illegitimate sons of Louis), on whom, to the indignation +of the peers, the king had bestowed the rank and precedence of princes +of the blood. In 1721 Saint Simon went on a special embassy to Spain to +arrange the double marriage of Louis XV. to the Infanta, and of the +Prince of the Asturias to the Regent's granddaughter. There he was made +a grandee of the first class. Soon after his return he gave up +interference in public affairs, but he lived for thirty years longer, +writing incessantly, and died in 1755. + +The history of his enormous literary productions is curious enough. +Nothing was published, and, from the personal nature of most of his +work, nothing could well be published, during his lifetime. He died +intestate, and with no immediate heirs, and opportunity was taken to +impound the whole of his manuscripts, amounting to hundreds of volumes. +Extracts from the memoirs were surreptitiously published from time to +time during the eighteenth century, but it was not till 1839 that the +whole was fully and faithfully given to the world. These memoirs, +however, form relatively but a small part of the vast mass of Saint +Simon's manuscripts, though they fill twenty printed volumes. Until very +recently obstacles of a not very intelligible character have been thrown +in the way of publication by the French Foreign Office, to which the +MSS. belong; but at length these seem to have been overcome, and three +different workers, M. de Boislisle, M. Drumont, and M. Faugere, have +been engaged in editing or re-editing different parts of the total. The +minor works, however, from the specimens already published, would seem +to be of less interest than the memoirs; most of them bearing on the, to +Saint Simon, inexhaustible subject of the privileges of the peerage, and +its place in the hierarchy of government. To discuss these subjects +would lead us out of our way. It is sufficient to say that it is a great +mistake to regard Saint Simon as a mere selfish aristocrat in the cant +sense. He would have had the kingdom justly and wisely governed for the +benefit of the whole nation, but he regarded the nobility, and, above +all, the peers, as the pre-destined instruments of government. 'Much for +the people, but nothing by the people,' was his political motto. + +The importance of Saint Simon in literature is, however, entirely +independent of his standpoint as a politician, though that standpoint +was not without influence on his literary characteristics. He is +valuable to us as, without exception, the most vivid and graphic painter +of contemporary history of the anecdotic kind in French or any other +language. His style is incorrect, and sometimes barely grammatical, and +all his work bears the character of notes, hurriedly dashed off, rather +than of a finished and regularly arranged history. Opinions differ as to +his trustworthiness in matters of fact, but it is certain, from his +positive manner of recounting the incidents and the actual words of +interviews at which he could not have been present, and as to which he +is not likely to have had more than hearsay information, that his +testimony is to be received with caution. His prejudices, too, were +extraordinarily strong, and he is in the habit of representing +everything and everybody that he does not like in the blackest possible +colours. His furious denunciation thus makes a curious contrast to the +good-humoured malice of the author with whom he is most likely to be +compared--Madame de Sevigne. But all these drawbacks affect only the +matter, not the manner of his work. The picture which he has given of +the inner life of the court of Versailles during the later years of +Louis XIV. is unrivalled in history. Still more extraordinary is the +power of single passages, such especially as the famous one describing +the Dauphin's death. Saint Simon has often been compared to Tacitus, but +his torrent of words very little resembles the laconic incisiveness of +the Roman. A much nearer parallel, though with remarkable differences, +might be found in the late Mr. Carlyle. + +Some memoirs of great extent and interest, valuable as checking Saint +Simon and Dangeau (whom Saint Simon annotated), have recently appeared +for the first time, at least in a form that is to be complete. They are +the work of the Marquis de Sourches[260], a great court officer, and +they cover the last thirty years of Louis's reign. Their chief literary +peculiarity is the formal and almost official character of the text +contrasted with the greater freedom of the numerous notes. + +[Sidenote: Madame de Sevigne.] + +The most famous and remarkable of all the letter-writers of the +time--perhaps the most famous and remarkable of all letter-writers in +literature--was Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sevigne[261]. She +was born at Paris on the 6th of February, 1626, and died at Grignan, of +small-pox, on the 10th of August, 1696. Her family was a distinguished +one both in war and other ways. Her grandmother was the well-known +Sainte Chantal, the pupil of St. Francois de Sales, and her first +cousin, as has been mentioned, was Bussy Rabutin. Her father and mother +both died when she was very young, and an uncle, not more than twenty +years older than herself, the Abbe de Coulanges, took charge of her, +remaining, for the greater part of her life, her chief friend and +counsellor. She soon became a great beauty, and something of a scholar, +though not of a blue-stocking. Menage and Chapelain had, among others, +much to do with her education, and she was a member of the celebrated +_coterie_ of the Hotel Rambouillet, though her satirical humour saved +her from being a _precieuse_. At the age of eighteen she married the +Marquis de Sevigne, of a good and wealthy Breton family. Her husband +was, however, a selfish profligate, who wasted her substance with Ninon +de l'Enclos, and such-like persons,--though Ninon herself, to do her +justice, never plundered her lovers,--and did not pretend the slightest +return for the affection she gave him. He was killed in a duel in 1651, +leaving her with two children, a daughter, Francoise Marguerite, and a +son Charles. After a few years of seclusion she returned to the world, +being then in the full possession of her beauty, and only twenty-eight +years old. She continued for more than forty years to form part of the +best society of the capital, without suffering the least stain on her +reputation. The selfish vanity of the superintendent Fouquet made him +keep certain of her letters; but though they were discovered in a casket +which was fatal to many of his friends of both sexes, Madame de Sevigne +came scathless out of the ordeal. In 1669 her daughter, then twenty-two +years old, married the Count de Grignan, a Provencal gentleman of the +noblest birth, of great estate, rank, and fortune, but already twice a +widower, past middle age, plain, and of somewhat embarrassed means, +considering the great expenses which, as Governor of Provence, he had to +meet. He was, however, a man of good sense and probity, and his wife +seems to have been sincerely attached to him. The great bulk of Madame +de Sevigne's voluminous correspondence was addressed to her daughter, +for whom she had an almost frantic fondness; Charles de Sevigne, though +apparently far the more lovable of the two, having but an inferior share +of his mother's affection. The letters to Madame de Grignan are for the +most part dated either from Paris (in which case they are full of court +news and gossip), or from Les Rochers, the country seat of the Sevignes, +near Vitre, in which case they are full of social satire and curious +details of the provincial life of that time. One very interesting series +describes the habits and regimen of Vichy, which Madame de Sevigne +visited in consequence of a severe attack of rheumatism. The +correspondence thus serves as a minute and detailed history of the +author for the last thirty years of her life, except during her rare +visits to Grignan, in one of which, as has been mentioned, she caught +the illness which proved fatal to her. + +It has been said that Madame de Sevigne's letters are very numerous. +Those to her daughter especially were garbled in the earlier editions by +omissions, and by the substitution of phrases which seemed to the 18th +century more suitable than the fresh nature of the originals. The +edition cited gives the extant MSS. faithfully. The enthusiastic +affection lavished by the mother on the daughter naturally commends +itself differently to different persons. It is certain that if it is not +tedious, it is only due to the extraordinary literary art of the writer, +an art which is at once the most artful and the most artless to be +anywhere found. The only other faults of the letters are an occasional +crudity of diction (which, however, is, when rightly taken, perfectly +innocent and even valuable as exemplifying the manners of the time,) and +a decided heartlessness in relating the misfortunes of all those in whom +the writer is not personally interested. Madame de Sevigne has been +blamed for not sympathising more with the oppression of the French +people during her time. This, however, is an unfair charge. In the first +place she simply expresses the current political ideas of her day, and, +in the second place, she goes decidedly beyond those ideas in the +direction of sympathy. Her treatment of some of her own equals leaves +much more to desire. The account of Madame de Brinvilliers' +sufferings--unworthy of much pity as the victim was--is callous to +brutality, and it seems to be sufficient for any one to have ever +offended Madame de Grignan, or to have spoken slightingly of her, to put +him, or her, out of the pale of even ordinary human sympathy. But no +other fault can be found. For vivid social portraiture the book equals +Saint Simon at his best, while it is far more uniformly good. The +letters describing the engagement of La Grande Mademoiselle to Lauzun, +the death of Vatel, the trial of Fouquet, the Vichy sojourn, the meeting +of the states of Britanny, and many others, are not to be surpassed in +this respect. Unlike Saint Simon, too, Madame de Sevigne has no fixed +idea--except that of Madame de Grignan's perfections, which rarely +interferes--to prevent her from taking fresh, original, and acute views +of things in general as distinguished from mere court intrigues. Her +literary criticism is excellent, and if she somewhat overvalues +moralists like Nicole and novelists like Mademoiselle de Scudery, who +ministered to her peculiar tastes, her remarks on the great preachers, +on La Fontaine, on Corneille and Racine, display a singular insight as +well as a singular power of expression. She is, indeed, except in +politics, on which few persons of her class had at the time any clear or +distinct ideas, never superficial; and this union of just thought with +accurate observation and exceptional power of expression makes her +position in literature. + +[Sidenote: Tallemant des Reaux.] + +Madame de Sevigne, so to speak, dwarfs all other letter-writers of her +time. Yet many of those already mentioned under the head of memoirs left +letters which have been preserved, and which are of merit. It is, +however, not necessary to specify any except Madame de Maintenon, whose +correspondence is voluminous and important both as history and as +literature. It has not the charm of Madame de Sevigne, but it displays +the great intellectual powers of the writer[262]. Of a very different +kind, but not less worthy of notice are the letters of Guy Patin, which +are for the most part violent _Mazarinades_, and full of scandalous +anecdotes, but full also of lively wit. Scandal, indeed, was very much +the order of the day, as appears from the large and curious collection +of broadsheets and pamphlets republished by the late M. Fournier in his +_Varietes Historiques et Litteraires_[263]. These, most of which refer +to the present period, form a kind of appendix to historical and +biographical writing of the more serious kind. There is, however, one +remarkable work which remains to be noticed, and which, for want of a +better place for it, must be noticed here, the _Historiettes_ of +Tallemant des Reaux[264]. The author of this singular book, Gedeon +Tallemant des Reaux, was born at La Rochelle about 1619, and died in +1692. He was of a family not noble but wealthy and well connected, and +he himself was able, by marriage with a cousin who was an heiress, to +live without any profession, and to purchase an estate and seignory of +some importance. Little, however, is known of his life except that he +was much at the Hotel de Rambouillet in his youth, and that in his old +age he underwent some not clearly defined misfortune or disgrace. The +_Historiettes_ were written in the years immediately preceding 1660, and +form an almost complete commentary on the persons most celebrated in +society and literature for three quarters of a century before that date. +There is no other book to which they can be exactly compared, though +they have, with much less literary excellence, a certain resemblance in +form to the work of Brantome. They are, as published by Monmerque, 376 +in number, filling five (nominally ten) stout volumes. Each is as a rule +headed with the name of a single person, though there are a few general +or subject headings. The articles themselves are not regular +biographies, but collections of anecdotes, not unfrequently of the most +scandalous kind. Tallemant, though by no means of small ability, appears +to have been a somewhat malicious person, and not too careful to examine +the value of the stories he tells, especially when they bear heavily on +the old nobility, of whom, as a new man, he was very jealous. Yet his +sources of information were in many cases good, and his statements are +confirmed by independent evidence sufficiently often to show that, if +they are in other cases to be accepted with caution, they are not the +work of a mere libeller. No one, even in that century of unstinted +personal revelations, has taken us so much behind the scenes, and +certainly no one has left a more amusing book of its kind or (with the +proper precautions) a more valuable one. + +[Sidenote: Historical Antiquaries.] + +[Sidenote: Du Cange.] + +The class of learned investigators into the sources of history cannot be +omitted in any account of French literature; though their work was +chiefly in Latin, and though even when it was not it was rather of value +as material for future literature than as literature itself. This +century and the earlier part of the succeeding one were the palmy time +of really laborious erudition--the work of the Benedictines and +Bollandists, and of many isolated writers worthy of being ranked with +the members of these famous communities. The individuals composing this +class are, however, too numerous, and, from the purely literary view, +too unimportant to detain us. Exceptions may be made in favour of Andre +Duchesne, whose collections of French and Norman Chronicles, and his +genealogical histories of the houses of Laval and Vergi, are valuable +examples of their kind; of Mabillon, famous for his labours in +hagiology, in the history of France, and above all in that of Italy; and +lastly, of Du Cange. The last-named has a special right to a place here +because, both directly and indirectly, he did much towards the +rediscovery of old French literature. Du Cange was his seignorial style, +his personal name being Charles Dufresne. He devoted himself to the +study of the middle ages generally, and particularly of the Byzantine +Empire. He edited Joinville, wrote a history of the Latin Empire, and in +his most famous work, the _Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis_, +contributed not a little to the study of the oldest form of French. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[253] The following paragraph contains, except as far as Mezeray is +concerned, chiefly second-hand information. I have hitherto been unable +to devote the time necessary to enable me to speak at first hand of +these books, which are very bulky, not as a rule interesting or +important in manner, and for the most part long obsolete in matter. + +[254] The legend, familiar probably to most readers, is that Vertot +required documents for his account of a certain military operation. +Tired with waiting for them, he constructed the history out of his own +head, and when they arrived made the ejaculation in the text. + +[255] This, with some other of the pieces here mentioned, will be found +in two volumes of the _Collection Didot_, entitled _Petits Chefs +d'oeuvre Historiques_. + +[256] Ed. Feillet, Gourdault and Chantelauze. Paris (in progress). + +[257] Ed. Gilbert et Gourdault. Paris, 1868-81. + +[258] Ed. Feuillet de Conches. 19 vols. Paris, 1854-61. + +[259] Memoirs, ed. Cheruel. 20 vols. Paris, 1873. Now being re-edited by +M. de Boislisle. Miscellaneous works are also appearing. + +[260] Ed. Bertrand et de Cosnac. Vol. i. Paris, 1882. + +[261] Ed. Monmerque. 14 vols. Paris, 1861-66, to which must be added 2 +vols. of _Lettres Inedites_ discovered and published by M. Capmas. + +[262] A full and excellently edited selection has been given by A. +Geffroy. 2 vols. Paris, 1887. + +[263] 10 vols. Paris, 1855-63. + +[264] 10 vols. in 5. Ed. Monmerque. Third edition. Paris, n. d. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS. + + +The enormous popularity which the Essays of Montaigne enjoyed could not +fail to raise up imitators and followers in the century succeeding their +publication. But Montaigne's influence on the production of short +pieces, complete in themselves and having for the most part an ethical +bearing, was supplemented by the feature of the time so often referred +to, the fancy for literary _coteries_, and for wit combats between the +members of those _coteries_. For this latter purpose pieces of moderate +length in prose, corresponding to the sonnets, the madrigals, and +such-like things in verse, were well suited. The Academy, too, with its +competitions and its ordinary critical occupations, stimulated literary +production in the same direction. The essay was therefore much +cultivated in the seventeenth century, and not a few minor styles of +composition descended from it. Such were the _Pensee_, a short essay on +some definite and briefly handled point; the _Conversation_, an essay or +sketch in dialogue; the _Portrait_, a sketch of personal character; the +_Maxime_, a condensed _Pensee_, just as the _Pensee_ was a condensed +essay. In these various styles some of the most excellent work existing +in French literature was composed during the time which we are at +present handling; and four names of the first, or almost the first rank +in literary history, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, and Saint +Evremond, belong to this division, besides not a few others of less +importance. Pascal, indeed, might be almost as well treated in either of +the two following chapters as in the present; but if the substance of +his work is for the most part philosophical or theological, the form of +it seems to fall more suitably under the present head. He does not, +however, open the series of Essayists. + +[Sidenote: Balzac.] + +Something of Montaigne's manner, as well as of his peculiar sceptical +doubt, which nevertheless does not transcend the limits of orthodoxy, +was continued far into the century by La Mothe le Vayer, a man of +talent, but of some deliberate eccentricity and archaism in costume and +manners as in style. But the most important name in the history of +French prose next after that of Montaigne is that of Jean Guez de +Balzac, who occupies nearly the same place in it as Malherbe does in +that of French poetry. Balzac was a gentleman of rank and fortune in the +province of Angoumois, where he was born towards the end of the +sixteenth century, and where he died in 1655. In his younger days he +served in some diplomatic employments, then for a long time resided in +Paris, and finally retired to his country seat. Balzac's works are +almost entirely of the essay character, though they are sufficiently +diverse, and for the most part rather artificial in form. The most +considerable part of them is composed of letters--not such letters as +have been discussed in the preceding chapter, but elaborate epistles +written deliberately for the sake of writing, and with a definite +attempt at style. Besides these, which are very numerous, Balzac was +also the author of discourses on various subjects and of certain +nondescript works of an ethico-political character, the principal and +best known of which is the _Socrate Chretien_. In all, his work was +sufficient to fill two folio volumes when it was collected[265]. Balzac +is a really remarkable figure in literary history, because he is, in his +own tongue and nation, almost the first person who deliberately wrote +for the sake of writing, and not because he had anything particular to +say. The practice is perhaps not one to be commended to the general run +of men at any time, or even to exceptional men, except at a peculiar +time. But done as it was, and when it was, Balzac's work was really of +importance and advantage to his countrymen. The prose literature of the +sixteenth century had been admirable, but it had not resulted in the +elaboration of any general style of all work. Each writer had followed +his instincts, and when those instincts were under the guidance of +genius, as they frequently were, many writers had produced admirable +results. But the general use of the printing press, and the adaptation +of literature to all sorts of journey-work, made it imperatively +necessary that the tools should be put ready fashioned into the hands of +ordinary workmen instead of each man having to manufacture them for +himself. Various steps had been taken in this direction. Guillaume du +Vair had already written a _Traite de l'Eloquence Francaise_; Vaugelas, +a Savoyard by birth, was shortly to undertake some valuable _Remarques_ +on French grammar and style, which long remained a standard book. But +not many examples of deliberate composition had been given. It was these +examples of deliberate composition which Balzac furnished, and which, in +a lighter and more graceful fashion, and to a more limited circle, were +also given by the letters of the poet Voiture. Balzac, as is natural in +the first attempts at a polished prose style, has the drawback of being +somewhat rhetorical and occasionally ponderous. But the important point +is that the mechanism of the clause, the sentence, and the paragraph has +evidently been considered by him, and that he has succeeded in getting +it into very tolerable condition. His sentences no longer run on to the +interminable length of earlier writers, or finish in the haphazard +manner, neglectful of rhythm, balance, and proportion, also noticeable +in his predecessors. The substitution of the full stop for the +conjunction, which, speaking generally, may be said to be the initiating +secret of style (though of course it must not be applied too +indiscriminately), is at once apparent in Balzac's best passages, and he +rarely falls into the error which waits on this substitution, the error +of scrappiness. His style is perhaps better suited to oratory than to +writing; a not unlikely result, since his models were pretty obviously +the classical orators. But there can be no doubt that to him in no small +part is due the extraordinary outburst of rhetorical power which +distinguished the preachers of the latter half of the century. Nor was +it long before what was faulty in Balzac's style was corrected by the +example of very different writers. + +[Sidenote: Pascal.] + +Blaise Pascal[266] was born at Clermont, in Auvergne, on the 19th of +June, 1623. His father was President of the Court of Aids, but when the +boy was eight years old the family moved to Paris. Pascal was one of the +small number of extraordinarily precocious children who have justified +their precocity by genius equally extraordinary in after-life; but it +does not appear that he was forced by his father (who took the whole +charge of his education), and it is said that he did not begin Latin +until he was twelve years old--a very late age for the time. +Mathematics, however, were his chief study and delight, and he early +excelled in them, showing also an extraordinary faculty in applying them +to physics. At nineteen he invented a calculating machine. But his +application to study did not improve his health. He was but +five-and-twenty at the time of his famous experiment with the barometer +on the Puy de Dome in his native province. He was soon exposed to the +philosophical influence of Descartes on the one hand, and the +theological influence of the Jansenists on the other, and he felt both +deeply. His greatest work, the _Provinciales_, appeared in 1656. He died +on the 19th of August, 1662, having long lived in retirement and +asceticism, giving much of his substance to the poor, and abandoning +himself almost entirely to religious, mathematical, and philosophical +meditation. + +We have nothing to do here with his purely mathematical works or those +in natural science. The two books by which he belongs to literature, and +which have placed him among the foremost writers of his country, are the +_Provinciales_ and the so-called _Pensees_. The former were regularly +published by himself in his lifetime, though they were ostensibly +anonymous, or rather pseudonymous. The _Pensees_ consist of scattered +reflections, which were found in his papers after his death. They were +published, but, as has been discovered of late years, with much omission +and garbling, and the restoration of them to their authentic form has +been effected in comparatively recent times. + +The famous title of _Les Provinciales_ is only a convenient abbreviation +of the original, which is _Lettres Ecrites par Louis de Montalte a un +Provincial de ses Amis et aux Reverends Peres Jesuites sur le Sujet de +la Morale et de la Politique de ces Peres_. This somewhat cumbrous +appellation has at any rate the merit of exactly describing the +contents of the book, except that Louis de Montalte is of course a +pseudonym. The letters were written at the height of the early struggle +(which had not yet been interfered with by the secular arm) of +Jansenists and Jesuits, and they inflicted on the famous society a blow +from which it has never wholly recovered, and from which it can never +wholly recover. The method and style of Pascal are entirely original, +except in so far as a slight trace of indebtedness to Descartes may be +observed in the first respect, and a slight debt to Montaigne and the +_Satire Menippee_ in the second. His great weapon is polite irony, which +he first brought to perfection, and in the use of which he has hardly +been equalled and has certainly not been surpassed since. The intricate +casuistries of the Jesuits are unfolded in the gravest fashion and +without the least exaggeration or burlesque, but with a running comment +or rather insinuation of sarcasm which is irresistible. The author never +breaks out into a laugh, never allows himself to be declamatory and +indignant. There is always a smile on his countenance, but never +anything more pronounced than a smile. Yet the contempt of this is more +crushing than that of the bitterest invective. In the later letters +indeed the mask of irony is to a certain extent dropped, and a more +serious tone is taken. But effective as these are they are not the most +effective part of the _Provinciales_. That part is the earlier one, in +which, without dry scholastic argument, without the coarse abuse which +the sixteenth century had regarded as inseparable from theological +controversy, and at the same time with almost absolute accuracy of +statement--for the misrepresentations which two centuries of eager and +able apologists for the Order have been able to detect are +insignificant--the author carried the discussion out of the schools into +the drawing-room, made every man of fair education and breeding a judge +of it, and triumphantly brought the judgment of the vast majority of +such men on his side. To this day Pascal, with Swift and Courier, is the +greatest example in modern literature of irony, excelling Swift as much +in elegance and good-breeding as he falls short of him in sombre force, +and having the advantage over his brilliant follower at the beginning of +this century in depth and nobility of thought. + +The _Pensees_ supply the reverse side of Pascal's character, and the +supplement to any proper estimate of his literary genius. But from the +circumstances already referred to, they are evidence of a less complete +though an even more genuine kind than the _Provinciales_. The scepticism +which ate so deeply into the heart of the seventeenth century affected +Pascal, though he rarely wavered in point of abstract faith. To few men, +however, was doubt more painful, and as no clearer or more piercing +intellect has ever existed, so to none was doubt more constantly +present. The _Pensees_ in their genuine form exhibit the thoughts to +which this conflict of opinion gave rise in him, and are in remarkable +contrast with the polished and sedate badinage of the letters. But few +if any of them are finally worked up into the form in which the author +would have been likely to present them to the public, and therefore, +from the point of view of pure literary criticism, they require less +notice here than the sister volume. + +The revolution, as far as style is concerned, which in point of time is +already noticeable in Descartes, has entirely accomplished itself in +Pascal. The last vestige of archaism, of quaintness of phrase, of +clumsiness in the architecture of the sentence or the paragraph, has +passed away. Indeed, it can hardly be said that two centuries have added +much to the language except in point of richness and adaptation to the +more multifarious needs of the describer in modern times. The style is +extremely simple, but it has none of the monotony, the lack of colour, +and the stereotyped form which are the great drawbacks of French after +Boileau as contrasted with French before him. It is extraordinarily +graphic, sparkling with epigram at every point, and yet never +sacrificing sense to the play of words. The _Pensees_ (which it must +always be remembered were never finally worked up) yield matter which +will compare with the carefully concocted Maxims of La Rochefoucauld or +of Joubert, while the _Provinciales_ are, as has been said, +unsurpassable in their own line. It is probable that most good judges +would allot to Pascal in French the place which Dryden occupies in +English, that is to say, the place of the writer who combines most of +the advantages of the elder and younger manners. But Pascal, who wrote +merely to please himself, had this great advantage over Dryden, that his +work contains no mere journey-work, and especially nothing unworthy of +him. Admirable as it is in style, it is equally admirable in meaning and +in adaptation to that meaning, and it has thus both the sources of +lasting popularity at command. Dealing, moreover, as it does with +subjects of perennial importance and interest, it is almost entirely +exempt from the necessity of comment and explanation which weighs down +much admirable work of past ages. No man, however indisposed to serious +reading, can put down the _Provinciales_ as dull; no man, however +unwilling to read anything that is not serious, can complain of levity +in the _Pensees_. There are few authors in any language who unite as +Pascal does the claims of importance of subject, charm of style, and +bulk, without too great voluminousness of production. He has, moreover, +the additional merit of being in a high degree representative of his +age. That age had grown too complex for one man to reflect the whole of +it, but Pascal and Moliere (with perhaps Saint Evremond or La +Rochefoucauld as thirdsman) supply an almost complete reflection. + +Saint Evremond[267], who was thirteen years Pascal's senior, and who +outlived him by more than forty years, was, in almost every respect +except intellectual vigour and literary faculty, his opposite. He was a +Norman by birth (Charles de Marguetel de Saint Denis was his proper +name), and was born in 1610. He was educated by the Jesuits, entered the +army early, served through the later campaigns of the Thirty Years' War +and in the Fronde, was a favourite of Conde's but fell into disgrace +with him, and after the fall of Fouquet, which led to the discovery of +his very able and very uncourtly letter on the Peace of the Pyrenees, +also incurred the king's displeasure. This displeasure is said to have +been aggravated by his notorious membership of the freethinking and +materialist school which Gassendi, if he had not founded it, had helped +to spread. Saint Evremond was practically if not formally banished, and +the time of his misfortune coinciding pretty nearly with the +Restoration in England, he made his way thither, was well received by +the king and his courtiers, many of whom he had known in their exile, +and dwelt in London for almost the whole remainder of his long life. He +died in 1703, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His works are almost +entirely occasional, consisting of 'conversations,' letters, +'portraits,' short literary disquisitions and tractates on subjects of +historical and ethical interest. They display a placid epicurean +philosophy which in its indifference to the assaults of fortune is not +destitute of nobility, an extraordinary catholicity and acuteness of +literary judgment, and remarkable wit and _finesse_. The _Conversation +du Pere Canaye_, which is of the same date as the _Provinciales_, is +worthy of Pascal for its irony, and possesses a certain air of being +written by a 'person of quality,' which Saint Evremond could throw over +his writings better almost than any one else. His Portraits, not always +flattering, are full of nervous vigour. But his literary remarks are +perhaps the most surprising of his works. At a time when English +literature was almost unknown in France, and when Boileau ostentatiously +pretended never to have heard of Dryden, Saint Evremond, perhaps with +some assistance from his friend Waller, drew up some masterly remarks on +the humour-comedy of the Jonson school. His criticisms of French plays, +as compared with classical tragedy and comedy, are also full of pregnant +thought; and some comparative studies of his on Corneille and Racine +show a power of detachment and independence which may be due in some +part to the cosmopolitanism given by residence abroad, but which is +certainly due also to native power. From the point of view of literary +history, however, Saint Evremond is perhaps most remarkable as having +formed, in conjunction with Pascal and Bayle, a singular trio, which +supplied Voltaire with the models[268] whence he drew his peculiar style +of persiflage. As far as form is concerned, it may be fairly said that +Saint Evremond was the most influential of the three. Like many other +men of his time he rarely published anything in the ordinary way, and it +was not till very late in life that he empowered Desmaizeaux to issue +an authorised edition of work that had either circulated in manuscript +or been piratically printed. + +[Sidenote: La Rochefoucauld.] + +Francois de Marcillac[269], Duke de la Rochefoucauld, was born in 1613 +of one of the noblest families of France. His father had just been +created duke and peer, the highest honour possible to a French subject, +and for many years the son was known under the title of Prince de +Marcillac. He was very imperfectly educated, but was early sent to serve +in the army and introduced to the court. Young as he was, he was deeply +engaged in the various intrigues against Richelieu, chiefly in +consequence of his affection for the celebrated Madame de Chevreuse. +After Richelieu's death and the comparative effacement of Madame de +Chevreuse, he transferred his affections to Madame de Longueville and +his aversion to Mazarin. He was one of the chiefs of the Princes' party, +and fought all through the Fronde, winning a reputation, not so much for +military skill as for the most reckless bravery. The establishment of +the royal authority first sent him into retirement, and then reduced him +to the position of an ordinary courtier. This last period of his life +was distinguished by a third attachment to a lady hardly less celebrated +than either of his former loves, Madame de la Fayette, the author of _La +Princesse de Cleves_, in which novel he is said to figure under another +name. He was also an intimate friend of Madame de Sevigne. In the latter +part of his life he suffered terribly from gout, and died of that +disease in 1680. + +His Memoirs have been already noticed. The more famous and far more +remarkable Maxims were published shortly afterwards, and at once +attained a wide popularity. The first edition appeared in 1665, and four +others were published, with considerable alterations and additions, +during the author's lifetime, in 1666, 1671, 1675, and 1678. After his +death a sixth edition was published by Claude Barbin, containing fifty +new maxims, the authenticity of which is uncertain but probable. + +The fullest authoritative edition of La Rochefoucauld's Maxims contains +504 separate paragraphs, to which, besides the fifty just noticed, about +another fifty can be added by restoring those which the author +suppressed during his lifetime. The last, which is avowedly a kind of +appendix, and on a different plan from the others, extends to a couple +of pages. But the average length of the remainder is not more than three +or four lines, and many do not contain more than a dozen words. The art +of compressing thought and then pointedly expressing it has never been +pushed so far except by Joubert, and hardly even by him. All La +Rochefoucauld's maxims, without exception, are on ethical subjects, and +with a certain allowance they may be said to be generally concerned with +the reduction of the motives and conduct of men to the single principle +of self-love. In consequence, accusations of misanthropy, of unfairness, +of short-sightedness, have been showered upon the author by those who do +not like a spade to be called a spade. We have nothing to do with the +moral side of the matter here, and it is sufficient to say that La +Rochefoucauld is not an advocate of the selfish or any other school of +moralists. He is simply an observer, setting down with the utmost +literary skill the results of a long life of unusual experience in +business and pleasure of every kind. He is a man of science who has got +together a large collection of facts, and who expounds and arranges them +on a certain coherent and sufficient hypothesis. As a work of literary +art the result of his exposition is unrivalled. The whole of the Maxims, +even with the doubtful or rejected ones, need not occupy more than a +hundred pages, and they contain matter which in the hands of an ordinary +writer would have filled a dozen volumes. Yet there is no undue +compression. It is impossible ever to mistake the meaning, though the +comprehension of the full application of that meaning depends, of +course, on the intellectual equipment and social experience of the +reader. The clearness with which Descartes had first endowed French is +here displayed in its very highest degree. The style, as was unavoidable +in work of the kind, is entirely devoid of ornament. Imagery is wholly +absent, and though metaphorical expressions abound, they are of the +plainest and simplest kind of metaphor. The philosophical language of +the day is present, but in no very prominent measure. The motto of the +book (at least in the fourth and fifth editions), 'Nos vertus ne sont le +plus souvent que des vices deguises,' is a very fair example of the +simple straightforward fashion of La Rochefoucauld's style. Sometimes, +but rarely, the author explains his meaning, and slightly lengthens his +phrase by repeating the sentiment in a somewhat different form, as thus, +'Le plaisir de l'amour est d'aimer, et l'on est plus heureux par la +passion qu'on a que par celle que l'on donne.' But even here it is to be +observed that the explanation is in a manner necessary to take off the +air of sententious enigma, which the words 'le plaisir de l'amour est +d'aimer' might have had by themselves. La Rochefoucauld is never +enigmatical, rarely sententious merely, and is almost indifferent to the +production of _mots_. How continually the study of brevity, combined +with precision, occupied the author, and how severe he was on any +exuberance, can be seen very instructively in the successive alterations +of his work. Thus, in the first edition Maxim 295 ran, 'La jeunesse est +une ivresse continuelle, c'est la fievre de la sante, c'est la folie de +la raison;' but La Rochefoucauld seems to have thought this unduly +pleonastic, and it appears later as 'La jeunesse est une ivresse +continuelle, c'est la fievre de la raison,' the improvement of which in +point and freshness is sufficiently obvious. The result of this process +is that the best of these Maxims are absolutely unrivalled in their own +peculiar style, and that all subsequent writers in the same style have +taken their form as a model. French critics have, as a rule, rather +under-than over-estimated the purely literary talent of La +Rochefoucauld. But this is due to two causes: first, to the supposed +antagonism of his spirit to conventional morality; secondly, to the fact +that he somewhat anticipated the writers of the particular period which +for a century and a half was the idol of academic criticism. His +language is rather that of Louis XIII. than of Louis XIV., and in his +words and phrases there is a certain archaism, not to say an occasional +irregularity, which critics who look only at the stop-watch apparently +find it hard to forgive. + +[Sidenote: La Bruyere.] + +These critics generally give the palm of style, as concerns writing of +this kind, to Jean de la Bruyere[270]. Less is known of the personal +history of this author than of that of any contemporary writer of great +eminence. He was born at Paris, in August 1645, and his family appears +to have been anciently connected with the law. He must have been a man +of some means and of good education, for he had just bought himself an +important financial post at Caen, when, on the recommendation of +Bossuet, he was appointed Historical Preceptor to Duke Louis of Bourbon, +the grandson of Conde, in whose household he continued till his death in +1696. He had published his _Caracteres_ in 1687, and was elected to the +Academy in 1693. + +The works of La Bruyere consist of the _Caracteres_ just mentioned, of a +translation of Theophrastus, of a few literary discourses, and +(probably) of some chapters on Quietism, written on the side of his +patron Bossuet during the great controversy with Fenelon, but not +published till after the author's death. The _Caracteres_ alone are of +much importance or interest. + +The design of this curious and celebrated book is taken, like its title, +from Theophrastus, but the plan is very much altered as well as +extended. Instead of copying directly the abstract qualities of +Theophrastus and his brief, pregnant, but somewhat artificial and jejune +description of them, La Bruyere adopted a scheme much better suited to +his own age. He took for the most part actual living people, well known +to all his readers, and, disguising them thinly under names of the kind +which the romances of the middle of the century had rendered +fashionable, made them body forth the characters he wished to define and +satirise. These portraits he inserted in a framework not altogether +unlike that of the Montaigne essay, preserving no very consecutive plan, +but passing from moral reflection to literary criticism, and from +literary criticism to one of the half-personal, half-moralising +portraits just mentioned, with remarkable ease and skill. The titles of +his chapters are rather more indicative of their actual contents than +those of Montaigne's essays, but they represent, for the most part, +merely very elastic frames, in which the author's various observations +and reflections are mounted. The result of this variety, not to say +desultoriness, combined as it is with the display of very great literary +art, is that La Bruyere's is a book of almost unparalleled interest to +take up and lay down at odd moments. Its apparently continuous form and +its intermixture of narrative save it from the appearance of severity +which the avowed Maxim or Pensee has; while the bond between the +different chapters, and even the different paragraphs, is so slight that +interruption is not felt to be annoying. Even now, when the zest of +personal malice, which, as Malezieux remarked to the author, made him +sure beforehand of 'plenty of readers and plenty of enemies,' is past, +it is a most interesting book to read; and it is especially interesting +to Englishmen, because there is no doubt that the English essayists of +the Queen Anne school directly modelled themselves upon it. + +It has been objected to La Bruyere that he is less of a thinker than of +a clever writer, and there is truth in the objection. He was possessed +of a remarkable shrewdness, common sense, and soundness of taste; thus, +for instance, he protests energetically against the foolish pedantry +which rejected as obsolete many of the most useful and most picturesque +words in French, and so sets himself directly against the dominant and +very unfortunate literary influence of his time, that of Boileau. Yet he +himself wrote in the fashionable style, and in the language rather of +Racine than of Corneille. A further objection, also a just one, is that +his characters are too much of their age and not of all time. This +objection, indeed, applies to almost all writers after 1660, except +Moliere, and La Fontaine, and La Rochefoucauld. But La Bruyere (though +there are some sarcastic insinuations which seem to hint that his range +was wider than he chose to show) is as unwilling to disentangle himself +from Versailles and Paris as his English followers are to extend their +gaze to something beyond 'the town.' Nor is there the force and vigour +about La Bruyere's moral reflections that there is about La +Rochefoucauld's. They are frequently commonplace, sometimes even +platitudinous, and the author occasionally falls into what is perhaps +the most dangerous pitfall for a moralist and social satirist, the +adoption of stock butts and types. It is indeed most probable that La +Bruyere was one of those who, according to a famous phrase of his enemy +and successor, Fontenelle, 'may have their hands full of truth, but may +not care to open more than their little finger.' He was not, like La +Rochefoucauld, a great noble with the liberty of the Fronde in his mind, +but a man of no exalted rank, living in the most absolute period of +Louis the Fourteenth's rule. His remark that 'les grands sujets sont +defendus' is a pregnant one, especially when it is remembered how near +to the 'grands sujets' (as, for instance, in his oblique denunciation of +the misery of the French peasantry) he sometimes goes. But his style, +though looser than that of his forerunner, and destitute of the +character of sharp and enduring sculpture which is impressed on the +_Maxims_, is a model of ease, grace, and fluency without weakness[271]. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[265] He has not recently been re-edited, but a selection was published +in 1822. + +[266] Editions of Pascal are numerous, but a complete and definite one +is still wanting. Of the _Pensees_, etc., the editions of Faugere, +Havet, and Rocher may be mentioned; of the _Provinciales_, the edition +of 1867. + +[267] Ed. Giraud. 3 vols. Paris, 1866. (A selection only, but containing +almost everything of importance.) + +[268] Perhaps Anthony Hamilton should be added, as a channel of +communication with Saint Evremond and some of the seventeenth century +coterie-writers. + +[269] Ed. as before noticed. The _Maxims_ have been constantly reprinted +by themselves. + +[270] Ed. Servois. Paris, 1865-1882. + +[271] Under the head of this chapter, in an exhaustive history, not a +few classes of writers might be ranged. Such are, besides great numbers +of miscellaneous writers of criticism from Corneille in his _Examens_ +downwards, the classical commentators, editors, and translators. Few of +these have left a very enduring reputation. In the earlier part of the +century Perrot d'Ablancourt, a fertile translator, may be mentioned. His +work was so free that his versions were called 'les belles infideles,' +but Boileau himself admitted that he was a master of French style. In +the latter part the best-known and perhaps the most remarkable name is +that of the still famous Madame Dacier. Many of the early members of the +Academy, and some who never attained to its ranks, have left a +reputation more anecdotic than strictly literary, such as Menage (a +representative of the class), Cotin, Costar, Bautru, etc. But they can +only be alluded to here. Law also contributed in the person of Patru, a +writer for the most part on professional topics, but occasionally on +literature, who is ranked by Boileau with Perrot d'Ablancourt in respect +of style. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +PHILOSOPHERS. + + +The history of literature and the history of philosophy touch each other +only at certain points of their course. There are periods (the +nineteenth century itself is perhaps an example) when the study of +philosophy is almost divorced from style. There are others when the two +are intimately wedded. Nowhere is this latter more the case than in the +seventeenth century, and in France. Much of the most excellent writing +of the time was directed to philosophic subjects. But it so happened +that the great reformer of philosophy in France was also the greatest +reformer of her prose style, and that his greatest disciple carried +philosophical writing, as far as style is concerned, to very nearly, if +not quite, the highest pitch which it has yet attained in French. We +shall not have to concern ourselves in more than the very slightest +degree with the subject of the writings of Descartes and Malebranche, +but they have as legitimate a place in the history of French literature +as they have in that of European philosophy. + +[Sidenote: Descartes.] + +Rene Descartes[272] was born at La Haye in Touraine on the 31st of +March, 1596. His family belonged by descent to the province in which he +was born, but by occupation and official position (as well it would seem +as by possessions) to Britanny. It was of noble rank, though only of +_noblesse de robe_, and possessed enough landed property to leave +estates and territorial designations to two sons. Thus Rene was Seigneur +du Perron, though, quite contrary to the wont of the day, he never made +use of the title. He was of weak health both at this time and +afterwards, and, unlike most of his contemporaries, did not begin his +studies very early. In 1604 he was sent to the Jesuit College of La +Fleche, and remained there nearly eight years. After a short stay at +home he was sent to Paris, where he divided his time between ordinary +pursuits and amusements on the one hand, and hard study on the other. In +1617, when he had just attained his majority, he joined the army as a +volunteer, and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War soon gave him +plenty of employment. He visited various parts of Europe, partly on +duty, partly as an ordinary traveller. First he served for two years at +Breda under Prince Maurice of Nassau, pursuing the same mixture of study +and routine employments. Then he went to Germany, where in his winter +quarters his great philosophical idea, as he has told in memorable +words, flashed across him. He served in various parts of the empire, and +in Hungary and Bohemia, but left the army in 1621 and went to Holland, +experiencing on the way a curious and dangerous adventure. After a year +at the Hague he went home, and was put in possession of his share of his +mother's property. He visited Italy, where he made a pilgrimage to +Loretto, then returned to France, and dwelt in Paris for some time; +resuming however his military character for a while, and serving at the +siege of La Rochelle. At last, in 1628, being then thirty-two years old, +he left the service finally, and gave himself up wholly to the study of +philosophy. For this purpose he retired to Holland, where he was still +somewhat restless[273]. But his chief centres were successively +Amsterdam, Egmond, not far from Alkmaar, and Endegeest, within easy +distance of the Hague. He returned to France more than once, and was +asked to settle at court, receiving from Mazarin a pension of 3000 +livres. But the troubles of the Fronde made Paris a distasteful and +unsuitable residence for him. He then accepted, at the end of 1649, an +invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden and went to Stockholm, where +the severe weather and the gracious habit which the queen had of +summoning him for discussion at five o'clock in the morning (he had all +his life when not on active service made a point of not rising till +eleven), put an end to his life, by inflammation of the lungs, on Feb. +11, 1650. + +The works of Descartes are numerous, though few of them are of very +great extent. He wrote a treatise (not now extant) on the art of fencing +when he was but sixteen; and during the succeeding years small treatises +on different points, chiefly of mathematics and natural theology, +constantly issued from his pen, though he was not a ready writer. The +works which alone concern us here are his famous _Discours de la +Methode_, 1637, and his letters. The _Meditations_, of equal importance +philosophically with the _Discours_, and the _Principia Philosophiae_, a +rehandling of the two, were originally published in Latin. No attempt +can here be made to give any account of Descartes' mathematical, +physical, and metaphysical speculations, or of the means by which he +endeavoured to work out his great principle, that all knowledge springs +from certain ideas clearly and distinctly conceived, and is deducible +mathematically, or rather logically, from these principles. + +Until and including Victor Cousin, who, though his own style has some +drawbacks, was a keen judge and a fervent admirer of the best classical +French, French writers have always regarded the style of Descartes as +one of the most remarkable, and above all the most original in the +language. There cannot be the slightest doubt in the mind of any one +historically acquainted with that language, and accustomed to judge +style critically, that the opinion is a thoroughly sound one. Of late, +however, there have been dissidents, and their opinion has been +strangely adopted by the latest English biographer of Descartes[274]. +Controversy as a rule is out of place in these pages, but on this +particular point, involving as it does one of the most important +questions in French literary history--the proper distribution of the +epochs of style--an exception must be made. According to Mr. Mahaffy's +view it is Descartes' few letters to Balzac which have gained him a +reputation for style, but he is 'seldom more than clear and correct;' he +is 'seldom grand, not often amusing.' The temptation to enlarge on this +singular definition of style as that which is grand or amusing must be +resisted. Those who have followed the foregoing pages will perceive +that the refusal to recognise in a writer who is 'seldom more than clear +and correct' (Descartes is a great deal more than this, but no matter) +the characteristics of a master of style arises from ignorance of what +the characteristics and drawbacks of French style had hitherto been. + +Prose style may be divided, as conveniently as in any other way, into +the style of description or narration, and the style of discussion or +argument. The former deals with the imagination, with the passions, with +outward events, with conversation; the latter with the reason only. The +former propounds images, the latter ideas. The former constructs a +picture, the latter reduces words to their simplest terms as symbols of +thought. French had been making very rapid progress in the former +division of style, though there was much left to be done; in the latter +it was yet entirely at its rudiments. Before Descartes there are three +masters of this latter style, and three only, Rabelais, Calvin, and +Montaigne. There is little doubt that Rabelais might have anticipated +Descartes, had it not been for the fact, first, that, except on rare +occasions, he chose to wrap himself in the grotesque; and, secondly, +that he came before the innovations of the Pleiade had enriched the +language, and the reaction against the Pleiade had pruned off the +superfluity of richness. Calvin was also exposed to this second +drawback, and had besides a defect of idiosyncrasy in a certain dryness +and heaviness allied with, and partly resulting from, a too close +adherence to Latin forms. Montaigne again, like Rabelais, deliberately +refuses to be bound by the mere requirements of argument, and expatiates +into all sorts of digressions, partaking of the other style, the style +of description. If any one will take the famous passage of Descartes +already referred to (the passage in which he describes how being in +winter quarters, with nothing to do and sitting all day long by a warm +stove, he started the train of thought which ended or began in _Cogito +ergo sum_), and, having a good acquaintance with the three authors just +mentioned, will imagine how the same facts and arguments would have +appeared in their language, he will not find it difficult to realise the +difference. The grotesque by-play and the archaic vocabulary of +_Gargantua_, the garrulous digression and anecdote of the _Essays_, are +not more strikingly absent than the jejune scholasticism which is the +worse side of Calvin's grave and noble style. The author does not think +it necessary to attract his readers with ornament, nor to repel them +with dry and barren marshalling of technicalities. All is simple, +straightforward, admirably clear, but at the same time the prose is +fluent, modulated, harmonious, and possesses, if not the grace of +superadded ornament, those of perfect proportion and unerring choice of +words. + +As a prose writer Descartes is generally compared to his contemporary, +and in some sort predecessor, Balzac, and his advantage over the author +of the _Socrate Chretien_ is stated to lie chiefly in the superiority of +his matter. This is not quite the fact. Balzac had, indeed, aimed at the +simplicity and classical perfection of Descartes, but he had not +attained it; he still has much of the quaintness of Montaigne, though it +must be remembered that in comparisons of this kind censure bestowed on +the authors compared is relative not positive, and that Descartes could +no more have written the _Essays_ than Montaigne the _Discours_. +Descartes has almost entirely discarded this quaintness, which sometimes +passed into what is called in French _clinquant_, that is to say, tawdry +and grotesque ornament. It is a peculiarity of his that no single +description of his sentences fully describes their form. They are always +perfectly clear, but they are sometimes very long. Their length, +however, as is the case with some English authors of the same century, +is more apparent than real, the writer having chosen to link by +conjunctions clauses which are independently finished, and which, by +different punctuation even without the omission of the conjunction, +might stand alone. The mistake of saying that Descartes is nothing more +than clear and correct can only arise from an imperfect appreciation of +the language. Let, for instance, his condemnation of scholastic method +in the _Discours_ be taken. Here the matter is interesting enough, and +the comparison with the gorgeous but unphilosophical disdain which Bacon +is wont to pour on the studies of the past is interesting also. But we +are busied with the form. In the first place, any one must be struck +with the modernness of the phrase and style. With insignificant +exceptions there is nothing which would not be most excellent French +to-day. Further examination of the phrase will show that there is much +more in it than mere clearness and correctness, admirably clear and +correct as it is. There is no 'spilth of adjectives,' as it has been +termed. The words are just so many as are necessary for clear, correct, +and elegant expression of the thought. But it is in the selection of +them that the master of style appears. The happy phrase, 'La gentillesse +des fables reveille l'esprit;' the comparison of the reading of the best +authors not merely to a conversation, but a _conversation etudiee_, in +which the speakers 'show only their best thoughts;' the contrast between +eloquence and poetry (too often forgotten by the writer's countrymen); +the ironic touch[275] in the eulogium on philosophy; all these things +show style in its very rarest and highest form--the form which enables +the writer to say the most, and to say it most forcibly with the least +expenditure of the stores of the dictionary. One sees at once that the +requirement of one of the greatest French writers of our time, that the +master of style 'shall be able to express at once any idea that presents +itself requiring expression,' is fully, and more than fully, met by +Descartes; and one sees also how the miracles of expression which +Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Bossuet, were to produce became possible, and +who showed them the way. It may be asserted, without the slightest fear, +that the more thoroughly Descartes is studied with the necessary +apparatus of knowledge, the more firmly will his claims in this +direction be established. + +It is not superfluous to call attention to the fact that the _Discours +de la Methode_ appeared within a few months of the _Cid_. Thus it +happened that the first complete models of French classical style in +prose and verse, and two of the most remarkable examples of that style +which have ever been produced, were given to the public as nearly as +possible contemporaneously. This fact, and the brilliant group of +imitators who almost immediately availed themselves of the examples, +prove satisfactorily how powerful were the influences which produced the +change, and over how wide a circle they worked. As the influence of +Descartes was thus no less literary than philosophical, it followed +naturally enough that his school (which soon included almost all the men +of intellectual eminence in France) preserved literary as well as +philosophical traditions. This school, so far as it concerns French +literature, may be said to have produced two remarkable individuals and +one remarkable group. The group was the school of Port Royal; the +individuals were Malebranche and Bayle. + +[Sidenote: Port Royal.] + +We are not here concerned with the religious fortunes of the community +of Port Royal[276]. It is sufficient to say that it was originally a +nunnery at no great distance from Versailles, that it underwent a great +religious revival under the influence of St. Francis de Sales and Mere +Angelique Arnauld, and that, chiefly owing to the inspiration of the +Abbe de St. Cyran, there was engrafted on it a community of _Solitaires_ +of the other sex, who busied themselves in study, in religious +exercises, in manual labour, and in the education of youth. The society +was early imbued with Jansenist principles, which brought it into +violent conflict with the Jesuits, and eventually led to its persecution +and destruction. It was also the head-quarters of a somewhat modified +Cartesianism, and this, with its importance as a centre of literary +instruction and its intimate connection with many famous men of letters, +such as Pascal, Nicole, and Racine, gives it a place in the history of +literature. The most remarkable work of an educational kind which +proceeded from it was the famous Port Royal Logic, or 'Art of Thinking,' +which seems to have been a work of collaboration, Arnauld and Nicole +being the chief authors. This, though open to criticism from the point +of view of the logician, had a very great influence in making the +methodical treatment and clear luminous exposition which were +characteristic of the Cartesian school common in French writers. Of the +two authors just mentioned, Arnauld was the greater thinker, Nicole by +far the better writer. He was, in fact, a sort of minor Pascal, his +_Lettres sur les Visionnaires_ corresponding to the _Provinciales_ of +his greater contemporary, while he was the author of _Pensees_, which, +unlike Pascal's, were regularly finished, and which, though much +inferior to them, have something of the same character. The +intellectual activity of Port Royal was very considerable, but most of +it was directed into channels which were not purely literary, owing +partly to incessant controversies brought on by the differences between +the community and the Jesuits, partly to the cultivation of +philosophical subjects. The age was perhaps the most controversial that +Europe has ever seen, and the comparative absence of periodicals (which +were only in their infancy) threw the controversies necessarily into +book form, as letters, pamphlets, or even volumes of considerable size. +But no very large portion of this controversial matter deserves the name +of literature, and much of it was written in Latin. Thus Gassendi, the +upholder of Neo-Epicurean opinions in opposition to Descartes, and +beyond all question the greatest French philosopher of the century after +Descartes and Malebranche, hardly belongs to French literature, though +his Latin works are of great bulk and no small literary merit. The +Gassendian school soon gave birth to a small but influential school of +materialist freethinkers. What may be called the school of orthodox +doubt, which had been represented by Montaigne and Charron, had, as has +been said, a representative in La Mothe le Vayer. But this special kind +of scepticism was already antiquated, if not obsolete, and it was +succeeded, on the one side, by the above-mentioned freethinkers, who +were also to a great extent free livers[277], and whose most remarkable +literary figure was Saint Evremond; on the other, by a school of learned +Pyrrhonists, whose most remarkable representative in every respect was +Pierre Bayle. + +[Sidenote: Bayle.] + +Bayle was born in the south of France in 1647, and, like almost all the +men of letters of his time, was educated by the Jesuits. He was of a +Protestant family, and was converted by his teachers, his conversion +being however so little of a solid one that he reverted to +Protestantism in less than two years. After this he resided for some +time in Switzerland, studying Cartesianism. In 1675 he was made +Professor of Philosophy at Sedan, a post which he held for six years, +moving thence to Rotterdam. Here he began to write numerous articles and +works in the periodicals, which were slowly becoming fashionable, +especially in Holland. They were mostly critical, and dealt with +scientific, historical, philosophical, and theological subjects. Bayle's +utterances on the latter subject, and especially his pleas for +toleration, brought him into a troublesome controversy with Jurieu, and +in 1693 he was deprived of his professorship, or at least of his right +to lecture. He then devoted himself to the famous Dictionary which is +identified with his name, and which, though by no means the first +encyclopaedia of modern times (for Alsten, Moreri, Hoffmann, and others +had preceded him within the century), was by far the most influential +and most original yet produced. It appeared in 1696, and brought him new +troubles, which were not however of a serious character. He died in +1706. + +The scepticism of which Bayle was the exponent was purely critical and +intellectual. He was not in the least an enemy of the moral system of +Christianity, nor even, it would appear, an enemy to Christianity +itself. But his intellect was constitutionally disposed to see the +objections to all things rather than the arguments in their favour, and +to take a pleasure in stating these objections. Thus, though he was +after his religious oscillations nominally an orthodox Protestant, the +tendency of his works was to impugn points held by Protestants and +Catholics alike, and though he was nominally a Cartesian, he was equally +far from yielding an implicit belief to the doctrines of Descartes. His +most famous work is the reverse of methodical. The subjects are chosen +almost at random, and are very frequently nothing but pegs on which to +hang notes and digressions in which the author indulges his critical and +dissolvent faculty. Nor is the style by any means a model. But it is +lively, clear, and interesting, and no doubt had a good deal to do with +the vast popularity of his book in the eighteenth century. Bayle had a +strong influence on Voltaire, and though he had less to do with his +follower's style than Saint Evremond and Pascal, he is nearer to him in +spirit than either. The difference perhaps may be said to be that +Bayle's pleasure in negative criticism is almost purely intellectual. +There is but little in him of the half-childish mischievousness which +distinguishes Voltaire. + +[Sidenote: Malebranche.] + +Cartesianism was not less likely than its opposites to lead to +philosophical scepticism, but in the main its professors, taking their +master's conduct for model, remained orthodox. In that case, however, +the Cartesian idealism had a tendency to pass into mysticism. Of those +in whom it took this form Nicolas Malebranche[278] was the unquestioned +chief. He was born at Paris, where his father held a lucrative office; +in 1638, and from his birth had very feeble health. When he was of age +he became an Oratorian, and passed the whole of his long life in study +and literary work, sometimes being engaged in controversies on the +compatibility of his system--the famous 'Vision in God,' and 'Spiritual +Existence in God'--with orthodoxy, but never receiving any formal +censure from the Church. Despite his bad health he lived to the age of +seventy-seven, dying in 1715. A curious story is told of a verbal +argument between him and Berkeley on the eve of his death. He wrote +several works in French, such as a _Traite de Morale_, _Conversations +Metaphysiques_, etc., but his greatest and most remarkable contribution +to French literature is his _Recherche de la Verite_, published in 1674, +which unfolds his system. From the literary point of view the +_Recherche_ is one of the most considerable books of the philosophical +class ever produced. Unlike the various works of Descartes it is of very +great length, filling three volumes in the original edition, and a +thousand pages of close type in the most handy modern reprint. It also +deals with subjects of an exceedingly abstract character, and is not +diversified by any elaborate illustrations, any machinery like that of +Plato or Berkeley, or any passages of set eloquence. The purity and +beauty of the style, however, and its extraordinary lucidity, make it a +book of which it is difficult to tire. The chief mechanical difference +between the style of Malebranche and that of his master is that his +sentences are shorter. They are, however, framed with equal care as to +rhythm and to logical arrangement. The metaphor of limpidity is very +frequently applied to style, but perhaps there is hardly any to which it +may be applied with such propriety as to the style of Malebranche. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[272] Not fully edited yet. Cousin's edition is the fullest, but the +important French works figure in many popular collections and are easily +accessible. + +[273] He was 'as restless as a hyaena,' says De Quincey, not unjustly. + +[274] Professor Mahaffy, _Descartes_. Blackwood, 1880. + +[275] 'La philosophie donne moyen de parler vraisemblablement de toutes +choses, et se faire admirer des moins savants.' + +[276] Sainte-Beuve, _Port Royal_. 6 vols. Paris, 1859-61. + +[277] These men, such as Saint Ibal, Bardouville, Desbarreaux, and +others, figure largely in the anecdotic history of the time. In the +persons of Theophile and Saint Evremond they touch on literature: but +for the most part they were chiefly distinguished by revolting +coarseness and blasphemy of expression, and by a childish delight in +outraging religious sentiment, which was often changed into abject +terror or hypocritical compliance as death approached. They were +commonly called _philosophes_, a degradation of the word which was not +much mended in the next century, though it then acquired a more strictly +literary meaning. + +[278] Ed. Simon. 1854. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THEOLOGIANS AND PREACHERS. + + +There is no period in the whole course of French literature in which +theological writers and orators contribute so much to literary history +as in the seventeenth century. The causes of this energy can only be +summarily indicated here. They were the various _sequelae_ of the +Reformation and the counter-reformation, the latter of which was in +France extraordinarily powerful; the influence of Richelieu and Mazarin +in politics, which assured to the Church a great predominance in the +State, while its rival, the territorial aristocracy, was depressed and +persecuted; the personal inclination of Louis XIV., who made up for his +loose manner of life by the straitest doctrinal orthodoxy; but perhaps +most of all the accidental determination of various men of great talents +and energy to the ecclesiastical profession. Bossuet, Fenelon, +Bourdaloue, Massillon, Flechier, Mascaron, Claude, Saurin, to name no +others, could hardly have failed to distinguish themselves in any +department of literature which they had chosen. Circumstances of +accident threw them into work more or less wholly theological. + +[Sidenote: St. Francois de Sales.] + +This peculiarity of the century, however, belongs chiefly to its third +and fourth quarters. The first preacher and theologian of literary +eminence in this period belongs about equally to it and to the +preceding, but his most remarkable work dates from this time. Francois +de Sales was born at Annecy in 1567. He was destined for the law, and +completed his education for it at Paris, but his vocation for the church +was stronger, and he took orders in 1593. He soon distinguished himself +by reconverting a considerable number of persons to the Roman form of +faith in the district of Chablais, and at the beginning of the +seventeenth century preached at Paris, and latterly at Dijon. He was +soon made bishop of Geneva, an episcopate which, it need hardly be said, +might almost be described as _in partibus infidelium_. But in the south +of France, in Savoy, and in Paris itself, his influence was great. His +chief works are the 'Introduction to a Devout Life' (1608), the _Traite +de l'Amour de Dieu_, 'Spiritual Letters' (to Madame de Chantal), and +sermons. His style is by no means destitute of archaism, but it is +clear, fluent, and agreeable. He and Fenouillet, bishop of Marseilles, +with other preachers whose names are now forgotten, were the chief +instruments in recovering the art of sacred oratory from the low estate +into which it had fallen during the heat of the religious wars and the +League, when it had been disgraced alternately by violence and +buffoonery. But the Thirty Years' War and the Fronde were again +unfavourable to theological discussion, except of a quasi-political +kind, and the best spirits of this time threw themselves into the +unpopular direction of Jansenism. The 'Siecle de Louis Quatorze' proper, +that is the period subsequent to 1660, was the palmy time, from the +literary point of view, of theological eloquence and discussion in +France. + +[Sidenote: Bossuet.] + +Of the authors already named Bossuet deserves precedence in almost every +respect except that of private character. Jacques Benigne Bossuet[279] +was born at Dijon, in 1627, of a family of distinction in the middle +class. He went to school to the Jesuits in his native town, and finished +his education at the College de Navarre in Paris, receiving his doctor's +degree and a canonry at Metz in 1652. He soon distinguished himself both +as an orator and a controversialist, preached before the king in Advent +1661, and in 1669 was appointed to the bishopric of Condom. His +subsequent appointment to the post of tutor to the Dauphin made him +resign his bishopric; but on the completion of his task (in virtue of +which he had been elected to the Academy in 1680) he was made almoner to +the prince, and in the following year received the bishopric of Meaux. +He was soon after engaged in the Gallican controversy, in which he +defended not so much the rights of the Church as the claims of the royal +prerogative. The most unfortunate incident of his life was his +controversy with Fenelon. Bossuet, though thoroughly learned in some +respects, was not a man of the widest culture, and the whole region of +mystical theology was unknown to him. He, therefore, mistook certain +utterances of the archbishop of Cambray, which were neither new nor +alarming, for heterodox innovations, and began a violent polemic against +him. Supported by the king, he was able to obtain a nominal victory, but +the moral success rested with Fenelon, and still more the advantage in +the literary duel. Bossuet died in 1704. His works were very numerous, +and of very various kinds. His first reputation was, as has been said, +earned as a controversialist (his principal adversaries in this respect +were the Protestant ministers Ferri and Claude) and as a preacher on +general subjects. On his appointment to the see of Condom, however, he +struck out a new line, that of funeral discourses (_oraisons funebres_), +and produced, on the occasions of the death of the two Henriettas of +England, mother and daughter, of the great Conde, of the +Princess-Palatine, and of others, works which are undoubtedly triumphs +of French eloquence, and which, with the exception of the best passages +of Burke, are perhaps the only things of the kind comparable to the +masterpieces of antiquity. His controversial work is equal in perfection +of execution to his oratory, the _Exposition de la Doctrine de l'Eglise +Catholique_, and still more the _Histoire des Variations des Eglises +Protestantes_, being deservedly regarded as models of their kind, +notwithstanding the obvious fallacy pervading the latter. Of his other +works the most remarkable (perhaps the most remarkable of all if +originality of conception and breadth of design be taken into account) +is his _Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle jusqu'a l'Empire de +Charlemagne_. This has, though not universally, been held to be the +first attempt at the philosophy of history, that is to say, the first +work in which general history is regarded and expounded from a single +comprehensive point of view, and laws of a universal kind drawn from it. +In Bossuet's case the point of view is, of course, strictly theological, +and the laws are arranged accordingly. + +Bossuet's character was unamiable, and, despite the affected frankness +with which he spoke to the king, it will always remain a blot on his +memory that he did not seriously protest either against the loose life +of Louis, or against his ruinous ambition and lawless disregard of the +rights of nations. There is, however, no doubt whatever of his perfect +sincerity and of the genuineness of his belief in political autocracy, +provided that the autocrat was a faithful son of the Church. He was a +Cartesian, and was probably not unindebted to Descartes for the force +and vigour of his reasonings, though he was hardly so careful as his +master in enlarging the field of his knowledge and assuring the validity +of his premises. The extraordinary majesty of his rhetoric, perhaps, +brings out by force of contrast the occasionally fallacious character of +his reasoning, but it must be confessed that even as a controversialist +he has few equals. The rhetorical excellence of the _Oraisons_ and the +gorgeous sweep, not merely of the language but of the conception, in the +_Histoire Universelle_, show him at what is really his best; while many +isolated expressions betray at once an intimate knowledge of the human +heart, and a hardly surpassed faculty of clothing that knowledge in +words. Bossuet no doubt is more of a speaker than a writer. His +excellence lies in the wonderful survey, and grasp of the subject +(qualities which make his favourite literary nickname of the 'Eagle of +Meaux' more than usually appropriate), in the contagious enthusiasm and +energy with which he attacks his point, in his inexhaustible metaphors +and comparisons. He has not the unfailing charm of Malebranche, nor that +which belongs in a less degree, and with more mannerism, to Fenelon; he +is very unequal, and small blemishes of style abound in him. Thus, in +his most famous passage, the description of the sudden death of +Henrietta of Orleans, occurs the phrase 'comme un coup de _tonnerre_ +cette _etonnante_ nouvelle,' a jingle of words as unpleasant as it is +easily avoided. But blemishes of this kind (and it is, perhaps, +noteworthy that French is more tolerant of them than almost any other +language of equal literary perfection) disappear in the volume and force +of the torrent of Bossuet's eloquence. It is fair to add that, though he +is almost always aiming at the sublime, he scarcely ever oversteps it, +or falls into the bombastic and the ridiculous. Even his elaborate +eulogy (it would hardly be fair to call it flattery) of the great is so +cunningly balanced by exposition of the nothingness of men and things, +that it does not strike the mind's eye with any immediate sense of +glaring impropriety. The lack of formal perfection which is sometimes +noticeable in him is made up to a greater degree almost than in any +other writer by the intense force and conviction of the speaker and the +imposing majesty of his manner. It is pretty certain that most attempts +to imitate Bossuet would result in a lamentable failure; and it is not a +little significant that the only two Frenchmen who in prose have shown +themselves occasionally his rivals, Michelet and Lamennais, are among +the most unequal of writers. + +[Sidenote: Fenelon.] + +The contrast between Bossuet and his chief rival was in all respects +great. To begin with, Fenelon was a much younger man than Bossuet, +belonging it might be said almost to another generation. He inherited +some of the noblest blood in France, while Bossuet was but a _roturier_, +and this may have had something to do with the more independent +character of Fenelon. Bossuet was a vigorous student of certain defined +branches of knowledge, but of general literature he took little heed. +Fenelon was a man of almost universal reading, and one of the most +original and soundest literary critics of his time. Fenelon felt deeply +for the misery of the French people; Bossuet does not appear to have +troubled himself about it. Finally Bossuet, with all his merits, had +grave faults of moral character, while to Fenelon--quite as justly as to +Berkeley--every virtue under heaven may be assigned. Francois de +Salignac de la Mothe-Fenelon[280] was born at the castle of the same +name in the province of Perigord, on August 16th, 1661. He was educated +first at home, then at Cahors, and then at the College de Plessis at +Paris. He finally studied in a theological seminary for some years, and +did not formally enter the Church till he was four-and-twenty. He then +devoted himself partly to the poor, partly to education, especially of +girls, and his treatise on this latter subject was his first work. In +1687 he was appointed preceptor to the Duke de Bourgogne, son of +Bossuet's pupil, and heir to the throne. For the duke he wrote a great +number of books, among them _Telemaque_ (or at least the first sketch of +it). In 1697 he was appointed archbishop of Cambray. Into his connection +with Madame Guyon, the celebrated apostle of quietism, and his +consequent quarrel with Bossuet, there is no need to enter further. +Whichever of the two may have been theologically in the right, there are +no two opinions on the question that Bossuet was in the wrong, both in +the acrimony of his conduct and the violence of his language. In the +latter respect, indeed, he brought down upon himself a well-deserved +punishment. Fenelon was the mildest of men, but he possessed a faculty +of quiet irony inferior to that of no man then living, and he used it +with effect in the controversy against Bossuet's declamatory +denunciations. When, at last, the matter had been referred to the Pope, +and judgment had been given against himself, Fenelon at once bowed to +the decision and acknowledged his error. Louis, however, had many more +reasons for disliking him than the mere odium theologicum with which +Bossuet had inspired him. Fenelon was known to disapprove of much in the +actual government of France, and the surreptitious publication of +_Telemaque_ completed his disgrace. He was banished from court and +confined to his diocese, in which he accordingly spent the last part of +his life, doing his best to alleviate the misery caused on the borders +by the war of the Spanish succession, and dying at Cambray in 1715. + +Fenelon was an industrious writer. Few of his finished sermons have been +preserved; but these are excellent, as are also his fables written for +the Duke de Bourgogne, his already-mentioned _Education des Filles_, and +his _Dialogues des Morts_, also written for the Duke, in which the form +is borrowed from Lucian, but in which moral lessons are substituted for +mere satire. Like Bossuet, Fenelon was a Cartesian, and his _Traite de +l'Existence de Dieu_ is a philosophico-religious work of no small merit. +In literary history he is remarkable for having directly opposed the +victorious work of Boileau. He has left several exercises in literary +criticism, such as his _Lettre sur les Occupations de l'Academie +Francaise_, one of the latest of his works; his _Dialogues sur +l'Eloquence_, and a contribution to the famous dispute of ancients and +moderns in correspondence with La Motte. He regretted the impoverishment +of the language, and the loss of much of the energy and picturesque +vigour of the sixteenth century. In his controversy with Bossuet, though +the matter is not strictly literary, there is, as has been noticed, much +admirable literary work; but his chief claim to a place in literary +history is, of course, _Telemaque_, which work he had anticipated by the +somewhat similar _Aventures d'Aristonous_. It has often been regretted +that classics in any language should be used for purposes of instruction +in the rudiments, and hardly any single work has suffered more from this +practice than _Telemaque_, for learners of French are usually set to +read it long before they have any power of literary appreciation. A +continuous narrative, moreover, is about the least suited of all +literary forms to bear that process of cutting up in short pieces which +is necessary in education. The pleasure of the story is either lost +altogether, or anticipated by surreptitious reading on the part of the +pupil, after which the mechanical plodding through matter of which he +has already exhausted the interest is disgusting enough. Yet it can +hardly be doubted that if _Telemaque_ had not, in the case of most +readers, this fatal disadvantage, its beauties would be generally +acknowledged. Its form is somewhat artificial, and the author has, +perhaps, not escaped the error of most moral fiction writers, that of +making his hero too much of a model of what ought to be, and too little +of a copy of what is. But the story is excellently managed, the various +incidents are drawn with remarkable vividness and picturesqueness, the +descriptions are uniformly excellent, and the style is almost +impeccable. Even were the moral sentiments and the general tendency of +the book less excellent than they are, its value as a model of French +composition would probably have secured it something like its present +place side by side with La Fontaine's Fables as a school-book. It is +fair to add that in the character of Calypso, where the need of the +author for a 'terrible example' freed him from his restraints, very +considerable powers of character-drawing are shown, and the same may be +said of not a few of the minor personages. + +[Sidenote: Massillon.] + +The third greatest name of the period in this class of men of letters +is beyond all question that of Massillon. He, like Fenelon, belongs to +the second, if not the third, generation of the Siecle de Louis +Quatorze, being nearly forty years younger than Bossuet. He was a long +liver, and his death did not occur till far into the reign of Louis XV., +when the reputation of Voltaire was established, and the +eighteenth-century movement was in full swing. But his literary and +oratorical activity had ceased for nearly a quarter of a century at the +time of his death. Jean Baptiste Massillon[281] was a native of Hieres, +and was born on June 24, 1663. His father was a notary, and he himself +was destined for the same profession; but his vocation for the Church +was strong, and he was at last permitted to enter the Oratorian +Congregation. His aptitude for preaching was soon discovered, and when +very young he distinguished himself by _Oraisons Funebres_ on the +archbishops of Lyons and Vienne. He was of a retiring disposition, and, +wishing to avoid publicity, joined a stricter order than that of the +Oratory, but was induced, and indeed ordered, by the Cardinal de +Noailles, who heard him preach in his new abode, not to hide his light +under a bushel, but to come to Paris and do the Church service. He +obeyed, and was established in the capital in 1696. His fame soon became +great, and he preached before the king more than one course of sermons. +He was appointed bishop of Clermont in 1717, and in the same year +preached the celebrated _Petit Careme_, or course of Lent sermons, +before Louis XV. In 1719 he was elected of the Academy. He preached his +last sermon at Paris in 1723, and then retired to his diocese, where he +spent the last twenty years of his life, dying of apoplexy at the age of +eighty, Sept. 28, 1742. + +Massillon has usually, and justly, been considered the greatest +preacher, in the strict sense of the word, of France. Only Bossuet and +Bourdaloue could contest this position; and though both preceded him, +and he owed much to both, he excels both in sermons properly so called. +Bossuet was, perhaps, a greater orator, if the finest parts of his work +only are taken; but he was, as has been said, unequal, and in the two +great objects of the preacher, exposition of doctrine and effect upon +the consciences of his hearers, he was admittedly inferior to Massillon. +The latter, moreover, has, of all French preachers (for Fenelon, it must +be remembered, has left but few sermons), the purest style, and +possesses the greatest range. His special function was considered to be +persuasion; yet few pulpit orators have managed the sterner parts of +their duty more forcibly. Massillon's sermon on the Prodigal Son, and +that on the Deaths of the Just and the Unjust, are models of his style. +It is, moreover, very much to his credit that he was the most +uncompromising, despite his gentleness, of all the great preachers of +the time, and, therefore, the least popular at court. Louis the +Fourteenth's famous epigram, to the effect that other preachers made him +contented with them, but Massillon made him discontented with himself, +was somewhat comically illustrated by the fact that, after the second +course of sermons preached before him, that of Lent 1704, the preacher, +though then in the very height of his powers, was never asked again to +preach at court. We are, however, more concerned with the manner than +with the matter of his orations. He had (after the example of +Bourdaloue, it is true) entirely discarded the frippery of erudition +with which most of his predecessors had been wont to load their sermons, +as well as the occasional oddities of gesticulation and anecdote which +had once been fashionable. His style is simple, straightforward, and yet +extremely elegant. In the commonplaces of French literary history of the +old school he is called the Racine of the pulpit, a compliment +determined by the extreme purity and elegance of his style, but not +otherwise very applicable, inasmuch as one chief characteristic of +Massillon is an energy and masculine vigour of expression in which +Racine is, for the most part, wanting. + +[Sidenote: Bourdaloue.] + +If we have postponed Bourdaloue to Massillon, despite the order of +chronology, it has been in accordance with Bourdaloue's own remark when +Massillon made his first reputation, 'He must increase, but I must +decrease.' This remark is characteristic of the disposition of the man, +which was as stainless as Massillon's own. Louis Bourdaloue was born at +Bourges on the 20th August, 1632, and was thus not many years the junior +of Bossuet. He entered the Society of Jesus early, and served it as +professor of philosophy and kindred subjects. But his superiors soon +discovered his talents as a preacher, and he was sent to make his way +before the court, where he became a great favourite, especially with +Madame de Sevigne, who was no mean critic. He died in 1704. + +The chief characteristic of Bourdaloue's eloquence is a remarkable +absence of ornament, and a strict adherence to dialectical order. None +of the great French preachers admit of logical abstraction and _precis_ +so well as he. Another peculiarity is his preference for ethical +subjects. More than any of his contemporaries he was an expounder of +Christian morality, and his sermons are wont to deal with simple virtues +and vices rather than with points of devotional piety. He was, like +Massillon, and even more than Massillon, absolutely fearless and +uncompromising, preaching against adultery in the very face of Louis +XIV. in his early days, and sparing no vice or folly of the court. But, +perhaps owing to the somewhat severe and exclusively intellectual +character of his oratory, it does not appear to have produced the +effects, salutary doubtless for the hearers, but somewhat inconvenient +for the preacher, which attended the more cunningly-aimed attacks of +Massillon. + +The example of the three great preachers--Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and +Massillon--raised up many imitators, some of whom, such as De la Rue, +Cheminais, and others, were popular in their day. There are, however, +four orators--two Roman Catholics, and two belonging to the French +Protestant Church--to whom is usually and rightly accorded the second +rank, while sectarian partiality sometimes claims even the first for +them. These were Flechier, Mascaron, Claude, and Saurin. + +[Sidenote: Minor Preachers.] + +Esprit Flechier was born at Pesmes in 1632. For a time he was a member +of the congregation of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine, which, +however, on an alteration of its constitution by a new superior-general +(he had been introduced to it by his uncle, who held that office), he +quitted. He then went to Paris and tried various methods of gaining a +livelihood, such as writing verses in Latin and French, and teaching in +a school. In these early days he indulged in various forms of +miscellaneous literature. The most curious and interesting of these +works is a little account of the _Grands Jours d'Auvergne_, a sort of +provincial assize which he visited. This has much liveliness, and the +sketches of character and manners show a good deal of skill. But at +length he found his proper sphere in the pulpit. He acquired reputation +by his _Oraison Funebre_ on Turenne. He became a member of the Academy +(being admitted on the same day as Racine); and he was appointed, first, +to the bishopric of Lavaur, then to that of Nimes, where, in a very +difficult position (for the revocation of the edict of Nantes had +exasperated the Protestants, who were numerous in the diocese), he made +himself universally beloved. He died in 1710. The most famous of +Flechier's discourses are those on Madame de Montausier (the heroine of +the _Guirlande de Julie_[282] and the idol of the Hotel de Rambouillet), +that on Madame de Montausier's husband, and that on Turenne. Flechier +represents a somewhat older style of diction and expression than either +of his great contemporaries, Bossuet and Bourdaloue; and his style, +unlike some other work of this older school, is not characterised by +many striking occasional phrases, but his sermons as a whole are +vigorous and well expressed. + +Jean Mascaron was born at Marseilles in 1634. It is worth noticing that +almost all these orators came from the south of France. He preached +frequently before the king, and did not hesitate to rebuke his vices, +notwithstanding or because of which he was appointed to the bishopric of +Tulle, whence he was afterwards translated to Agen. He died in 1703. +Mascaron is chiefly remembered for his _Oraison_ on that same death of +Turenne which gave occasion to so many orators. He is usually reproached +with a certain affectation of style, and there is justice in the +reproach. + +Of the two Protestant divines who have been mentioned Claude was the +less distinguished, though he sustained on pretty even terms a public +controversy with Bossuet himself. Jacques Saurin was of less political +influence with his own sect, but he possessed greater eloquence, and +critics of his own persuasion in France and Switzerland have equalled +him to Bossuet. His works, moreover, long continued to be the most +popular body of household divinity with French Protestants. He was born +at Nimes, 1677, and was thus considerably younger even than Massillon. +The revocation of the edict of Nantes (which had formed the subject of +some of Claude's most famous discourses) prevented him from making a +name for himself in France. He was at first appointed, in 1701, after +studying at Geneva, to a Walloon congregation in London, but soon moved, +in consequence of weak health, to the Hague. He there became a victim of +the petty dissensions which seem to have been more frequent among Dutch +Protestant sects than anywhere else, and to the vexation of these is +said to have been partly due his comparatively early death in 1730. He +left a very considerable number of sermons and some theological +treatises. He was admittedly a great orator, excelling in striking +pictures and forcible imagery. + +It will have been observed that, though this age contributes more to +theology of the literary kind than almost any other, its most memorable +contributions are almost exclusively oratorical. Incidentally, however, +much that was intended to be read, not heard, was of course written. But +less of it has been thought worthy the attention of posterity. The chief +theological names in this department have already been named in naming +those of the other. Of the school of Port Royal, who preached little but +wrote much, J. J. Duguet, a man of great talent and saintly life, +deserves mention. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[279] Bossuet's works are extremely voluminous. The most important of +them are easily obtainable in the _Collection Didot_ and similar +libraries. + +[280] There is a fairly representative edition of Fenelon in five vols. +large 8vo. Didot. Separate works are easily accessible. + +[281] Edition as in Fenelon's case. Selections of all the orthodox +sermon-writers are abundant. + +[282] This was an album to which the poets of the day, from Corneille +downwards, contributed verses, each on a different flower. + + + + +INTERCHAPTER III. + +SUMMARY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE. + + +The tendencies of the period which has been surveyed in the foregoing +book must be sufficiently obvious from the survey itself. They had been, +as far as the unsatisfactory result of them went, indicated with +remarkably prophetic precision by Regnier in lines quoted above[283]. +The work, not merely of Malherbe, which the satirist had directly in +view, but of Boileau, who succeeded Malherbe and completed his task, had +tended far too much in the direction of substituting a formal regularity +for an elastic freedom and of discouraging the more poetical utterances +of thought. In prose, however, the operation of not dissimilar +tendencies had been almost wholly good. For it is in the nature of prose +not to admit of too absolute regulation, and it is at the same time in +its nature to require that regulation up to a certain point. If the +French vocabulary had been somewhat impoverished, it had been +considerably refined. All good authorities admit that the influence of +the salon-coteries and the _precieuses_--mischievous as it was in some +ways--was of no small benefit in purifying not merely manners but +speech. A single book, the _Historiettes_ of Tallemant des Reaux, shows +sufficiently the need of this double purification. French literature has +at no time been distinguished by prudery, but from the fifteenth to the +middle of the seventeenth century (for, as has been pointed out, the +courtly literature at least of the middle ages is free from this defect) +it had added to its liberty in choice and treatment of subjects a +liberty which amounted to the extremest licence in the choice of words. +It had become in fact exceedingly coarse. The poetry of the Pleiade was +not as a rule open to this charge, but the early poetry and prose of the +seventeenth century must submit to it. One effect of the process of +correction and reform was a decided improvement in this matter. + +But the vocabulary was by no means the only thing that underwent +revision. Other constituents of literature shared in the same +experience, and much more beneficially, for the expurgation of the +dictionary was unfortunately made to involve the weeding out of many +terms which were not open to the slightest exception, and the loss of +which deprived the tongue of much of its picturesqueness. No such +concomitant defect attended the reformations in grammar which, begun by +the grammarians of the sixteenth century, were pursued still more +systematically by Vaugelas and his followers. There can hardly be too +much precision observed in matters of accidence and syntax; while it is +desirable that the vocabulary should be as rich as possible, provided +that its terms are vernacular or properly naturalised. The same may be +said of some at least of the reforms of Malherbe in prosody and the +minutiae of poetical art. So too the advance made to something like a +uniform orthography was of no small importance. The result of this +general criticism was the group (or rather groups, for they may be +divided into at least two, the earlier comprising Descartes, Corneille, +Pascal, Saint Evremond, La Rochefoucauld, Bossuet, Madame de Sevigne, La +Fontaine, and Moliere, in other words, most of the greatest names) +illustrating the so-called _Grand Siecle_, or Siecle de Louis Quatorze. +The two names that stand first in this list, Descartes and Corneille, +represent at once the initial change and in addition the greatest +accomplishment in the direction of change effected by any individual. +The others worthily followed where they led. This group, as has been +more than once pointed out, does not shine in poetry proper. But it has +hardly a rival in prose and in that measured and declamatory or easy and +pedestrian verse which is half prose, half poetry. + +Long, however, before the century ended, the evils which invariably +attend upon a critical period, especially--it is paradoxical but +true--when it is at the same time a period of considerable creative +power, began to manifest themselves. These evils may be briefly +described as the natural results of the drawing up of too straight and +definite rules for each department of literature, and the following with +too great exactness of the more brilliant examples in each kind. The one +practice leads to what is called, in Sterne's well-known phrase, +'looking at the stop-watch;' the other, to an endeavour to be like +somebody. It was not till the eighteenth century that these evils were +fully patent; and then, though they were somewhat mitigated in +departments other than the Belles Lettres by the eager spirit of enquiry +and adventure which characterised the time, they are evident enough. The +mischief showed itself in various ways. Besides the two which have been +already indicated, there was a third and subtler form, which has +produced some curious and interesting work, but which is obviously an +indication of decadence. Those who did not resign themselves to the mere +recasting of old material in the old moulds, or to simple following of +the great models, were apt to echo, aloud or silently, La Bruyere's +opening sentence, 'tout est dit,' and to draw from this discouraging +fact the same conclusion that he did--that the only way to innovate was +to vary in cunning fashion the manners of saying. In itself there might +be no great harm in the conclusion, especially if it had led to a revolt +against the narrow limits imposed by current criticism. But it did not, +it only led to an attempt to innovate within those limits, which could +only be done by a kind of new 'preciousness'--an affectation in short. +This affectation showed itself first (though La Bruyere himself is not +quite free from it, enemy of Fontenelle as he was) in Fontenelle, who +was a descendant of the old _precieuse_ school itself, and reached a +climax in the author from whose name it thenceforward took its name of +_Marivaudage_. + +Thus the literary produce of the seventeenth century was better than its +tendency. The latter has been sufficiently described; a very few words +will suffice for the former. In the special characteristics of the +genius of French, which may be said to be clearness, polish of form and +expression, and a certain quality which perhaps cannot be so well +expressed by any other word as by alertness, the best work of the +seventeenth century has no rivals. Except in Corneille and Bossuet, it +is not often grand, it is still seldomer passionate, or suggestively +harmonious, or quaintly humorous, or even picturesquely narrative. But +the charm of precision, of elegance, of expressing what is expressed in +the best possible manner, belongs to it in a supreme degree. There are +not many things in literature more absolutely incapable of improvement +in their own style, and as far as they go, than a scene of Moliere, a +_tirade_ of Racine, a maxim of La Rochefoucauld, a letter of Madame de +Sevigne, a character of La Bruyere, a peroration of Massillon, when each +is at his or her best. The reader may in some cases feel that he likes +something else better, but he is incapable of pointing out a blemish. If +he objects, he must object to something extra-literary, to the writer's +conception of human nature, his political views, his range of thought, +his selection of subject. When the one supreme question of criticism +formulated by Victor Hugo, 'l'ouvrage est-il bon ou est-il mauvais?' +(not 'aimez-vous l'ouvrage?' which is the illegitimate question which +nine critics out of ten put to themselves), is set in reference to the +best work of this time, the answer cannot be dubious for one moment in +the case of any one qualified to give an answer at all. It is good, and +in very many cases it could not possibly be better. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[283] p. 267. + + + + +BOOK IV. + +THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +POETS. + + +[Sidenote: Literary Degeneracy of the Eighteenth Century.] + +The literature of the eighteenth century, despite the many great names +which adorn it, and the extraordinary practical influence which it +exercised, is, from the point of view of strict literary criticism, +which busies itself with form rather than matter, a period of decadence. +In all the departments of Belles Lettres a servile imitation of the +models of the great classical period is observable. The language, +according to an inevitable process which the more clearsighted of the +men of Louis the Fourteenth's time, such as Fenelon and La Bruyere, +themselves foresaw and deprecated, became more and more incapable of +expressing deep passion, varied scenery, the intricacies and +eccentricities of character. For a time a few survivors of the older +class and manner, such as Fontenelle, Saint Simon, Massillon, resisted +the tendency of the age more or less successfully. As they one by one +dropped off, the militant energy of the great _philosophe_ movement, +which may be said to coincide with the second and third quarters of the +century, communicated a temporary brilliance to prose. But during the +reign of Louis XVI., the Revolution and the Empire (for in the widest +sense the eighteenth century of literature does not cease till the +Restoration, or even later), the average literary value of what is +written in French is but small, and, with few exceptions, what is +valuable belongs to those who, consciously or unconsciously, were in an +attitude of revolt, and were clearing the way for the men of 1830. + +[Sidenote: especially manifest in Poetry.] + +Poetry and the drama naturally suffered most from this course of events, +and poetry pure and simple suffered even more than the drama. By the +opening of the eighteenth century epic and lyric in the proper sense had +been rendered nearly impossible by the full and apparently final +adoption of the conception of poetry recommended by Malherbe, and +finally rendered orthodox by Boileau. The impossibility was not +recognised, and France, in the opinion of her own critics, at last got +her epic poem in the _Henriade_, and her perfect lyrists in Rousseau and +Lebrun. But posterity has not ratified these judgments. Fortunately, +however, the men of the eighteenth century had in La Fontaine a model +for lighter work which their principles permitted them to follow, and +the irresistible attractions of the song left song-writers tolerably +free from the fatal restrictions of dignified poetry. Once, towards the +close of the century, a poet of exceptional genius, Andre Chenier, +showed what he might have done under happier circumstances. But for the +most part the history of poetry during this time in France is the +history of verse almost uninspired by the poetic spirit, and destitute +even of the choicer graces of poetic form. + +[Sidenote: J. B. Rousseau.] + +For convenience' sake it will be well to separate the graver and the +lighter poets, and to treat each in order, with the proviso that in most +cases those mentioned in the first division have some claim to figure in +the second also, for few poets of the time were wholly serious. The +first poet who is distinctively of the eighteenth century, and not the +least remarkable, was Jean Baptiste Rousseau[284] (1669-1741). +Rousseau's life was a singular and rather an unfortunate one. In the +first place he was exiled for a piece of scandalous literature, of which +in all probability he was quite guiltless; and, in the second, meeting +in his exile with Voltaire, who professed (and seems really to have +felt) admiration for him, he offended the irritable disciple and was +long the butt of his attacks. Here, however, Rousseau concerns us as a +direct pupil of Boileau, who, with great faculties for the formal part +of poetry, and not without some tincture of its spirit, set himself to +be a lyric poet after Boileau's fashion. He tried play-writing also, but +his dramas are quite unimportant. Rousseau's principal works are certain +odes, most of which are either panegyrical after the fashion of the +celebrated Namur specimen (though he is seldom so absurd as his master), +or else sacred and drawn from the Bible. The _Cantates_ are of the same +kind as the latter. These elaborate and formal works, which owed much of +their popularity to the vogue given to piety at court in the later years +of Louis XVI., are curiously contrasted with the third principal +division of his poems, consisting of epigrams which allow themselves the +full epigrammatic licence in subject and treatment. The contrast is, +however, probably due to a very simple cause, the state of demand at the +time, and perhaps also to the study of Marot, the only pre-seventeenth +century poet of France who was allowed to pass muster in the school of +Boileau. Rousseau's merits have been already indicated, and his defects +may be easily divined, even from this brief notice. He is almost always +adroit, often eloquent, sometimes remarkably clever; but he is seldom +other than artificial, never passionate, and only once or twice sublime. +Nor is it superfluous to mention that he is more responsible than any +other person for the intolerable frippery of classical mythology which +loads eighteenth-century verse. + +La Motte-Houdart (1672-1731), a successful dramatist, an excellent +prose-writer, and an ingenious but paradoxical critic, was at the time +considered Rousseau's rival in point of ode-making. His work displays +the same defects in a greater and the same merits in a lesser degree, +but his fables in the style of La Fontaine are not unhappy. +Lagrange-Chancel, a partisan of the Duchess du Maine, is chiefly famous +for his ferocious satires on the Duke of Orleans. Louis Racine +(1692--1763), undeterred by his father's reputation and the dissuasion +of the redoubtable Boileau, attempted poetry of a serious kind. He was +brought up by the Jansenists, and his two chief works are poems on +'Grace' and 'Religion.' The latter is better than the former; but both +exhibit a considerable faculty in the style of verse which his father +had made fashionable. The 'Sacred Odes' of Louis Racine are, like most +French poetry of the kind, stiff with a double mannerism, literary and +devotional. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire.] + +It would not be easy to give a clearer idea of the strange conception of +poetry which prevailed in France at this time than is given in the +simple statement that Voltaire was acknowledged to be its greatest poet. +It is probable that few Englishmen think of Voltaire as a poet at all; +and he has indeed no claim to the title except such as may be derived +from his remarkable skill in the mechanism of the art of poetry, and +from the extraordinary felicity of his light occasional pieces. It is, +however, as a poet that he was chiefly regarded by his contemporaries; +and though he will figure in almost every one of the chapters of this +book, such brief notice of his life as can alone be attempted in this +volume may best be given here. He was born in Paris in 1694, being the +younger son of a wealthy notary. The Jesuits had charge of his +education, and he very early displayed inclinations towards verse which +were not agreeable to his father. His youth seemed destined to scrapes. +He became identified with the party hostile to the Regent, and was twice +imprisoned in the Bastile (the second time in consequence of no fault of +his own), while he was at least twice bastinadoed by personal enemies. +Being sent in the suite of an ambassador to Holland, he became entangled +in a foolish love affair, and had to be hastily recalled. But by degrees +his literary talent developed itself. His first visit to the Bastile is +identified, more or less correctly, with the composition of _Oedipe_, +his second with that of the _Henriade_. After his second release he had +to go to England, and there the poem was published. He was soon enabled +to return to France, and from that time forward was careful to keep +himself out of difficulties by residing first with his friend, Madame du +Chatelet, at the remote frontier chateau of Circy, then with Frederick +II. at Berlin, then on the neutral territory of Switzerland, or close to +its border, at Les Delices and Ferney. During the whole of his long life +his literary production was incessant, and the form most congenial to +him was poetry, or at least verse. Besides the _Henriade_, his only +poem of great bulk is the scandalous burlesque epic of the _Pucelle_, +nominally imitated from Ariosto, but destitute of the poetical feeling +prominent in the _Orlando_. Voltaire's talent, however, was so much +greater in the lighter kinds of poetry than in the severer, that the +_Pucelle_ is not only more amusing, but actually better as poetry, than +the _Henriade_, the latter being stiff in plan and servilely modelled on +the classical epics, declamatory in tone, tedious in action, and +commonplace in character. Besides these two long poems Voltaire produced +an immense quantity of miscellaneous work, tales in verse, epistles in +verse, discourses in verse, satires, epigrams, _vers de societe_ of +every possible kind. These are almost invariably distinguished by the +felicity of expression--spoilt only by too close adherence to the +mannerism of the time--the brilliant wit, the keen observation which are +identified with the name of Voltaire. The number and the small +individual size of these works make it impossible to particularise them +here. But _Le Pauvre Diable_ may be specified as an almost unique +example of easy Horatian satire less conventional than most of its kind; +and the verses to the Princess Ulrique of Prussia as a model of +artificial but exquisitely polished gallantry in verse. + +[Sidenote: Descriptive Poets. Delille.] + +Le Franc de Pompignan had the misfortune to incur the enmity of +Voltaire, and has consequently borne in France the traditional ignominy +which in England hangs on certain victims of Dryden and Pope. He had, +however, some poetical talent, which was shown principally in his ode on +the death of J. B. Rousseau. The charming poem of _Ver-Vert_ (the +burlesque history of a parrot, the pet of a convent) made, and not +unjustly, the reputation of Gresset. This reputation his other poetical +works--though he wrote a comedy of much merit--failed to sustain. Saint +Lambert, the rival of Voltaire in love if not in literature, imitated +Thomson's _Seasons_ very closely in a poem of the same name, which set +the fashion of descriptive poetry in France for a considerable time. The +three most remarkable of his followers, all considerably superior to +himself in power, were Lemierre, Delille, and Roucher. Some paradoxical +critics have endeavoured to make Lemierre into a great poet; but his +poems (_La Peinture_, _Les Fastes_, etc.), written on ill-selected +subjects and in a style full of conventional mannerism, have at best the +occasional striking lines which are to be found in Armstrong and other +followers of Young or Thomson in England. Jacques Delille and his +extraordinary popularity form, perhaps, the greatest satire on the taste +of the eighteenth century in France. His translation of the Georgics was +supposed to make him the equal of Virgil, and brought him not merely +fame, but solid reward. His principal work was the poem of _Les +Jardins_, which he followed up with others of a not dissimilar kind. +Though he emigrated he did not lose his fame, and to the day of his +death was considered to be the first poet of France, or to share that +honour with Lebrun-_Pindare_. Delille has expiated his popularity by a +full half-century of contempt, and his work is, indeed, valueless as +poetry. But it is interesting as one of the most striking examples of +talent, adjusting itself exactly to the demands made on it. The age of +Delille wished to see everything described in elegant periphrases, and +the periphrases arranged in harmonious verses. Delille did this and +nothing more. Chess is 'le jeu reveur qu'inventa Palamede.' Backgammon +is 'le jeu bruyant ou, le cornet en main, L'adroit joueur calcule un +hasard incertain.' Sugar is 'le miel Americain Que du suc des roseaux +exprima l'Africain.' In short, poetry becomes an elaborate conundrum; +nothing is called by its proper name when a circumlocution is in any way +possible. Given the demand, Delille may justly claim the honour of +supplying it with unequalled adroitness. Roucher, the author of _Les +Mois_, who fell a victim to the guillotine, was a member of this school, +possessing not a little vigour, though he was not free from the defects +of his predecessors. To these may, perhaps, be joined the pastoral and +idyllic poet Leonard. + +[Sidenote: Lebrun.] + +It has been said that the glory of Delille as the greatest poet of the +last quarter of the century was shared by a writer whom his +contemporaries surnamed (absurdly enough) Pindar. Escouchard Lebrun had +a strange resemblance to J. B. Rousseau, of whom, however, he was by no +means a warm admirer. Like his forerunner, he divided his time between +bombastic lyrics and epigrams of very considerable merit. Lebrun was +not destitute of a certain force, but his time was too much for him. He +was a very long-lived man, and in his old age celebrated by turns the +Republic and Bonaparte. His chief rivals as poets of the Republic were +M. J. Chenier and the hunchback Desorgues, a voluminous and vigorous but +crude and unfinished writer, who died in a madhouse at the age of +forty-five. + +Two young poets, who lived about the middle of the century, are usually +mentioned together, from the fact of the younger of them having used the +misfortunes of the elder to point his own complaints. Malfilatre, a +Norman by birth, had the ill-luck to write a piece of verse which gained +a provincial success. He at once set out for Paris to make his fortune. +He obtained the post of secretary to the Count de Lauraguais, wrote +verses not without grace and full of a certain tender melancholy, and +died at the age of thirty, his health broken by privations and +disappointment. Gilbert, a stronger man, but who has been somewhat +honoured by being called the French Chatterton, died still younger, +after writing some vigorous satire, and a 'complaint' or elegy which has +a good deal of pathos. But he did not, as is generally said, die of +want, though he did die in a public hospital, having been carried +thither after a fall from his horse. + +[Sidenote: Parny.] + +The places accorded by their contemporaries to Delille and Lebrun really +belonged to two writers of very different character and fortune, Parny +and Andre Chenier. Evariste de Parny, a native of the island of Bourbon, +was called by the aged Voltaire 'mon cher Tibulle,' and displays, with +much of the frivolity and false gallantry of the time, an extraordinary +command of simple elegiac verse, and a manner almost antique in its +simplicity and sweetness. Parny's best piece, a short epitaph on a young +girl, is one of the best things of its kind in literature. His merits, +however, are confined to his early works. In his maturer years he wrote +long poems, on the model of the _Pucelle_, against England, +Christianity, and Monarchism, which are equally remarkable for +blasphemy, obscenity, extravagance, and dulness. His friend Bertin, like +him a creole, resembled him in the command of graceful elegiac and +epistolary verse, but had not what Parny sometimes had, genuine +passion. + +[Sidenote: Chenier.] + +Andre Marie de Chenier[285], beyond question the greatest poet of the +eighteenth century in France, was born at Constantinople, where his +father was consul-general, in 1762. His mother was a Greek. His family +returned to France when he was a child; he was educated carefully, and +for a short time served in the army, but soon left it. After a time he +was attached (in 1787) to the French embassy in London. Here he spent +four years. Returning to France he sympathised, but on the moderate +side, with the Revolution. The growth of the Jacobin spirit horrified +him, and the excesses of the summer of 1792 decided his attitude and his +fate. He wrote frequently in the _Journal de Paris_, the organ of the +moderate royalist party. Although he did not in any way put himself +forward, he was at last arrested in March, 1794, and was guillotined on +the seventh Thermidor, two days only before the event which would have +saved him, the fall of Robespierre. His poems were not published till +long after his death, and the text of them is even now in an +unsatisfactory condition, many having been left unfinished and +uncorrected by the author. Andre Chenier is sometimes considered as a +precursor of the Romantic reform, but this is a mistake. His critical +comments on Shakespeare and other writers, his favourite studies, which +were confined to the Greek and Latin classics and the humanists of the +Italian Renaissance, above all his poems themselves, prove the contrary. +A Greek by birthplace, and half a Greek by blood, his tastes and +standards were wholly classical. But the fire and force of his poetical +genius made the blood circulate afresh in the veins of the old French +classical tradition, without, however, permanently strengthening or +renovating it. The poetry of Chenier is still in the main the poetry of +Racine, though with infinitely more glow of colour and variety of +harmony. His poems are mostly antique in their titles and plan, +eclogues, elegies, and so forth, and are not free from a certain +artificiality inseparable from the style. _La Jeune Tarentine_, _La +Jeune Captive_, _L'Aveugle_, and some others, are of extreme merit, and +all over his work (much of which is in the most fragmentary condition) +lines and phrases of extraordinary beauty are scattered. The noble +_Iambes_, or political and satirical poems, which he wrote in prison, +just before his death, bear out, perhaps better than anything else, his +well-known saying, as he touched his head when sentence had been passed, +'et pourtant il y avait quelque chose la.' + +[Sidenote: Minor Poets.] + +A few other poets or verse-makers of merit before the revival of poetry +proper must be rapidly noticed. The fable of La Fontaine was cultivated +vigorously, in particular by Florian, a favourite pupil of Voltaire, who +will reappear in these pages. Florian's fables are graceful copies of +his master. Those of Arnault, with less grace, have more originality; +often, indeed, Arnault's short moral poems are not so much fables as +what used to be called in English 'emblems.' The most famous of these, +which of itself deserves to keep Arnault's memory green, is 'La +Feuille.' Marie Joseph Chenier, the younger brother of Andre, and, +unlike him, a fervent republican, is chiefly known as a dramatist. He +had, however, a vein of satirical verse, which was not commonplace. +Another dramatist, Andrieux, also deserves mention in passing. Superior +to either of these as a poet, and wanting only the good-fortune of +having been born a little later, was Nepomucene Lemercier, a playwright +of no small merit, and a poet of extraordinary but unequal vigour. The +_Panhypocrisiade_, a kind of satirical epic _par personnages_ (to use +the old French expression for a dramatic narrative), is his principal +work, and a very remarkable one. Last of all have to be mentioned +Fontanes and Chenedolle, who are the characteristic poets of the Empire, +with the exception of an epic school of no value. The chief importance +of Fontanes in literature is derived not from any performances of his +own, but from the fact that he was the appointed intermediary between +Napoleon and the men of letters of the time, and was able to exercise a +good deal of useful patronage. Chenedolle was in production, if not in +publication, for he published late in life, a precursor of Lamartine, +much of whose style and manner may be found in him. An amiable +appreciation of natural beauty, and a tendency to facile pathos, derived +from the contemplation of natural objects, distinguish him from his +predecessors. + +[Sidenote: Light verse. Piron.] + +[Sidenote: Desaugiers.] + +The vigorous, if not always edifying, work of the song-writers and +authors of _vers de societe_ during this century remains to be noticed. +The example of La Fontaine's tales was followed by many writers of more +talent than scruple, but their literary value is not sufficient to +entitle them to a place here. No history of French literature, however, +would be complete without a notice of Piron, the greatest epigrammatist +of France, and one of her keenest and brightest wits. Piron's temper was +an idle one, and he did little solid work in literature, except his +epigrams and one comedy, _La Metromanie_. He wrote many vaudevilles and +operettas, and no one, with the possible exception of Catullus, has ever +excelled him in the art of packing in a few light and graceful lines the +greatest possible quantity of malicious wit. Panard, also a +vaudevillist, is remarkable for the number and excellence of his +drinking songs, and the variety and melody of their rhythm. Colle, +author of amusing but spiteful memoirs, and, like Piron and Panard, a +writer of comic operettas, excelled rather in the political chanson. +Gentil Bernard, the Cardinal de Bernis, the Abbe Boufflers, and Dorat, +were all writers of _vers de societe_, the last being much the best. +Their style of writing was frivolous and conventional in the extreme, +but long practice and the vogue which it enjoyed in French society had +brought it to something like the condition of a fine art. Dorat was +surnamed by a contemporary the 'glowworm of Parnassus.' The expression +was not an unhappy one, and may be fairly applied to the other authors +who have been mentioned in his company. He himself was a rather +voluminous author in different styles. The literary baggage of the +others is not heavy. Vade, a writer of light and trifling verse, who +died comparatively young, devoted himself to composing poems in the +'poissard' dialect of Paris, which are among the best of such things. At +the close of the century, and deserving more particular notice, appeared +Desaugiers, the best light song-writer of France, with the single +exception of Beranger, and preferred to him by some critics. Desaugiers +escaped the revolution by good fortune, had a short but rather +adventurous career of foreign travel, and then settled down to +vaudeville-writing, song-making, and jovial living in Paris. He was a +great frequenter of the Caveau, a kind of irregular club of men of +letters which had been instituted by Piron and his friends, and which +long continued to be a literary and social rendezvous. Desaugiers was +the last of the older class of _Chansonniers_, who relied chiefly on +love and wine for their subjects, and who, if they touched on politics +at all, touched on them merely from the personal and satirical point of +view, with occasional indulgence in cheap patriotism. His songs have +great sweetness and ease, but they contain nothing that can compare with +Beranger in his more serious and pathetic mood[286]. + +This is a sketch, necessarily and designedly rapid, of the poetical +history of the eighteenth century in France. The matter thus rapidly +treated is of no small interest to professed students of literature; it +abounds in curious social indications; it gives frequent instances of +the extremest ingenuity applied to somewhat unworthy use. But in the +history of the literature as a whole, and to those who have to regard it +not as a collection of curiosities, but as a fruitful field of great and +noble work, it cannot but be of subordinate interest, and as such +requires but cursory treatment here[287]. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[284] Editions of almost all authors of any merit from the beginning of +the eighteenth century are common and accessible enough. They will, +therefore, not be specially indicated henceforward unless there is some +special reason for the citation, such as the peculiar elegance or +literary merit of a particular edition, or else the comparative rarity +of the book in any form. + +[285] Chenier has been somewhat unfortunate in his editors. The only +complete and accurate edition (though it is far from perfect) is that of +M. Gabriel de Chenier. 3 vols. 1879. + +[286] Excellent selections from many of these lighter poets have +recently been put forth under the editorship of M. Octave Uzanne. + +[287] Rouget de L'Isle, the author of the famous _Marseillaise_, +deserves mention for that only. He published poems, but their singular +difference from, and inferiority to, his masterpiece were the chief +causes of the scepticism (apparently ill-founded) which has sometimes +been displayed as to his authorship of it. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +DRAMATISTS. + + +[Sidenote: Divisions of Drama.] + +[Sidenote: La Motte.] + +At the beginning, and indeed during the whole course, of the eighteenth +century, the theatre continued to enjoy all the vogue which the +extraordinary brilliancy of the authors of the preceding age had +conferred on it. There were three tolerably distinct kinds of dramatic +work--tragedy, comedy, and opera--the latter either artificial or comic, +and subdividing itself into a great many classes, from the dignified +opera of the Comedie Francaise and the Comedie Italienne, down to the +vaudevilles and operettas of the so-called 'fair' theatre, _Theatre de +la Foire_. Towards the middle of the century there grew up a fourth +class, to which the not very appropriate and still less definite name of +_drame_ is applied. This was subdivided, also somewhat arbitrarily, into +_tragedie bourgeoise_ and _comedie larmoyante_. Thus the dramatic author +had considerable liberty of choice except in tragedy proper, where the +model of Racine was enforced on him with pitiless rigour. La Motte, who +was, as has been said, a brilliant writer of prose, endeavoured to break +these bonds, first, by decrying the alleged superiority of the ancients; +secondly, by attacking the theory of the unities; and, lastly, by boldly +denying the necessity of verse in tragedy, and still more the necessity +of rhyme. He was, of course, answered, and the only one of the answers +which has much interest for posterity is that which Voltaire prefixed to +the second edition of _Oedipe_. This is, as always with its author, +lively and ingenious, but ill-informed, destitute of true critical +principles, and entirely inconclusive. La Motte himself wrote a tragedy, +_Ines de Castro_, in which he did not venture to carry out his own +principles, and which had some success. But the justice of his +strictures was best shown by the increasing feebleness of French tragedy +throughout the century. Were it not for the prodigious genius of +Voltaire, not a single tragedy of the age would now have much chance of +being read, still less of being performed; and were it not for that +genius, and the unequal but still remarkable talent of Crebillon the +elder, not a single tragedy of the age would be worth reading for any +motive except curiosity, simple or studious. + +[Sidenote: Crebillon the Elder.] + +Crebillon was born in 1674, and lived to the age of eighty-nine. His +family name was Jolyot, and the most remarkable thing about his private +history is, that, being clerk to a lawyer, he was enthusiastically +encouraged by his master in his poetical attempts. His first acted +tragedy, _Idomenee_, appeared in 1703; his last, 'The Triumvirate,' more +than fifty years later. In the interval he was irregularly busy, and the +duel of tragedies, which in his old age his partisans got up between him +and Voltaire, was not entirely in favour of the more famous and gifted +writer. Crebillon's best works were _Atree_, 1707, and _Rhadamiste et +Zenobie_, 1711, the latter being his masterpiece. He had in the eyes of +the minute critics of his time some technical defects of style and +construction. But, despite the restraints of the French stage, he +succeeded in being truly tragical and truly natural; and not a few of +his verses have a grandeur which has been said to be hardly discoverable +elsewhere in French tragedy between Corneille and Hugo. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire and his followers.] + +Voltaire's own tragedies have been very differently judged by different +persons. It has been said that they owed their popularity chiefly to the +adroit manner in which, without going too far, the author made them +opportunities for insinuating the popular opinions of the time. Yet +_Zaire_ at least is still a successful and popular play on the stage; +and it is admitted that Voltaire had both a most intimate acquaintance +with the objects and methods of the playwright, and an extraordinary +affection for the theatre. If to this be added his astonishing dexterity +as a literary workman, his acuteness in discerning the taste of the +public, and his complete mastery of the language, and if it be +remembered that the classical French tragedy is almost wholly a _tour +de force_, it will appear that it would have been very surprising if he +had not succeeded in it. His tragedies, however, are by no means of +equal merit. The best is, beyond all doubt, the already-mentioned +_Zaire_, 1732, in which Voltaire took just so much from the _Othello_ of +that Shakespeare whom he was never tired of decrying as would suffice to +animate and support his own skilful workmanship. The earlier play, +_Oedipe_, 1718, was astonishingly successful, and is still +astonishingly clever. _La Mort de Cesar_, another Shakespearian +adaptation, is less happy. In _Alzire_, a play written in the time of +the poet's greatest intimacy with Madame du Chatelet, and dedicated to +her, his extraordinary talent once more appears, as also in _Le +Fanatisme_, better known as _Mahomet_, 1742. The best, however, of his +plays, next to _Zaire_, is probably _Merope_, 1743, which is a prodigy +of ingenuity. The author has deliberately eschewed the means whereby +both Corneille and Racine respectively alleviated the dryness and +dulness of the Senecan model--the heroic virtues of the one, and the +sighs and flames of the other. The play probably is the most perfect +carrying out of the model pure and simple, and its inferiority is the +inferiority of the kind, not of the individual. Indeed it may be +questioned whether, on the mere technical merits, Voltaire is not +superior to both Corneille and Racine, though he is of course very far +inferior to them as a poet, and as a draughtsman of character. Voltaire +wrote many other plays, earlier and later, of which _Tancrede_ is the +only one which requires special mention. Nor, except Crebillon, do the +tragic contemporaries and successors of Voltaire require more than very +short notice. Le Franc de Pompignan wrote a respectable _Didon_; Saurin, +who was in some sort a follower of Voltaire, a more than respectable +_Spartacus_. The subject had perhaps the chief part in the success of +the _Siege de Calais_ of Pierre Burette, who called himself De Belloy, +and who followed it up by other patriotic tragedies or dramas. But he +had the merit of attempting, though not with much success, some +innovations on the meagreness of the established model. The tragedies of +La Harpe are written throughout with the cold correctness (as +correctness was then held) which characterised his work generally. +Almost all the men of letters of this time wrote plays of this kind, but +they are for the most part valueless. Ducis is remarkable for a serious, +and to a certain extent successful, attempt to inoculate the French +tragedy with Shakespearian force. Versions of _Hamlet_, of _Macbeth_, +and other plays appeared from his hands, which were also busy during a +long life with dramatic work of all sorts. These versions have naturally +been regarded in England as mere travesties, but there seems no reason +to doubt that they really operated favourably as schoolmasters to bring +their audience somewhat nearer to dramatic truth. The classical tragedy +was indeed expiring of simple old age, and most of the names of its +practitioners, which emerge during the last quarter of the eighteenth +and the first of the nineteenth century, are those of innovators in +their measure and degree, whose innovations, however, were obliterated +and made forgotten by the great romantic reform. Marie Joseph Chenier +followed Voltaire's manner very closely (substituting for Voltaire's +bait of insinuated free-thinking that of republicanism more or less +violently expressed) in _Charles IX._, _Cyrus_, _Caius Gracchus_, _Henry +VIII._, _Tibere_, the last a work of some merit. Legouve dramatised +Gessner's _Death of Abel_ on the principles of Boileau. Nepomucene +Lemercier, the strange failure of a genius who has been already noticed +in the last chapter, produced much more remarkable work. His +_Agamemnon_, his _Fredegonde et Brunehault_ and some others display his +merits, and show that he was striving after something better. But, like +most transitional work, they are unsatisfactory as a whole. The _Hector_ +of Luce de Lancival, the _Templiers_ of Raynouard, and many other +pieces, were once popular, but are now utterly forgotten. + +[Sidenote: Lesage.] + +The list of comic writers, along with whom, for convenience' sake, those +of the authors of opera and _drame_ may be included, is far longer and +more important. It includes two men, Lesage and Beaumarchais, of +European reputation, half-a-dozen others, Destouches, Marivaux, Piron, +Gresset, Sedaine, who have produced work of remarkable character and +merit, and a crowd of clever playwrights who amused their own times, and +would amuse ours, if it were not that all comedy, save the very highest, +is of its nature ephemeral. The list is worthily opened by Lesage, who, +during the greater part of his life, earned by vaudevilles and +operettas, composed either alone or in co-operation for the Theatre de +la Foire, the bread which his incomparable novels would hardly have +sufficed to procure him. This lighter dramatic work is, it may be +observed, among the chief products of the century, and it has continued +up to the present day to form one of the staple elements in the +journey-work of French literature. Little of it has permanent qualities, +yet the remarkable talents of many of the men who composed it make it, +ephemeral as it is, interesting historically and even intrinsically. It +derived partly from the indigenous farce, partly from the Italian comedy +of stock personages, and partly from the merry-andrew performances +already mentioned. The theatres at which it was performed were the +object of much jealousy from the Comedie Francaise, and restrictions of +the most annoying kind were placed on it. Once an edict forbade more +than a single actor to appear--a condition surmounted by the ingenuity +of Piron. Sometimes it was confined to dumb show, illustrated by songs +on placards which the audience chanted. Often the audience joined in the +chorus, and it may be said generally that singing was always included. +Besides this rapid and perishable kind of work Lesage has left two +pieces in the true style of Moliere. The more extravagant and farcical +side of the master's genius is represented by _Crispin Rival de son +Maitre_, 1707, a lively piece, the subject of which is indicated by its +title, and which carries off the extreme and probably intentional +improbability of its plot by its brisk and rapid action, its vivid +pictures of character, and the shower of wit which the dialogue +everywhere pours out. _Turcaret_, 1709, is a regular comedy of the +highest merit. It has been found fault with by some French critics, +enamoured of the ruling passion and central situation theory; but this +is really a testimony to its merit. _Turcaret_ is in the strictest sense +a criticism of life at the time, and the author shows the true +prodigality of genius in filling his canvas. It is often described as a +satire on the corruption and vices of the financiers, who were the curse +of France at the time; and this it is in part. But there are combined +with this satire of the loose morals of the nobility, the follies of +provincial coteries, the meanness of the trading classes; while each +character, instead of being an abstraction, is as sharp and individual +as Gil Blas himself. Like Lesage, Piron worked much for the theatre; +indeed he made his _debut_, as has been said, by venturing on a task +which even Lesage had declined,--the writing of a comic opera with a +single actor only. Like Lesage, too, he has left one comedy of durable +reputation, _La Metromanie_, which, if it falls short of _Turcaret_ in +holding up the mirror to nature, equals it in wit, and has for a French +audience the attraction of being written in very good verse, while +_Turcaret_ is in prose. With perhaps less genius than Piron, and +certainly with less than Lesage, Destouches devoted himself to a higher +class of work on the whole, and has left more pieces that are +remembered. _Le Philosophe Marie_, 1727, and _Le Glorieux_, 1732, are +among the classics of French comedy. _Le Dissipateur_, _Le Tambour +Nocturne_, _L'Obstacle Imprevu_ have also much merit; and if _La Fausse +Agnes_ has something of the farcical in it, it is farce of the right +kind. Destouches wrote seventeen comedies; and, if bulk and general +merit of work are taken together, he deserves the first place among the +comic dramatists of the century in France. + +[Sidenote: Comedie Larmoyante. La Chaussee. Diderot.] + +In contrast to these three writers, who all followed the traditions of +the comedy of Moliere and Regnard, Nivelle de la Chaussee invented, or +at least brought into fashion, what was called _comedie larmoyante_, or +_drame_. La Chaussee was a good deal ridiculed by his contemporaries, +notably by Piron, who devoted to him some of his most admirable +epigrams. But he was popular, and not altogether undeservedly popular, +though his drama occupied in French literary history something of the +same place as that of Lillo and Moore in English. La Chaussee was +followed by a greater writer, but a worse dramatist, than himself. While +La Chaussee was a clever versifier and an adroit playwright, Diderot +understood the theory both of poetry and of the theatre much better than +he understood the practice. Thus _L'Ecole des Meres_, _La Gouvernante_, +_Le Prejuge a la Mode_ are better plays than _Le Pere de Famille_ or _Le +Fils Naturel_. It ought to be said that Diderot succeeded better in two +small pieces, _La Piece et le Prologue_ and _Est-il Bon? Est-il +Mechant?_ which were never acted. It should perhaps also be explained +that the peculiarity of what was almost indifferently called _tragedie +bourgeoise_ and _comedie larmoyante_ is the choice of possible +situations in real life, which neither of the two conventional +treatments of heroic tragedy and comedy purely comic can afford. Many +writers followed La Chaussee and Diderot. Of these the most important +perhaps was Saurin, who, not content with regular tragedy and comedy, +obtained much success with _Beverley_, an adaptation of Moore's +_Gamester_, of which Diderot wrote an unacted version. + +_L'Ecole des Bourgeois_ and _L'Embarras des Richesses_, by D'Allainval, +one of the few French writers who experienced the privations of their +English contemporaries in Grub Street, are good pieces, and so are the +short _La Pupille_ and the _Originaux_ of Fagan, a clerk in the public +service, who, like Lesage and Piron (Colle and Panard may be added), +wrote vaudevilles, _parades_, etc. for the Theatre de la Foire. In the +titles of most of these pieces the close following of Moliere, which was +usual, and wisely usual, during the first half of the century, may be +noticed. + +[Sidenote: Marivaux.] + +The same tradition is observed in one of the best comedies of the +century, the _Mechant_ of Gresset, which, like his poem of _Ver-Vert_, +had a great success, and deserved it, being equally good as literature +and as drama. Marivaux, without, perhaps, attaining as positive an +excellence, was more original, and very much more productive. The +fullest edition of his dramatic works contains thirty-two pieces, and +even this is not complete. Several of them, _Le Jeu de l'Amour et du +Hasard_, 1730, _Le Legs_, 1736, _Les Fausses Confidences_, 1737, have +continued to be popular. All the work of Marivaux, dramatic and +non-dramatic, is pervaded more or less by a peculiarity which at the +time received the name of Marivaudage. This peculiarity consists partly +in the sentiment, and partly in the phraseology. The former is +characteristic of the eighteenth century, disguising a considerable +affectation under a mask of simplicity, and the latter (sparkling with +abundant, if somewhat precious wit) is ingeniously constructed to suit +it and carry it off. + +Of the three greatest literary names of the time, Diderot, it has been +seen, tried the theatre not too happily. Voltaire, as successful in +tragedy as his models permitted him to be, was not successful at all in +comedy, and, indeed, rarely tried it. His best piece, _Nanine_, a +dramatisation of _Pamela_, or at least suggested by it, is chiefly +remarkable for being written in decasyllabic verse. The third, Rousseau, +who lived to denounce the theatre, wrote a short operetta, _Le Devin du +Village_, which is not without merit. Desmahis, a protege of Voltaire, +produced, in 1750, a good comedy, _L'Impertinent_, on a small scale; and +La Noue, another of his favourites (for he was as indulgent to his +juniors as he was jealous of men of his own standing), the _Coquette +Corrigee_. A third member of the same class, Saurin, already twice +mentioned, must be mentioned again, and still more deservedly, for _Les +Moeurs du Temps_. The best dramatists, however, among the immediate +followers of the _Philosophes_ were Sedaine and Marmontel. Sedaine is, +indeed, with the possible exception of Beaumarchais, the best dramatist +of the last half of the century. _Le Philosophe sans le Savoir_, 1765, +and _La Gageure Imprevue_, 1768, are both admirable pieces. The author, +like many of his predecessors, was a constant worker for the Opera +Comique, and one of the best of the class. Marmontel also adopted this +line of composition, to which the musical talent of Gretry gave, at the +time, great advantages. His best light dramatic work is a kind of comedy +vaudeville, the _Ami de la Maison_. + +[Sidenote: Beaumarchais.] + +Beyond all doubt, however, the most remarkable, if not the best, +dramatist of the late eighteenth century is Beaumarchais. Some critics +have seen in the enormous success of the _Barbier de Seville_, 1775, and +the _Mariage de Figaro_, 1784, nothing but a _succes de circonstance_ +connected with the political ideas which were then fermenting in men's +minds. This seems to be unjust, or rather it is unjust not to recognise +something very like genius in the manner in which the author has +succeeded in shaping his subject, without choosing a specially political +one, so as to produce the effect acknowledged. The wit of these two +plays, moreover, is indisputable. But it may be allowed that +Beaumarchais' other productions are inferior, and that his _Memoires_, +which are not dramatic at all, contain as much wit as the Figaro plays. +As a satirist of society and a contributor of illustrations to history, +Beaumarchais must always hold a very high place, higher perhaps than as +an artist in literature. Of his life, it is enough to say that he was +born in 1731; became music master to the daughters of Louis XV.; engaged +in a law-suit, the subject of the _Memoires_, with some high legal +functionaries; made a fortune by speculating and by contracts in the +American war, and lost it by further speculations, one of which was the +preparation of a sumptuous edition of Voltaire. Besides the Figaro +plays, his chief dramatic works are _Eugenie_, _Les Deux Amis_, and +lastly, _La Mere Coupable_, in which the characters of his two famous +works reappear. + +After Beaumarchais, but few comic authors demand mention. Collin +d'Harleville, one of the pleasantest writers of light comedies in verse, +produced _Les Chateaux en Espagne_, _L'Inconstant_, _L'Optimiste_, and +_Le Vieux Celibataire_, 1792, all sparkling pieces, which only need +freeing from the restraints of rhyme. Andrieux, the author of _Les +Etourdis_, 1787, _Le Tresor_, _Le Vieux Fat_, and others, has something +of the same character. Nepomucene Lemercier distinguished himself in +comedy, chiefly by _Plaute_, in irregular verse, and by a comedy-drama, +_Pinto_, in prose. These have his usual characteristics of somewhat +spasmodic genius. Fabre d'Eglantine, the companion of Danton and Camille +Desmoulins on the scaffold, is better remembered for his death than for +his life. But his _Intrigue Epistolaire_ and _Philinte de Moliere_ shew +talent. _Le Sourd_, by Desforges, is an amusing play. + +[Sidenote: Characteristics of Eighteenth-century Drama.] + +It will be seen that the positive achievements of drama during this +period were considerably superior to those of poetry. The tragedies of +Voltaire are prodigies of literary cleverness. In comedy proper Lesage +produced work of enduring value; Destouches, Marivaux, Piron, Gresset, +and some others, work which does not require any very great indulgence +to entitle it to the name, in the right sense, of classical; +Beaumarchais, work which is indissolubly connected with great historical +events, and which is not unworthy the connection. Moreover, as a matter +of general literary history, the drama during this time displays +numerous evidences of life and promise, as well as of decadence. The +gradual recognition of the vaudeville as a separate literary kind gave +occasion to much work, the ephemeral character of which should not be +allowed to obscure its real literary excellence, and founded a school +which is still living and flourishing with by no means simulated life. +The attempt of La Chaussee and Diderot to widen the range and break down +the barriers of legitimate drama was premature, and not altogether well +directed; but it was the forerunner of the great and durable reaction of +nearly a century later. Still the actual dramatic accomplishment of this +period, though in many ways interesting, and to a certain extent +positively valuable, is not of the first class. It is made up either of +clever imitations and variations of modes which had already been +expressed with greater perfection, and with far greater genius, by the +preceding century, or of what may be fairly called dramatic +pamphleteering, or else of tentative and immature experiments in reform, +which came to nothing, or to very little, for the time being. Even its +most gifted practitioners regarded it as a kind of journey-work, which +was understood to lead to honour and profit, rather than as an art, in +which honour and profit, if not entirely to be ignored, are altogether +secondary considerations. Hence, in a lesser degree, the drama of the +eighteenth century shares the same disadvantage which has been noted as +characterising its poetry. Its value is a value of curiosity chiefly, a +relative value. Indeed, as a mere mechanical art, drama sank even lower +than poetry proper ever sank; and for fifty years at least before the +romantic revival it may be doubted whether a single play was written, +the destruction of which need greatly grieve even the most sensitive and +appreciative student of French literary history. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +NOVELISTS. + + +The peculiarity of the eighteenth century in France as regards +literature----that is to say, the application of great talents to almost +every branch of literary production without the result of a distinct +original growth in any one department----is nowhere more noticeable than +in the department of prose fiction[288]. The names of Lesage, Prevost, +Marivaux, Voltaire, Rousseau, are deservedly recorded among the list of +the best novel writers. Yet, with the exception of _Manon Lescaut_, +which for the time had no imitators, of the great works of Lesage which, +admirable in execution, were by no means original in conception, and of +the exquisite but comparatively insignificant variety of the prose +_Conte_, of which Voltaire was the chief practitioner, nothing in the +nature of a masterpiece, still less anything in the nature of an +epoch-making work, was composed. The example of _Manon_ was left for the +nineteenth century to develop, the others either died out (the adventure +romance, after Lesage's model, flourishing brilliantly in England, but +hardly at all in France), or else were subordinated to a purpose, the +purpose of advocating _philosophe_ views, or of pandering to the not +very healthy cravings of an altogether artificial society. Yet, so far +as merely literary merits are concerned, few branches of literature were +more fertile than this during the period. + +[Sidenote: Lesage.] + +The first, and on the whole, the most considerable name of the century +in fiction is that of the author of _Gil Blas_. Alain Rene Lesage was +born at Sarzeau, near Vannes, on the 8th of May, 1668, and died at +Boulogne on the 17th of November, 1747. He was bred a lawyer, and should +have had a fair competence, but, being early left an orphan, was +deprived of most of his property by the dishonesty of his guardian. He +married young, moreover, and, unlike most of the prominent men of +letters of his day, never seems to have enjoyed any solid patronage or +protection from any powerful man or woman. This is indeed sufficiently +accounted for by anecdotes which exist showing his extreme independence +of character. Like most men of talent in such circumstances, he turned, +though not very early, to literature, and began by a translation of the +'Letters' of Aristaenetus. No great success could have awaited him in +this line, and perhaps the greatest stroke of good-fortune in his life +was the suggestion of the Abbe de Lyonne that he should turn his +attention to Spanish literature, a suggestion which was not made more +unpalatable by the present of a small annuity. He translated the 'New +Don Quixote' of Avellaneda (than which he might have found a better +subject), and he adapted freely plays from Rojas, Lope de Vega, and +Calderon. It was not, however, till he was nearly forty that he produced +anything of real merit. The _Diable Boiteux_ appeared in 1707, and was +at once popular. Still Lesage did not desert the stage, and the +production of his admirable comedy _Turcaret_ ought to have secured him +success there. But the Comedie Francaise was at that time more under the +influence of clique than at any other time of its history; and Lesage, +disgusted with the treatment he received from it, gave himself up +entirely to writing farces and operettas for the minor theatres, and to +prose fiction. _Gil Blas_, his greatest work, originally appeared in +1715, but was not completed till twenty years later. He also +wrote--besides one or two bright but trifling minor works of a +fictitious character, _La Valise Trouvee_ (a letter-bag supposed to be +picked up), _Une Journee des Parques_, a keen piece of Lucianic satire, +etc.--many other romances in the same general style as his great works, +and more or less borrowed from Spanish originals. The chief of these are +_Guzman d'Alfarache_, _Estevanille Gonzalez_, _Le Bachelier de +Salamanque_, and a curious Defoe-like book entitled _Vie et Aventures de +M. de Beauchene_. In his old age he retired to the house of his second +son, who held a canonry at Boulogne, and resided there for some years, +until, in 1747, he died in his eightieth year. His works have hitherto +been very insufficiently collected and edited. + +_Le Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_ are far the greatest of Lesage's +romances, and, as it happens, they are the most original, little except +the starting-point being borrowed in the one case, and nothing but a few +detached details in the other. Lesage was, however, true to the general +spirit of his model, the picaroon romance of Spain, a kind of Roman +d'Aventures transported from the days and conventional conditions of +chivalry to those of ordinary but still adventurous life in the +Peninsula. The directly satirical intention predominates in the _Diable +Boiteux_, the more purely narrative faculty in _Gil Blas_. In both the +piercing observation of human character, which Lesage possessed in a +greater degree perhaps than any other French writer, appears, and so +does his remarkable power of making the results of this observation live +and move. No French writer is so little of a mere Frenchman as Lesage, +and in this point of cosmopolitan humanity he may be compared, without +extravagance, in kind if not in degree, to Shakespeare. Besides his +skill in character-drawing, and his faculty of spicing his narrative +with epigram, Lesage also possessed extraordinary narrative ability. His +books are not remarkable for what is called plot, that is to say, the +action rather continues indefinitely in a straight line than converges +on a given and definite point. But this continuance is so adroitly +managed that no break is felt, and the succession very seldom becomes +tedious. The novel of Lesage is the immediate parent and pattern of that +of Fielding and Smollett in England. It is somewhat remarkable that it +had no successors of importance or merit in France. This is probably to +be accounted for by the cosmopolitan tone which has been already +remarked upon. Indeed Lesage, as a rule, has had less justice done to +him by his countrymen than any other of their great writers. Yet his +style, looked at merely from the point of view of art, is excellent, and +perhaps superior to that of any of his contemporaries properly so +called. + +Close in the track of Madame de la Fayette followed Madame de Fontaines +(Marie Louise Charlotte de Givri), the date of whose birth is unknown, +but who died in 1730. She was a friend of Voltaire's youth, and her best +work is named _La Comtesse de Savoie_, the date of the story being the +eleventh century. She also wrote a short story of less merit called +_Amenophis_. Madame de Tencin (Claudine Alexandrine Guerin), the mother +of D'Alembert, the friend of Fontenelle, and one of the most famous +salon-holders of the early eighteenth century, was a more fertile and a +cleverer writer. She was born in 1681, and died in 1749. She had a bad +heart, but an excellent head, and she showed her powers in the _Memoires +du Comte de Comminges_ and the _Siege de Calais_, besides some minor +works. The fault of almost all romances of the La Fayette school, the +habit of throwing the scene into periods about which the writers knew +nothing, appears in these works. + +[Sidenote: Marivaux.] + +But the first writer of fiction after Lesage who is worthy of separate +mention at any length (for in these later centuries of our history there +are, as any reader of books will understand, vast numbers of +practitioners in every branch of literary art who are entirely unworthy +of notice in a compendious history of literature) is Marivaux, an +original and remarkable novelist, who, though by no possibility to be +ranked among the great names of French literature, occupies a not +inconsiderable place among those who are remarkable without being great. +Pierre Carlet de Marivaux, whose strict paternal appellation was simply +Pierre Carlet, was born at Paris on the 8th of February, 1688. His +father was of Norman origin, and held employments in the financial +branch of the public service. Very little is known of the son's youth, +and indeed not much of his life. He is said to have produced his first +play, _Le Pere Prudent et Equitable_, at the age of eighteen, and his +dramatic industry was thenceforward considerable. As a romancer he +worked more by fits and starts. His first attempt at prose fiction is +said to have been--for the authenticity of the attribution is not +certain--a romance in a kind of pseudo-Spanish style, called _Les Effets +surprenants de la Sympathie_, published six years later. Then he took to +the sterile and ignoble literature of travesty, attacking Homer and +Fenelon in the style of Scarron and Cotton. This brought him, through La +Motte, under the influence of Fontenelle, to whom he owed not a little. +He made a fortune and lost it in Law's bubble. Then he turned +journalist, and after writing social articles in the _Mercure_, started +a periodical himself, the nature of which is sufficiently shown by its +borrowed title, _Le Spectateur Francais_, 1722. At a later period he +began another paper of the same kind, _Le Cabinet du Philosophe_, 1734. +His plays, which have been already noticed, were written partly for the +Comedie Francaise, and partly for a very popular Italian company which +appeared in France during the second quarter of the century. But for the +present purpose his works which concern us are the famous romance of +_Marianne_, 1731-1742, and the less-known one of the _Paysan Parvenu_, +1735. His dramas, rather than his fictions, procured him a place in the +Academy in 1742, and he died in 1763. + +_Marianne_ has been said to be the origin of _Pamela_, which may not be +exactly the fact, though it is difficult not to believe that it gave +Richardson his idea. But it is certain that it is a remarkable novel, +and that it, rather than the plays, gave rise to the singular phrase +_Marivaudage_, with which the author, not at all voluntarily, has +enriched literature. The plot is simple enough. A poor but virtuous girl +has adventures and recounts them, and the manner of recounting is +extremely original. A morally faulty but intellectually admirable +contemporary, Crebillon the younger, described this manner excellently +by saying that the characters not only say everything that they have +done and everything that they have thought, but everything that they +would have liked to think but did not. This curious kind of mental +analysis is expressed in a style which cannot be defended from the +charge of affectation notwithstanding its extreme ingenuity and +occasional wit. The real importance of _Marianne_ in the history of +fiction is that it is the first example of the novel of analysis rather +than of incident (though incident is still prominent), and the first in +which an elaborate style, strongly imbued with mannerism, is applied to +this purpose. The _Paysan Parvenu_, the title of which suggested +Restif's novel _Le Paysan Perverti_, and which was probably not without +influence on _Joseph Andrews_, is not very different in manner from +_Marianne_, and, like it, was left unfinished after publication in parts +at long intervals. + +[Sidenote: Prevost] + +A third eminent writer of novels was, in point of production, a +contemporary of Lesage and Marivaux, though he was nearly thirty years +younger than the first, and fully ten years younger than the second, and +he more than either of them set the example of the modern novel. The +Abbe Prevost, sometimes called Prevost d'Exilles, was born at Hesdin, in +Picardy, in April, 1697. He was brought up by the Jesuits, and after a +curious hesitation between entering the order and becoming a soldier (he +actually served for some time) he joined the famous community of the +Benedictines of Saint Maur, the most learned monastic body in the Roman +church. When he did this he was four-and-twenty, and he continued for +some six years to give himself up to study, not without interludes of +professorial work and of preaching. He became, however, disgusted with +his order, and unfortunately left his convent before technical +permission had been given; a proceeding which kept him an exile from +France for several years. It was at this time (1728) that he threw +himself into novel-writing, taking his models, and in some cases, his +scenes and characters, from England, which he visited, and of which he +was a fervent admirer. He obtained permission to return in 1735, and +then started a paper called _Le Pour et le Contre_, something like those +of Marivaux, but more like a modern critical review. He received the +protection of several persons of position and influence, notably the +Prince de Conti and the Chancellor D'Aguesseau, and for nearly thirty +years led a laborious literary life, in the course of which he is said +to have written nearly a hundred volumes, mostly compilations. His +death, which occurred in November, 1763, was perhaps the most horrible +in literary history. He was on his way from Paris to his cottage near +Chantilly, when he was struck by apoplexy. A stupid village doctor took +him for dead, and began a post-mortem examination to discover the cause. +Prevost revived at the stroke of the knife, but was so injured by it +that he expired shortly afterwards. + +His chief works of fiction are the _Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_, +1729, _Cleveland_, and the _Doyen de Killerine_, 1735, romances of +adventure occupying a middle place between those of Lesage and Marivaux. +But he would have been long forgotten had it not been for an episode or +rather postscript of the _Memoires_ entitled _Manon Lescaut_, in which +all competent criticism recognises the first masterpiece of French +literature which can properly be called a novel. Manon is a young girl +with whom the Chevalier des Grieux, almost as young as herself, falls +frantically in love. The pair fly to Paris, and the novel is occupied +with the description of Manon's faithlessness--a faithlessness based not +on want of love for Des Grieux, but on an overmastering desire for +luxury and comfort with which he cannot always supply her. The story, +which is narrated by Des Grieux, and which has a most pathetic ending, +is chiefly remarkable for the perfect simplicity and absolute +life-likeness of the character-drawing. The despairing constancy of Des +Grieux, conscious of the vileness of his idol, yet unable to help loving +her, the sober goodness of his friend Tiberge, the roystering villany of +Manon's brother Lescaut, and, above all, the surprising and novel, but +strictly practical and reasonable, figure of Manon, who, in her way, +loves Des Grieux, who has no objection to deceive her richer lovers for +him, but whose first craving is for material well-being and +prosperity--make up a gallery which has rarely been exceeded in power +and interest. + +A novelist of merit, slightly junior to these, was Madame Riccoboni +(Marie Jeanne Laboras de Mezieres), who was born in 1713, married an +actor and dramatic author of little talent, and died at a great age in +1792. Her best works of fiction are _Le Marquis de Cressy_, _Mylady +Catesby_, and _Ernestine_, with an exceedingly clever continuation +(which, however, stops short of the conclusion) of Marivaux' +_Marianne_. All these books are constructed with considerable skill, and +are good examples of what may be called the sentimental romance. Duclos, +better known now for his historical and historical-ethical work, was +also a novel-writer at this period. The _Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_, +of Madame Elie de Beaumont, rather resembles the work of Madame +Riccoboni. + +The works of the three principal writers who have just been discussed +belong to the first half of the century, and do not exhibit those +characteristics by which it is most generally known. Marivaux is indeed +an important representative of the laborious gallantry which descended +from the days of the _precieuses_--Fontenelle being a link between the +two ages--and Prevost exhibits, in at least its earlier stage, the +sensibility which was one of the great characteristics of the eighteenth +century. But neither of them can in the least be called a _philosophe_. +On the other hand, the _philosophe_ movement, which dominated the middle +and latter portions of the age, was not long in invading the department +of fiction. Each of the three celebrated men who stood at its head +devoted himself to the novel in one or other of its forms; while +Montesquieu, in the _Lettres Persanes_, came near to it, and each of the +trio themselves had more or fewer followers in fiction. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire.] + +No long work of prose fiction stands under the name of Voltaire, but it +may be doubted whether any of his works displays his peculiar genius +more fully and more characteristically than the short tales in prose +which he has left. Every one of them has a moral, political, social, or +theological purpose. _Zadig_, 1748, is, perhaps, in its general aim, +rather philosophical in the proper sense; _Babouc_, 1746, social; +_Memnon_, 1747, ethical. _Micromegas_, 1752, is a satire on certain +forms of science; the group of smaller tales, such as _Le Taureau +Blanc_, are theological or rather anti-theological. _L'Ingenu_, 1767, +and _L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus_ (same date), are political from +different points of view. All these objects meet and unite in the most +famous and most daring of all, _Candide_, 1758. Written ostensibly to +ridicule philosophical optimism, and on the spur given to pessimist +theories by the Lisbon earthquake, _Candide_ is really as comprehensive +as it is desultory. Religion, political government, national +peculiarities, human weakness, ambition, love, loyalty, all come in for +the unfailing sneer. The moral, wherever there is a moral, is, 'be +tolerant, and _cultivez votre jardin_,' that is to say, do whatsoever +work you have to do diligently. But in all these tales the destructive +element has a good deal the better of the constructive. As literature, +however, they are almost invariably admirable. There is probably no +single book in existence which contains so much wit, pure and simple, as +the moderate sized octavo in which are comprised these two or three +dozen short stories, none of which exceeds a hundred pages or so in +length, while many do not extend beyond two or three. Nowhere is the +capacity of the French language for _persiflage_ better shown, and +nowhere, perhaps, are more phrases which have become household words to +be found. Nowhere also, it is true, is the utter want of reverence, +which was Voltaire's greatest fault, and the absence of profundity, +which accompanied his marvellous superficial range and acuteness, more +constantly displayed. + +[Sidenote: Diderot.] + +No inconsiderable portion of the extensive and unequal work of Diderot +is occupied by prose fiction. He began by a licentious tale in the +manner, but without the wit, of Crebillon the younger; a tale in which, +save a little social satire, there was no purpose whatever. But by +degrees he, like Voltaire, began to use the novel as a polemical weapon. +The powerful story of _La Religieuse_, 1760, was the boldest attack +which, since the Reformation and the licence of Latin writing, had been +made on the drawbacks and dangers of conventual life. _Jacques le +Fataliste_, 1766, is a curious book, partly suggested, no doubt, by +Sterne, but having a legitimate French ancestry in the _fatrasie_ of the +sixteenth century. Jacques is a manservant who travels with his master, +has adventures with him, talks incessantly to him, and tells him +stories, as also does another character, the mistress of a country inn. +One of these stories, the history of the jealousy and attempted revenge +of a great lady on her faithless lover by making him fall in love with a +girl of no character, is admirably told, and has often since been +adapted in fiction and drama. Other episodes of _Jacques le Fataliste_ +are good, but the whole is unequal. The strangest of all Diderot's +attempts in prose fiction--if it is to be called a fiction and not a +dramatic study--is the so-called _Neveu de Rameau_, in which, in the +guise of a dialogue between himself and a hanger-on of society (or +rather a monologue of the latter), the follies and vices, not merely of +the time, but of human nature itself, are exposed with a masterly hand, +and in a manner wonderfully original and piquant. + +[Sidenote: Rousseau.] + +[Sidenote: Crebillon the Younger.] + +Neither Voltaire, however, nor Diderot devoted, in proportion to their +other work, as much attention to prose fiction as did Jean Jacques +Rousseau. Even the _Confessions_ might be classed under this head +without a great violation of propriety, and Rousseau's only other large +books, _La Nouvelle Heloise_, 1760, and _Emile_, 1764, are avowed +novels. In both of these the didactic purpose asserts itself. In the +latter, indeed, it asserts itself to a degree sufficient seriously to +impair the literary merit of the story. The second title of _Emile_ is +_L'Education_, and it is devoted to the unfolding of Rousseau's views on +that subject by the aid of an actual example in Emile the hero. It had a +great vogue and a very considerable practical influence, nor can the +race of novels with political or ethical purposes be said to have ever +died out since. As a novel, properly so called, it has but little merit. +The case is different with _Julie_ or _La Nouvelle Heloise_. This is a +story told chiefly in the form of letters, and recounting the love of a +noble young lady, Julie, for Saint Preux, a man of low rank, with a kind +of afterpiece, depicting Julie's married life with a respectable but +prosaic free-thinker, M. de Wolmar. This famous book set the example, +first, of the novel of sentiment, secondly, of the novel of landscape +painting. Many efforts have been made to dethrone Rousseau from his +position of teacher of Europe in point of sentiment and the picturesque, +but they have had no real success. It is to _La Nouvelle Heloise_ that +both sentimental and picturesque fictions fairly owe their original +popularity; yet _Julie_ cannot be called a good novel. Its direct +narrative interest is but small, its characters are too intensely drawn +or else too merely conventional, its plot far too meagre. It is in +isolated passages of description, and in the fervent passion which +pervades parts of it, that its value, and at the same time its +importance in the history of novel-writing, consist. + +Some lesser names group themselves naturally round those of the greater +_Philosophes_ in the department of prose fiction. Voltaire's style was +largely followed, but scarcely from Voltaire's point of view, and those +who practised it fell rather under the head of _Conteurs_ pure and +simple than of novelists with a purpose. The prose _Conte_ of the +eighteenth century forms a remarkable branch of literature, redeemed +from triviality by the exceptional skill expended on it. The master of +the style was Crebillon the younger, in whom its merits and defects were +both eminently present. Son of the tragic author, Crebillon led an easy +but a rather mysterious life, married an Englishwoman, and was supposed +by his friends to be dead long before he had actually quitted this +world. His works, of which it is unnecessary to mention the names here, +exhibit the moral corruption of the times in almost the highest possible +degree. But they abound in keen social satire, in acute literary +criticism, and in verbal wit. What is more, they show an extraordinary +mastery of the art of narrative of the lighter kind. Around Crebillon +are grouped a large number of writers, some of whom almost rival him in +delicate literary knack, and most of whom equal him in perverse +immorality of subject and tone. Much of the formal exercise of this tale +literature was a tradition from the slightly earlier school of fairy +tale-writing, which has already been noticed. Voisenon, Caylus, +Boufflers, Moncrif (the most original and most eccentric of all), La +Morliere, are names of this class. Their prose may, on the analogy of +Vers de Societe, be called Prose de Societe, and of a very corrupt +society too. But its formal excellence is considerable. + +Of exceptional excellence among the short tales of this time, and free +from their drawbacks, is the _Diable Amoureux_, 1772, of Cazotte, a +singular person, strongly tinged with the 'illuminism,' or belief in +occult sciences and arts, which was a natural result of the _philosophe_ +movement. Cazotte's melancholy story has a place in all histories of the +French Revolution, and his name was (probably) borrowed by La Harpe for +a bold and striking apologue, the authenticity or spuriousness of which +is very much a matter of guess-work. The _Diable Amoureux_ is a +singularly powerful story of its kind, uniting, in the fashion so +difficult with tales of _diablerie_, literary verisimilitude and +exactness of presentation with strangeness of subject. + +Voltaire's chief pupils and followers, while taking his own view of the +utility of the prose tale for controversial purposes, followed another +model for the most part in point of form. The immense influence of +_Telemaque_ was felt by Voltaire himself, though in his case it resulted +in history pure and simple. Marmontel in his _Belisaire_, and Florian in +his _Numa Pompilius_ and _Gonsalve de Cordoue_, returned to the +historical romance. Something of the same class, though based upon much +more solid scholarship, was the _Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis_ of the Abbe +Barthelemy. All these books, like their predecessor, have somewhat +passed out of the range of literature proper into that of school books. +They are, however, all good examples of the easy, correct, and lucid, if +cold and conventional, tongue of the later eighteenth century. + +[Sidenote: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.] + +Rousseau had a far more important disciple in fiction. Jacques Henri +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was born at Havre in 1737. He was by +profession an engineer, and both professionally and on his private +account wandered about the world in a curious fashion. At last he met +Rousseau, and the influence of Jean Jacques developed the sentimental +morality, the speculative republicanism, and the ardent, if rather +affected, love of nature which had already distinguished him. His best +book, _Paul et Virginie_, is perhaps the only one of his works which can +properly be called a novel; but _La Chaumiere Indienne_ deserves to be +classed with it, and even the _Etudes de la Nature_ are half fiction. +_Paul et Virginie_ was written when the author's admiration of nature +and of the savage state, imbibed from Rousseau or quickened by his +society, had been further inflamed by a three years' residence in +Mauritius. Like the books mentioned in the last paragraph, _Paul et +Virginie_ has lost something by becoming a school-book, but its faults +and merits are in a literary sense greater than theirs. The over-ripe +sentiment and the false delicacy of it will always remain evidence of +the stimulating but unhealthy atmosphere in which it was written. But it +cannot be denied that, both here and elsewhere in Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, there is a very remarkable faculty of word-painting, and +also of influencing the feelings. + +[Sidenote: Restif de la Bretonne.] + +The later eighteenth century saw a vast number of novelists and novels, +few of which were of much literary value, while most of them displayed +the evil influences of the time in more ways than one. Dulaurens, a +vagabond and disreputable writer, is chiefly remembered for his _Compere +Mathieu_, a book presenting some points of likeness to _Jacques le +Fataliste_, and like it inspired partly by Sterne, and partly by +Sterne's master, Rabelais. Writers like Louvet and La Clos continued the +worst part of Crebillon's tradition without exhibiting either his +literary skill or his wit. A much more remarkable name is that of Restif +de la Bretonne, who has been called, and not without reason, the French +Defoe. He was born at Sacy in Burgundy in 1734, and died at Paris in +1806. Although of very humble birth, he seems to have acquired an +irregular but considerable education, and, establishing himself early in +Paris, he became an indefatigable author. About fifty separate works of +his exist, some of which are of great extent, and one of which, _Les +Contemporaines_, includes forty-two volumes and nearly three hundred +separate articles or tales. Restif, whose entire sanity may reasonably +be doubted, was a novelist, a philosopher, a social innovator, a +diligent observer of the manners of his times, a spelling reformer. His +work is for the most part destitute of the most rudimentary notions of +decency, but it is apparently produced in good faith and with no evil +purpose. His portraiture of manners is remarkably vivid. It is in this, +in his earnest but eccentric philanthropy, and in his grasp of +character, not seldom vigorous and close, that he chiefly resembles +Defoe. He has been called in France the Rousseau of the gutter, which +also is a comparison not without truth and instruction, despite the +jingle ('Rousseau du ruisseau') by which it was no doubt suggested. + +The law which seems to have ordained that, though the eighteenth century +in France should produce no masterpiece in fictitious literature, or +only one, all the most distinguished literary names should be connected +with fiction, extended to the long and, in a literary sense, dreary +debateable land between the eighteenth century itself and the +nineteenth. Of this period the two dominant names are beyond question +those of Chateaubriand and of Madame de Stael. Both attempted various +kinds of writing, but some of the most important work of both comes +under the heading of the present chapter, and both as literary figures +are best treated here. + +[Sidenote: Chateaubriand.] + +Francois Auguste de Chateaubriand was born at Saint Malo, where he is +now buried, in 1768, and died in 1848. He belonged to a family which was +among the noblest of Britanny and of France, but which was not wealthy, +and he was a younger son. Intended at first for the navy, he was +allowed, at the outbreak of the Revolution, to indulge his fancy for +travelling, and journeyed to North America. There he learnt the +anti-monarchical turn which things had taken in France. He at once +returned and joined the emigrants at Coblentz. He was seriously wounded +at the siege of Thionville, and had some difficulty in making his way, +by Holland and Jersey, to England, where he lived in great poverty. +Chateaubriand's acceptance of the Legitimist side had been but +half-hearted, and his first published work, _Sur les Revolutions +Anciennes et Modernes_, still expresses the peculiar liberalism +which--it is sometimes forgotten--was much more deeply rooted in the +French noblesse of the eighteenth century than in any other class. This +opened the way to his return at the time that Napoleon, then entering on +the consulate, endeavoured, by all the means in his power, to conciliate +the emigrants. The _Genie du Christianisme_, which had been preceded by +_Atala_ (a kind of specimen of it), was his first original, and his most +characteristic, work. This curious book, which it is impossible to +analyse, consists partly of a rather desultory apology for Christian +doctrine, partly of a series of historical illustrations of Christian +life: it appeared in 1802. It suited the policy of Napoleon, who made +Chateaubriand, first, secretary to the Roman Embassy, and then +ambassador to the Valais. But Chateaubriand had never given up his +legitimism, and the murder of the Duke d'Enghien shocked him +irresistibly. He at once resigned his post, and thenceforward was in +more or less covert opposition, though he was not actually banished from +France. Pursuing the vein which he had opened in the _Genie_, he made a +journey to the East, the result of which was his _Itineraire de Paris a +Jerusalem_, and the unequal but remarkable prose epic of _Les Martyrs_. +This, the story of which is laid in the time of Diocletian, shifts its +scene from classical countries to Gaul, where the half-mythical heroes +of the Franks appear, and then back to Greece, Rome, and Purgatory. The +fall of Napoleon opened once more a political career, of which +Chateaubriand had always been ardently desirous. His pamphlet, _De +Bonaparte et des Bourbons_, was, perhaps, the most important literary +contribution to the re-establishment of the ancient monarchy. During the +fifteen years which elapsed between the battle of Waterloo and the +Revolution of July, Chateaubriand underwent vicissitudes due to the +difficulty of adjusting his liberalism and his legitimism, sentiments +which seem both to have been genuine, but to have been quite +unreconciled by any reasoning process on the part of their holder. Yet, +though he had again and again experienced the most ungracious treatment +both from Louis XVIII. and Charles X., the July monarchy had no sooner +established itself than he resigned his positions and pensions, and took +no further official part in political affairs during the rest of his +life. In his latter days he was much with the celebrated Madame +Recamier, and completed his affectedly-named but admirable _Memoires +d'Outre Tombe_,--an autobiography which, though marred by some of his +peculiarities, contains much of his most brilliant writing. Of the works +not hitherto noticed, _Rene_, _Le Dernier Abencerage_, _Les Natchez_, +and some sketches of travels and of French history, are the most +remarkable. + +For some thirty years, from 1810 to 1840, Chateaubriand was +unquestionably the greatest man of letters of France in the estimation +of his contemporaries. His fame has since then diminished considerably, +and much has been written to account for the change. It is not, however, +very difficult to understand it. Chateaubriand is one of the chief +representatives in literature of the working of two conditions, which, +while they lend for the time much adventitious importance to the man who +takes full advantage of them, invariably lead to rapidly-diminished +estimates of him when they have ceased to work. He was a representative +at once of transition and reaction--of transition from the hard and +fast classical standards of the eighteenth century to the principles of +the romantic and eclectic schools, of reaction against the _philosophe_ +era. He was one of the earliest and most influential exponents of the +so-called _maladie du siecle_, of what, from his most illustrious pupil, +is generally called Byronism. His immediate literary teachers were +Rousseau and Ossian. He was not a thoroughly well-educated man, and he +was exceptionally deficient in the purely logical and analytic faculty +as distinguished from the rhetorical and synthetic. What he could do and +did, was to glorify Christianity and monarchism in a series of +brilliantly-coloured pictures, which had an immense effect on an age +accustomed to the grey tints and monotonous argument of the opposite +school, but which, to a posterity which is placed at a different point +of view, seem to lack accuracy of detail and sincerity of emotion. +Nevertheless Chateaubriand, if not a very great man, was a very great +man of letters. His best passages are not easily to be surpassed in +brilliancy of style and vividness of colouring. If the sentiment of his +_Rene_ seems hollow now-a-days, it must be remembered that this is +almost entirely a matter of fashion and of novelty. The _Genie du +Christianisme_, despite many defects of taste, more of insight, and most +of mere learning, remains one of the most eloquent pleadings in +literature, and not one of the least effective; while the _Itineraire_ +is the pattern of all the picturesque travels of modern times. All these +works, and most of the rest, are practically novels with a purpose. Even +in the autobiography the historic part is entirely subdued and moulded +to the exigencies of the dramatic and narrative construction. Regarded +merely as an individual writer, Chateaubriand would supply a volume of +'Beauties' hardly inferior to that which could be gathered from any +other prose author in France. Regarded as a precursor, he deserves far +more than any other single man, and almost more than all others put +together, the title of father of the Romantic movement. + +[Sidenote: Madame de Stael.] + +His chief rival in the literature of the empire was also essentially, +though not wholly or professedly, a novelist. Anne Louise Germaine +Necker, who married a Swedish diplomatist, the Baron de Stael Holstein, +and is, therefore, generally known as Madame de Stael, was the daughter +of the great financier Necker, and of Susanne Curchod, Gibbon's early +love. She was introduced young to salon life in Paris, and early +displayed ungovernable vanity, and much of the _sensibilite_ of the +time, that is to say, an indulgence in sentiment which paid equally +little heed to morality and to good sense. Her marriage was one purely +of convenience: and while her husband, of whom she seems to have had no +reason whatever to complain, obtained some wealth by it, she herself +secured a very agreeable position, inasmuch as the king of Sweden +pledged himself either to maintain M. de Stael in the Swedish embassy at +Paris, or to provide for him in other ways. She approved the early +stages of the Revolution, but was shocked at the deposition and death of +the king and queen. Whereupon she fled the country. Before she was +thirty she had written various books, _Lettres sur J. J. Rousseau_, +_Defense de la Reine_, _De l'Influence des Passions_, and other pieces +of many kinds. When the influence of Napoleon became paramount, Madame +de Stael, who had returned to Paris, found herself in an awkward +position, for she was equally determined to say what she chose, and to +have gallant attentions paid to her, and Napoleon would not comply with +either of her wishes. She, therefore, had to leave France, but not +before she had published her first romance, _Delphine_, and a book on +literature. She now travelled for some years in Germany and Italy in the +company of Benjamin Constant, who was the object of one of her numerous +accesses of affection. _Corinne_, her principal novel, and her greatest +work but one, appeared in 1807, her book _De l'Allemagne_ being +suppressed in Paris, whither she had returned, but which she soon had to +leave again. The Restoration gave her access once more to France, and +enabled her to resume possession of property which had been unjustly +seized, but she died not long afterwards, in 1817. Her _Dix Annees +d'Exil_ and her _Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise_ were +published posthumously, the latter being one of her chief works. She had +married secretly, in 1812, a M. de Rocca, a man more than young enough +to be her son. + +The personality of Madame de Stael is far from being attractive owing to +her excessive vanity, which disgusted all her contemporaries, and the +folly which made a woman, who had never been beautiful, continue, long +after she had ceased to be young, to give herself in life and literature +the airs of a newest Heloise. But she is a very important figure in +French literature. Part of her influence, as represented by the book _De +l'Allemagne,_ does not directly concern us in this chapter; this part +was mainly, but not wholly, literary. It was helped and continued, +however, by her other works, especially by her novels, and, above all, +by _Corinne_. This influence, put briefly, was to break up the +narrowness of French notions on all subjects, and to open it to fresh +ideas. Her political and general works led the way to the nineteenth +century, side by side with Chateaubriand's, but in an entirely different +sense. What Chateaubriand inculcated was the sense of the beauty of +older and simpler times, countries, and faiths which the +self-satisfaction of the eighteenth century had obscured; what Madame de +Stael had to impress were general ideas of liberalism and progress to +which the same century, in its crusade against superstition and its +rather short-sighted belief in its own enlightenment, was equally blind. +_Delphine_, which is in the main a romance of French society only, +written before the author had seen much of any other world except a +close circle of French emigrants abroad, exhibits this tendency much +less than _Corinne_, which was written after that German visit--by far +the most important event of Madame de Stael's life. Here, as Rousseau +had inculcated the story of nature and savage life, as Chateaubriand +was, at the same time, inculcating the study of Christian antiquity and +the middle ages, so Madame de Stael inculcated the cultivation of +aesthetic emotions and impulses as a new influence to be brought to bear +on life. Her style, though not to be spoken of disrespectfully, is, on +the whole, inferior to her matter. It is full of the drawbacks of +eighteenth-century _eloges_ and academic discourses, now tawdry, now +deficient in colour, flexibility, and life, at one time below the +subject, at another puffed up with commonplace and insincere +declamation. Yet when she understood a subject, which was by no means +invariably the case, Madame de Stael was an excellent exponent; and when +her feelings were sincere, which they sometimes were, she was a fair +mistress of pathos. + +A considerable number of names of writers of fiction during the later +republic and the empire have a traditional place in the history of +literature, and some of their works are still read, but chiefly as +school-books. Madame de Genlis, the author of _Les Veillees du Chateau_, +and also of many volumes of ill-natured, and not too accurate, memoirs +and reminiscences, continued the moral tale of the eighteenth century, +and in _Mlle. de Clermont_ produced work of merit. Fievee, a journalist +and critic of some talent, is remembered for the pretty story of the +_Dot de Suzette_. Madame de Souza, in her _Adele de Senanges_ and other +works, revived, to a certain extent, the style of Madame de la Fayette. +_Ourika_ and _Edouard_, especially the latter, preserve the name of +Madame de Duras. Madame Cottin, in _Malek Adel_, _Elizabeth_ or _Les +Exiles de Siberie_, etc., combined a mild flavour of romance with +irreproachable moral sentiments. A vigorous continuator of the +licentious style of novel, with hardly any of the literary refinement of +its eighteenth-century contributors, but with more fertility of incident +and fancy, was Pigault Lebrun, the forerunner of Paul de Kock. Madame de +Krudener, a woman of remarkable history, produced a good novel of +sentiment in _Valerie_. + +[Sidenote: Xavier de Maistre.] + +Two novelists, singularly different in idiosyncrasy, complete what may +be called the eighteenth-century school. Xavier de Maistre, younger +brother of the great Catholic polemist, Joseph de Maistre, was born at +Chambery, in 1763. He served in the Piedmontese army during his youth, +and his most famous work, the _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, was +published in 1794. The national extinction of Savoy and Piedmont, at +least the annexation of Savoy and the effacement of Piedmont, made +Xavier de Maistre an exile. He joined his brother in St. Petersburg, +served in the Russian army, fought, and was wounded in the Caucasus; +attained the rank of general, and died at St. Petersburg, in 1852, at +the great age of eighty-nine. His work consists of the _Voyage_, an +account of a temporary imprisonment in his quarters at Turin, obviously +suggested by Sterne, but exceedingly original in execution; _Le Lepreux +de la Cite d'Aoste,_ in which the same inspiration and the same +independent use of it are noticeable; and _Les Prisonniers du Caucase_, +a vivid narrative rather in the manner of the nineteenth than of the +eighteenth century, with a continuation of the _Voyage_ called +_Expedition Nocturne_, which has not escaped the usual fate of +continuations, and a short version of the touching story of Prascovia, +which contrasts very curiously with Madame Cottin's more artificial +handling of the same subject. The important point about Xavier de +Maistre is that he unites the sentimentality of the eighteenth century, +and not a little of its _Marivaudage_, with an exactness of observation, +a general truth of description, and a sense of narrative art which +belong rather to the nineteenth. Although he was not a Frenchman, his +style has always been regarded as a model of French; and the great +authority of Sainte Beuve justly places him and Merimee side by side as +the most perfect tellers of tales in the simple fashion. + +[Sidenote: Benjamin Constant.] + +Benjamin Constant's _Adolphe_, 1815, is a very different work, but an +equally remarkable one. It may be a question whether it is not entitled +to take rank rather as the first book of the nineteenth-century school +than as the last of the eighteenth. But its author (better known as a +politician) published no further attempt to pursue the way he had +opened; and though he himself denied its application to the persons who +were usually identified with its characters, there is every reason to +believe that it was rather the record of a personal experience than a +deliberate effort of art. It is very short, dealing with the love of a +certain Adolphe for a certain Ellenore and his disenchantment. The +psychological drawing, though one-sided, is astonishingly true, and +though _sensibilite_ is still present, it has obviously lost its hold +both on the characters represented and their creator. Deliberate +analysis appears almost as much as in the work of Beyle himself. It is +in every respect a remarkable book, and many parts of it might have been +written at the present day. What distinguishes it from almost all its +forerunners is that there is hardly any attempt at incident, far less at +adventure. The play of thought and feeling is the sole source of +interest. It is true that the situation is one that could not support a +long book, and that it is thus rather an essay at the modern analytic +novel than a finished example of it. But it is such an essay, and very +far from an unsuccessful one. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[288] The works of fiction written by the great authors of the century +are easily obtainable. _Manon Lescaut_ has been frequently and +satisfactorily reproduced of late years--the two editions of Glady, with +and without illustrations, being especially noteworthy. Restif de la +Bretonne is a literary curiosity whose voluminous works hardly any +collector possesses in their entirety; but the three volumes of the +_Contemporaines_, selected and edited for the _Nouvelle Collection +Jannet_ by M. Assezat, will give a very fair idea of his peculiarities. +Of most of the other authors mentioned convenient, handsome, and not too +expensive editions will be found in the _Bibliotheque Amusante_ of MM. +Garnier Freres. This includes Mesdames de Tencin, de Fontaines, +Riccoboni, de Beaumont, de Genlis, de Duras, de Souza, as well as +Marivaux and Fievee. Lesage's more remarkable fictions are obtainable at +every library. Xavier de Maistre forms a single cheap volume. A handsome +little edition of Constant's _Adolphe_ has been edited by M. de Lescure +for the Librairie des Bibliophiles. Cazotte's _Diable Amoureux_ is in +the _Nouvelle Collection Jannet_. M. Uzanne's reproductions of the prose +tale-tellers are excellent. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS. + + +[Sidenote: Characteristics and Divisions of Eighteenth-century History.] + +In the three branches of literature included in this chapter the +interest of the eighteenth century is great, but unequally divided. In +history proper, that is to say, the connected survey from documents of a +greater or lesser period of the past, the age saw, if not the beginning, +certainly the maturing of a philosophical conception of the science. +Putting Bossuet out of the question, Vico in Italy, Montesquieu and +Turgot in France, are usually and rightly credited with the working out +of this great conception. But though pretty fully worked, or at least +sketched out, it was not applied in any book of bulk and merit. The +writings of Montesquieu and Turgot themselves are not history--they are +essays of lesser or greater length in historical philosophy. Nor from +the merely literary point of view has France any historical production +of the first rank to put forward at this time. The works of greater +extent, such as Rollin's, are of no special literary value; the works of +literary value, such as Voltaire's studies, are of but small extent, and +rather resemble the historical essay of the preceding century, which +still continued to be practised, and which had one special practitioner +of merit in Rulhiere. But nothing even distantly approaching the English +masterpiece of the period, the _Decline and Fall_, was produced; hardly +anything approaching Hume's History. Nor again do the memoirs[289] of +this time equal those of the seventeenth century in literary power, +though they are useful as sources of historical and social information. +No man of letters of the first class has left such work, and no one, not +by profession a man of letters, has by such work come even near the +position of the Cardinal de Retz or the Duke de Saint Simon, the latter +of whom, it is fair to remember, actually lived into the second half of +the century. On the other hand, the letter-writers of the time are +numerous and excellent. Although no one of them equals Madame de Sevigne +in bulk and in completeness of merit, the letters of Mademoiselle de +l'Espinasse, of Madame du Deffand, of Diderot to Mademoiselle Volland, +and some others, are of very great excellence, and almost unsurpassed in +their characterization of the intellectual and social peculiarities of +the time. The absence of regular histories of the first merit would be +more surprising than it is if it were not fully accounted for by the +dominant peculiarity of the day, which is never to be forgotten in +studying its history--the absorption, that is to say, of the greater +part of the intellect of the time in the _philosophe_ polemic. Almost +all the histories that were written, except as works of pure erudition, +were in reality pamphlets intended to point, more or less allegorically, +some moral as to real or supposed abuses in the social, ecclesiastical, +or political state of France. This peculiarity could not fail to detract +from their permanent interest, even if it did not (as it too often did) +make the authors less careful to give a correct account of their subject +than to make it serve their purpose. + + +[Sidenote: Rollin.] + +The first regular historian who deserves mention is Charles Rollin, who +perhaps had a longer and wider monopoly of a certain kind of historical +instruction than any other author. He was born at Paris in January, +1661, of the middle class, and, after studying at the College du +Plessis, he became Professor at the College de France, and, in 1694, +Rector of the University; a post in which he distinguished himself by +introducing many useful and much-needed reforms. He was a Jansenist, but +was not much inconvenienced in consequence. Rollin's book (that is to +say the only one by which he is remembered) is his extensive _Histoire +Ancienne_, 1730-1738, the work of his advanced years, which was the +standard treatise on the subject for nearly a century, and was +translated into most languages. Although showing no particular +historical grasp, written with no power of style, and not universally +accurate, it deserves such praise as may be due to a work of great +practical utility requiring much industrious labour, and not imitated +from or much assisted by any previous book. The _Histoire Romaine_, +which followed it, was of little worth, but Rollin's _Traite des Etudes_ +was a very useful book in its time. + +[Sidenote: Dubos.] + +[Sidenote: Boulainvilliers.] + +Two historians, who hardly deserve the name, are usually ranked together +in this part of French history, partly because they represent almost the +last of the fabulous school of history-writers, partly because their +disputes (for they were of opposite factions) have had the honour to be +noticed by Montesquieu. These were Dubos and Boulainvilliers. The Abbe +Dubos was a writer of some merit on a great variety of subjects; his +_Reflexions sur la Poesie et la Peinture_ being of value. His chief +historical work is entitled _Histoire Critique de l'Etablissement de la +Monarchie Francaise dans les Gaules_, in which, with a paradoxical +patriotism, which has found some echoes among living historians, he +maintained that the Frankish invasion of Gaul was the consequence of an +amicable invitation, that the Gauls were in no sense conquered, and that +all conclusions based on the supposition of such a conquest were +therefore erroneous. It is fair to Dubos to say that he had been in a +manner provoked by the arguments of the Count de Boulainvilliers. +According to this latter, the Frankish conquest had resulted in the +establishment of a dominant caste, which alone had full enfranchisement, +and which was lineally, or at least titularly, represented by the French +aristocracy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These reckless +and baseless hypotheses would not require notice, were it not important +to show how long it was before the idea of rigid enquiry into +documentary facts on the one hand, and philosophical application of +general laws on the other, were observed in historical writing. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire.] + +Montesquieu himself will come in for mention under the head of +philosophers, but Voltaire's ubiquity will be maintained in this +chapter. His strictly historical work was indeed considerable, even if +what is perhaps the most remarkable of it, the _Essai sur les Moeurs_ +(which may be described as a treatise, with instances, on the philosophy +of history, as applied to modern times), be excluded. Besides smaller +works, the histories of Charles XII. and Peter the Great, the _Age of +Louis XIV._, the _Age of Louis XV._, and the _Annals of the Empire_, +belong to the class of which we are now treating. Of these there is no +doubt that the _Siecle de Louis Quatorze_, 1752, is the best, though the +slighter sketches of Charles, 1731, and Peter, 1759, are not undeserving +of the position they have long held as little masterpieces. Voltaire, +however, was not altogether well qualified for a historian; indeed, he +had but few qualifications for the work, except his mastery of a clear, +light, and lively style. He had no real conception, such as Montesquieu +had, of the philosophy of history, or of the operation of general +causes. His reading, though extensive, was desultory and uncritical, and +he constantly fell into the most grotesque blunders. His prejudices were +very strong, and he is more responsible than any other single person for +the absurd and ignorant disdain of the middle ages, which, so long as it +lasted, made comprehension of modern history and society simply +impossible, because the origins of both were wilfully ignored. These +various drawbacks had perhaps less influence on the _Siecle de Louis +Quatorze_ than on any other of his historical works, and it is +accordingly the best. He was well acquainted with the subject, he was +much interested in it, it touched few of his prejudices, and he was able +to speak with tolerable freedom about it. The result is excellent, and +it deserves the credit of being almost the first finished history (as +distinguished from mere diaries like those of L'Estoile) in which not +merely affairs of state, but literary, artistic, and social matters +generally found a place. + +[Sidenote: Mably.] + +The third and fourth quarters of the century are the special period +when history was, as has been said, degraded to the level of a party +pamphlet, especially in such works as the Abbe Raynal's _Histoire des +Indes_. This was a mere vehicle for _philosophe_ tirades on religious +and political subjects, many if not most of which are known to have +proceeded from Diderot's fertile pen. Crevier and Lebeau, however, names +forgotten now, continued the work of Rollin; and meanwhile the +descendants of the laborious school of historians mentioned in the last +book (many of whom survived until far into the century) pursued their +useful work. Not the least of these was Dom Calmet, author of the +well-known 'Dictionary of the Bible.' But the chief historical names of +the later eighteenth century are Mably and Rulhiere. Mably, who might be +treated equally well under the head of philosophy, was an abbe, and +moderately orthodox in religion, though decidedly Republican in +politics. He was a man of some learning; but, if less ignorant than +Voltaire, he was equally blind to the real meaning and influence of the +middle ages and of mediaeval institutions. He looked back to the +institutions of Rome, and still more of Greece, as models of political +perfection, without making the slightest allowance for the difference of +circumstances; and to him more than to any one else is due the +nonsensical declamation of the Jacobins about tyrants and champions of +liberty. His works, the _Entretiens de Phocion_, the _Observations sur +l'Histoire de France_, the _Droits de l'Europe fondes sur les Traites_, +are, however, far from destitute of value, though, as generally happens, +it was their least valuable part which (especially when Rousseau +followed to enforce similar ideas with his contagious enthusiasm) +produced the greatest effect. + +[Sidenote: Rulhiere.] + +Rulhiere, who was really a historian of excellence, and who might under +rather more favourable circumstances have been one of the most +distinguished, was born about 1735. His Christian names were Claude +Carloman. He was of noble birth, was educated at the College +Louis-le-Grand, and served in the army till he was nearly thirty years +old. He then went to St. Petersburg as secretary to the ambassador +Breteuil, whom he also accompanied to Sweden. He returned to Paris and +began to write the history of the singular proceedings which during his +stay in the Russian capital had placed Catherine II. on the throne. The +Empress, it is said, tried both to bribe and to frighten him, but could +obtain nothing but a promise not to print the sketch till her death. He +continued to live in Paris, where he was distinguished for rather +ill-natured wit and for polished verse-tales and epigrams. For some +reason he devoted himself to the history of Poland. In 1787 he was +elected to the Academy. Then he wrote some _Eclaircissements Historiques +sur les Causes de la Revocation de l'Edit de Nantes_, and is said to +have begun other historical works. He died in 1791. His 'Anecdotes on +the Revolution in Russia' did not appear till 1797; his _Histoire de +l'Anarchie de Pologne_ not till even later. The Polish book is +unfinished, and is said to have been garbled in manuscript. But it has +very considerable merits, though there is perhaps too much discussion in +proportion to the facts given. The Russian anecdotes deserve to rank +with the historical essays of Retz and Saint-Real in vividness and +precision of drawing. + +These are the chief names of the century in history proper, for Volney, +who concludes it in regard to the study of history, is, like many of his +predecessors, rather a philosopher busying himself with the historical +departments and applications of his subject than a historian proper. +Still more may this be said of Diderot in such works as the _Essai sur +les Regnes de Claude et de Neron_. The creation of a school of +accomplished historians was left for the next century, when the +opportunity of such a subject as the French Revolution in the immediate +past, the stimulus of the precepts and views of the great writers on the +philosophy of history, and lastly the disinterring of the original +documents of mediaeval and ancient history, did not fail to produce +their natural effect. The number of historians of the first and second +class born towards the close of the eighteenth century is remarkable. + +[Sidenote: Memoirs. Madame de Staal-Delaunay.] + +[Sidenote: Duclos.] + +[Sidenote: Besenval.] + +[Sidenote: Madame d'Epinay.] + +The first memoirs, properly so called, which have to be mentioned as +belonging to the eighteenth century, are those of Mademoiselle Delaunay, +afterwards Madame de Staal. Mademoiselle Delaunay was attached to the +household of the Duchess du Maine, the beautiful, impetuous, and +highborn wife of one of the stupidest and least interesting of men, who +happened also to be the illegitimate son of Louis XIV. The Duke du +Maine, or rather his wife, for he himself was nearly as destitute of +ambition as of ability, was at the head of the party opposed to that of +which the Duke of Orleans (the Regent) was the natural chief, and Saint +Simon the ablest partisan. The 'party of the bastards' failed, but the +duchess kept up a vigorous literary and political agitation against the +Regent. The court (as it may be called) of this opposition was held at +Sceaux, and of the doings of this court Madame de Staal has left a very +vivid account. The Marquis d'Argenson, a statesman and a man of great +intelligence, concealed under a rough and clumsy exterior, has left +memoirs which are valuable for the early and middle part of the reign of +Louis XV. The memoirs, properly so called, of Duclos are of small +extent, but he has left impersonal memoirs of the later reign of Louis +XIV. and the beginning of that of his great-grandson, which are among +the best historical work of the time. His account of the famous 'system' +of Law is one of the principal sources of information on its subject, as +is his handling of the Cellamare conspiracy and other affairs of the +regency. Duclos was a man not only of considerable literary talent, but +of wide historical reading, which appears amply in his work. The +gossiping memoirs, attributed to Madame du Hausset, bedchamber-woman to +Madame de Pompadour, give many curious details of the middle period of +Louis XV.'s reign; and in the vast collection of tittle-tattle, often +scandalous enough, called the _Memoires de Bachaumont_, much matter of +interest, and some that is of value, may be found. Among the most +valuable memoirs of this kind are those of Colle, which have been only +recently edited in full. Colle, who, though a time-server and an +ill-natured man, had much literary talent, was an acute observer, and +enjoyed great opportunities, has left important materials for the middle +of the century. The Baron de Besenval, half a Savoyard and half a Pole, +who played an important part in the early days of the Revolution, and +who had previously encouraged Marie Antoinette in the levities, harmless +enough but worse than ill-judged, which had so fatal a result, has left +reminiscences of the later years of Louis XV., and a connected +narrative of the outbreak of the Revolution. The memoirs concerning the +_Philosophes_ form a library in themselves, even those which concern +Voltaire alone making a not inconsiderable collection. Those of Madame +d'Epinay (the friend of Grimm, of Galiani, and of Rousseau), of +Marmontel, of Morellet, are perhaps the principal of this group. +Marmontel's memoirs are among his best works, and Madame d'Epinay's are +among the most characteristic of the period. There is a certain number +of interesting memoirs of actors and actresses, which dates from this +time, including those of the great actress Mademoiselle Clairon, the +tragic actor Le Kain, and others. + +[Sidenote: Minor Memoirs.] + +Circumstances rather political than literary have given a place in +literary history to the memoirs of Linguet and Latude concerning the +Bastile. That celebrated building, however, figures largely in the +memoirs of the time, and the experiences of Voltaire, Marmontel, +Crebillon, and others show how greatly exaggerated is the popular notion +of its dungeons and torments. The so-called memoirs of the Duke de +Richelieu (the type, and a very debased type, of the French noblesse of +the eighteenth century, as La Rochefoucauld was of that of the +seventeenth) are the work of Soulavie, a literary man and unfrocked abbe +of very dubious character: but they at least rest upon authentic data, +and abound in the most curious information. The President Henault, a man +of probity and learning, has left memoirs of value. + +[Sidenote: Memoirs of the Revolutionary Period.] + +As might be expected, the collection of memoirs which have reference to +the Revolution and the Empire is very large. The fortunes of the +ill-fated royal family are dealt with in three sets of memoirs, on which +all historians have been obliged to draw, those of Madame Campan, of +Weber, and of Clery, all three of whom were attendants on Louis XVI. and +Marie Antoinette. The memoirs of the first-named are supposed to be the +least accurate in matters of fact. The ill-natured and factious Madame +de Genlis has left two different works of the memoir kind, the one +entitled _Souvenirs de Felicie_, which is somewhat fictitious in form +and arrangement, but is believed to be accurate enough in facts; the +other, definitely called _Memoirs_, which was written long after date, +and is much coloured by prejudice. The Marquis de Bouille, whose gallant +conduct during the Nancy mutiny set an example which the nobility of +France were unfortunately slow to follow, and who would have saved Louis +XVI. in the Varennes flight but for ill-luck and the king's incredible +folly, has also left memoirs of value; and so has Dumouriez. The memoirs +of Louvet, of Daunou, of Riouffe, of the Duke de Lauzun, of the Comte de +Vaublanc, of the Comte de Segur, may be mentioned. The unamiable but +striking and characteristic figure of Madame Roland lives in memoirs +which are among the most celebrated of the time. A group of short but +striking accounts of eye-witnesses and narrowly-rescued victims remains +to testify to the atrocities of that Second of September, which some +recent historians have striven in vain to palliate. Many of the men of +the Revolution, of the servants of the Empire and of their wives, have +left accounts (of more or less value in point of matter) of the events +of the time, some of which have been only very recently published. Among +these latter special notice is deserved by the memoirs of Davout, of +Madame de Remusat, and of Count Miot de Melito. But with few exceptions +(those of Madame de Remusat are perhaps the principal) none of these +memoirs are of great literary importance or interest. They are often +very valuable to the historian, very curious to the student of manners +or the mere seeker after interesting and amusing facts; but no one of +them, named or unnamed, can be said to rank in literary interest with +the work which is so plentiful in the preceding century, and which +constitutes so large a part of that century's claim to a place of first +importance in the history of French literature. + +[Sidenote: Abundance of Letter-writers.] + +It is otherwise with letters, of which the century contributes to +literature some of the most remarkable which we possess. It is +impossible even to give a bare list of those which remain from a time +when almost every person of quality knew how to correspond either in the +natural or the artificial style; but the most remarkable (each of which +is in its way typical of a group) may be noticed with some minuteness. +Among these the correspondence of Grimm, though one of the bulkiest and +most important, may be dismissed with a brief reference; for it will be +noticed again in the succeeding chapter, and most of it is not either +the work of one man or real correspondence. The flying sheets which +Grimm, largely aided by his complaisant friends, and especially by +Diderot, sent to his august Russian and German correspondents, were in +reality periodical summaries of the state of politics, society, letters, +and art in Paris, not different in subject and style from the printed +newspaper letters of the present day. They form in the aggregate a very +important work, whether looked at from the point of view of history, or +from the point of view of literature; but they are not, properly +speaking, letters. Of the letter-writers proper three women and three +men may be selected,--Mademoiselle Aisse, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, +and Madame du Deffand; Voltaire, Diderot, and Galiani. + +[Sidenote: Mademoiselle Aisse.] + +Mademoiselle Aisse had a singular history. When a child she was carried +off by Turkish rovers, and sold at Constantinople to the French +ambassador, M. de Ferriol. This was at the beginning of the century. Her +purchaser had her brought up carefully at Paris as his property, which +no doubt he always considered her. But in his old age he became +childish, and Mademoiselle Aisse was free to frequent society to which +she had been early introduced. She met and fell in love with a certain +Chevalier d'Aydie, who himself (at a later date, for the most part,) was +a letter-writer of some merit. Her letters to him and of him constitute +her claim to a position in the history of literature. They display the +_sensibilite_ of the time in a decided form, but in a milder one than +the later letters of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. But there is something +in them more than mere _sensibilite_--a tender and affectionate spirit +finding graceful expression and deserving a happier fate. Mademoiselle +Aisse, like most other people of her time, turned devout, but earlier +than most. She died in 1733. + +[Sidenote: Madame du Deffand.] + +Madame du Deffand was a very different person. She was born in 1697, and +she distinguished herself when quite a girl, not merely by her beauty, +but by her wit and tendency to freethinking. She was married in 1718 to +the Marquis du Deffand, but soon separated from him, and lived for many +years the then usual life of gallantry. This merged insensibly into a +life of literary and philosophical society. Though Madame du Deffand was +not, like the wealthier but more plebeian Madame Geoffrin, and later +Madame Helvetius, a 'nursing mother of the philosophers,' in the sense +of supplying their necessities, her salon in the Rue Saint Dominique was +long one of the chief resorts of philosophism. In 1753 she became blind, +but this made little difference in her appetite for society. She lived +like many other great ladies in a monastery. She died in 1780. As a +letter-writer Madame du Deffand was the correspondent of most of the +greatest men of letters of the time (Voltaire, D'Alembert, Henault, +Montesquieu, etc.). But her most remarkable correspondence, and perhaps +her most interesting one, was with Horace Walpole, the most French of +contemporary Englishmen. Their friendship, for which it is hard to find +an exact name, unless, perhaps, it may be called a kind of passionate +community of tastes, belongs to the later part of her long life. Madame +du Deffand is the typical French lady of the eighteenth century, as +Richelieu is the typical _grand seigneur_. She was perhaps the wittiest +woman (in the strict sense of the adjective) who ever lived[290], and an +astonishingly large proportion of the best sayings of the time is traced +or attributed to her. Nearly seventy years of conversation and a great +correspondence did not exhaust her faculty of acute sallies, of ruthless +criticism, of cynical but clearsighted judgment on men and things. But +she was thoroughly unamiable, purely selfish, jealous, spiteful, +destitute of humour, if full of wit. A comparison with Madame de Sevigne +shows how the French character had, in the upper ranks at least, +degenerated (it is worth remembering that Madame du Deffand was born +just after Madame de Sevigne's death), though it must be admitted that +the earlier character shows perhaps the germs of what is repulsive in +the second. + +[Sidenote: Mademoiselle de Lespinasse.] + +The third most remarkable lady letter-writer of the century, +Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, was closely connected with Madame du +Deffand. She was indeed her companion, her coadjutor, and her rival. +Julie Jeanne Eleonore de Lespinasse was in reality the illegitimate +daughter of a lady of rank, the Countess d'Albon, who lived apart from +her husband, and the name Lespinasse was merely a fancy name taken from +the D'Albon genealogy. She was born, or at least baptized, at Lyons on +the 19th November, 1732. Her mother, who practically acknowledged her, +died when she was fifteen, leaving her fairly provided for. But her +half-brothers and sisters deprived her of most of her portion, though +for a time they gave her a home. In 1754 Madame du Deffand, to whom she +had been recommended, and who had just been struck with blindness, +invited her to come and live with her, which she did, after some +hesitation. For ten years the two presided jointly over their society, +but at last Madame du Deffand's jealousy broke out. Mademoiselle de +Lespinasse retired, taking with her not a few of the habitues of the +salon, with D'Alembert at their head. Madame Geoffrin seems to have +endowed her, and she established herself in the Rue de Bellechasse, +where D'Alembert before long came to join her. They lived in a curious +sort of relationship for more than ten years, until Mademoiselle de +Lespinasse died on the 22nd May, 1776. During this time she was a +gracious hostess and a bond of union to many men of letters, especially +those of the younger _philosophe_ school. But this is not what gives her +her place here. Her claim rests upon a collection of love-letters, not +addressed to D'Alembert. She was thirty-four when the earliest of her +love affairs began, and had never been beautiful. When she died she was +forty-four, and her later letters are more passionate than the earlier. +Her first lover was a young Spaniard, the Marquis Gonsalvo de Mora; her +second, the Count de Guibert, a poet and essayist of no great merit, a +military reformer said to have been of some talent, and pretty evidently +a bad-hearted coxcomb. To him the epistles we have are addressed. All +the circumstances of these letters are calculated to make them +ridiculous, yet there is hardly any word which they less deserve. The +great defect of the eighteenth century is that its _sensibilite_ +excludes real passion. The men and women of feeling of the period always +seem as if they were playing at feeling; the affairs of the heart, which +occupy so large a place in its literature, show only the progress of a +certain kind of game which has its rules and stages to which the +players must conform, but which, when once over, leaves no more traces +than any other kind of game. To this Mademoiselle de Lespinasse is a +conspicuous exception. It has been said of her that her letters burn the +paper they are written on with the fervency of their sentiment, nor is +the expression an exaggerated one. Except in Rousseau and (in a +different form) in _Manon Lescaut_, it is in these letters that we must +look for almost the only genuine passion of the time. It is no doubt +unreal to a certain degree, morbid also in an even greater degree as +regards what is real in it. But it is in no sense consciously affected, +and conscious affectation was the bane of the period. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire.] + +The three examples which have been chosen of the masculine +letter-writing of the period are of somewhat wider range. Mademoiselle +Aisse and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse show in various forms the amiable +weaknesses of womankind, Madame du Deffand its unamiable strength. The +letters of Voltaire, of Diderot, and of the Abbe Galiani are not so +typical of a sex, but are more representative of individuals and at the +same time of the age. Voltaire's correspondence is simply enormous in +point of bulk. Fresh letters of his are constantly being discovered and +edited even now. His long life, his extraordinary industry, his position +during nearly half a century as first one of the leading men of letters, +and then unquestionably the leading man of letters of Europe, the +curious diversity of his interests, even the prosperity in point of +fortune which made him command the services of secretaries and +under-strappers, while humbler men of letters had to do the mechanical +work of composition for themselves, all contributed to bring about this +fecundity. The consequence is, that not only is the correspondence of +Voltaire of vast extent but it is also of the most various character. We +have from him early love-letters, letters to private friends of all +dates, business letters, literary letters, letters to great persons, +letters intended for publication, letters not intended for publication, +flattering letters, insulting letters, benevolent letters, patronising +letters, begging letters, letters of almost every sort and kind that the +ingenuity of human imagination can conceive or the diversity of human +relationships and circumstances require. Partial critics have contended +that the singular quality of Voltaire's genius might be sufficiently +exemplified from his letters, if no other documents were forthcoming. +Without going quite so far as this, it may be allowed that his +correspondence is a remarkable monument of those qualities in literature +which enable a man to express himself happily and rapidly on any subject +that happens to present itself. The letters of Voltaire do not perhaps +supply any ground for disputing Carlyle's sentence on Voltaire (a +sentence which has excited the wrath of French critics) that there is +not one great thought in all his works. But they enable us, even better +than any other division of those works, to appreciate the singular +flexibility of his intellect, the extraordinarily wide range of his +interests and sympathies, the practical talents which accompanied his +literary genius. + +[Sidenote: Diderot.] + +Diderot's correspondence is also considerable in bulk, though not in +that respect to be compared to Voltaire's. It has several minor +divisions, the chief of which is a body of letters addressed to the +sculptor Falconnet in Russia. But the main claim of this versatile +writer and most fertile thinker to rank in this chapter lies in his +letters to Mademoiselle Volland, a lady of mature years, to whom, in his +own middle and old age, he was, after the fashion of the time, much +attached. These letters were not published till forty or fifty years +after his death, and it is not too much to say that they supply not only +the most vivid picture of Diderot himself which is attainable, but also +the best view of the later and extremer _philosophe_ society. Many, if +not most of them, are written from that society's head-quarters, the +country house of the Baron d'Holbach, at Grandval, where Diderot was an +ever welcome visitor. This society had certain drawbacks which made it +irksome, not merely to orthodox and sober persons, but to fastidious +judges who were not much burdened with scruples. Horace Walpole, for +instance, found himself bored by it. But it was the most characteristic +society of the time, and Diderot's letters are the best pictures of it, +because, unlike some not dissimilar work, they unite great vividness and +power of description with an obvious absence of the least design to +'cook,' that is to say, to invent or to disguise facts and characters. +Diderot, who possessed every literary faculty except the faculty of +taking pains and the faculty of adroitly choosing subjects, was marked +out as the describer of such a society as this, where brilliancy was the +one thing never wanting, where eccentricity of act and speech was the +rule, where originals abounded and took care to make the most of their +originality, and where all restraint of convention was deliberately cast +aside. The character and tendencies of this society have been very +variously judged, and there is no need to decide here between the judges +further than to say that, on the whole, the famous essay of Carlyle on +Diderot not inadequately reduces to miniature Diderot's own picture of +it. Only the extremest prejudice can deny the extraordinary merit of +that picture itself, the vividness and effortless effect with which the +men and women dealt with--their doings and their sayings--are presented, +the completeness and dramatic force of the presentation. + +[Sidenote: Galiani.] + +The last of the epistolers selected for comment, the Abbe Galiani, has +this peculiarity as distinguished from Voltaire and Diderot, that he is +little except a letter-writer to the present and probably to all future +generations of readers. He will indeed appear again, but his dealings +with political economy are of merely ephemeral interest. Galiani was of +a noble Neapolitan family, was attached to the Neapolitan Legation in +Paris, and made himself a darling of _philosophe_ society there. When he +was recalled to his native country and endowed with sufficiently +lucrative employments, his chief consolation for the loss of Parisian +society was to gather as far as he could a copy of it--consisting partly +of Italians, partly of foreign and especially English visitors--to +Italy, to study classical archaeology, in which (and especially in the +department of numismatics) he was an expert, and to write letters to his +French friends. In his long residence at Paris, Galiani had acquired a +style not entirely destitute of Italianisms, but all the more piquant on +that account. His letters were published early in this century, but +incompletely and in a somewhat garbled fashion. They have recently had +the benefit of two different complete editions. They are addressed, the +greater part of them to Madame d'Epinay, and the remainder to various +correspondents. Galiani had the reputation of being one of the best +talkers of his time, and the memoirs and correspondence of his friends +(especially Diderot's) contain many reported sayings of his which amply +support the reputation. Like many famous talkers, he seems to have been +not quite so ready with the pen as with the tongue. But it is only by +comparison that his letters can be depreciated. Less voluminous and +manifold than Voltaire, less picturesque than Diderot, he is a model of +general letter-writing. He is also remarkable as an exponent of the +curious feeling of the time towards religion; a feeling which was +prevalent in the cultivated classes (with certain differences) all over +Europe. Galiani was not, like some of his French friends, a +proselytising atheist. He held some ecclesiastical employments in his +own country with decency, and died with all due attention to the rites +of the Church. But it is obvious that he was as little of a Christian, +in any definite sense of the word, as any humanist of the fifteenth +century. + +The light thrown in this fashion upon the social, moral, and +intellectual characteristics of the time constitutes the chief value of +all its historical literature, except the great philosophico-historical +works of Montesquieu and Turgot. It has a certain flimsiness about it; +it is brilliant journalism rather than literature properly so called; +the dialect in which it is written wants the gravity and sonorousness, +the colour and the poetry, of the seventeenth and earlier centuries. But +it is unmatched in power of social portraiture. Written, as much of it +is, by men of the middle class, and more of it by men who, from whatever +class they sprang, were deeply interested in social, economical, and +political problems, it is free from that ignoring of any life and class +except that of the nobility which mars much of the work of earlier +times. The picture it gives is very far from being a flattering one. The +nature to which the mirror is held up is in most cases a decidedly +corrupt nature; but the mirror is held frankly, and the reflection is +useful to posterity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[289] In studying the history, and especially the memoirs, of the +eighteenth century, the reader is at a disadvantage, inasmuch as the +admirable collections of MM. Buchon, Petitot, Michaud et Poujoulat, +etc., do not extend beyond its earliest years. Their place is very +imperfectly supplied by a collection in twenty-eight small volumes, +edited by F. Barriere for MM. Didot. This is useful as far as it goes, +but it is very far from complete; much of it is in extract only, and the +component parts of it are not selected as judiciously as they might be. +Separate editions of the principal memoirs of the century are of course +obtainable, and the number is being constantly increased; but such +separate editions are far less useful than the collections which enable +the memoir-writing of France during five centuries of its history to be +studied at an advantage scarcely to be paralleled in the literature of +any other nation. + +[290] Her earlier contemporary, Madame de Tencin, is her chief +competitor. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS. + + +[Sidenote: Occasional Writing in the Eighteenth-century. Periodicals.] + +What may be, for want of a better word, called occasional writing in +prose received a considerable development during the eighteenth century. +Some of the forms which it had previously taken, the _Pensee_, the +maxim, and so forth, were less practised, though at the beginning and +end of our present period two remarkable men, Vauvenargues and Joubert, +distinguished themselves in them, and in the form of satirical aphorism +Chamfort and Rivarol, before and during the Revolution, brought them to +great perfection. But it was powerfully encouraged by the institution of +official _eloges_, pronounced in the French Academy on famous men of the +immediate or remoter past, and of prize essays, subjects for which, in +ever increasing numbers, were proposed, not merely by that body, but by +provincial societies of a similar but humbler kind. More than all this, +the growth of periodical literature, though not exactly rapid, was +steady, and gave opportunity for the cultivation of the two main +branches of occasional writing as it is understood in modern times, +namely, social or ethical essays of the Addisonian kind, and critical +studies, literary or other. A great impetus was given to this by the +novelist Prevost, who, after his return from England, edited, as has +been observed, more than one avowed imitation of the English _Spectator_ +and _Tatler_. At the beginning of the century the chief place among +newspapers was occupied by the _Mercure Galant_, which had enjoyed the +contempt of La Bruyere, and the management of Vise and Thomas Corneille. +Towards the middle and end of the period, the _Gazette de France_, under +the management of Suard, held the principal place with a somewhat +higher aim; and of non-official publications the Jesuit _Journal de +Trevoux_ and the anti-_philosophe Annee Litteraire_ of Freron were +notable. It was not till after the beginning of the Revolution that +journalism proper spread and multiplied, and that journalists became a +power. A short notice of the chief of these will be found lower down in +this chapter, but a full history of French journalism is impossible +here. + +[Sidenote: Fontenelle.] + +The first place in point of time, and not the least in point of +importance, among the occasional writers of the eighteenth century, is +due to Fontenelle. The personal name of this curious writer, who is +perhaps the most striking example in literary history of multifarious +talent and unwearied industry just stopping short, despite their +combination, of genius, was Bernard le Bovier, and his mother was a +sister of Corneille, whose life Fontenelle himself wrote. He was +educated by the Jesuits and studied for the bar, but was unsuccessful as +an advocate, and soon gave up active practice. He came to Paris very +young, and soon became distinguished, after a fashion, in society and +literature. He was one of the last of the _precieux_, or rather he was +the inventor of a new combination of literature and gallantry which at +first exposed him to not a little satire. Unfortunately too for him he +tried first to emulate his uncles in the drama, for which he had no +talent, and one of his plays (_Aspar_), failing completely, gave his +enemies abundant opportunity. No one, however, illustrated better than +Fontenelle the saying that 'no man was ever written down except by +himself.' He was the butt of the four most dangerous satirists of his +time--Racine, Boileau, La Bruyere, and J. B. Rousseau; but though the +epigrams which Racine and Rousseau directed against him are among the +best in the language, and though the 'portrait' of Cydias, in the +_Caracteres_, at least equals them, Fontenelle received hardly any +damage from these. Finding that he was not likely to be a successful +dramatic poet, even in opera, he turned to prose, and wrote 'dialogues +of the dead,' in avowed imitation of Lucian, and a kind of romance +called '_Lettres du Chevalier d'Her_...,' in which he may be said to +have set the example of the elaborate and rather affected style, +afterwards called Marivaudage, from his most famous pupil. Even here +his success was doubtful, and he again changed his ground. He had paid +some attention to science, and he saw that there was an opening in the +growing curiosity of educated people for scientific popularising. To +this and to literary criticism and history he devoted himself for the +remainder of his long life, becoming President of the Academy of +Sciences, and virtual dictator of the Academie Francaise. His _Eloges_ +and his academic essays generally were highly popular. But his chief +single works are the famous _Entretien sur la Pluralite des Mondes_, an +example of singularly hardy speculation, and of no contemptible +learning, artfully disguised by an easy style, and his _Histoire des +Oracles_, of which much the same may be said. With hardly diminished +powers Fontenelle achieved an age not often paralleled in literary +history, though his contemporary, Saint Aulaire, a minor poet, nearly +equalled it. He died in his hundredth year, and almost at the end of it, +his long life extending from the very earliest glories of the Siecle de +Louis XIV. to the very hottest period of the Encyclopaedist battle. The +singular variety of his works, and his force of character, disguised +under a somewhat frivolous exterior, but enabling him to live down +enmity and ridicule which would have crushed most men, would of +themselves make Fontenelle a remarkable figure in literature. But his +actual work has more merits than that of mere variety. He realised quite +as keenly as his enemy La Bruyere the importance of manner in +literature, though his taste was hardly so pure. If not exactly an +original thinker, he was an acute and comprehensive one, and forestalled +most of his contemporaries in taking the direction consciously which +they were pursuing almost without knowing it. He fully appreciated the +value of paradox as stimulating men's minds and giving flavour to +literature; and his positive wit was very considerable. To not many men +are more good sayings attributed, and the goodness of these is not +always verbal only. The most famous of them, uttered in defence of his +peculiar union of heterodoxy and caution, 'I may have my fist full of +truth, and yet only care to open my little finger,' may be immoral or +not, but it expressed very early, and with singular force, the +intellectual attitude of two whole generations. + +[Sidenote: La Motte.] + +Inseparable from Fontenelle's name in literary history, as the two were +long closely united in life, is the name of La Motte. La Motte was a +much younger man than Fontenelle, and he died more than thirty years +before him, but during the first thirty years of the century the pair +exercised a kind of joint sovereignty in the Belles Lettres. They +revived the quarrel of the ancients and moderns, inclining to the modern +side. But La Motte's translation of Homer, or rather his adaptation (for +he omitted about half), is not of a nature to inspire much confidence in +his ability to judge the matter, though his essays and letters on the +subject are triumphs of ingenious word-fence. Unlike Fontenelle, La +Motte had one considerable dramatic success with the pathetic subject of +_Ines de Castro_, and his fables are not devoid of merit. It was, +however, as a prose writer of the occasional kind, and especially as a +paradoxical essayist, that he earned and deserved most fame, his prose +style being superior to Fontenelle's own. + +[Sidenote: Vauvenargues.] + +The next name deserving of mention belongs to a very different writer. +Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, covered in his brief space of +life not a third of the period allotted to Fontenelle, who was nearly +sixty when Vauvenargues was born, and outlived him ten years. Nor did he +leave any single work of consequence. Yet his scanty writings are far +more valuable in matter, if not in form, than those of the witty +centenarian. Vauvenargues was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 6th of +August, 1715. His family was ancient and honourable, but appears to have +been poor, and his education was interrupted by the bad health which +continued throughout his short life. Nevertheless he entered the army at +the age of eighteen. After this he had scanty opportunities of study, +and it is said that he was ignorant not only of Greek but even of Latin. +He served at first in Italy, and then for some years was employed on +garrison duty. At the outbreak of the war of the Austrian succession his +regiment was sent into Germany, and he had a full share of the hardships +of the Bohemian campaign. No promotion came to him, his means were +almost exhausted, and in 1744 he resigned his commission, after taking +the curiously unworldly step of writing directly to the king, asking for +a place in the diplomatic service. An application to the minister of +foreign affairs was not much more successful, and Vauvenargues, whose +evil star pursued him, had no sooner established himself with his family +than a bad attack of small-pox destroyed the little health he still had. +He set to work, however, to write, and in the short time before his +death actually published some of his works, and left others in a +condition ready for publication. He lived in Paris for the last three +years of his life, and died in 1747, at the age of thirty-two. Latterly +he had made acquaintance with Voltaire, who entertained a very high and +generous opinion of his talents, due perhaps partly to the remarkable +difference of their respective characters and points of view. +Vauvenargues' principal work is an _Introduction a la Connoissance de +l'Esprit Humain_, besides which he left a considerable number of maxims, +reflections, etc., on points of ethics and of literary criticism. In the +last part of his work there is more curiosity than instruction. It is, +however, in its way an instructive thing to see that a man of talent and +even of genius could object to Moliere for having chosen _des sujets +trop bas_, while he speaks of Boileau in the most enthusiastic terms. +The truth (and in the history of literature it is a very important +truth) is that Vauvenargues was too little versed in any language but +his own to have the requisite range of comparison necessary for literary +criticism, and that his real interest in literature was almost entirely +proportioned to its bearing upon conduct. His maxims, his _Connoissance +de l'Esprit_, his _Conseils a un Jeune Homme_, etc., are all occupied +almost entirely with questions of morality. Vauvenargues (and in this he +was remarkable) stood entirely aloof from the sceptical movement of his +age. There was, indeed, a certain scepticism in him, as in almost all +thinkers, but it was of the stamp of Pascal's, not in the least mocking +or polemical, and even, as compared with Pascal's own, much less +strictly theological. In most of his writings he shows himself an +earnest and upright man, profoundly convinced of the importance of right +conduct, gifted with an acute perception of its usual moving springs and +directions, not remarkable for humour or poetical feeling, but serious, +sober, and a little stoical. His literary characteristics reflect some +of these peculiarities, and also betray something of his neglected +education. He is never slovenly in thought, but he sometimes shocked the +exact verbal critics of the eighteenth century by such phrases as 'les +sens sont flattes d'agir, de galoper un cheval,' whereupon his censor +annotates 'neglige. Les sens ne galopent pas un cheval.' A more serious +fault is that, in his shorter maxims especially, he does not observe the +rule of absolute lucidity which La Rochefoucauld, who was as much his +model in point of style as he was his opposite in general views, never +breaks through. His sayings (it is a merit as well as a drawback) are +often rather suggestive than expressive; they remind the reader of his +own curious comparison of Corneille with Racine, 'les heros de Corneille +disent souvent de grandes choses sans les inspirer; ceux de Racine les +inspirent sans les dire.' + +[Sidenote: D'Aguesseau.] + +Contemporary with Fontenelle and La Motte was the Chancellor +D'Aguesseau, one of the most prominent figures of the earlier reign of +Louis XV., a steady defender of orthodoxy--yet, as was seen in the case +of the Encyclopaedia, willing to assist enlightenment--a man of +irreproachable character, and a writer of some merit. D'Aguesseau was +born in 1668, and died in 1751. He early received considerable +preferment in the law, and held the seals at intervals for the greater +part of the last thirty years of his life. He was a defender of +Gallicanism--indeed, he was suspected of Jansenist leanings--and a man +of great benevolence in private life. His legal and historical learning +was immense, and he was not without some tincture of science. He +deserves a place here chiefly for his speeches on public occasions, +which were in effect elaborate moral essays. An important part of them +consists of what were called _Mercuriales_ (that is to say, discourses +pronounced on certain Wednesdays (Die Mercurii) by the first president +of the Parliament of Paris) on the abuses of the day, the duties of +judges, the nature of justice, and similar subjects. + +[Sidenote: Duclos.] + +Another writer, who has been mentioned more than once before, held +somewhat aloof from the Encyclopaedists, though he was not, like +D'Aguesseau, definitely orthodox, or, like Vauvenargues, severely moral. +Charles Pinaud Duclos was one of the most miscellaneous of the +miscellaneous writers of the time. He held the office of historiographer +royal, and produced some remarkable works of the historical kind, one of +which has been noticed. He composed novels in a fanciful style midway +between Crebillon and Marivaux. He also wrote on grammar, but some of +his best work consists of short academic essays, and of a moral study +called _Considerations sur les Moeurs de Notre Temps_, which is both +well written and shows discernment. Duclos' character has been somewhat +variously represented, but the unfavourable reports (which are in the +minority) may probably be traced to the studied brusqueness of his +manners, and to his unwillingness to make common cause with the +_philosophe_ coterie, though, if some stories are to be believed, he +often conversed and argued quite in their style. + +[Sidenote: Marmontel.] + +Yet another typical figure of the same numerous class is Jean Francois +Marmontel, one of the most eminent professional men of letters of the +second class. Marmontel's moral tales, his _Belisaire_, and his plays +have already been noticed, but his main place in literature is that of a +journalist and critic. He was born at Bort, in the district of Limoges, +in 1723, and obtained some provincial reputation in letters. Introduced +to Voltaire in 1746, he began as a dramatist, and, after some failures, +acquired the protection of Madame de Pompadour. He was made editor of +the _Mercure_, which gave him an influential position and a competence. +He afterwards succeeded Duclos as historiographer, notwithstanding the +outcry which had been made against his _Belisaire_. He had contributed +almost all the minor articles on literary subjects to the Encyclopaedia, +and these were collected and published as _Elements de Litterature_ in +1787. He died in 1799. The _Elements de Litterature_ are, with the +_Cours de Litterature_ of La Harpe, the chief source of information as +to eighteenth-century criticism of the fashionable kind in France. They +are very voluminous, and, from the circumstances of their original form, +deal with a vast number of subjects. The style is for the most part +simple and good, destitute alike of the dryness and of the bombast which +were the two faults of contemporary writing. But Marmontel's system of +criticism will not bear a moment's examination. It consists simply in +the assumption that Racine, Boileau (though he was at first recalcitrant +to Boileau, and had to be admonished by Voltaire that _ca porte +malheur_), and their contemporaries are infallible models, and in the +application of this principle to all other nations. The passion for +finding plausible general reasons also leads Marmontel into grotesque +aberrations, as where he gives three reasons for English success in +poetry as contrasted with our inferiority in the other arts. First, +Englishmen, loving glory, saw early that poetry acquired glory for a +nation. Secondly, being naturally given to sadness and meditation, they +wish for emotions to distract and move them. Thirdly, their genius is +proper to poetry. This last remark, the reader should observe, comes +from a countryman of Moliere, a man who must have read the _Malade +Imaginaire_, and who was moreover a man of much more than ordinary +talent. Marmontel often has acute remarks, and his blunders and +absurdities are rather symptomatic of the false state in which criticism +was at the time than of individual shortcomings. + +[Sidenote: La Harpe.] + +Somewhat younger than Marmontel was La Harpe, who pursued the same lines +of dramatic poetry and literary criticism, the latter with more success +in his kind, so much so, that Malherbe, Boileau, and he may be ranked +together as the three representatives of the infancy, flourishing, and +decadence of the 'classical' theory of literary criticism in France. La +Harpe was born at Paris in 1739, was brought up by charity, gained a +reputation as a brilliant exhibitioner at the College d'Harcourt, and, +after the mishap of being imprisoned for a libel, obtained new success +at the Academy competitions. He acquired the favour of Voltaire, and +fairly launched himself in literature. For many years he furnished +tragedies to the stage, and criticised the literary work of others with +a singular mixture of acuteness, pedantry, and ill-temper. He was +converted from Republicanism by an imprisonment during the Terror, and +became a violent conservative and defender of orthodoxy. He died in +1803. His principal critical work is his _Cours de Litterature_, which +was the work chiefly of his later days. La Harpe had very considerable +talent, which was however warped by the false and narrow system of +criticism he adopted, and by his personal ill-temper and overbearing +disposition. He is even more than Boileau the type of the +schoolmaster-critic, who marks passages for correction according to +cut-and-dried rules instead of attempting to judge the author according +to his own standard. Yet, if he is the most typical example of the +school, he is also perhaps the best. In dealing with authors of his own +century, he is especially worthy of attention, because for the most part +they themselves had before them the standards which he used, and his +method is therefore relevant as far as it goes. La Harpe wrote well in +the fashion of his day. + +[Sidenote: Thomas.] + +With Duclos, Marmontel, and La Harpe, Thomas is usually named. This +writer, like others of our present subjects, was chiefly a composer of +academic _Eloges_, _Memoires_, _Discours_, and the like. He also wrote a +book on _Les Femmes_, a subject which he treated, as he did most things, +with seriousness, and with a mixture of declamation and sentimentality. +His literary value is but small. + +[Sidenote: Orthodox Apologists.] + +Of the definitely orthodox party only two names need be mentioned, that +of the Abbe Guenee, who devoted himself to exposing Voltaire's numerous +slips in erudition in his _Lettres de Quelques Juifs_, and that of the +Abbe Bergier, who is chiefly noteworthy as having held the singular post +of official refuter of the Encyclopaedists, in virtue of which +appointment he received two thousand _livres_ per annum from the General +Assembly of the clergy for sixteen years. He wrote with assiduity, but +was not read, and three years before the Revolution he lost his annuity, +which the Assembly struck off. Bergier was a man of learning, industry, +and good faith, but unfortunately he did not possess sufficient literary +talent to execute the task entrusted to him. The Abbe Guenee, on the +contrary, was a fair match even for Voltaire, but he did not attempt, +perhaps it was too early to attempt, anything more than skirmishing. + +[Sidenote: Freron.] + +A bitter personal opponent of La Harpe, and a famous man in literary +history, was Freron. Elie Catherine Freron was born at Quimper in +Britanny in 1719, and was educated by the Jesuits. He began a critical +journal when he was only seven-and-twenty, under the title (not so +strange then as now) of _Lettres de Madame la Comtesse de_.... But he +had already contributed to the _Observations_ and _Jugements_ of +Desfontaines. The _Lettres_ were suppressed in 1749, but continued +under another title, and at last, in 1754, became the celebrated _Annee +Litteraire_, which for twenty years was full of gall and wormwood for +Voltaire and all his partisans. Voltaire was never slow to retaliate in +such matters, and his retorts culminated in the play of _L'Ecossaise_, +in which Freron was caricatured under the title Frelon (hornet). Every +effort was made by the Encyclopaedists (who were not in the least +tolerant in practice) to procure the suppression of the _Annee_. But +Freron had solid supports in high places and held on gallantly. It is +said that his death, in 1776, was caused by a report that the +suppression had been at last obtained. He certainly suffered both from +gout and from heart disease, complaints not unlikely to make a sudden +shock fatal. Freron, like his English prototype John Dennis, has had the +disadvantage that his adversaries were numerous, witty, not too +scrupulous, and on the winning side. His personal character seems to +have been none of the most amiable. But he was more frequently right +than wrong in his criticisms on detached points, and his literary +standards were decidedly higher and better than those of his enemies. He +had moreover abundant wit and an imperturbable temper, which enabled him +to turn the laugh against Voltaire in his criticism of the first +representation of _L'Ecossaise_ itself. + +Two other adversaries of Voltaire who deserve notice as literary critics +were the Abbe Desfontaines (already mentioned) and Palissot. +Desfontaines was a man of doubtful character; but it is not certain that +he was in the wrong in the dispute which changed him from a friend into +an enemy of Voltaire, and, like Freron, he very frequently hit blots +both in the patriarch's works and in those of his disciples. Palissot +was the author of a play called _Les Philosophes_, an _Ecossaise_ on the +other side, in which Rousseau, Diderot, and others were outrageously +ridiculed. There was no great merit in this, but Palissot was not a bad +critic in some ways, and his notes on French classics, especially +Corneille, frequently show much greater taste than those of most +contemporary annotators. + +[Sidenote: Philosophe Criticism. D'Alembert, Diderot.] + +[Sidenote: Les Feuilles de Grimm.] + +[Sidenote: Diderot's Salons] + +[Sidenote: His General Criticism.] + +The leaders of the _philosophes_ themselves gave considerable attention +to criticism. Voltaire wrote this, as he wrote everything, his +principal critical work being his Commentary on Corneille, in which the +constraint of general dramatic and poetic theory which the critic +imposes on himself, and the merely conventional opinions in which he too +often indulges, do not interfere with much acute criticism on points of +detail. D'Alembert distinguished himself by his extraordinarily careful +and polished _Eloges_, or obituary notices, which remain among the +finest examples of critical appreciation of a certain kind to be found +in literature. Although he did not definitely attempt a new theory of +criticism, D'Alembert's vigorous intellect and unbiassed judgment +enabled him to estimate authors so different as (for instance) Massillon +and Marivaux with singular felicity. But the greatest of the +Encyclopaedists in this respect was unquestionably Diderot. While his +contemporaries, bent on innovation in politics and religion, accepted +without doubt or complaint the narrowest, most conventional, and most +unnatural system of literary criticism ever known, he, in his hurried +and haphazard but masterly way, practically anticipated the views and +even many of the _dicta_ of the Romantic school. Most of Diderot's +criticisms were written for Grimm's 'Leaves,' which thus acquired a +value entirely different from and far superior to any that their nominal +author could give them. Some of these short notices of current +literature are among the finest examples of the review properly so +called, though in point of mere literary style and expression they +constantly suffer from Diderot's hurried way of setting down the first +thing that came into his head in the first words that presented +themselves to clothe it. But everywhere there is to be perceived the +cardinal principle of sound criticism--that a book is to be judged, not +according to arbitrary rules laid down _ex cathedra_ for the class of +books to which it is supposed to belong, but according to the scheme of +its author in the first place, and in the second to the general laws of +aesthetics; a science which, if the Germans named it, Diderot, by their +own confession, did much to create. Even more remarkable in this respect +than his book-criticisms are his _Salons_, criticisms of the biennial +exhibitions of pictures in Paris, also written for Grimm. There are nine +of these, ranging over a period of twenty-two years, and they have +served as models for more than a century. Diderot did not adopt the old +plan (as old as the Greeks) of mere description more or less elaborate +of the picture, nor the plan of dilating on its merely technical +characteristics, though, assisted by artist friends, he managed to +introduce a fair amount of technicalities into his writing. His method +is to take in the impression produced by the painting on his mind, and +to reproduce it with the associations and suggestions it has supplied. +Thus his criticisms are often extremely discursive, and some of his most +valuable reflections on matters at first sight quite remote from the +fine arts occur in these _Salons_. Of drama Diderot had a formal theory +which he illustrated by examples not quite so happy as his precepts. +This theory involved the practical substitution of what is called in +French _drame_ for the conventional tragedy and comedy, and it brought +the French theatre (or would have brought it if it had been adopted, +which it was not until 1830) much nearer to the English than it had +been. Diderot was moreover an enthusiastic admirer of English novels, +and especially of Richardson and Sterne, partly no doubt because the +sentimentalism which characterised them coincided with his own +_sensibilite_, but also (it is fair to believe) because of their freedom +from the artificiality and the strict observance of models which +pervaded all branches of literature in France. Of poetry proper we have +little formal criticism from Diderot. His own verses are few, and of no +merit, nor was the poetry of the time at all calculated to excite any +enthusiasm in him. But the aesthetic tendency which in other ways he +expressed, and which he was the first to express, was that which, some +forty years after his death, brought about the revival of poetry in +France, through recurrence to nature, passion, truth, vividness, and +variety of sentiment. + +[Sidenote: Newspapers of the Revolution.] + +[Sidenote: The Influence of Journalism.] + +So long as the old _regime_ lasted journalism was naturally in a +condition of suppression, but from the beginning of the Revolution it +assumed at once an important position in the state, and a position still +more important as a nursery of rising men of letters. At the time of the +outbreak only two papers of importance existed, the already mentioned +_Gazette de France_, and the _Journal de Paris_, in which Garat, Andre +Chenier, Roucher, and many other men of distinction, won their spurs. +1789, however, saw the birth of numerous sheets, some of which continued +almost till our own days. The most important was the _Gazette Nationale_ +or _Moniteur Universel_, in which not merely Garat and La Harpe, but +Ginguene, a literary critic of talent and a republican of moderate +principles, together with the future historian Lacretelle, and the comic +poet, fabulist, and critic Andrieux, took part. Rivarol, Champcenetz, +and Pelletier conducted the Royalist _Actes des Apotres_, Marat started +his ultra-republican _Ami du Peuple_, Camille Desmoulins the _Courier de +Brabant_, Durozoy the _Gazette de Paris_. Barrere and Louvet, both +notorious, if not famous names, launched for the first time a paper with +a title destined to fortune, _Le Journal des Debats_; and Camille +Desmoulins changed his oddly-named journal into one named more oddly +still, _Les Revolutions de France et de Brabant_. All these, and more, +were the growth of the single year 1789. The next saw the avowedly +Royalist _Ami du Roi_ of Royou, the atrocious _Pere Duchene_ of Hebert, +the cumbrously-named _Journal des Amis de la Constitution_, on which +Fontanes, Clermont-Tonnerre, and other future Bonapartists and +Constitutionalists worked. In 1791 no paper of importance, except the +short-lived Girondist _Chronique du Mois_, appeared. In the next year +many Terrorist prints of no literary merit were started, and one, +entitled _Nouvelles Politiques_, to which the veterans Suard and +Morellet, with Guizot, a novice of the time to come, Lacretelle, Dupont +de Nemours, and others, were contributors. In the later years of the +revolutionary period, the only important newspaper was what was first +called the _Journal de l'Empire_, and at the end of Napoleon's reign the +_Journal des Debats_, on which Fievee, Geoffroy, and many other writers +of talent worked. In the early days of these various journals political +interests naturally engrossed them. But the literary tastes and +instincts of Parisians were too strong not to demand attention, and by +degrees the critical part of the newspaper became of importance. Under +the restoration this importance grew, and the result was the +_Conservateur Litteraire_ and the _Globe_, in the former of which Victor +Hugo was introduced to the public, and in the latter Sainte-Beuve. This +sudden uprise of journalism produced a remarkable change in the +conditions of literary work, and offered chances to many who would +previously have been dependent on individual patronage. But so far as +regards literature, properly so called, all its results which were worth +anything appeared subsequently in books, and there is therefore no need +to refer otherwise than cursorily to the phenomenon of its development. +Put very briefly, the influence of journalism on literature may be said +to be this: it opens the way to those to whom it might otherwise be +closed; it facilitates the destruction of erroneous principles; it +assists production; and it interferes with labour and care spent over +the thing produced. + +[Sidenote: Chamfort.] + +From the crowd of clever writers whom this outburst of journalism found +ready to draw their pens in one service or the other, two names emerge +as pre-eminently remarkable. Garat and Champcenetz were men of wit and +ingenuity, Andre Chenier was a great poet, and his brother, Marie +Joseph, a man of good literary taste and master of an elegant style, +Lacretelle a painstaking historian, and many others worthy of note in +their way. But Chamfort and Rivarol deserve a different kind of notice +from this. They united in a remarkable fashion the peculiarities of the +man of letters of the eighteenth century with the peculiarities of the +man of letters of the nineteenth, and their individual merit was, though +different and complementary, almost unique. Chamfort was born in +Auvergne, in 1741. He was the natural son of a person who occupied the +position of companion, and legally possessed nothing but his baptismal +name of Nicholas. Like his rival, La Harpe, he obtained an exhibition at +one of the Paris colleges, and distinguished himself. After leaving +school he lived for a time by miscellaneous literature, and at last made +his way to society and to literary success by dint of competing for and +winning academic prizes. On the second occasion of his competition he +defeated La Harpe. Afterwards Madame Helvetius assisted him, and at last +he received from Chabanon (a third-rate man of letters, who may be most +honourably mentioned here) a small annuity which made him independent. +It is said that he married, and that his wife died six months +afterwards. He was elected to the Academy, and patronised by all sorts +of persons, from the queen downwards. But at the outbreak of the +Revolution he took the popular side, though he could not continue long +faithful to it. In the Terror he was menaced with arrest, tried to +commit suicide, and died horribly mutilated in 1794. Chamfort's literary +works are considerable in bulk, but only a few of them have merit. His +tragedies are quite worthless, his comedy, _La Jeune Indienne_, not much +better. His verse tales exceed in licentiousness his models in La +Fontaine, but fall far short of them in elegance and humour. His +academic essays are heavy and scarcely intelligent. But his brief +witticisms and his short anecdotes and apophthegms hardly admit a rival. +Chamfort was a man soured by his want of birth, health, and position, +and spoilt in mental development by the necessity of hanging on to the +great persons of his time. But for a kind of tragi-comic satire, a +_saeva indignatio_, taking the form of contempt of all that is exalted +and noble, he has no equal in literature except Swift. + +[Sidenote: Rivarol.] + +The life of Rivarol was also an adventurous one, but much less sombre. +He was born about 1750, of a family which seems to have had noble +connections, but which, in his branch of it, had descended to +innkeeping. Indeed it is said that Riverot, and not Rivarol, was the +name which his father actually bore. He himself, however, first assumed +the title of Chevalier de Parcieux, and then that of Comte de Rivarol. +The way to literary distinction in those days was either the theatre or +criticism, and Rivarol, with the acuteness which characterised him, +knowing that he had no talent for the former, chose the latter. His +translation (with essay and notes) of Dante is an extraordinarily clever +book, and his discourse on the universality of the French tongue, which +followed, deserves the same description. It was not, however, in mere +criticism that Rivarol's forte lay, though he long afterwards continued +to exhibit his acuteness in it by utterances of various kinds. In 1788 +(the year before the Revolution) he excited the laughter of all Paris, +and the intense hatred of the hack-writers of his time, by publishing, +in conjunction with Champcenetz, an _Almanach de nos Grands Hommes_, in +which, by a mixture of fiction and fact, he caricatures his smaller +contemporaries in the most pitiless manner. When the Revolution broke +out Rivarol took the Royalist side, and contributed freely to its +journals. He soon found it necessary to leave the country, and lived for +ten years in Brussels, London, Hamburg, and Berlin, publishing +occasionally pamphlets and miscellaneous works. He died at the Prussian +capital in 1801. Not only has Rivarol a considerable claim as a critic, +and a very high position as a political pamphleteer, but he is as much +the master of the prose epigram as Chamfort is of the short anecdote. +Following the example of his predecessors, he put many of his best +things in a treatise, _De l'Homme Intellectuel et Moral_, which, as a +whole, is very dull and unsatisfactory, though it is lighted up by +occasional flashes of the most brilliant wit. His detached sayings, +which are not so much _Pensees_ or maxims as conversational good things, +are among the most sparkling in literature, and, with Chamfort's, occupy +a position which they keep almost entirely to themselves. It has been +said of him and of Chamfort (who, being of similar talents and on +opposite sides, were naturally bitter foes) that they 'knew men, but +only from the outside, and from certain limited superficial and +accidental points of view. They knew books, too, but their knowledge was +circumscribed by the fashions of a time which was not favourable to +impartial literary appreciation. Hence their anecdotes are personal +rather than general, rather amusing than instructive, rather showing the +acuteness and ingenuity of the authors than able to throw light on the +subjects dealt with. But as mere tale-tellers and sayers of sharp things +they have few rivals.' It may be added that they complete and sum up the +merits and defects of the French society of the eighteenth century, and +that, in so far as literature can do this, the small extent of their +selected works furnishes a complete comment on that society. + +[Sidenote: Joubert.] + +Contemporary with these two writers, though, from the posthumous +publication of his works years after the end of his long life, he seems +in a manner a contemporary of our own, was Joseph Joubert, the last +great _Pensee_-writer of France and of Europe. Joubert's birthplace was +Montignac, in Perigord, and the date of his birth 1754, three years +after that of Rivarol, and about twelve after that of Chamfort. He was +educated at Toulouse, where, without taking regular orders, he joined +the Freres de la Doctrine Chretienne, a teaching community, and studied +and taught till he was twenty-two years old. Then his health being, as +it was all through his life, weak, he returned home, and succeeding +before long to a small but sufficient fortune, he went to Paris. Here he +became intimate with the second _philosophe_ generation (La Harpe, +Marmontel, etc.), and is said to have for a time been an enthusiastic +hearer of Diderot, the most splendid talker of that or any age. But +Joubert's ideals and method of thought were radically different from +those of the _Philosophes_, and he soon found more congenial literary +companions, of whom the chief were Fontanes and Chenedolle, while he +found his natural home in the salon of two ladies of rank and +cultivation, Madame de Beaumont and Madame de Vintimille. Before long he +married and established himself in Paris with a choice library, into +which, it is said, no eighteenth-century writer was admitted. His health +became worse and worse, yet he lived to the age of seventy, dying in +1824. Fourteen years afterwards Chateaubriand, at the request of his +widow, edited a selection of his remains, and four years later still his +nephew, M. de Raynal, produced a fuller edition. + +Joubert's works consist (with the exception of a few letters) +exclusively of _Pensees_ and maxims, which rank in point of depth and of +exquisite literary expression with those of La Rochefoucauld, and in +point of range above them. They are even wider in this respect than +those of Vauvenargues, which they also much resemble. Ethics, politics, +theology, literature, all occupy Joubert. In politics he is, as may be +perhaps expected from his time and circumstances, decidedly +anti-revolutionary. In theology, without being exactly orthodox +according to any published scheme of orthodoxy, Joubert is definitely +Christian. In ethics he holds a middle place between the unsparing +hardness of the self-interest school and the somewhat gushing manner of +the sentimentalists. But his literary thoughts are perhaps the most +noteworthy, not merely from our present point of view. All alike have +the characteristic of intense compression (he described his literary aim +in the phrase 'tormented by the ambition of putting a book in a page, a +page into a phrase, and a phrase into a word'), while all have the same +lucidity and freedom from enigma. All are alike polished in form and +style according to the best models of the seventeenth century; but +whereas study and reflection might have been sufficient to give Joubert +the material of his other thoughts, the wide difference between his +literary judgments and those of his time is less easily explicable. No +finer criticism on style and on poetry in the abstract exists than his, +and yet his reading of poetry cannot have been very extensive. He is +even just to the writers of the eighteenth century, whose manner he +disliked, and whose society he had abjured. He seems, indeed, to have +had almost a perfect faculty of literary appreciation, and wherever his +sayings startle the reader it will generally be found that there is a +sufficient explanation beneath. There is probably no writer in any +language who has said an equal number of remarkable things on an equal +variety of subjects in an equally small space, and with an equally high +and unbroken excellence of style and expression. This is the intrinsic +worth of Joubert. In literary history he has yet another interest, that +of showing in the person of a man living out of the literary world, and +far removed from the operation of cliques, the process which was +inevitably bringing about the great revolution of 1830. + +[Sidenote: Courier.] + +Like Joubert, Paul Louis Courier had a great dislike and even contempt +for the authors of the eighteenth century, but curiously enough this +dislike did not in the least affect his theological or political +opinions. He was born at Paris, in 1772, being the son of a wealthy man +of the middle class. His youth was passed in the country, and he early +displayed a great liking for classical study. As a compromise between +business, which he hated, and literature, of which his father would not +hear, he entered the army in 1792. He served on the Rhine, and not long +after joining broke his leave in a manner rather unpleasantly resembling +desertion. His friends succeeded in saving him from the consequences of +this imprudence, and he served until Wagram, when he finally left the +army, again in very odd circumstances. He then lived in Italy (where his +passion for the classics led him into an absurd dispute about an alleged +injury he had caused to a manuscript of Longus) until the fall of the +Empire. When he was forty-five years old he was known in literature only +as a translator of classics, remarkable for scholarship and for careful +modelling of his style upon the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, +rather than upon the eighteenth. Although he had hitherto taken little +active part in politics, the so-called 'ideas of 89' had sunk deeply +into him. Impelled, not by any wide views on the future of the nation, +but apparently by the mere _bourgeois_ hatred of titles, old descent, +and the other privileges of the aristocracy, he began a series of +pamphlets to the success of which there is no rival except that of the +Letters of Junius, while Junius falls far short of Courier in intrinsic +literary merit. There are, indeed, few authors whose merit resides so +wholly in their style and power of expression as Courier's. His thought +is narrow in the extreme; even where its conclusions are just it rests +rather on the jealousies of the typical _bourgeois_ than on anything +else. But in irony he has, with the exception of Pascal and Swift, no +superior. He began by a _Petition aux Deux Chambres_. Then he +contributed a series of letters to _Le Censeur_, a reform journal; then +he published various pamphlets, usually signed 'Paul Louis, Vigneron,' +and ostensibly addressed to his neighbours and fellow villagers. He had +established himself on a small estate in Touraine, which he farmed +himself. But he was much in Paris, and his political writings made him +acquainted with the prison of Sainte Pelagie. His death, in April 1825, +was singular, and indeed mysterious. He was shot, the murderer escaping. +It was suspected to be one of his own servants, to whom he was a harsh +and unpopular master, and the suspicion was confirmed some years +afterwards by the confession of a game-keeper. His _Simple Discours_ +against the presentation of Chambord to the Duc de Bordeaux, his _Livret +de Paul Louis_, his _Pamphlet des Pamphlets_, are all models of their +kind. Nowhere is the peculiar quality which is called in French +_narquois_ displayed with more consummate skill. The language is at once +perfectly simple and of the utmost literary polish, the arguments, +whether good or bad, always tellingly expressed. But perhaps he has +written nothing better than the _Lettre a M. Renouard_, in which he +discusses the mishap with the manuscript of Longus, and the letter to +the _Academie des Inscriptions_ on their refusal to elect him. The +style of Courier is almost unique, and its merits are only denied by +those who do not possess the necessary organ for appreciating it. + +[Sidenote: Senancour.] + +This chapter may perhaps be most appropriately concluded by the notice +of a singular writer who, although longer lived, was contemporary with +Courier. Etienne Pivert de Senancour may be treated almost indifferently +as a moral essayist, or as a producer of the peculiar kind of faintly +narrative and strongly ethical work which Rousseau had made fashionable. +The infusion of narrative in his principal and indeed only remarkable +work, _Obermann_, is however so slight, that he will come in best here, +though in his old age he wrote a professed novel, _Isabella_. Senancour +was born in 1770, his father being a man of position and fortune, who +lost both at the Revolution. The son was destined for the Church, but +ran away and spent a considerable time in Switzerland, where he married, +returning to France towards the end of the century. He then published +divers curious works of half-sentimental, half-speculative reflection, +by far the most important of which, _Obermann_, appeared in 1804. Then +Senancour had to take to literary hack-work for a subsistence; but in +his later years Villemain and Thiers procured pensions for him, and he +was relieved from want. He died in 1846. _Obermann_ has not been ill +described by George Sand as a _Rene_ with a difference; Chateaubriand's +melancholy hero feeling that he could do anything if he would but has no +spirit for any task, Senancour's that he is unequal to his own +aspirations. No brief epigram of this kind can ever fully describe a +book; but this, though inadequate, is not incorrect so far as it goes. +The book is a series of letters, in which the supposed writer delivers +melancholy reflections on all manner of themes, especially moral +problems and natural beauty. Senancour was in a certain sense a +_Philosophe_, in so far that he was dogmatically unorthodox and +discarded conventional ideas as to moral conduct; but he is much nearer +Rousseau than Diderot. Indeed, he sometimes seems to the reader little +more than an echo of the former, until his more distinctly modern +characteristics (characteristics which were not fully or generally felt +or reproduced till the visionary and discouraged generation of +1820-1850) reappear. It is perhaps not unfair to say that the pleasure +with which this generation recognised its own sentiments in _Obermann_ +gave rise to a traditional estimate of the literary value of that book +which is a little exaggerated. Yet it has considerable merit, especially +in the simplicity and directness with which expression is given to a +class of sentiments very likely to find vent in language either +extravagant or affected. Its form is that of a series of letters, dated +from various places, but chiefly from a solitary valley in the Alps in +which the hero lives, meditates, and pursues the occupations of +husbandry on his small estate. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +PHILOSOPHERS. + + +[Sidenote: The philosophe movement.] + +The entire literary and intellectual movement of the eighteenth century +is very often called the _philosophe_ movement, and the writers who took +part in it _les philosophes_. The word 'philosopher' is, however, here +used in a sense widely different from its proper and usual one. +_Philosophie_, in the ordinary language of the middle and later +seventeenth century, meant simply freethinking on questions of religion. +This freethinking, of which Saint-Evremond was the most distinguished +representative, involved no revolutionary or even reforming attitude +towards politics or practical affairs of any kind. As however the next +century advanced, the character of French scepticism became altered. +Contact with English Deism gave form and precision to its theological or +anti-theological side. The reading of Locke animated it against +Cartesianism, and the study of English politics excited it against the +irresponsible despotism and the crushing system of ecclesiastical and +aristocratic privilege which made almost the entire burden of government +rest on the shoulders least able to bear it. French 'philosophism' then +became suddenly militant and practical. Toleration and liberty of +speculation in religion, constitutional government in politics, the +equalisation of pressure in taxation, and the removal of privilege, +together with reform in legal procedure, were the objects which it had +most at heart. In merely speculative philosophy, that is to say, in +metaphysics, it was much less active, though it had on the whole a +tendency towards materialism, and by a curious accident it was for the +most part rigidly conservative in literary criticism. But it was eager +in the cultivation of ethics from various points of view, and busy in +the study both of the philosophy of history, which may be said to date +from that period, and of physical science, in which Newton took the +place of Locke as guide. The almost universal presence of this practical +and reforming spirit makes it not by any means so easy to subdivide the +branches of literature, as is the case in the seventeenth century. La +Bruyere had said, in the days of acquiescence in absolutism, that to a +Frenchman 'Les grands sujets sont defendus,' meaning thereby theology +and politics. The general spirit of the eighteenth century was a +vigorous denial of this, and an eager investigation into these 'grands +sujets.' This spirit made its appearance in the most unexpected +quarters, and in the strangest forms. It converted (in the hands of +Voltaire) the stiffest and most conventional form of drama ever known +into a pamphlet. It insinuated polemics under the guise of history, and +made the ponderous and apparently matter-of-fact folios of a Dictionary +of Arts and Manufactures the vehicles of arguments for reform. It +overflowed into every department of literary occupation. Some of the +chief prose manifestations of this spirit have been discussed and +arranged in the two previous chapters under the head of history and +essay writing. The rest will be dealt with here. A certain distinction +of form, though it is often rather arbitrary than real, renders such a +subdivision possible, while it is desirable in the interest of +clearness. It will be noticed that while the attack is voluminous and +manifold, the defence is almost unrepresented in literature. This is one +of the most remarkable facts in literary history. In England, from which +the _philosophe_ movement borrowed so much, the Deists had not only not +had their own way in the literary battle, but had been beaten all along +the line by the superior intellectual and literary prowess of the +defenders of orthodoxy. The case in France went otherwise and almost by +default. The only defender of orthodoxy whose name has survived in +literature--for Freron, despite his power, was little more than a +literary critic--is the Abbe Guenee. In so singular a state was the +church of France that scarcely a single preacher or theologian, after +Massillon's death in 1742, could challenge equality with even third- or +fourth-rate men of letters; while, after the death of the Chancellor +d'Aguesseau in 1751, no layman of eminence can be named until Joseph de +Maistre, nearly half a century later, who was at once a considerable +writer and a declared defender of religion. Indeed no small proportion +of the enemies of ecclesiasticism were actually paid and privileged +members of the Church itself. Thus little opposition, except that of +simple _vis inertiae_, was offered to the new views and the crusade by +which they were supported. This crusade, however, had two very different +stages. The first, of which the greatest representatives are Montesquieu +and in a way Voltaire himself, was critical and reforming, but in no way +revolutionary; the second, of whom the Encyclopaedists are the +representatives, was, consciously or unconsciously, bent on a complete +revolution. We shall give an account first of the chief representatives +of these two great classes of the general movement, and then of those +offshoots or schools of that movement which busied themselves with the +special subjects of economics, ethics, and metaphysics, as distinguished +from general politics. + +[Sidenote: Montesquieu.] + +Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu et de la Brede, was born at +the _chateau_, which gave him the last-named title, in the neighbourhood +of Bordeaux, on the 18th of January, 1689. His family was not of the +oldest, but it had, as he tells us, some two or three centuries of +proved _noblesse_ to boast of, and had been distinguished in the law. He +himself was destined for that profession, and after a youth of laborious +study became councillor of the parliament of Bordeaux in 1714, and in a +year or two president. In 1721 he produced the _Lettres Persanes_, and +four years later the curious little prose poem called the _Temple de +Gnide_. Some objection was made by the minister Fleury, who was rigidly +orthodox, to the satirical tone of the former book in ecclesiastical +matters, but Montesquieu was none the less elected of the Academy in +1728. He had given up his position at the Bordeaux Parlement a few years +before this, and set out on an extensive course of travel, noting +elaborately the manners, customs, and constitution of the countries +through which he passed. Two years of this time were spent in England, +for which country, politically speaking, he conceived a great +admiration. On his return to France he lived partly in Paris, but +chiefly at his estate of La Brede, taking an active interest in its +management, and in the various occupations of a country gentleman, but +also working unceasingly at his masterpiece, the _Esprit des Lois_. +This, however, was not published for many years, and was long preceded +by the book which ranks second in importance to it, the _Grandeur et +Decadence des Romains_, 1734. This was Montesquieu's first serious work, +and it placed him as high among serious writers as the _Lettres +Persanes_ had among lighter authors. The _Esprit des Lois_ itself did +not appear till 1748. Montesquieu, whose life was in no way eventful, +lived for some years longer, dying in Paris on the 10th of February, +1755. Besides the works mentioned he had written several dialogues and +other trifles, a considerable number of _Pensees_, and some articles for +the earlier volumes of the Encyclopaedia. + +[Sidenote: Lettres Persanes.] + +[Sidenote: Gradeur et Decadence des Romains] + +Montesquieu probably deserves the title of the greatest man of letters +of the French eighteenth century, the superior versatility and more +superficial brilliancy of Voltaire being compensated in him by far +greater originality and depth of thought. His three principal works +deserve to be considered in turn. The _Lettres Persanes_, in which the +opinions of a foreigner on French affairs are given, is not entirely +original in conception; the idea of the vehicle being possibly suggested +by the _Amusements Divers_ of Dufresny the comic author. The working +out, however, is entirely Montesquieu's, and was followed closely enough +by the various writers, who, with Voltaire and Goldsmith at their head, +have adopted a similar medium for satire and criticism since. It is not +too much to say that the entire spirit of the _philosophe_ movement in +its more moderate form is contained and anticipated in the _Lettres +Persanes_. All the weaknesses of France in political, ecclesiastical, +and social arrangements are here touched on with a light but sure hand, +and the example is thus set of attacking 'les grands sujets.' From a +literary point of view the form of this work is at least as remarkable +as the matter. Voltaire himself is nowhere more witty, while Montesquieu +has over his rival the indefinable but unquestionable advantage of +writing more like a gentleman. There is no single book in which the +admirable capacity of the French language for jesting treatment of +serious subjects is better shown than in the _Lettres Persanes_. +Montesquieu's next important work was of a very different character. The +_Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Decadence des +Romains_ is an entirely serious work. It does not as yet exhibit the +magnificent breadth of view and the inexhaustible fertility of +explanation which distinguish the _Esprit des Lois_, but it has been +well regarded as a kind of preliminary exercise for that great work. +Montesquieu here treats an extensive but homogeneous and manageable +subject from the point of view of philosophical history, after a method +which had been partially tried by Bossuet, and systematically arranged +by Vico in Italy, but which was not fully developed till Turgot's time. +That is to say, his object is not merely to exhibit, but to explain the +facts, and to explain them on general principles applicable with due +modifications to other times and other histories. Accordingly, the style +of the _Grandeur et Decadence_ is as grave and dignified as that of the +_Lettres Persanes_ is lively and malicious. It is sometimes a little too +sententious in tone, and suffers from the habit, induced probably by +_Pensee_-writing, of composing in very brief paragraphs. But it is an +excellent example of its kind, and especially remarkable for the extreme +clearness and lucidity with which the march and sequence of events in +the gross is exhibited. + +[Sidenote: Esprit des Lois.] + +The _Esprit des Lois_ is, however, a far greater book than either of +these, and far more original. The title may be thought to be not +altogether happy, and indeed rather ambiguous, because it does not of +itself suggest the extremely wide sense in which the word law is +intended to be taken. An exact if cumbrous title for the book would be +'On the Relation of Human Laws and Customs to the Laws of Nature.' The +author begins somewhat formally with the old distinction of politics +into democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. He discusses the principles +of each and their bearings on education, on positive law, on social +conditions, on military strength, offensive and defensive, on individual +liberty, on taxation and finance. Then an abrupt return is made from the +effects to the causes of constitutions and polity. The theory of the +influence of physical conditions, and especially of climate, on +political and social institutions--a theory which is perhaps more than +any other identified with the book--receives special attention, and a +somewhat disproportionate space is given to the question of slavery in +connection with it. From climate Montesquieu passes to the nature of +the soil, as in its turn affecting civil polity. He then attacks the +subject of manners and customs as distinct from laws, of trade and +commerce, of the family, of jurisprudence, of religion. The book +concludes with an elaborate examination of the feudal system in France. +Throughout it the reader is equally surprised at the varied and exact +knowledge of the author, and at his extraordinary fertility in general +views. This fertility is indeed sometimes a snare to him, and leads to +rash generalisation. But what has to be remembered is, that he was one +of the pioneers of this method of historical exploration, and that +hundreds of principles which, after correction by his successors, have +passed into general acceptance, were discovered, or at least enunciated, +by him for the first time. Nothing is more remarkable in Montesquieu, +and nothing more distinguishes him from the common run of his somewhat +self-satisfied and short-sighted successors, than the steady hold he +keeps on the continuity of history, and his superiority to the shallow +view of his day (constantly put forward by Voltaire), according to which +the middle ages were a dark period of barbarism, the study of which +could be of no use to any one but a mere curiosity hunter. Montesquieu +too, almost alone of his contemporaries, had a matured and moderate plan +of political and social reform. While some of them indulged in an idle +and theoretical Republicanism, and others in the old unpractical +_frondeur_ spirit, eager to pull down but careless about building up, +Montesquieu had conceived the idea of a limited monarchy, not identical +with that of England, but in many ways similar to it; an ideal which in +the first quarter of the eighteenth century might have been put in +practice with far better chance of success than in the first quarter of +the nineteenth. The merely literary merits of this great book are equal +to its philosophical merits. The vast mass of facts with which the +author deals is selected with remarkable judgment, and arranged with +remarkable lucidity. The style is sober, devoid of ornament, but +admirably proportioned and worked out. There are few greater books, not +merely in French but in literature, than the _Esprit des Lois_. + +[Sidenote: Voltaire.] + +With Voltaire the case is very different. Very many of his innumerable +works have directly philosophical titles, but no one of them is a work +of much interest or merit. His 'Philosophic Letters,' 1733, published +after his return from England, and the source of much trouble to him, +are the lively but not very trustworthy medium of a contrast between +English liberty and toleration and French arbitrary government. His +'Discourses on Man,' and other verse of the same kind, are +verse-philosophy of the class of Pope's. The pompously named 'Treatise +on Metaphysics,' 1734, is very much the same in substance if not in +form. The remarks on Pascal's _Pensees_ are unimportant contributions to +the crusade against superstition; the Philosophical Dictionary, 1764, is +a heterogeneous collection of articles with the same object. The _Essai +sur les Moeurs_, 1756, composed not improbably in rivalry with +Montesquieu, contains much acute reflection on particulars, but is +injured by the author's imperfect information as to the subjects of +which he was treating, by his entirely unphilosophical contempt for the +'Dark Ages,' and indeed by the absence of any general conception of +history which can be called philosophical. Voltaire's real importance, +however, in connection with the _philosophe_ movement is to be found, +not in the merit or value of any one of his professedly philosophical +books, but in the fact that all his works, his poems, his plays, his +histories, his romances, his innumerable flying essays and papers of all +sorts, were invariably saturated with its spirit, and helped to +communicate it to others. It cannot be said that Voltaire had any clear +conception of the object which he wished to attain, except in so far as +the famous watchword 'Ecrasez l'Infame' goes. This means not, as has +been erroneously thought, 'crush Christianity,' but 'crush persecuting +superstition.' He was by no means in favour of any political reform, +except as far as private rights were concerned. He would have liked the +exaggerated political privileges of the Church (which enabled it to +persecute dissidents, and inflicted on laymen an unfair share of +taxation) to be revoked, the cruel and irrational procedure of the +French tribunals to be reformed, Church lands to be in great part +secularised, and so forth; but he never seems to have faced the +necessity of connecting these reforms with a radical alteration of the +whole system of government. The sharp point of his ridicule was, +however, always at the service of the aggressive party, especially for +what he had most at heart, the overthrow of dogmatic and traditional +theology and ecclesiasticism. For this purpose, as has been said +already, he was willing to make, and did make, all his works, no matter +of what kind (except a few scattered writings on mathematics and +physics, pure and simple, in which he took great interest), into more or +less elaborate pamphlets, and to put at the service of the movement his +great position as the head of French and indeed of European letters. His +habitual inaccuracy, and the inferiority of his mind in strictly logical +faculty and in commanding range of view, disabled him from really +serious contributions to philosophy of any kind. The curious mixture of +defects and merits in this great writer is apt to render piecemeal +notice of him, such as is necessitated by the plan of this book, +apparently unfavourable. But no literary historian can take leave of +Voltaire with words of intentional disfavour. The mere fact that it has +been necessary to take detailed notice of him in every one of the last +six chapters, is roughly indicative of his unequalled versatility. But, +versatile as he is, there is perhaps no department of his work, save +serious poetry and criticism, in which from the literary point of view +he fails to attain all but the highest rank. + +[Sidenote: The Encyclopaedia.] + +Montesquieu and Voltaire were, as has been said, precursors rather than +members of the _philosophe_ group proper, which is identified with the +Encyclopaedia, and to this group it is now time to come. The history of +this famous book is rather curious. The English Cyclopaedia of Ephraim +Chambers had appeared in 1727. About fifteen years after its publication +a translation of it was offered to and accepted by the French +bookseller, Le Breton. But Le Breton was not satisfied with a bare +translation, and wished the book to be worked up into something more +extensive. He applied to different men of letters, and finally to +Diderot, who, enlisting the Chancellor d'Aguesseau in the plan, +obtaining privilege for the enlarged work, and mustering by degrees a +staff of contributors which included almost every man of letters of any +repute in France, succeeded in carrying it out. The task was anything +but a sinecure. It occupied nearly twenty years of Diderot's life; it +was repeatedly threatened and sometimes actually prohibited; and +D'Alembert (Diderot's principal coadjutor, and in fact co-editor) +actually retired from it in disgust at the obstacles thrown in their +way. The book so produced was by no means a mere pamphlet or +controversial work, though many of the articles were made polemical by +those to whom they were entrusted. The principal of its contributors +however--Voltaire himself was one--became gradually recognised as +representing the criticism of existing institutions, many of which, it +must be confessed, were so bad at the time that simple examination of +them was in itself the severest censure. It becomes necessary, +therefore, to mention the names and works of the most remarkable of this +group who have not found or will not find a place elsewhere. + +[Sidenote: Diderot.] + +Denis Diderot was born at Langres, on the 15th October, 1713. He was +brilliantly successful at school, but on being required to choose a +profession rejected both church and law. It appears, however, that he +studied medicine. His father, a man of affectionate temper but strong +will, refused to support him unless he chose a regular mode of life, and +Diderot at once set up for himself and attempted literature. Not much is +authentically known of his life till, in 1743, he married; but he seems +to have lived partly by taking pupils, partly by miscellaneous literary +hack-work. After his marriage his household expenses (and others) +quickened his literary activity, and before long he received, in the +editorship of the Encyclopaedia, a charge which, though ridiculously ill +paid and very laborious, practically secured him from want for many +years, while it gave him a very important position. He made many +friends, and was especially intimate with the Baron d'Holbach, a rich +and hospitable man, and a great adept in chemistry and atheism. Before +this Diderot had had some troubles, being even imprisoned at Vincennes +for his _Essai sur les Aveugles_, 1749. Besides his Encyclopaedia work +Diderot was lavish in contributing, often without either remuneration or +acknowledgment of any kind, to the work of other men, and especially to +the correspondence by which his friend Grimm kept the sovereigns of +Germany and Russia informed of the course of things in Paris. The most +remarkable of these contributions--criticisms of literature and +art--have been noticed elsewhere, as have Diderot's historical and +fictitious productions. As he grew old his necessities were met by a +handsome act of Catherine of Russia, who bought his library, left him +the use of it, and gave him a pension nominally as payment for his +trouble as caretaker. He made, in 1773, a journey to St. Petersburg to +pay his thanks, and on his return stayed for some time in Holland. He +died in Paris in 1784. Diderot's miscellaneous works are, like +Voltaire's, penetrated by the _philosophe_ spirit, but it is less +prominent, owing to his greater acquaintance with the individual matters +which he handled. His contributions to definite philosophical literature +are not unimportant. He began by an 'Essay on Merit and Virtue,' 1745, +imitated from Shaftesbury, and by some more original _Pensees +Philosophiques_. These pieces were followed by _La Promenade du +Sceptique_, written somewhat in the fashion of Berkeley's _Alciphron_, +and by some minor treatises, the most important of which are the +_Lettres sur les Sourds et Muets_, and by the already mentioned _Lettre +sur les Aveugles_, which led to his imprisonment, with some 'Thoughts on +the Interpretation of Nature.' A singular and characteristic book +containing not a few acute but fantastic ideas is _Le Reve de +D'Alembert_, which, like an elaborate criticism on Helvetius' _De +l'Homme,_ was not printed during Diderot's life. The _Essai sur les +Regnes de Claude et de Neron_ was one of the latest of Diderot's works, +and is a kind of historico-philosophical disquisition. The last piece of +any importance which is included in the philosophical works of Diderot +is an extensive scheme for a Russian university. + +The characteristics of Diderot's philosophical works are the same as the +characteristics of those other works of his which have been noticed, and +his general position as a writer may well be considered here. There has +seldom been an author who was more fertile in ideas. It is impossible to +name a subject which Diderot has not treated, and hardly possible to +name one on which he has not said striking and memorable things. The +peculiarity of his mind was, that it could adjust itself, with hardly +any effort, to any subject presented to it, grasp that subject and +express thoughts on it in a novel and effective manner. He had moreover, +what some other men of his century, notably Voltaire, lacked, a vast +supply of positive information on the subjects with which he dealt, and +an entire independence of conventional points of view in dealing with +them. This independence was in some respects pushed to an unfortunate +length, exposing him (whether deservedly or not, is an exceedingly +difficult point to resolve) to the charge of atheism, and (beyond all +doubts deservedly) to the charge of wilful disregard of the accepted +decencies of language. Another and very serious fault, arising partly +from temperament and partly from circumstances, was the want of needful +pains and deliberation which characterises most of Diderot's work. That +work is extremely voluminous, and even as it is, we have not anything +like the whole of it in a collected form. Indeed, by far the larger part +was never given to the world by the author himself in any deliberate or +finished shape, and much of what he did publish was the result of mere +improvisation. The consequence is, that Diderot is accused, not without +truth, of having written good passages, but no good book, and that a +full appreciation of his genius is only to be obtained by a most +laborious process of wading through hundreds and thousands of pages of +very inferior work. The result of that process, however, is never likely +to be doubtful in the case of competent examiners. It is the conviction +that Diderot ranks in point of originality and versatility of thought +among the most fertile thinkers of France, and in point of felicity and +idiosyncrasy of expression, among the most remarkable of her writers. + +[Sidenote: D'Alembert.] + +His coadjutor during the earlier part of his great work was a man +curiously different from himself. Diderot was a rapid and careless +writer, devoted to general society and conversation, interested in +everything that was brought to his notice, passionate, unselfish, +frequently extravagant. Jean le Rond d'Alembert (who was really an +illegitimate son of Madame de Tencin by an uncertain father) was an +extraordinarily careful writer, a man of retired habits, reserved, +self-centred and phlegmatic. He was born in 1717, was exposed on the +steps of a church, but was brought up carefully by a foster-mother of +the lower classes, to whom he was consigned by the authorities, and had +a not insufficient annuity settled upon him by his supposed father. He +was educated at the College Mazarin, and early showed great aptitude for +mathematics, in which equally with literature he distinguished himself +in after years. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences as +early as at the age of four-and-twenty. After he had joined Diderot, he +wrote a preliminary discourse for the Encyclopaedia--a famous and +admirable sketch of the sciences--besides many articles. Of these, one +on Geneva brought the book into more trouble than almost any other +contribution, though D'Alembert was equally moderate as a thinker and as +a writer. D'Alembert, as has been said, retired from the work after this +storm, being above all things solicitous of peace and quietness. His +refusals of the offers of Frederick II. in 1752 to go to Berlin as +President of the Academy, and of Catherine II. to undertake, at what was +then an enormous salary, the education of the Grand Duke Paul, have been +variously taken as evidence of his disinterestedness, and of his shrewd +dislike to possibly false positions, and the chance of such experiences +as those of Voltaire. In his later life he and Mademoiselle de +Lespinasse, as has been mentioned, kept house together. He died shortly +before Diderot, in 1783. Perhaps his best literary works are his already +mentioned Academic _Eloges_, or obituaries on important men of letters +and science. D'Alembert contributed to the movement exactness of thought +and precision of style, but his influence was more purely intellectual +than that of any other member of the _philosophe_ group. + +[Sidenote: Rousseau.] + +The connection of Rousseau with the Encyclopaedia itself was brief and +not important. Yet it is here that his personal and general literary +character and achievements may be most conveniently treated. Jean +Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva, on the 28th of June, 1712, of a +family which had emigrated from France during the religious troubles. +His father was a watchmaker, his mother died when he was very young. His +education was not exactly neglected, but he went to no regular school, +which, considering his peculiarities, was perhaps a misfortune. After +being introduced to the law and to engraving, in both cases with ill +success, he ran away and practically continued a vagabond to the end of +his life. He served as a footman, was an inmate of a kind of +proselytising almshouse at Turin, and went through many odd adventures, +for which there is the dubious authority of his strange _Confessions_. +When he was just of age, he was taken in by Madame de Warens, a Savoyard +lady of birth and position, who had before been kind to him. With her he +lived for some time, chiefly at Les Charmettes, near Chambery. But being +superseded in her good graces, he went to Lyons, where he lived by +teaching. Thence he went to Paris, having little to depend on but an +imperfect knowledge of music. In 1741 he was attached to the French +Embassy at Venice under M. de Montaigu, but (as he did all through his +life) he quarrelled in some way with his patron, and returned to Paris. +Here he became intimate with Diderot, Grimm, and all the _philosophe_ +circle, especially with Madame d'Epinay. She established him in a +cottage called the Hermitage with his companion Therese le Vasseur, +whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, and whom he afterwards married. +The extraordinary quarrel which took place between Rousseau and Diderot +has been endlessly written about. It need only be said that Rousseau +showed his usual temper and judgment, that Diderot was to all appearance +quite guiltless, and that the chief fault lay elsewhere, probably with +Grimm. For a time the Duke of Luxembourg protected him, then he was +obliged, or thought himself obliged, to go into exile. Marshal Keith, +Governor of Neufchatel for the King of Prussia, received and protected +him, with the inevitable result that Rousseau considered it impossible +to continue in this as in every other refuge. David Hume was his next +good angel, and carried him to England in 1766. But the same drama +repeated itself, as it did subsequently with the Prince de Conti and +with Madame d'Enghien. Rousseau's last protector was M. de Girardin, who +gave him, after he had lived in Paris in comparative quiet for several +years, a home at Ermenonville in 1778. He did not outlive the year, +dying in a somewhat mysterious fashion, which has never been fully +explained, on the 2nd of July. + +Rousseau was a man of middle age before he produced any literary work of +importance. He had in his youth been given to music, and indeed +throughout his life the slender profits of music copying were almost +his only independent source of income. His knowledge of the subject was +far from scientific, but he produced an operetta which was not +unsuccessful, and, but for his singular temperament, he might have +followed up the success. His first literary work of importance was a +prose essay for the Dijon Academy on the subject of the effects of +civilisation on society. Either of his own motion, or at the suggestion +of Diderot, Rousseau took the apparently paradoxical line of arguing +that all improvements on the savage life had been curses rather than +blessings, and he gained the prize. In 1755 his _Discours sur l'Origine +de l'Inegalite_ appeared at Amsterdam; in 1760 his famous novel _Julie_, +and in 1764 _Emile_, both of which have been spoken of already. Between +the two appeared the still more famous and influential _Contrat Social_. +Of the other works of Rousseau published during his lifetime, the most +famous, perhaps, was his letter to D'Alembert on the subject of the +introduction of theatrical performances into Geneva, a characteristic +paradox which made a bitter enemy of the most powerful of French men of +letters. Besides these, the _Reveries d'un Promeneur Solitaire_, the +_Lettres de la Montagne_, and above all, the unique _Confessions_, have +to be reckoned. The last, like several of Rousseau's other works, did +not appear till after his death. + +Of all the writers mentioned in this chapter the influence of Rousseau +on literature and on life was probably the largest. He was the direct +inspirer of the men who made the French Revolution, and the theories of +his _Contrat Social_ were closer at the root of Jacobin politics than +any other. His fervid declamation about equality and brotherhood, and +his sentimental republicanism, were seed as well suited to the soil in +which they were sown as Montesquieu's reasoned constitutionalism was +unsuited to it. Rousseau, indeed, if the proof of the excellence of +preaching is in the practice of the hearers, was the greatest preacher +of the century. He denounced the practice of putting infants out to +nurse, and mothers began to suckle their own children; he recommended +instruction in useful arts, and many an _emigre_ noble had to thank +Rousseau for being able to earn his bread in exile; he denounced +speculative atheism, urging the undogmatic but emotional creed of his +_Vicaire Savoyard_, and the first wave of the religious reaction was +set going to culminate in the Catholic movement of Chateaubriand and +Lamennais. But in literature itself his influence was quite as powerful. +He was not, indeed, the founder of the school of analysis of feeling in +the novel, but he was the populariser of it. He was almost the founder +of sentimentalism in general literature, and he was absolutely the first +to make word-painting of nature an almost indispensable element of all +imaginative and fictitious writing both in prose and poetry. Some of his +characteristics were taken up in quick succession by Goethe in Germany, +by Bernardin de St. Pierre and Chateaubriand in France. Others were for +the time less eagerly imitated, and though Madame de Stael and her lover +Benjamin Constant did something to spread them, it was reserved for the +Romantic movement to develop them fully. It was singular, no doubt, and +this is not the place to undertake the explanation of the singularity, +that Rousseau, who detested most of the conclusions, and almost all the +methods of the Encyclopaedists, should be counted in with them, and +should have undoubtedly helped in the first place to accomplish their +result. But such is the case. His peculiar literary characteristics are +perhaps better exhibited in the _Confessions_ and in the miscellaneous +works, than in either of the novels. The _Contrat Social_ is a very +remarkable piece of pseudo-argument. It is felt from the first that the +whole assumption on which it reposes is historically false and +philosophically absurd. Yet there is an appearance of speciousness in +the arguments, an adroit mixture of logic and rhetoric, of order and +method, which is exceedingly seductive. The _Confession du Vicaire +Savoyard_, with many passages allied to it in the smaller works, has, +despite the staleness of the language (which was hackneyed by a thousand +empty talkers during the Revolution), not a little dignity and +persuasive force. But it is in the _Confessions_ that the literary power +of the author appears at its fullest. Never, perhaps, was a more +miserable story of human weakness revealed, and the peculiar thing is +that Rousseau does not limit his exhibitions of himself to exhibitions +of engaging frailty. The acts which he admits are in many cases +indescribably base, mean, and disgusting. The course of conduct which he +portrays is at its best that of a man entirely destitute of governing +will, petulant, often positively ungrateful, always playing into the +hands of the enemies whom his hallucinations supposed to exist, and +frustrating the efforts of the friends whom he allows himself, if only +for a time, to have possessed. Yet the narrative and dramatic skill with +which all this is presented is so great, that there is hardly room for a +sense of repulsion which is merged in interest, not necessarily +sympathetic interest, but still interest. Of the feeling for natural +beauty, which is everywhere present in these remarkable works, it is +enough to say that in French prose literature, it may almost be said in +the prose literature of Europe, it was entirely original. Part of +Rousseau's devotion to nature arose no doubt from his moody and retiring +temperament, which led him to rejoice in anything rather than the +society of his fellow men. But this would not of itself have given him +the literary skill with which he expresses these feelings. It is not so +much in set descriptions of particular scenes as in slight occasional +thoughts, embodying the emotions experienced at the sight of a flower, a +lake-surface, a mountain side, a forest glade, that this mastery is +shown. Yet of the more elaborate passages of this kind in other writers +few can surpass the best things of the _Nouvelle Heloise_, the +_Confessions_, and the _Reveries_. There is nothing novel to readers of +the present day in such things, though they are seldom done so happily. +But to the readers of Rousseau's day they were absolutely novel. It is +in this that the main literary importance of Rousseau consists, though +it must not be forgotten that he is in many ways a master of French +prose. His contemporaries made use of his Genevan origin to find fault +with his style; but with a few insignificant exceptions the criticism +has no foundation. It has been very frequently renewed, and sometimes +with little better reason, in the case of Swiss authors. + +Round these chiefs of the Encyclopaedic movement were grouped many lesser +men, some of whom will be most conveniently noticed here. Marmontel, +Morellet, and Saint-Lambert, whose chief importance lay in other +directions, were contributors. The Chevalier de Jaucourt, a man of no +original power, but a hack-writer of extraordinary aptitude, took +considerable part in it. There were others, however, who, partly within +and partly without the range of the Encyclopaedia, had no small share in +the promotion of what has been called the _philosophe_ movement. Some +of these have found their place under the head of Essayists. There is, +however, one remarkable division, which must be treated here--the +division of economists--before we pass to the philosophers properly so +called, who either continued the metaphysics of Locke in a directly +materialist sense, or who, restraining themselves to sensationalism, +made the most of the English philosopher in that direction. + +[Sidenote: Political Economists. Vauban, Quesnay, etc.] + +The science of 'Political Arithmetic,' as it was first called in +England, had a somewhat earlier birth in France than in England itself. +It is remarkable that the complete establishment of the royal authority +under Louis XIV. preceded but by a very few years the examination of the +economic condition of the kingdom by unsparing examiners. The two chief +of these, both of whom fell into disgrace for their doings, were the +great engineer Vauban, and the great theologian Fenelon. The latter was +attracted to the subject chiefly by compassion for the sufferings of the +people, and expressed his opinion in a manner more rhetorical than +scientific. Vauban's course was naturally different. In the later years +of his life he set himself to the collection of statistical facts as to +the economic condition of France, and the result was the two books +called _Oisivetes de M. de Vauban_ and _La Dime Royale_, 1707. The +former of these contained the facts, the latter the deduction from them, +which was, to put it briefly, that the existing system of privilege, +exemption, and irregular taxation was a loss to the Crown, and a torment +to the people. Vauban received the reward of his labours, attention to +which would probably have prevented the French Revolution, in the shape +of the royal displeasure, and nothing came immediately of his +investigations. In the next century, however, a regular sect of +political economists arose. They had, indeed, been preceded by an +eccentric man of letters, the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, who occupied his +life in propounding Utopian schemes of universal peace and general +prosperity. But the first and greatest of the economists properly so +called was Quesnay. The extreme misery of the common people attracted +his attention, and set him upon calculating the causes and remedies of +periodical failings. He was himself a frequent contributor to the +Encyclopaedia. Many others of the _philosophe_ set occupied themselves +with these and similar subjects, notably the Abbes Morellet and Galiani. +The former was a man of a certain vigour (Voltaire called him 'L'Abbe +Mord-Les'), the latter has been noticed already. His _Dialogue sur le +Commerce des Bles_ acquired for him a great reputation. + +[Sidenote: Turgot.] + +Very many writers, among them the father of the great Mirabeau (in his +curious and able, though unequal and ill-proportioned _Ami des Hommes_), +attacked economical subjects at this time. But Turgot, though not +remarkable for the form of his writings, was the most original and +influential writer of the liberal school in this department. He was a +Norman by birth, and of a good legal family. He was born in 1727, and, +being destined for the Church, was educated at the Sorbonne. Turgot, +however, shared to the full the _philosophe_ ideas of the time as to +theological orthodoxy, and did not share the usual _philosophe_ ideas as +to concealment of his principles for comfort's sake. He refused to take +orders, turning his attention to the law and the Civil Service instead +of the Church. His family had considerable influence, and at the age of +twenty-four he was appointed intendant of Limoges, a post which gave him +practical control of the government of a large, though barren and +neglected, province. His achievements in the way of administrative +reform here were remarkable, and, had they been generally imitated, +might have brought about a very different state of things in France. +After the death of Louis XV., he was recommended by Maurepas to a far +more important office, the controllership of finance. Here, too, he did +great things; but his attack on the privileged orders was ill-seconded, +and, after holding his post for about two years, he had to resign, +partly, it is true, owing to a certain unaccommodating rigidity of +demeanour, which was one of his least amiable characteristics. He died +in 1781. Turgot's literary work is not extensive, and it is not +distinguished by its style. It consists of certain discourses at the +Sorbonne, of memoirs on various political occasions, of some letters on +usury, of articles in the Encyclopaedia, of which the most noteworthy is +one on endowments, etc. All are remarkable as containing the germs of +what may be accepted as the modern liberal doctrines on the various +points of which they treat, while the second Sorbonne discourse is +entitled to the credit of first clearly announcing the principle of the +philosophy of history, the doctrine, that is to say, that human progress +follows regular laws of development, certain sets of causes invariably +tending to bring about certain sets of results. + +[Sidenote: Condorcet.] + +With the name of Turgot that of Condorcet is inseparably connected, and +though far less important in the history of thought, it is perhaps more +prominent in the history of literature, for the pupil and biographer (in +both of which relations Condorcet stood to Turgot) was, though a far +less original and vigorous thinker, a better writer than his master and +subject. Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, styled Marquis de Condorcet, +was born in 1743, near St. Quentin, and early distinguished himself both +in mathematics and in the belles lettres. He became Secretary of the +Academy in 1777, and he afterwards wrote the Life of Turgot, whose +method of dealing with economic questions (a more practical and less +abstract one than that of the earlier economists) he had already +followed. He took a considerable part in the French Revolution, serving +both in the Legislative Assembly and in the Convention. In the latter he +became identified with the Girondist party, and shared their troubles. +His best known work, the _Esquisse des Progres de l'Esprit Humain_, was +written while he was a fugitive and in concealment. He was at last +discovered and arrested, but the day after he was found dead in his +prison at Bourg la Reine, having apparently poisoned himself (March, +1794). Condorcet's works are voluminous, and partake strongly of the +_philosophe_ character. He is not remarkable for originality of thought, +and may indeed be said to be for the most part a mere exponent of the +current ideas of the second stage of the _philosophe_ movement. But his +style has great merits, being clear, forcible, and correct, suffering +only from the somewhat stereotyped forms, and from the absence of +flexibility and colour which distinguish the later eighteenth century in +France. + +[Sidenote: Volney.] + +One more remarkable name deserves to be mentioned in this place as the +last of the _Philosophes_ proper, that is to say, of those writers who +carried out the general principles of the Encyclopaedist movement with +less reference to specialist departments of literature than to a certain +general spirit and tendency. This was Constantin Francois de +Chasseboeuf, Comte de Volney, by which latter name he is generally +known. Volney was born in 1757, at Caron, in Anjou, and was educated at +Angers, and afterwards at Paris. He studied both medicine and law, but +having a sufficient fortune, practised neither. In 1783 he set out on +his travels and journeyed to the East, visiting Egypt and Syria; an +account of which journey he published four years later. When he returned +to France he was from the beginning a moderate partisan of the +Revolution, and, like most such persons, he was arrested during the +Terror, though he escaped with no worse fate than imprisonment. +Immediately after Thermidor, Volney published his most celebrated work, +_Les Ruines_, a treatise on the rise and fall of empires from a general +and philosophical point of view. Shortly after this he visited the +United States, whence he returned in 1798. He had known Napoleon in +early days, and on the establishment of the Consulate he was appointed a +senator; nor was his resignation accepted, though it was tendered when +Bonaparte assumed the crown. His countship was Napoleonic, but he was +always an opponent of the emperor's policy. Accordingly, after the +Restoration, he was nominated by Louis XVIII. as a member of the new +House of Peers. He died in 1820. Besides the books already noticed he +published some studies in ancient history and many miscellaneous works, +including a project of a universal language. Volney was, as has been +said, the last of the _philosophes_, exhibiting, long after a new order +of thought had set in, their acute but negative and one-sided criticism, +their sterile contempt of Christianity and religion generally, their +somewhat theoretic acceptance of generalisations on philosophy and +history, and of large plans for dealing with politics and ethics. As a +traveller his observation is accurate and his expression vivid; as a +philosophical historian his acuteness is perhaps not sufficiently +accompanied by real breadth of view. + +[Sidenote: La Mettrie] + +[Sidenote: Helvetius] + +Between these philosophers, in the local and temporary sense of the +word, who dealt only with what would now be called the sociological side +of philosophy in its bearings on politics, religion, ethics, and +economics, and the strictly philosophical school of Condillac and his +followers, a small but very influential sect of materialists, who were +yet not purely philosophical materialists, has to be considered. Three +members of this school have importance in literature--La Mettrie, +Helvetius, and Holbach. La Mettrie was a native of Britanny: he entered +the medical service of the French army, acquired a speedy reputation for +heterodoxy and disorderly living, and fled for shelter to the general +patron of heterodox Frenchmen, Frederick of Prussia; at whose court he +died, at a comparatively early age, it is said in consequence of a +practical joke. La Mettrie's chief work is a paradoxical exercise in +materialist physics called _L'Homme-Machine_, in which he endeavours to +prove the purely automatic working of the human frame, and the absence +of any mind in the spiritualist sense. This he followed by a similar but +less original work, called _L'Homme-Plante_, and by some other minor +publications. La Mettrie was a very unequal thinker and writer, but he +has, as Voltaire (who disliked him) expressed it, _traits de flamme_ +both in thought and style. Claude Adrian Helvetius was of Swiss descent, +and of ample fortune. Born in 1715, he was appointed to the high post of +Farmer-General when he was little more than twenty-three; but he did not +hold this appointment very long, and became Chamberlain to the Queen. He +was very popular in society, and was of a benevolent and philanthropic +disposition, though he seems to have got into trouble at his country +seat of Vore by excessive game preserving. He married, in 1751, the +beautiful Mademoiselle de Ligneville, who was long afterwards one of the +chief centres of literary society in Paris. In 1758 his book _De +l'Esprit_ appeared, and made a great sensation, being condemned as +immoral, and burnt by the hangman. Helvetius subsequently travelled in +England and Germany, dying in 1771. A second treatise, _De l'Homme,_ +which appeared posthumously, is much inferior to _De l'Esprit_ in +literary merit. It was even more fiercely assailed than its predecessor, +and Diderot himself, the leader of the more active section of the +_philosophe_ party, wrote an elaborate refutation of it, which, however, +has only recently been published. The book _De l'Esprit_ is wanting in +depth, and too anecdotic in style for a serious work of philosophy, +though this very characteristic makes it all the more amusing reading. +It endeavours to make out a theory of morals based on what is called the +selfish system; and it was the naked manner in which this selfish system +of ethics, and the materialist metaphysics which it implies, are +manifested in the book which gave occasion to its ill repute. As a mere +work of literature, however, it is well, and in parts even brilliantly +written, and amid much that is desultory, inconclusive, and even +demonstrably unsound, views of extreme shrewdness and originality on +social abuses and inconsistencies are to be found. + +[Sidenote: Systeme de la Nature.] + +None of the writers hitherto mentioned made open profession of atheism, +and it is doubtful whether even Diderot deserves the appellation of a +consistent atheist. There was, however, a large anti-theistic school +among the _philosophes_, which increased in numbers and strength towards +the outbreak of the Revolution. The most striking work by far of this +school (which included Damilaville, Naigeon, and a few other names of no +great distinction in literature) was the _Systeme de la Nature_, which +appeared in 1770. This remarkable book, which even Voltaire and +Frederick II. set themselves seriously to refute, contains a complete +materialist system in metaphysics and theology. It represents the +existence of God as a mere creation of the superstition of men, unable +to assign a cause for the evils under which they suffer, and inventing a +supernatural entity to satisfy themselves. The book (to consider its +literary style only) is extremely unequal, passages of remarkable vigour +alternating with long and dreary tracts of inconclusive and monotonous +declamation. It appeared under the name of a dead man, Mirabaud, a +person of some slight and chiefly official name in science and letters. +It is, however, believed, if not certainly known, to be the work of the +Baron d'Holbach (who unquestionably wrote various other books of a +similar tendency), with the assistance of divers of his friends, and +especially of Diderot. The _Systeme_ is a very singular production, +animated by a kind of fanatical, and in parts almost poetical aspiration +after the annihilation of all supernatural belief, which is hardly to be +found elsewhere except in Lucretius. It had great influence, though +that influence was one of repulsion as well as of conversion, and it may +be said to be, up to the present day, the furthest step taken in the +direction of philosophical as opposed to political Nihilism. It should, +however, be observed that in parts there is a strong political tinge +observable in it. + +[Sidenote: Condillac.] + +In all this century of so-called philosophy, France possessed hardly +more than one really eminent and considerable metaphysician. This was +Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, brother of the Abbe de Mably, who was born +in 1715, and died in 1780. Condillac himself was an abbe, and possessing +a sufficient benefice, he lived for the most part quietly upon it, and +took no part in the political, or even the literary life of the times. +In 1746 he published his _Essai sur l'Origine des Connoissances +Humaines_; in 1749 his _Traite des Systemes_, a work critical rather +than constructive; and in 1754 the _Traite des Sensations_, his +principal work, which completes his theory. The influence of Locke was +the most powerful single influence in the _philosophe_ movement of +France, and Condillac took up Locke's work at exactly the point where +his master had faltered. He set to work to show with great plausibility +that, according to Lockeian principles, the addition of ideas of +reflection to ideas of sensation is unsustainable, and that all ideas +without exception are merely transformed sensations. One of the +illustrations which he used to support his views, that of a statue +supposed to be endowed with a single sense, and successively developing +first the others, and then the powers usually classed as reflection, is +famous in the history of philosophy. It concerns us only as giving an +instance of the method of Condillac, which is remarkable for vividness +and adaptation to the ordinary comprehension. Unlike the style of Locke +himself, Condillac's style is not in the least slovenly, but polished +and lucid, excellently suited to such a public as that of the eighteenth +century, which was at once intelligent enough to understand, and +educated enough to demand, finish of manner in discussing abstract +points. + +After Condillac the history of philosophy in France during the rest of +the period is of no great interest to literature. He himself was +continued and represented chiefly by Destutt de Tracy. The reaction +against the extreme idealist and materialist constructions of Locke +respectively, which had been brought about in England by Reid and +Stewart, acquired in the last years of the eighteenth century, and the +beginning of the nineteenth, a considerable following in France. Its +chiefs were Maine de Biran, Royer Collard (who also obtained reputation +as an orator and parliamentary politician), and Jouffroy. They belong, +however, rather to the history of philosophy than to that of literature. + +[Sidenote: Joseph de Maistre.] + +After this long list of writers who advocated, more or less openly, +revolution in matters political and religious, but especially in the +latter, two authors who with Chateaubriand, but in a definitely +philosophical manner, set the example of reaction, and who to a great +extent indicated the lines which it was to follow, must be mentioned. +These are Joseph de Maistre, and Louis de Bonald. Joseph, Count de +Maistre, was born at Chambery, in 1753, of a noble Savoyard family, +which is said to have come originally from Languedoc. His father held +important employments in the duchy, and Joseph himself entered its civil +service. When, after the French Revolution, Savoy was invaded, and in a +short time annexed, he returned to Lausanne, and there wrote +_Considerations sur la France_, his first work of importance. For some +years he was employed at Turin in the administration of such of his +continental dominions as were left to the King of Sardinia; and then, +after the practical annexation of Piedmont, he held a similar employ in +the island of Sardinia itself. At the beginning of the present century, +he was sent to St. Petersburg to plead the cause of his master. Here he +remained till after the overthrow of Napoleon, and wrote, though he did +not publish, most of his books. In 1816 he returned to Turin, and died a +few years afterwards--in 1821. The three chief works of Joseph de +Maistre are _Du Pape_, 1817, _De l'Eglise Gallicane_, and the unfinished +_Soirees de St. Petersbourg_. The two first compose a complete treatise +on the power and position of the pope in relation both to the temporal +and to the ecclesiastical form of national government. The author is the +most uncompromising of ultramontanes. According to him the pope is the +source of all authority on earth, and temporal princes are little more +than his delegates. Except in relation to religious error, Joseph de +Maistre is not hostile to a certain ordered measure of liberty accorded +by their rulers to peoples and individuals. But, strongly impressed by +the social and moral, as well as the political and religious anarchy +brought about first by the _philosophe_ movement, and then by the +Revolution, he sees the only chance of rescue in the establishment of a +hierarchy of government culminating in that from which there is no +appeal, the single authority of the pope. He is thus a legitimist with a +difference. The _Soirees de St. Petersbourg_, which are unfinished and +not entirely uniform in plan, deal nominally with the providential +government of the world, but diverge to a large number of subjects. It +is in this book that the author develops the kind of modified terrorism +which is often, though not altogether justly, considered to be his chief +characteristic, eulogising the executioner as the foundation of society. + +Joseph de Maistre is unquestionably one of the greatest thinkers and +writers of the eighteenth century. Paradoxical and strained as his +system frequently appears, it is rigorously logical. An ordered +theocracy seems to him the only polity capable of giving peace and true +prosperity to the world, and he shapes all his theories so as to fit in +with this central conception. On detached subjects his thoughts are +always vigorous, and often strikingly original. His reading was great, +and his skill in polemics of the very highest. No one possesses in +larger measure the art of hostile criticism without descending to actual +abuse. These merits of themselves imply purely literary accomplishments, +clearness, distinctness, forcible expression, in a rare kind and degree. +But Joseph de Maistre is more than this as a writer. He possesses, +though he only occasionally exercises it, a brilliant faculty of +rhetoric. His phrase is more than merely clear and forcible; it has a +peculiar incisiveness and sharpness of outline which impress it on the +memory, while, sparing as he is of ornament, his rare passages of +description and fancy have great merit. The surest testimony to his +value is the fact that, though both in his own day and since by far the +larger number of writers and thinkers have held views more or less +opposed to his, no one whose opinion is itself of the least importance +has ever spoken of him without respect and even admiration. Those who, +like Lamartine, qualify their admiration with a certain depreciation, +show inability to recognise fully the beauty of strength undisguised by +conventional elegance and grace of form. + +[Sidenote: Bonald.] + +Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald, who is usually named with +Joseph de Maistre as the leader of the Catholic-monarchist reaction, was +a weaker thinker, and a writer of less accomplishment, though in both +respects he has perhaps been somewhat unfairly criticised. Born at +Milhaud, in the district of Rouergue, in 1754, he discharged various +civil and military employments in his native province during his youth; +was elected in 1790 member of the Departmental Assembly, but emigrated +next year; served in Conde's army, and then established himself at +Heidelberg. His first work was seized by the Directory, but he returned +to France soon afterwards, and was not molested. He published a good +deal during the first years of the century, and, like many other +royalists, received overtures from Napoleon through Fontanes. These he +did not exactly reject, but he availed himself of them very sparingly. +The Restoration, on the contrary, aroused him to vigour. It was owing to +him chiefly that the law of divorce was altered. He entered the Academy, +and in 1823 was made a peer; an honour which he resigned at the +revolution of July. He died in 1840. + +Bonald's principal work is his _Legislation Primitive_. He also wrote a +book on divorce, and a considerable number of miscellaneous political +and metaphysical works. His chief subjects of discussion were, first, +the theory of the revelation of language; and secondly, the theory of +causality: in respect of both of which he combated the materialist +school of the eighteenth century. In politics Bonald was a thoroughgoing +legitimist and monarchist of the patriarchal school. Although an +orthodox and devout Catholic, he does not lay the stress on the temporal +power of the pope that the author of _Du Pape_ does. With him the king +is the immediate instrument of God in governing. He has been accused of +reducing things too much to formulas, and of repeating his formulas too +often. But this itself was in great part the effect of reaction against +the vague declamation of the _philosophes_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SCIENTIFIC WRITERS. + + +As the sciences divide and subdivide themselves more and more, the works +which treat of them become less and less the subject of strictly +literary history. Besides this truth, it is necessary to remember the +fact that a large number of treatises, scientific in subject, were in +the eighteenth century professedly popularised and addressed to +unprofessional audiences. Fontenelle, D'Alembert, and many other authors +already mentioned, were _savants_, but their manner of handling their +subjects was far from being strictly or wholly scientific. Yet there +remain a certain number of writers, who, their reputation being derived +wholly or mainly from their treatment of subjects of science and +erudition, are better dealt with separately. + +[Sidenote: Buffon.] + +The head and chief of these is beyond all question Buffon. George Louis +Leclerc, who was made Count de Buffon by Louis XV., was born at Montbard +in Burgundy, on Sept. 7, 1707; his father was a man of wealth and of +position in the _noblesse de robe_. Buffon was destined for the law, but +early showed an inclination towards science. He became acquainted with a +young English nobleman, Lord Kingston, who with his tutor was taking the +then usual grand tour, and was permitted by his father to accompany him +through France and Italy, and to visit England. On the English language +he spent considerable pains, translating Newton, Hales, and Tull the +agriculturist. When he returned to France he devoted himself to +scientific experiments, and in 1739 he was appointed intendant or +director of the Jardin du Roi, which practically gave him command of the +national collections in zoology, botany, and mineralogy. He was thus +enabled to observe and experiment to his heart's content, and to collect +a sufficient number of facts for his vast Natural History. Buffon, +however, was only half a man of science. He was at least as anxious to +write pompous descriptions and to indulge in showy hypotheses, as to +confine himself to plain scientific enquiry. He accordingly left the +main part of the hack-work of his _Histoire Naturelle_ (a vast work +extending to thirty-six volumes) to assistants, of whom the chief was +Daubenton, himself contributing only the most striking and rhetorical +passages. The book was very remarkable for its time, as the first +attempt since Pliny at a collection of physical facts at once +exhaustive, and in a manner systematised, and though there was much +alloy mixed with its metal, it was of real value. Buffon's life was +long, and he outlived all the other chiefs of the _philosophe_ party (to +which in an outside sort of fashion he belonged), dying at Paris in the +year 1788. It is perhaps easier to condemn Buffon's extremely rhetorical +style than to do justice to it. To a modern reader it too frequently +seems to verge on the ridiculous, and to do more than verge on the +trivial. It is necessary, however, to take the point of view of the +time. Buffon found natural science in a position far below that assigned +to literary erudition and to the arts in general estimation. He also +found it customary that these arts and letters should be treated in +pompous _eloges_. His real interest in science led him to think that the +shortest way to raise it was to treat it in the same manner, and there +is little doubt that his method was effectual in its degree. It is +perhaps curious that he, the author of the phrase 'Le style c'est +l'homme,' should have so completely exemplified it. Many authors of +elaborate prose have been perfectly simple and unpretentious in private +life. Buffon was as pompous and inflated as his style. Anecdotes +respecting him are numerous; but perhaps the most instructive is that +which tells how, having heard some one speak of the style of +Montesquieu, he asked, 'Si M. de Montesquieu avait un style?' It is +needless to say that from any just standpoint, even of purely literary +criticism, the hollow pomp of the _Histoire Naturelle_ sinks into +insignificance beside the nervous and solid yet graceful vigour of the +_Esprit des Lois_. + +[Sidenote: Lesser Scientific Writers.] + +No single scientific writer equals the fame of Buffon, but there are not +a few who deserve to be mentioned after him. Pierre Louis Moreau de +Maupertuis, a Breton by birth, who was a considerable mathematician and +a physicist of more eccentricity than merit, owes most of his literary +celebrity to the patronage of Frederick the Second, and the pitiless +raillery of Voltaire, who quarrelled with him on his visit to Berlin, +where Maupertuis was president of the Academy. Maupertuis' chief +scientific performance was his mission to Lapland to determine the +measurement of a degree of longitude in 1736. Of this mission he +published an account. At the same time a similar mission was sent to +South America under La Condamine, who underwent considerable hardship, +and, like Maupertuis, published his adventures when he came back. +Mathematics were indeed the favourite study of the time. Clairaut, De +Moivre, Euler, Laplace, all wrote in French, or belonged to +French-speaking and French-descended races; while Voltaire's own +contributions to the reception of Newton's principles in France were not +small, and his beloved Madame du Chatelet was an expert mathematician. +Voltaire also devoted much attention to chemistry, which was the special +subject of such of the Baron d'Holbach's labours as were not devoted to +the overthrow of Christianity. It was not, however, till the eve of the +Revolution that the most important discoveries in this science were made +by Lavoisier and others. The Empire was a much more favourable time for +science than for literature. Bonaparte was fond of the society of men of +science, and pleased by their usual indifference to politics. Monge, +Berthollet, Champollion, were among his favourites. Geoffroy St. Hilaire +and Cuvier were, however, the chief men of science of this period, and +Cuvier at least had no mean command of a literary style sufficient for +his purposes. His chief work of a literary-scientific character was his +discourse _Sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe_. Earlier than +this the physician Cabanis, in his _Rapports de Physique et de Morale_, +composed a semi-materialist work of great excellence according to +eighteenth-century standards. Bichat's _La Vie et la Mort_, the work of +an anatomist of the greatest talent, who died young, also belongs to +literature. + +[Sidenote: Voyages and Travels.] + +Some contributions to letters were also made by the voyages of discovery +which formed part of the general scientific curiosity of the time. The +chief of them is that of Bougainville, 1771, which, giving the first +clear notion to Frenchmen of the South Sea Islands, had a remarkably +stimulating effect on the imaginations of the _philosophe_ party. + +[Sidenote: Linguistic and Literary Study.] + +In works of pure erudition more directly connected with literature, the +age was less fruitful than its immediate predecessor. The laborious +studies of the Benedictines, however, continued. One work of theirs, +important to our subject, was projected and in part carried out under +the superintendence chiefly of Dom Rivet. This was the _Histoire +Litteraire de la France_--a mighty work, which, after long interruption +by the Revolution and other causes, was taken up again, and has +proceeded steadily for many years, though it has not yet reached the +close of the middle ages. This work was part, and a very important part, +of a revival of the study of old French literature. The plan of the +Benedictines led them at first into the literature of mediaeval Latin. +But the works of the Trouveres, of their successors in the fourteenth +and fifteenth centuries, and of the authors of the French Renaissance, +also received attention, scattered at first and desultory, but gradually +co-ordinating and regulating itself. La Monnoye, Lenglet-Dufresnoy, the +President Bouhier, and many others, collected, and in some cases edited, +the work of earlier times. The Marquis de Paulmy began a vast +_Bibliotheque des Romans_, for which the Comte de Tressan undertook the +modernising and reproducing of all the stories of chivalry. Tressan, it +is true, had recourse only to late and adulterated versions, but his +work was still calculated to spread some knowledge of what the middle +ages had actually done in matter of literature. La Curne de Sainte +Palaye devoted himself eagerly to the study of the language, manners, +and customs of chivalry. Barbazan collected the specially French product +of the Fabliau, and, with his successor Meon (who also edited the _Roman +du Renart_), provided a great corpus of lighter mediaeval literature for +the student to exercise himself upon. By degrees this revived literature +forced itself upon the public eye, and before the Republic had given +place to the Empire, it received some attention at the hands of +official teachers of literature who had hitherto scorned it. M. J. +Chenier, Daunou, and others, undertook the subject, and made it in a +manner popular; while towards the extreme end of the present period +Raynouard and Fauriel added the subject of Provencal literature to that +of the literature of Northern France, and helped to propagate the study +abroad as well as at home. + +In the older fields the renown of France for purely classical +scholarship diminished somewhat as compared with the days of Huet, +Menage, Dacier, and the Delphin classics. The principal work of +erudition was either directed towards the so-called philosophy in its +wide sense of enquiry and speculation into politics and manners, or else +to mathematics and physics. The Benedictines confined themselves for the +most part to Christian antiquity. Yet there were names of weight in this +department, such as the President Henault, a writer something after the +fashion of Fontenelle, but on classical subjects; and the President de +Brosses, also an archaeologist of merit, but chiefly noteworthy as having +been among the founders of the science which busies itself with the +manners and customs of primitive and prehistoric man[291]. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[291] I owe to M. Scherer the indication of a misprint of '_des_ +Brosses' for 'de' in former editions. M. Scherer says that I 'have never +heard' of the President's pleasant _Lettres sur l'Italie_, because I do +not mention them. He also says that what I do say of De Brosses is +'egalement surprenante pour ce qu'elle avance et par ce qu'elle omet.' I +am, therefore, justified in supposing that M. Scherer 'has never heard' +of the _Lettres sur Herculanum_, the _Navigations aux Terres Australes_, +or the _Culte des Dieux Fetiches_. + + + + +INTERCHAPTER IV. + +SUMMARY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE. + + +The eighteenth century was pre-eminently the century of academic +literature in France: far more so than the seventeenth, which had seen +the foundation of the Academie Francaise. The word 'academy' in this +sense was an invention of the Italian humanists, prompted by their +Platonic, or perhaps by their Ciceronian, studies. Academies, or +coteries of men of letters who united love of society with the +cultivation of literature, became common in Italy during the sixteenth +century, and from Italy were translated to France. The famous society, +which now shares with the original school of Plato the honour of being +designated in European language as 'The Academy' without distinguishing +epithet, was originally nothing but one of these coteries or clubs, +which met at the house of the judicious and amiable, but not +particularly learned, Conrart. Conrart's influence with Richelieu, the +desire of the latter to secure a favourable tribunal of critics for his +own literary attempts, or (to be generous) his foresight and his +appreciation of the genius of the French language, determined the +Cardinal to establish this society. It was modestly endowed, and was +charged with the duty of composing an authoritative Dictionary of the +French literary language; a task the slow performance of which has been +a stock subject of ridicule for two centuries and a half. The Academy, +though it suffered some vicissitudes in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic +period, has survived all changes, and is virtually one of the most +ancient existing institutions of France. But, though it from the +beginning enjoyed royal and ministerial favour, it was long before it +collected a really representative body of members, and it was subjected +at first to a good deal of raillery. One of Saint Evremond's early +works was a _Comedie des Academistes_; while one of the most polished +and severe of his later prose critical studies is a 'Dissertation on the +word "Vaste,"' in which the tendency of the Academy to trifling +discussions (the curse of all literary societies), the literary +indolence of its members, and the pedagogic limitations of its critical +standards, are bitterly, though most politely, ridiculed. It did itself +little good by lending its name to be the cover for Richelieu's jealousy +of the _Cid_, though there is more justice in its _examen_ of that +famous play than is sometimes supposed. But the institution was +thoroughly germane to the nature, tastes, and literary needs of the +French people, and it prospered. Conrart was a tower of strength to it; +and in the next generation the methodical and administrative talents of +Perrault were of great service, while it so obviously helped the design +of Louis XIV. to play the Augustus, that a tradition of royal patronage, +which was not afterwards broken, was established. The greatest blots on +the Academy were the almost unavoidable servility which rewarded this +patronage, and the private rivalries and cliques which have occasionally +kept some of the greatest names of French literature out of its lists. +Moliere and Diderot are the most shining examples among these, but many +others keep them company. Nevertheless, by the end of the seventeenth +century at least, it became the recognised aim of every Frenchman of +letters to belong to the 'forty geese that guard the Capitol' of French +literature, as Diderot, not quite a disinterested witness, called them. +Throughout the eighteenth century their power was supreme. Competition +for the various academic prizes was, in the infancy of periodicals, the +easiest and the commonest method by which a struggling man of letters +could make himself known; and literary heresy of any kind was an almost +certain cause of exclusion from the body when once the dictatorship of +Fontenelle (a benevolent autocrat who, being something of a heretic +himself, tolerated freethinking in others) had ceased. Moreover, except +in rare cases, chiefly limited to persons of rank who were elected for +reasons quite other than literary, it was not usual for an author to +gain admission to the Academy until he was well stricken in years, and +until, as a natural consequence, his tastes were for the most part +formed, and he was impatient of innovation. + +At first the influence of the Academy was beyond question salutary in +the main, if not wholly. Balzac, whose importance in the history of +prose style has been pointed out, was one of its earliest members. It +was under its wing that Vaugelas undertook the much-needed enquiry into +French grammar and its principles as applied to literature. The majority +of the early members were connected with the refining and reforming +coteries of the Rambouillet and other salons. It was somewhat slow in +electing Boileau, though it is to be feared that this arose from no +higher motive than the fact that he had satirised most of its members. +But Boileau was the natural guiding spirit of an Academy, and it fell +more and more under his influence--not so much his personal influence as +that of his principles and critical estimates. In short, during the +seventeenth century it played the very useful part of model and measure +in the midst of a time when the chief danger was the neglect of measures +and of models, and it played it very fairly. But by the time that the +eighteenth century began, it was by no means of a restraining and +guiding influence that France had most need. The exuberance of creative +genius between 1630 and 1690 had supplied literature with actual models +far more valuable than any scheme of cut-and-dried rules, and it was in +need rather of a stimulant to spur it on to further development. Instead +of serving as this, the Academy served (owing, it must be confessed, in +great part to the literary conservatism of Voltaire and the +_philosophes_ generally) as a check and drag upon the spontaneous +instincts all through the century, and in all the departments of Belles +Lettres. It contributed more than anything else to the mischievous +crystallisation of literary ideas, which during this time offers so +strange a contrast to the singular state of solution in which were all +ideas relating to religion, politics, and morals. The consequence of the +propounding of a set of consecrated models, of the constant competition +in imitation of those models, and of the reward of diligent and +successful imitation by admission into the body, which in its turn +nursed and guided a new generation of imitators, was the reduction of +large and important departments of literature to a condition of +cut-and-driedness which has no parallel in history. The drama in +particular, which was artificial and limited at its best, was reduced +to something like the state of a game in which every possible move or +stroke is known and registered, and in which the sole novelty consists +in contriving some permutation of these moves or strokes which shall be, +if possible, not absolutely identical with any former combination. So in +a lesser degree, it was in poetry, in history, in prose tales, in verse +tales. If a man had a loose imagination, he tried to imitate La Fontaine +as well as he could in manner, and outbid him in matter; if he thought +himself an epigrammatist, he copied J. B. Rousseau; if he was disposed +to edification, the same poet supplied him with models; if the gods had +made him descriptive, he executed variations in the style of Delille, or +Saint Lambert, who had themselves copied others; if he wrote in any +other style, he had an eye to the work of Voltaire. Neologism in +vocabulary was carefully eschewed, and a natural consequence of this was +the resort (in the struggle not to repeat merely) to elaborate and +ingenious periphrases, such as those which have been quoted in the +chapter on eighteenth-century poetry. In short, literature had got into +a sort of treadmill in which all the effort expended was expended merely +in the repeated production of certain prescribed motions. + +It was partly a natural result of this, and partly an effect of other +and accidental causes, that the actual composition of the Academy was in +the first quarter of the nineteenth century by no means such as to +inspire much respect. But it was all the less likely to initiate or to +head any movement of reform. The consequence was, that when the reform +came, it came from the outside, not from the inside, that it was +violently opposed, and that, though it prevailed, and its leaders +themselves quickly forced their way into the sacred precincts, it was as +victorious rebels, not as welcomed allies. The further consequence of +this, and of the changes of which account will be given briefly in the +following book, was the alteration to a great extent of the status of +the Academy. It still (though with the old reproach of illustrious +outsiders) includes most of the leading men of letters of France, and +its membership is still, theoretically, the greatest honour that a +French man of letters can receive. But its position is far more +ornamental than it was. It hardly pretends to be in any sense +legislative: it is an honorary assembly, not a working parliament. The +chief circumstance that keeps it before the public is the curious and +time-honoured custom which ordains that the academician appointed to +receive each new member shall, in the most polished and amiable manner, +give the most ironical description he can of the novice's achievements +and claims to recognition. + +The exact change in literature which has partly caused, and has partly +coincided with this change in the relation of the Academy to letters, +will shortly be displayed, though in somewhat less detail than those +changes which are at a sufficient distance to be estimated by the aid of +what has been well called 'the firm perspective of the past.' For +cut-and-dried rules of criticism, carefully selected and limited models, +narrow range of subject, scanty vocabulary and its corollary +periphrasis, stock metaphor and ornament, stiff or fluidly insignificant +metre and rhythm, there have been substituted the exact opposites. The +gain in poetry is immense, and if it seems to be somewhat exhausted now, +it is fair to remember that fifty years is a long flowering time for any +special poetic plant, not often equalled in history, and still less +often exceeded. The gain in prose has been more dubious. Great prose +writers will have to be noticed, but it may perhaps be doubted whether +the average value of French prose as prose has not declined. There would +be nothing surprising in this, if it be the case; on the contrary, it +would be a mere repetition of the experience of the sixteenth century. +The language and literature have been flooded with new words, new forms +of speech, new ideas, new models. It takes a very long time before the +mixture thus produced can settle down (at least in the vessel of the +average prose writer) to clearness and brilliancy. It is otherwise in +poetry; in the first place because there is no such thing as an average +poet, and in the second, because the peculiar conditions of poetry +exercise of themselves a refining influence, which is not present in +prose. At present it may be said, and not without truth, that, putting +the work of the extraordinary writers aside, ordinary French prose has +lost some of its former graces--its lucidity, its proportion, its easy +march. From being the most childishly prudish of all writers about +neologisms and the _mot propre_, the French prose writer has become the +most clumsily promiscuous in his vocabulary. He is always using 'square' +instead of 'place,' 'le macadam' instead of 'le pave,' 'un caoutchouc' +when he means a waterproof overcoat. Much of this, no doubt, is due to +the singular inability which the language seems to experience in forming +genuine vernacular compounds; an inability from which a few more persons +like the much ridiculed Du Bartas might have rescued it. But, however +this may be, it must be admitted that, great as have been the benefits +of the Romantic movement, it has left the ordinary French prose style of +novel and newspaper in a condition of indigestion and disarray. + +As for the movement itself, the most brilliant season of romantic +productiveness seems to have terminated, after being long represented +only by its greatest, earliest, and at the same time latest name. The +comparative disorganisation is all the more noticeable. It is in this +disorganisation that our history perforce leaves the magnificent +literature which we have traced from its source. Unsafe as all prophecy +is, there are few things less safe to prophesy about than the progress +of literary development. But it is not historically unreasonable to +expect, after the splendid harvest of the last half century, what is +called a dead season, of longer or shorter duration. There is nothing +really discouraging in such seasons either in nature or in art. In each +case there is the garnered wealth of the past to fall back upon, and in +each there is confidence that the seeming stagnation and death are in +truth only the necessary pause and period of gestation which precede and +bring about the life of the future. + + + + +BOOK V. + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. + + +[Sidenote: The Romantic Movement.] + +The preceding chapter will at once have indicated the defects under +which the later classical literature of France laboured, and the +remedies which were necessary for them. Those remedies began to be +applied early in the reign of Charles X., and the literary revolution +which accompanied them is called the Romantic movement. Strictly +speaking, this movement did not affect, or rather was not supposed to +affect, any branch of letters except the Belles Lettres; really its +influence was far wider, and has affected every branch of literary +composition. Nor is it yet exhausted, although more than two generations +have passed since the current was started. As is usual in the later +stages of such things, this influence is in part disguised under the +form of apparent reactions, developments, modifications, and other +eddies or backwaters of the great wave. But as the Romantic movement was +above all things a movement of literary emancipation, it can never be +said to be superseded until fresh chains are imposed on literature. Of +this there is as yet no sign, except in the puerile and disgusting +school of naturalism, a mere scum-flake--to keep up the metaphor--on the +surface of the waters. + +[Sidenote: Writers of the later Transition.] + +The literature of the Revolution, the Empire, and the early Restoration, +which has been in part already surveyed, displayed the last effete +products of the old classical tradition side by side with the vigorous +but nondescript and tentative efforts at reform of Chateaubriand, Madame +de Stael, Courier, and others. So the first products of the new movement +found themselves side by side with what may be called a second +generation of the transition. The names which chiefly illustrate this +second generation must be dealt with before the Romantics proper are +arrived at. The chief of them are Beranger, Lamartine, Lamennais, +Cousin, Stendhal, Nodier, and the dramatists Alexandre Soumet and +Casimir Delavigne. Most of these, while irresistibly impelled half way +towards the movement, stood aloof from it in feeling and taste; others, +such as Stendhal, exercised upon it an influence not much felt at first, +but deep and lasting; one, Nodier, threw in his lot with it frankly and +decidedly. + +[Sidenote: Beranger.] + +Pierre Jean de Beranger is one of the most original and not the least +pleasant figures in the long list of French poets. His life, though +long, was comparatively uneventful. Despite the particle of nobility, he +belonged to the middle class, and rather to the lower than to the upper +portion of it; for, if his father was a man of business, his grandfather +was a tailor. He himself lived in his youth with an aunt at Peronne, was +then apprenticed to a printer, and was so ill off that, in 1804, he was +saved from absolute poverty only by the patronage of Lucien Bonaparte, +to whom he had sent some of his verses, and who procured him a small +government clerkship. He held this for some years. After the +Restoration, Beranger, whose political creed was an odd compound of +Bonapartism and Republicanism, got into trouble with the government for +his political songs. He was repeatedly fined and imprisoned, but each +sentence made him more popular. After the Revolution of July, however, +he refused to accept any favours from the Orleanist dynasty, and lived +quietly, publishing nothing after 1833. In 1848 he was elected to the +Assembly, but immediately resigned his seat. He behaved to the Second +Empire as he had behaved to the July monarchy, refusing all honours and +appointments. He died in 1857. Beranger's poetical works consist +entirely of _Chansons_, political, amatory, bacchanalian, satirical, +philosophical after a fashion, and of almost every other complexion that +the song can possibly take. Their form is exactly that of the +eighteenth-century _Chanson_, the frivolity and licence of language +being considerably curtailed, and the range of subjects proportionately +extended. The popularity of Beranger with ordinary readers, both in and +out of his own country, has always been immense; but a somewhat singular +reluctance to admit his merits has been shown by successive generations +of purely literary critics. In France his early contemporaries found +fault with him on the one hand for being a mere _chansonnier,_ and on +the other, for dealing with the _chanson_ in a graver tone than that of +his masters, Panard, Colle, Gouffe, and his immediate predecessor and in +part contemporary, Desaugiers. The sentimental school of the Restoration +thought him vulgar and unromantic. The Romantics proper disdained his +pedestrian and conventional style, his classic vocabulary. The +neo-Catholics disliked his Voltairianism. The Royalists and the +Republicans detested, and detest equally, though from the most opposite +sides, his devotion to the Napoleonic legend. Yet Beranger deserves his +popularity, and does not deserve the grudging appreciation of critics. +His one serious fault is the retention of the conventional mannerism of +the eighteenth century in point of poetic diction, and he might argue +that time had almost irrevocably associated this with the _chanson_ +style. His versification, careless as it looks, is really studied with a +great deal of care and success. As to his matter, only prejudice against +his political, religious, and ethical attitude, can obscure the lively +wit of his best work; its remarkable pathos; its sound common sense; its +hearty, if somewhat narrow and mistaken, patriotism; its freedom from +self-seeking and personal vanity, spite, or greed; its thorough humanity +and wholesome natural feeling. Nor can it be fairly said that his range +is narrow. _Le Grenier_, _Le Roi d'Yvetot_, _Roger Bontemps_, _Les +Souvenirs du Peuple_, _Les Fous_, _Les Gueux_, cover a considerable +variety of tones and subjects, all of which are happily treated. +Beranger indeed was not in the least a literary poet. But there is room +in literature for other than merely literary poets, and among these +Beranger will always hold a very high place. The common comparison of +him to Burns is in this erroneous, that the element of passion, which is +the most prominent in Burns, is almost absent from Beranger, and that +the unliterary character which was an accident with Burns was with +Beranger essential. The point of contact is, that both were among the +most admirable of song writers, and that both hit infallibly the tastes +of the masses among their countrymen. + +[Sidenote: Lamartine.] + +Alphonse Prat de Lamartine was in almost every conceivable respect the +exact opposite to Beranger. He was born at Macon, on the 21st of +October, 1791, of a good family of Franche Comte, which, though never +very rich, had long devoted itself to arms and agriculture only. His +father was a strong royalist, was imprisoned during the Terror, and +escaped narrowly. Lamartine was educated principally by the Peres de la +Foi, and, after leaving school, spent some time first at home and then +in Italy. The Restoration gave him entrance to the royal bodyguard; but +he soon exchanged soldiering for diplomacy, and was appointed attache in +Italy. He had already (1820) published the _Meditations_, his first +volume of verse, which had a great success. Lamartine married an English +lady in 1822, and spent some years in the French legations at Naples and +Florence. He was elected to the Academy in 1829. After the revolution of +July he set out for the East, but, being elected by a constituency to +the Chamber of Deputies, returned. He acquired much fame as an orator, +contributed not a little to the overthrow of Louis Philippe, and in 1848 +enjoyed for a brief space something not unlike a dictatorship. Power, +however, soon slipped through his hands, and he retired into private +life. His later days were troubled by money difficulties, though he +wrote incessantly. In 1867 he received a large grant from the government +of Napoleon III., and died not long afterwards--in 1869. The chief works +of Lamartine are, in verse, the already mentioned _Meditations_ (of +which a new series appeared in 1823), the _Harmonies_, 1829, the +_Recueillements_, _Le Dernier Chant du Pelerinage d'Harold_, _Jocelyn_, +_La Chute d'un Ange_, the two last being fragments of a huge epic poem +on the ages of the world; in prose, _Souvenirs d'Orient_, _Histoire des +Girondins_, _Les Confidences_, _Raphael_, _Graziella_, besides an +immense amount of work for the booksellers, in history, biography, +criticism, and fiction, produced in his later days. Lamartine's +characteristics, both in prose and verse, are well marked. He is before +all things a sentimentalist and a landscape-painter. He may indeed be +said to have wrought into verse what Rousseau, Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, and Chateaubriand had already expressed in prose, +supplying only an additional, and perhaps original, note of meditative +tenderness. Lamartine's verse is exquisitely harmonious, and frequently +picturesque; but it is deficient in vigour and brilliancy, and marred by +the perpetual current of sentimental complaining. Beyond this he never +could get; his only important attempt in a different and larger style, +the _Chute d'un Ange_, being, though not without merits, on the whole a +failure. In harmony of verse and delicate tenderness of feeling his +poetry was an enormous advance on the eighteenth century, and its power +over its first readers is easily understood. But Lamartine made little, +if any, organic change in the mechanism of French poetry, so far as its +versification is concerned, while his want of range in subject equally +disabled him from effecting a revolution. His best poems, such as _Le +Lac_, _Paysage dans le Golfe de Genes_, _Le Premier Regret_, are however +among the happiest expressions of a dainty but rather conventional +melancholy, irreproachable from the point of view of morals and +religion, thoroughly well bred, and creditably aware of the beauties of +nature, which it describes and reproduces with a great deal of skill. + +[Sidenote: Lamennais.] + +The next name on the list belongs to a far stronger, if a less +accomplished, spirit than Lamartine. Felicite Robert de Lamennais was +born in 1782, at St. Malo. In the confusion of the last decade of the +eighteenth century, when, as a contemporary bears witness, even persons +holding important state offices had often received no regular education +whatever, Lamennais was for the most part his own teacher. He betook +himself, however, to literature, and in 1807 was appointed to a +mastership in the St. Malo Grammar School. Shortly afterwards he +published a treatise on 'The Church during the Eighteenth Century,' and +taking orders before long followed it up by others. These placed him in +the forefront of the Catholic reaction, of which Chateaubriand from the +picturesque, and Joseph de Maistre from the philosophical side, were the +leaders. He took priest's orders in 1816, and in 1817 published his +_Essai sur l'Indifference en Matiere de Religion_. This is a sweeping +defence of the absolute authority of the Church, but the 'rift within +the lute' already appears. Lamennais bases this authority, according to +a tradition of that very eighteenth century which he most ardently +opposes, on universal consent. Although therefore the deductive portion +of his argument is in thorough accordance with Roman doctrine, the +inductive portion can hardly be said to be so, and it prepared the way +for his subsequent change of front. For a time Lamennais contented +himself with the hope of establishing a sect of liberal royalist +Catholics. A rapid succession of journals, most of which were +suppressed, led to the _Avenir_, in which Montalembert, Lacordaire, and +others took part, and which, like some English periodicals of a later +period, aimed directly at the union of orthodox religious principles of +the Roman complexion with political liberalism, and a certain freedom of +thought in other directions. The _Avenir_ was definitely censured by +Gregory XVI. in 1832, and Lamennais rapidly fell away from his previous +orthodoxy. He had established himself in the country with a following of +youthful disciples. Of these the best-known now is Maurice de Guerin, a +feeble poet who died young, but who, with his abler sister Eugenie, +interested Sainte-Beuve, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and others. _Les Paroles +d'un Croyant_, which appeared in 1834, united speculative Republicanism +of the most advanced kind with a direct defiance of Rome in matter of +religion, and this was followed by a long series of works in the same +spirit. Lamennais' ardent and ill-balanced temperament, the chief note +of which was the most excessive personal vanity, no sooner threw off the +yoke of orthodoxy than it ran to the opposite extreme, and the Catholic +royalist of the first empire became an atheistic, or at most theistic, +democrat. Lamennais died in 1854. He had a great influence both on men +and on books in France, and his literary work is extremely remarkable. +It bears the marks of his insufficient education and of his excitable +temperament. In the _Paroles d'un Croyant_ the style is altogether +apocalyptic in its mystic and broken declamation, full of colour, +energy, and vague impressiveness, but entirely wanting in order, +lucidity, and arrangement. The earlier works show something of this, +though necessarily not so much. Lamennais' literary, as distinguished +from his political and social, importance consists in the fact that he +was practically the first to introduce this style into French. He has +since had notable disciples, among whom Michelet and even Victor Hugo +may be ranked. + +[Sidenote: Victor Cousin.] + +The contrast of the return from Lamennais to Cousin is almost as great +as that of the change from Lamartine to Lamennais. The careers of the +poet and the philosopher have indeed something in common, for Cousin's +delicate, exquisite, and somewhat feminine prose style is a nearer +analogue to the poetry of Lamartine even than the latter's own prose, +and the sudden decline of Cousin's reputation in philosophy almost +matches that of Lamartine's reputation as a poet. Victor Cousin was born +in 1792, at Paris, and was one of the most brilliant pupils of the Lycee +Charlemagne. He passed thence to the Ecole Normale, and, in the year of +the Restoration, became Assistant Professor to Royer Collard at the +Sorbonne. He adopted vigorously the doctrines of that philosopher, which +practically amounted to a translation of the Scottish school of Reid and +Stewart, but he soon combined with them much that he borrowed from Kant +and his successors in Germany. This latter country he visited twice; on +the second occasion with the unpleasant result of an arrest. He soon +returned to France, however, and became distinguished as a supporter of +the liberal party. The years immediately before and after the July +Revolution were Cousin's most successful time. His lectures were +crowded, his eclecticism was novel and popular, and when after July +itself he became officially powerful, he distinguished himself by +patronising young men of genius. During the reign of Louis Philippe he +was one of the most influential of men of letters, though curiously +enough, he combined with his political liberalism a certain tendency to +reaction in matters of pure literature. After 1848 he retired from +public life, and, though he survived for nearly twenty years, produced +little more in philosophy. His brilliant but patchy eclecticism had had +its day, and he saw it; but he earned new and perhaps more lasting +laurels by betaking himself to the study of French literary history, and +producing some charming essays on the ladies of the Fronde. Cousin's +history is interesting as an instance of the accidental prosperity which +in the first half of this century the mixture of politics and +literature brought to men of letters. But his own literary merits are +very considerable. Without the freedom and originality of the great +writers who were for the most part his juniors by ten or twenty years, +he possessed a style studied from the best models of the seventeenth +century, which, despite a certain artificiality, has great beauty. +Besides editions of philosophical classics, the chief works of his +earlier period are _Fragments Philosophiques_, 1827, _Cours de +l'Histoire de la Philosophie_, 1827; of his later, _Du Vrai_, _Du Beau +et Du Bien_, and his studies on the women of the seventeenth century. + +[Sidenote: Beyle.] + +The author now to be noticed has found little place hitherto in +histories of literature, and estimates of his positive value are even +yet much divided. Henri Beyle, who wrote under the name of De Stendhal, +was born at Grenoble, in January, 1783. His family belonged to the +middle class, though, unfortunately, Beyle allowed himself during the +Empire to be called M. _de_ Beyle, and incurred not a little ridicule in +consequence. His literary _alias_ was also, it may be noticed, arranged +so as to claim nobility. He was a clever boy, but manifested no special +predilection for any profession. At last he entered the army, and served +in it (chiefly in the non-combatant branches) on some important +occasions, including the campaigns of the St. Bernard, of Jena, and of +Moscow. He also held some employments in the civil service of the +Empire. At the Restoration he went to Italy, which was always his +favourite place of residence; but when in 1821 political troubles began +to arise, he was 'politely' expelled by the Austrian police. After this +he lived chiefly in Paris, making part of his living by the unexpected +function of contributing to the London _New Monthly Magazine_. He knew +English well, admired our literature, and visited London more than once. +Being, as far as he was a politician at all, a Bonapartist, he was not +specially interested in the Revolution of 1830; but it was profitable to +him, for through some of his friends he was appointed French consul, +first at Trieste, and then (the Austrians objecting) at Civita Vecchia. +He lived, however, chiefly at Rome, and travelled a good deal. Latterly +his health was weak, and he died at Paris, in 1842, of apoplexy. He was +buried at Montmartre; but, with his usual eccentricity, his epitaph was +by his direction written in Italian, and he was described as a Milanese. +Beyle's character, personal and literary, was very peculiar. In +temperament, religious views, and social ideas he was a belated +_philosophe_ of the Diderot school. But in literature he had improved +even on Diderot, and very nearly anticipated the full results of the +Romantic movement, while in politics, as has been said, he was an +imperialist. His works are pretty voluminous. They consist of novels +(_La Chartreuse de Parme_, _Armance_, _Le Rouge et le Noir_, _Memoires +d'un Touriste_, etc.); of criticism (_Histoire de la Peinture en +Italie_, _Racine et Shakespeare_, _Melanges_); of biography (Lives of +Napoleon, Haydn, Mozart, Metastasio, etc.); of topographical writing of +a miscellaneous kind (_Promenades dans Rome, Naples et Florence_, etc.); +and lastly, of a singular book entitled _De l'Amour_, which unites +extraordinary acuteness and originality of thought with cynicism of +expression and paradox of theory. In this book, and in his novels, Beyle +made himself the ancestor of what has been called successively realism +and naturalism in France. Perhaps, however, his most remarkable work was +Merimee, of whose family he was a friend, and who, far excelling him in +merit of style if not in freshness of thought, learnt beyond all doubt +from him his peculiar and half-affected cynicism of tone, his curious +predilection for the apparently opposed literatures of England and +Southern Europe, and not improbably also his imperialism. Beyle is a +difficult author to judge briefly, the contradictions, affectations, and +oddities in him demanding minute examination. Of his power, intrinsic +and exerted on others, there is no doubt. + +[Sidenote: Nodier.] + +[Sidenote: Delavigne.] + +[Sidenote: Soumet.] + +The three remaining writers require shorter notice. Charles Nodier, who +was born at Besancon in 1780, and died at Paris in 1844, is one of the +most remarkable failures of a great genius in French literary history. +He did almost everything--lexicography, text-editing, criticism, poetry, +romance--and he did everything well, but perhaps nothing supremely well. +If an exception be made to this verdict, it must be in favour of his +short tales, some of which are exquisite, and all but, if not quite, +masterpieces. As librarian of the Mazarin Library, Nodier was a kind of +centre of the early Romantic circle, and, though he was more than +twenty years older than most of its members, he identified himself +thoroughly with their aims and objects. His consummate knowledge of the +history and vocabulary of the French tongue probably had no mean +influence on that conservative and restorative character which was one +of the best sides of the movement. Casimir Delavigne was born at Havre +in 1793. He first distinguished himself by his _Messeniennes_, a series +of satires or patriotic jeremiads on the supposed degradation of France +under the Restoration. Then he took to the stage, and produced +successively _Les Vepres Siciliennes_, _Marino Faliero_, _Louis XI_. +(well known in England from the affection which several English tragic +actors have shown for the title part), _Les Enfants d'Edouard_, etc. He +also wrote other non-dramatic poems, most of them of a political +character. Casimir Delavigne is a writer of little intrinsic worth. He +held aloof from the Romantic movement, less from dislike to its +extravagances and its cliquism, than from genuine weakness and inability +to appreciate the defects of the classic tradition. He is in fact the +direct successor of Ducis and Marie Joseph Chenier, having forgotten +something, but learned little. The defects of his poems are parallel to +those of his plays. His patriotism is conventional, his verse +conventional, his expression conventional, though the convention is in +all three cases slightly concealed by the skilful adoption of a certain +outward colouring of energy and picturesqueness. He was not unpopular in +his day, being patronised to a certain extent by the extreme classical +party, and recommended to the public by his liberal political +principles. But he is almost entirely obsolete already, and is never +likely to recover more than the reputation due to fair literary +workmanship in an inferior style. Alexandre Soumet was another dramatist +of the same kind, but perhaps of a less artificial stamp. He adhered to +the old model of drama, or to something like it, more, apparently, +because it satisfied his requirements, than from abstract predilection +for it, or from dislike to the new models. His _Norma_ has the merit of +having at least suggested the libretto of one of the most popular of +modern operas, and his _Une Fete sous Neron_ is not devoid of merit. +Soumet was in the early days of the movement a kind of outsider in it, +and it cannot be said that at any time he became an enemy, or that his +work is conspicuous for any fatal defects according to the new method of +criticism. A deficiency of initiative, rather than, as in Delavigne's +case, a preference of inferior models, seems to have been the reason why +he did not advance further. + +[Sidenote: The Romantic Propaganda in Periodicals.] + +It was, however, reserved for a younger generation actually to cross the +Rubicon, and to achieve the reform which was needed. The assistance +which the vast spread of periodical literature lent to such an attempt +has been already noted, and it was in four periodical publications that +the first definite note of the literary revolution was sounded. In these +the movement was carried on for many years before the famous +representation of _Hernani_, which announced the triumph of the +innovators. These four publications were: first, _Le Conservateur +Litteraire_ (a journal published as early as 1819, before the _Odes_ of +Victor Hugo, who was one of its main-stays, or even the _Meditations_ of +Lamartine had appeared); secondly, the _Annales Romantiques_, which +began in 1823, with perhaps the most brilliant list of contributors that +any periodical--with the possible exception of the nearly contemporary +_London Magazine_--ever had; a list including Chateaubriand, Lamennais, +Lamartine, Joseph de Maistre (posthumously), Alfred de Vigny, Henri de +Latouche, Hugo, Nodier, Beranger, Casimir Delavigne, Madame +Desbordes-Valmore, and Delphine Gay, afterwards Madame de Girardin. +Although not formally, this was practically a kind of annual of the +_Muse Francaise_, which had pretty nearly the same contributors, and +conducted the warfare in more definitely polemical manner by criticism +and precept, as well as by example. Lastly, there was the important +newspaper--a real newspaper this--called _Le Globe_, which appeared in +1822. The other Romantic organs had been either colourless as regards +politics, or else more or less definitely conservative and monarchical, +the middle age influence being still strong. The _Globe_ was avowedly +liberal in politics. Men of the greatest eminence in various ways, +Jouffroy, Damiron, Pierre Leroux, and Charles de Remusat, wrote in it; +but its literary importance in history is due to the fact that here +Sainte-Beuve, the critic of the movement, began, and for a long time +carried out the vast series of critical studies of French and other +literature which, partly by destruction and partly by construction, made +the older literary theory for ever obsolete. The various names in poetry +and prose of this romantic movement must now be reviewed. + +[Sidenote: Victor Hugo.] + +Victor Marie Hugo was born at Besancon on the 28th of February, 1802. +His father was an officer of distinction in Napoleon's army, his mother +was of Vendean blood and of royalist principles, which last her son for +a long time shared. His literary activity began extremely early. He was, +as has been seen, a contributor to the _Conservateur Litteraire_ at the +age of seventeen, and, with much work which he did not choose to +preserve, some which still worthily finds a place in his published +collections appeared there. Indeed, with his two brothers, Abel and +Eugene, he took a principal share in the management of the periodical. +His _Odes et Poesies Diverses_ appeared in 1822, when he was twenty, and +were followed two years afterwards by a fresh collection. In these +poems, though great strength and beauty of diction are apparent, nothing +that can be called distinct innovation appears. It is otherwise with the +_Odes et Ballades_ of 1826, and the _Orientales_ of 1829. Here the +Romantic challenge is definitely thrown down. The subjects are taken by +preference from times and countries which the classical tradition had +regarded as barbarous. The metres and rhythm are studiously broken, +varied, and irregular; the language has the utmost possible glow of +colour as opposed to the cold correctness of classical poetry, the +completest disdain of conventional periphrasis, the boldest reliance on +exotic terms and daring neologisms. Two romances in prose, more +fantastic in subject and audacious in treatment than the wildest of the +_Orientales_, had preceded the latter. The first, _Han d'Islande_, was +published anonymously in 1823. It handled with much extravagance, but +with extraordinary force and picturesqueness, the adventures of a bandit +in Norway. The second, _Bug Jargal_, an earlier form of which had +already appeared in the _Conservateur_, was published in 1826. But the +rebels, of whom Victor Hugo was by this time the acknowledged chief, +knew that the theatre was at once the stronghold of their enemies, and +the most important point of vantage for themselves. Victor Hugo's +theatrical, or at least dramatic, _debut_ was not altogether happy. +_Cromwell_, which was published in 1828, was not acted, and indeed, from +its great length and other peculiarities, could hardly have been acted. +It is rather a romance thrown into dramatic form than a play. In its +published shape, however, it was introduced by an elaborate preface, +containing a full exposition of the new views which served as a kind of +manifesto. Some minor works about this time need not be noticed. The +final strokes in verse and prose were struck, the one shortly before the +revolution of July, the other shortly after it, by the drama of +_Hernani, ou l'Honneur Castillan_, and the prose romance of _Notre Dame +de Paris_. The former, after great difficulties with the actors and with +outside influences--it is said that certain academicians of the old +school actually applied to Charles X. to forbid the representation--was +acted at the Theatre Francais on the 25th of February, 1830. The latter +was published in 1831. The reading of these two celebrated works, +despite nearly sixty years of subsequent and constant production with +unflagging powers on the part of their author, would suffice to give any +one a fair, though not a complete, idea of Victor Hugo, and of the +characteristics of the literary movement of which he has been the head. +The main subject of _Hernani_ is the point of honour which compels a +noble Spaniard to kill himself, in obedience to the blast of a horn +sounded by his mortal enemy, at the very moment of his marriage with his +beloved. _Notre Dame de Paris_ is a picture by turns brilliant and +sombre of the manners of the mediaeval capital. In both the author's +great failing, a deficient sense of humour and of proportion, which +occasionally makes him overstep the line between the sublime and the +ridiculous, is sometimes perceivable. In both, too, there is a certain +lack of technical neatness and completeness in construction. But the +extraordinary command of the tragic passions of pity, admiration, and +terror, the wonderful faculty of painting in words, the magnificence of +language, the power of indefinite poetical suggestion, the sweep and +rush of style which transports the reader, almost against his will and +judgment, are fully manifest in them. As a mere innovation, _Hernani_ +is the most striking of the two. Almost every rule of the old French +stage is deliberately violated. Although the language is in parts ornate +to a degree, the old periphrases are wholly excluded; and when simple +things have to be said they are said with the utmost simplicity. The +cadence and arrangement of the classical Alexandrine are audaciously +reconstructed. Not merely is the practice of _enjambement_ (or +overlapping of lines and couplets, as distinct from the rigid separation +of them) frequent and daring, but the whole balance and rhythm of the +individual line is altered. Ever since Racine the one aim of the +dramatist had been to make the Alexandrine run as monotonously as +possible. The aim of Victor Hugo was to make it run with the greatest +possible variety. In short, the whole theory of the drama was altered. +The decade which followed the revolution of July was Victor Hugo's most +triumphant period. A series of dramas, _Marion de Lorme_, _Les Roi +s'Amuse_, _Lucrece Borgia_, _Marie Tudor_, _Angelo_, _Les Burgraves_, +succeeded each other at short intervals, and were accompanied by four +volumes of immortal verse, _Les Feuilles d'Automne_, _Chants du +Crepuscule_, _Les Voix Interieures_, _Les Rayons et les Ombres_. The +dramas continued to show Victor Hugo's command of tragic passion, his +wonderful faculty of verse, his fertility in moving situations, and in +incidents of horror and grandeur; but they did not indicate an increased +acquaintance with those minor arts of the playwright, which are +necessary to the success of acted dramas, and which many of Hugo's own +pupils possessed to perfection. Accordingly, towards the end of the +decade, some reaction took place against them, and their author ceased +to write for the stage. His purely poetical productions showed, however, +an increase at once of poetical and of critical power; and of the four +volumes mentioned, each one contains many pieces which have never been +excelled in French poetry, and which may be fairly compared with the +greatest poetical productions of the same kind in other literatures. +Meanwhile, Victor Hugo's political ideas (which never, in any of their +forms, brought him much luck, literary or other) had undergone a +remarkable change. During the reign of Louis Philippe, he, who had +recently been an ardent legitimist, became, first, a constitutional +royalist (in which capacity he accepted from the king a peerage), then +an extreme liberal, and at last, when the revolution of 1848 broke out, +a republican democrat. He was banished for his opposition to Louis +Napoleon, and fled, first to Brussels, and then to the Channel Islands, +launching against his enemy a prose lampoon, _Napoleon le Petit_, and +then a volume of verse, _Les Chatiments_, of marvellous vigour and +brilliancy. During the ten years before this his literary work had been +for the most part suspended, at least as far as publication is +concerned. But his exile gave a fresh spur to his genius. After four +years' residence, first in Jersey, then in Guernsey, he published _Les +Contemplations_ (2 vols.), a collection of lyrical pieces, not different +in general form from the four volumes which had preceded them; and, in +1859, _La Legende des Siecles_, a marvellous series of narrative or +pictorial poems representing scenes from different epochs of the history +of the world. These three volumes together represent his poetical talent +at its highest. He, at other times before and since, equalled but never +surpassed them. In _La Legende des Siecles_ the variety of the music, +the majesty of some of the pieces and the pathos of others, the rapid +succession of brilliant dissolving views, and the complete mastery of +language and versification at which the poet arrived, combine to produce +an effect not easily paralleled elsewhere. The _Contemplations_, as +their name imports, are chiefly meditative. They are somewhat unequal, +and the tone of speculative pondering on the mysteries of life which +distinguishes them sometimes drops into what is called sermonising, but +their best pieces are admirable. During the whole of the Second Empire +Victor Hugo continued to reside in Guernsey, publishing, in 1862, a long +prose romance, _Les Miserables_, one of the most unequal of his books; +then another, the exquisite _Travailleurs de la Mer_, as well as a +volume of criticism on _William Shakespeare_, some passages in which +rank among the best pieces of ornate prose in French; and, in 1869, +_L'Homme qui Rit_, a historical romance of a somewhat extravagant +character, recalling his earliest attempts in this kind, but full of +power. A small collection of lyric verse, mostly light and pastoral in +character, had appeared under the title of _Chansons des Rues et des +Bois_. The Revolution which followed the troubles of France, in 1870, +restored Victor Hugo to his country only to inflict a bitter, though +passing, annoyance on him. He had somewhat mistaken the temper of the +National Assembly at Bordeaux to which he had been elected. He even +found himself laughed at, and he retired to Brussels in disgust. Here he +was identified by public opinion with the Communists, and subjected to +some manifestations of popular displeasure, which, unfortunately, his +sensitive temperament and vivid imagination magnified unreasonably. +Returning to France after the publication of nearly his weakest book, +_L'Annee Terrible_, he lived quietly, but as a kind of popular and +literary idol, till his death in 1885. Of his abundant later (including +not a little posthumous) work _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_, another historical +romance, and two books of poetry (a second series of the _Legende des +Siecles_, 1877, and _Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit_, 1881) at their best, +equal anything he has ever done. The second _Legende_ is inferior to the +first in variety of tone and in vivid pictorial presentment, but equals +it in the declamatory vigour of its best passages. _Les Quatre Vents de +l'Esprit_ is, perhaps, the most striking single book that Victor Hugo +produced, containing as it does lyric and narrative work of the very +finest quality, and a drama of an entirely original character, which, +after more than sixty years of publicity, showed a new side of the +author's genius. + +This somewhat minute account of Victor Hugo's work must be supplemented +by some general criticism of his literary characteristics. As will +probably have been observed, from what has already been said, there were +remarkable gaps in his ability. In purely intellectual characteristics, +the characteristics of the logician and the philosopher, he was weak. He +was also, as has been said, deficient in the sense of humorous contrast, +and in the perception of strict literary proportion. Long years of +solitary pre-eminence, and of the frequently unreasonable worship of +fools as well as of wise men, gave him, or encouraged in him, a tendency +to regard the universe too much from the point of view of France in the +first place, Paris in the second, and Victor Hugo in the third. His +unequalled skill in the management of proper names tempted him to abuse +them as instruments of sonority in his verse. He is often inaccurate in +fact, presenting in this respect a remarkable resemblance to his +counterpart and complement Voltaire. The one merit which swallowed up +almost all others in classical and pseudo-classical literature is +wanting in him--the sense of measure. He is a childish politician, a +visionary social reformer. But, when all this has been said, there +remains a sum total of purely literary merits which suffices to place +him on a level with the greatest in literature. The mere fact that he is +equally remarkable for the exquisite grace of his smaller lyrics, and +for the rhetorical magnificence of his declamatory passages, argues some +peculiar and masterly idiosyncrasy in him. No poet has a rarer and more +delicate touch of pathos, none a more masculine or a fuller tone of +indignation. The great peculiarity of Victor Hugo is that his poetry +always transports. No one who cares for poetry at all, and who has +mastered the preliminary necessity of acquaintance with the French +language and French prosody, can read any of his better works without +gradually rising to a condition of enthusiasm in which the possible +defects of the matter are altogether lost sight of in the unsurpassed +and dazzling excellence of the manner. This is the special test of +poetry, and there is none other. The technical means by which Victor +Hugo produces these effects have been already hinted at. They consist in +a mastery of varied versification, in an extraordinary command of +pictorial language, dealing at once with physical and mental phenomena, +and, above all, in a certain irresistible habit of never allowing the +iron to grow cold. Stroke follows stroke in the exciting and +transporting process in a manner not easily paralleled in other writers. +Other poets are often best exhibited by very short extracts, by jewels +five words long. This is not so with Victor Hugo. He has such jewels, +but they are not his chief titles to admiration. The ardour and flow, as +of molten metal, which characterise him are felt only in the mass, and +must be sought there. What has been said of his verse is true, with but +slight modifications, of his prose, which is however on the whole +inferior. His unequalled versification is a weapon which he could not +exchange for the less pointed tool of prose without losing much of his +power. His defects emerge as his merits subside. But taking him +altogether, it may be asserted, without the least fear of +contradiction, that Victor Hugo deserves the title of the greatest poet +hitherto, and of one of the greatest prose writers of France. Such a +faculty, thrown into almost any cause, must have gone far to make it +triumph. But in a cause of such merits, and so stoutly seconded by +others, as that of the destruction of the classical tradition which had +cramped and starved French literature, there could be no doubt of +success when a champion such as Victor Hugo took up and carried through +to the end the task of championship. + +[Sidenote: Sainte-Beuve.] + +It is very seldom that the two different forces of criticism and +creation work together as they did in the case of the Romantic movement. +Each had numerous representatives, but the point of importance is that +each was represented by one of the greatest masters. Charles Augustin +Sainte-Beuve, the critic not merely of the Romantic movement, but of the +nineteenth century, and in a manner the first scientific and universal +critic that the world has seen, was born at Boulogne on the 23rd of +December, 1804. His father held an office of some importance; his mother +was of English blood. He was well educated, first at his native town, +then at Paris. He began by studying medicine, but very soon turned to +literature, and, as has been said, distinguished himself on the _Globe_. +The most important of his articles in this paper were devoted to the +French literature of the sixteenth century, and these were published as +a volume, in 1828, with great success. Sainte-Beuve at once became the +critic _en titre_ of the movement, though he did not very long continue +in formal connection with it. It was some time, however, before he +resigned himself to purely critical work. _Les Poesies de Joseph +Delorme_, _Les Consolations_, and _Volupte_ were successive attempts at +original composition, which, despite the talent of their author, hardly +made much mark, or deserved to make it. He did not persevere further in +a career for which he was evidently unfitted, but betook himself to the +long series of separate critical studies, partly of foreign and +classical literature, but usually of French, which made his reputation. +The papers to which he chiefly contributed were the _Constitutionnel_ +and the _Moniteur_, and during the middle of this century his Monday +_feuilletons_ of criticism were the chief recurring literary event of +Europe. These studies were at intervals collected and published in sets +under the titles _Critiques et Portraits Litteraires_, _Portraits +Contemporains_, _Causeries du Lundi_, and _Nouveaux Lundis_, the last +series only finishing with his death in 1869. Besides this he had +undertaken a single work of great magnitude in his _Histoire de Port +Royal_, on which he spent some twenty years. He was elected to the +Academy in 1845, and after the establishment of the Empire he was one of +the few distinguished literary men who took its side. The first reward +that he obtained was a professorship in the College de France; but some +years before his death he received the senatorship, a lucrative +position, and one which interfered very little with the studies of the +occupant. In character Sainte-Beuve strongly resembled some of the +epicureans of his favourite seventeenth century; but whatever faults he +may have had were redeemed by much good-nature and an entire absence of +literary vanity. + +[Sidenote: His Method.] + +[Sidenote: Dangers of the Method.] + +The importance of Sainte-Beuve in literature is historically, and as a +matter of influence, superior even to that of the great poet with whom +he was for some time in close friendship, though before very long their +stars fell apart. Until his time the science of criticism had been +almost entirely conducted on what may be called pedagogic lines. The +critic either constructed for himself, or more probably accepted from +tradition, a cut-and-dried scheme of the correct plan of different kinds +of literature, and contented himself with adjusting any new work to +this, marking off its agreements or differences, and judging +accordingly. Here and there in French literature critics like +Saint-Evremond, Fenelon, La Bruyere in part, Diderot, Joubert, had +adopted another method, but the small acquaintance which most Frenchmen +possessed of literature other than their own stood in the way of +success. Sainte-Beuve was the first to found criticism on a wide study +of literature, instead of directing a more or less narrow study of +literature by critical rules. Victor Hugo himself has laid down, in the +preface to the _Orientales_, one important principle--the principle that +the critic has only to judge of the intrinsic goodness of the book, and +not of its conformity to certain pre-established ideas. There remains +the difficulty of deciding what is intrinsically good or bad. To solve +this, the only way is, first, to prepare the mind of the critic by a +wide study of literature, which may free him from merely local and +national prejudices; and, secondly, to direct his attention not so much +to cut-and-dried ideas of an epic, a sonnet, a drama, as to the object +which the author himself had before him when he composed his work. In +carrying out this principle it becomes obviously of great importance to +study the man himself as well as his works, and his works as a whole as +well as the particular sample before the judge. Sainte-Beuve was almost +the first in France to set the example of the _causerie critique_, the +essay which sets before the reader the life, circumstances, aims, +society, and literary atmosphere of the author, as well as his literary +achievements. This accounts for the extreme interest shown by the public +in what had very commonly been regarded as one of the idlest and least +profitable kinds of literature. At the same time the method has two +dangers to which it is specially exposed. One is the danger of limiting +the consideration to external facts merely, and giving a gossiping +biography rather than a criticism. The other, and the more subtle +danger, is the construction of a new cut-and-dried theory instead of the +old one, by regarding every man as simply a product of his age and +circumstances, and ticketing him off accordingly without considering his +works themselves to see whether they bear out the theory by facts. In +either case, the great question which Victor Hugo has stated, 'L'ouvrage +est-il bon ou est-il mauvais?' remains unanswered in any satisfactory +measure. Sainte-Beuve himself did not often fall into either error. His +taste was remarkably catholic and remarkably fine. The only fault which +can justly be found with him is the fault which naturally besets such a +critic, the tendency to look too complacently on persons of moderate +talent, whose merits he himself is perhaps the first to recognise fully, +and to be proportionately unjust to the greater names whose merits, on +good systems and bad alike, are universally acknowledged, in whose case +it is difficult to say anything new, and who are therefore somewhat +ungrateful subjects for the ingenious and delicate analysis which more +mixed talents repay. But study of the work of such a man as Sainte-Beuve +is an almost absolute safeguard against the intolerance of former days +in matter of literature, and this is its great merit. + +[Sidenote: Dumas the Elder.] + +Around Victor Hugo were grouped not a few writers who were only inferior +to himself. But, before mentioning the members of what is called the +_cenacle_, or innermost Romantic circle, a third name of almost equal +temporary importance to those of Hugo and Sainte-Beuve must be +named--that of Alexandre Dumas. This writer, one of the most prolific, +and in some respects one of the most remarkable of dramatists and +novelists, was the son of a general in the revolutionary army, and was +born, on the 23rd of July, 1806, at Villers Cotterets. He had hardly any +education; but, coming to Paris at the age of twenty, he was fortunate +enough to obtain a clerkship in the household of the Duke of Orleans. He +tried literature almost at once, and in 1829 his _Henri III. et sa Cour_ +was played, and was a great success. This was a year before _Hernani_, +and though Dumas had no pretence to rival Hugo in literary merit, his +drama was quite as revolutionary in style, events, language, and general +arrangement as Hugo's. But he had not heralded it by any general +defiance, and it possessed (what his greater contemporary's dramatic +work never fully possessed) the indefinable knowledge of the stage and +its requirements, which always tells on an audience. After the +Revolution of July, the daring play of _Antony_ achieved an almost equal +success, despite its attacks on the proprieties, attacks of which at +that time French opinion was not tolerant in a serious play. Then he +returned to the historical drama in the _Tour de Nesle_, another play of +strong situations and reckless sacrifice of everything else to +excitement. After this Dumas published many plays, of which _Don Juan de +Marana_ and _Kean_ are perhaps the most extravagant, and _Mademoiselle +de Belle-Isle_, 1839, the best. But before long he fell into a train of +writing more profitable even than the drama. This was the composition of +historical romances something in Scott's manner. The most famous of +these, such as the _Three Musketeers_, _La Reine Margot_, and _Monte +Cristo_, were produced towards the latter part of the reign of Louis +Philippe, his early patron. He travelled a great deal, making books and +money out of his travels; and sometimes, as when he was the companion of +Garibaldi, finding himself in curious company. No man, probably, ever +made so much money by literature in France as Dumas, though he was not +equally skilled in keeping it. He died, in the midst of the disasters of +his country, on Christmas Eve, 1870. Dumas' literary position and +influence are not very easy to estimate, because of the strange extent +to which he carried what is called collaboration, and his frank avowal +of something very like plagiarism in many of the works which he wrote +unassisted. Endeavours have even been made to show that his most +celebrated works are the production of hack writers whom he paid to +write under his name. Nor is there the least doubt that he did resort on +a large scale to something like the practice of those portrait painters +who employ their pupils to paint in the draperies, backgrounds, and +accessories of their work. But that Dumas was the moving spirit still, +and the actual author of what is best and most peculiar in the works +that go by his name, is sufficiently proved by the fact that none of his +assistants, whose names are in many cases known, and who in not a few +instances subsequently attained eminence on their own account, have +equalled or even resembled his peculiar style. Dumas' dramatic work is +of but little value as literature properly so called. His forte is the +already mentioned playwright's instinct, as it may be termed, which made +him almost invariably choose and conduct his action in a manner so +interesting and absorbing to the audience that they had no time to think +of the merits of the style, the propriety of the morals, the congruity +of the sentiments. His plays, in short, are intended to be acted, not to +be read. Of his novels many are disfigured by long passages of the +inferior work to be expected from mere hack assistants, by unskilful +insertions of passages from his authorities, and sometimes by +plagiarisms so audacious and flagrant, that the reader takes them as +little less than an insult. His best work, however, such as the whole of +the long series ranging from _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ through _Vingt +Ans apres_ to _Le Vicomte de Bragelonne_, a second long series of which +_La Reine Margot_ is a member, and parts of others, has peculiar and +almost unique merits. The style is not more remarkable as such than that +of the dramas; there is not always, or often, a well-defined plot, and +the characters are drawn only in the broadest outline. But the cunning +admixture of incident and dialogue by which Dumas carries on the +interest of his gigantic narrations without wearying the reader is a +secret of his own, and has never been thoroughly mastered by any one +else. + +[Sidenote: Honore de Balzac.] + +While Dumas thus gave himself up to the novel of incident, two other +writers of equally remarkable genius, and of greater merely literary +power, also devoted themselves to prose fiction, and by this means +exercised a wide influence on their generation. Honore de Balzac was +born at Tours, on the 20th of May, 1799. He was fairly well educated, +but his father's circumstances compelled him to place his son in a +lawyer's office. This Balzac could not endure, and he very shortly +betook himself to literature, suffering very considerable hardships. The +task he attempted was fiction, and his experience in it was unique. For +years he wrote steadily, and published dozens of volumes, not merely +without attaining success, but without deserving any. But few of these +are ever read now, and when they are opened it is out of mere curiosity, +a curiosity which meets with but little return. Yet Balzac continued, in +spite of hardship and of ill success, to work on, and in his thirtieth +year he made his first mark with _Les Derniers Chouans_, a historical +novel, which, if not of great excellence, at least shows a peculiar and +decided talent. From this time forward he worked with spirit and success +in his own manner, and in twenty years produced the vast collection +which he himself termed _La Comedie Humaine_, the individual novels +being often connected by community of personages, and always by the +peculiar fashion of analytical display of character which from them is +identified with Balzac's name. The most successful of these are +concerned with Parisian life, and perhaps the most powerful of all are +_Le Pere Goriot_, _Eugenie Grandet_, _La Cousine Bette_, _La Peau de +Chagrin_, _La Recherche de l'Absolu_, _Seraphita_. The last is the best +piece of mere writing that Balzac has produced. He had also a wonderful +faculty for short tales (_Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu_, _Une Passion dans +le Desert_, etc.). He tried the theatre, but failed. Notwithstanding +Balzac's untiring energy (he would often work for weeks together with +the briefest intervals of sleep) and the popularity of his books, he was +always in pecuniary difficulties. These were caused partly by his mania +for speculation, and partly by his singular habits of composition. He +would write a novel in short compass, have it printed, then enlarge the +printed sheets with corrections, and repeat this process again and again +until the expenses of the mere printing swallowed up great part of the +profits of the work. At last he obtained wealth, and, as it seemed, a +prospect of happiness. In 1850 he married Madame Hanska, a rich Polish +lady, to whom he had been attached for many years. He had prepared for a +life of opulent ease at Paris with his wife; but a few months after his +marriage he died of heart disease. Balzac is in a way the greatest of +French novelists, because he is the most entirely singular and original. +It has been said of him, with as much truth as exaggeration, that he has +drawn a whole world of character after having first created it out of +his own head. Balzac's characters are never quite human, and the +atmosphere in which they are placed has something of the same unreality +(though it is for the most part tragically and not comically unreal) as +that of Dickens. Everything is seen through a kind of distorting lens, +yet the actual vision is defined with the most extraordinary precision, +and in the most vivid colours. Balzac had great drawbacks. Despite his +noble prefix he cannot conceive or draw either a gentleman or a lady. +His virtuous characters are usually virtuous in the theatrical sense +only; his scheme of human character is altogether low and mean. But he +can analyse vice and meanness with wonderful vigour, and he is almost +unmatched in the power of conferring apparent reality upon what the +reader nevertheless feels to be imaginary and ideal. It follows almost +necessarily that he is happiest when his subject has a strong touch of +the fantastic. The already mentioned _Peau de Chagrin_--a magic skin +which confers wishing powers on its possessor but shrivels at each wish, +shortening his life correspondingly--and _Seraphita_, a purely romantic +or fantastic tale, are instances of this. Almost more striking than +either are the _Contes Drolatiques_, tales composed in imitation of the +manner and language of the sixteenth century. Here the grotesque and +fantastic incidents and tone exactly suit the writer, and some of the +stories are among the masterpieces of French literature. The same +sympathy with the abnormal may be noticed in the _Chef-d'oeuvre +Inconnu_, where a solitary painter touches and retouches his supposed +masterpiece till he loses all power of self-criticism, and at lasts +exhibits triumphantly a shapeless and unintelligible daub of mingled +colours. Balzac's style is not in itself of the best; it is clumsy, +inelastic, and destitute of the order and proportion which distinguish +the best French prose, but it is not ill suited to the peculiar +character of his work. + +[Sidenote: George Sand.] + +With Balzac's name is inseparably connected, if only from the striking +contrast between them, that of George Sand. Amandine Lucile Aurore +Dupin, who took the writing name of George Sand, was born at Paris in +1804, and had a somewhat singular family history, of which it is enough +to say here that she was descended through her father's mother from +Marshal Saxe, the famous son of Augustus of Saxony and Aurore von +Koeningsmarck. At the age of eighteen she married a man named Dudevant, +and was very unhappy, though it is rather difficult to determine on whom +the blame of the unhappiness ought to rest. They separated after a few +years, and she came to Paris, from her home at Nohant in Berry, to seek +a living. She found it soon in literature, having met with a friend and +companion in the novelist Jules Sandeau, and with a stern and most +useful critic in Henri de Latouche. Her first novel of importance was +_Indiana_, published in 1832. This was followed by _Valentine_, _Lelia_, +_Jacques_, etc. The interest of all or most of these turns on the +sufferings of the _femme incomprise_, a celebrated person in literature, +of whom George Sand is the historiographer, if not the inventor. A long +series of novels of this kind gave way, between 1840 and 1849, first to +a series of philosophical rhapsodies, of which _Spiridion_ is the chief, +and then to one in which the political aspirations of the socialist +Republicans appear. Of these, _Consuelo_, which is perhaps popularly +considered the author's masterpiece, was the chief. Her private history +was somewhat remarkable, and she succeeded in making at least two men of +greater genius than herself, Alfred de Musset and Chopin, utterly +miserable. They, however, afforded the subjects of two noteworthy books, +_Elle et Lui_, and _Lucrezia Floriani_, the latter perhaps the most +characteristic of all her early works. After the establishment of the +Second Empire her tastes and habits became quieter. She lived chiefly, +and latterly almost wholly, at Nohant, being greatly attached to the +country; and she wrote many charming sketches of country life with +felicitous introduction of _patois_, such as _La Mare au Diable_, +_Francois le Champi_, _La Petite Fadette_. Some voluminous memoirs, +published in 1854, dealt with her own early experiences. She lived till +the age of seventy-two, dying in 1876, and never ceased to put forth +novels which showed no distinct falling off in fertility or imagination, +or in command of literary style. She must have written in all nearly a +hundred books. As the chief characteristics of Balzac are intense +observation, concentrated thought, and the most obstinate and unwearying +labour, so the chief characteristic of George Sand is easy +improvisation. She had an active and receptive mind which took in the +surface of things, whether it was love, or philosophy, or politics, or +scenery, or manners, with remarkable and indifferent facility. She had +also a style which, if it cannot be ranked among the great literary +styles from its absence of statuesque outline, and from its too great +fluidity, was excellently suited for the task of improvisation. Her +novels, therefore, slipped from her without the slightest mental effort, +and appear to have cost her nothing. It is not true, in this case, that +what has cost nothing is worth nothing. But even favourable critics +admit that it is peculiarly difficult to read a novel of George Sand a +second time, and this is perhaps a decisive test. She is, indeed, far +more of an improvising novelist than Dumas, to whom the term has more +often been applied, though she wrote better French, and attempted more +ambitious subjects. The better characteristics of her novels reappeared, +perhaps to greater advantage, in her numerous and agreeable letters, +especially those to the novelist Flaubert. + +[Sidenote: Merimee.] + +In striking contrast with these three novelists was Prosper Merimee, +also a novelist for the most part, but, unlike them, a comparatively +infertile writer[292], and one of the most exquisite masters of French +prose that the nineteenth century has seen. Merimee was born in 1803, +and was therefore almost exactly of an age with the writers just +mentioned. For a time he took a certain share in the Romantic movement, +but his distinguishing characteristic was a kind of critical cynicism, +partly real, partly affected, which made him dislike and distrust +exaggeration of all kinds. He accordingly soon fell off. Possessing +independent means, and entering the service of the government, he was +not obliged to write for bread, and for many years he produced little, +devoting himself as much to archaeology and the classical languages as to +French. He accepted the Second Empire apparently from a genuine and +hearty hatred of democracy, and was rewarded with the post of senator. +But he had to assist Napoleon III. in his _Caesar_, and to dance +attendance on the Court, the latter duty being made somewhat less +irksome to him by his personal attachment to the Empress. Two +collections of letters, which have appeared since his death, one +addressed to an unknown lady, and the other to the late Sir Antonio +Panizzi, while adding to Merimee's literary reputation, have thrown very +curious light on his character, exhibiting him as a man who, with very +genuine and hearty affections, veiled them under an outward cloak of +cynicism, for fear of being betrayed into vulgarity and extravagance. He +died in 1870, at the beginning of the troubles of France, by which he +was deeply afflicted. The entire amount of Merimee's work is, as has +been said, not large, and during the last twenty years of his life it is +almost insignificant. But such as it is, it has an enduring and +monumental value, which belongs to the work of few of his +contemporaries. He began by a curious practice, which united the +romantic fancy for strange countries and strong local colour with his +personal longing for privacy and the absence of literary _eclat. Le +Theatre de Clara Gazul_--plays, nominally by a Spanish actress--was +produced when he was but one-and-twenty; two years later, with an +audacious anagram on the title of his previous work, he published, under +the title of _La Guzla_, some nominal translation of Dalmatian prose and +verse, in which he utilised with extraordinary cleverness the existing +books on Slav poetry. _La Famille de Carvajal_ was a further +_supercherie_ in the same style. In the very height and climax of the +Romantic movement Merimee produced two works, attesting at once his +marvellous supremacy of style, his strange critical appreciation of the +current forces in literature, his penetrating insight into history, and +the satiric background of all his thoughts and studies. These were _La +Jacquerie_, and a _Chronique du Regne de Charles IX_. These books, with +Balzac's _Contes Drolatiques_ (which they long preceded), are the most +happy creative criticisms extant of the middle ages and the Renaissance +in France. They are not fair or complete: on the contrary, they are +definitely and unfairly hostile. But the mastery at once of human nature +and of literary form which they display, the faculty of vivid +resurrection indicated by them, the range, the insight, the power of +expression, are extraordinary. During the rest of his life Merimee, with +some excursions into history (ancient and modern), archaeology, and +criticism, confined himself for the most part to the production, at long +intervals, of short tales or novels of very limited length. They are all +masterpieces of literature, and, like most masterpieces of literature, +they indicate, in a comparatively incidental and by-the-way fashion, +paths which duller men have followed up to the natural result of +absurdity and exaggeration. _Colomba_, _Mateo Falcone_, _La Double +Meprise_, _La Venus d'Ille_, _L'Enlevement de la Redoute_, _Lokis_, have +equals, but no superiors either in French prose fiction or in French +prose. Grasp of human character, reserved but masterly description of +scenery, delicate analysis of motive, ability to represent the +supernatural, pathos, grandeur, simple narrative excellence, appear turn +by turn in these wonderful pieces, as they appear hardly anywhere else +except in the author to whom we shall come next. It is noteworthy, +however, that Merimee is a master of the simple style in literature as +Gautier is of the ornate. One cannot be said to be greater than the +other, but between them they exhibit French prose in a perfection which, +since the seventeenth century, it had not possessed. + +[Sidenote: Theophile Gautier.] + +Theophile Gautier was born considerably later than most of the writers +just mentioned. His birth-year was 1811, and he was a native of Tarbes +in Gascony. His education was partly at the grammar school of that town, +and partly at the Lycee Charlemagne, where he made friends with Gerard +de Nerval, who was destined to have a great influence on his life. +After leaving school he was intended for the profession of art. But, +like Thackeray, to whom he had many points of resemblance, he had much +less artistic faculty than taste. Gerard introduced him to the circle of +Victor Hugo, and he speedily became one of the most fervent disciples of +the author of _Hernani_. In a red waistcoat which has become historic, +and in a mass of long hair which he continued to wear through life, he +was the foremost of the Hugonic _claque_ at the representation of that +famous play. Young as he was, he soon justified himself as something +more than a hanger-on of great men of letters. In 1830 itself he +produced a volume of verse, and this was followed by _Albertus_, an +audacious poem in the extremest Romantic style, and by a work which did +him both harm and good, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_. In this the most +remarkable qualities of style and artistic conception were accompanied +by a wilful disregard of the proprieties. Before long his unusual +command of style, which was partly natural, partly founded on a wide and +accurate study of the French writers of the sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries, recommended him to newspaper work, at which he +toiled manfully for the remainder of his life. There was hardly a +department of belles lettres which he did not attempt. He travelled in +Algeria, in Russia, in Turkey, in Spain, in Italy, in England, and wrote +accounts of his travels, which are among the most brilliant ever +printed. He was an assiduous critic of art, of the drama and of +literature, and the only charge which has ever been brought against his +work in this kind is that it is usually too lenient--that his fine +appreciation of even the smallest beauties has made him overlook gross +defects. His work in prose fiction was incessant, in poetry more +intermittent, and all the more perfect. When the Empire established +itself, Gautier, who had no political sympathies, but was, in an +undecided sort of way, a conservative from the aesthetic point of view, +accepted it. But he gave it no active support, beyond continuing to +contribute to the _Moniteur_, and received from it no patronage of any +kind. Nor did he sacrifice the least iota of principle, insisting, in +the very face of _Les Chatiments_, on having his praise of Victor Hugo +inserted in the official journal on pain of his instant resignation. He +led a pleasant but laborious life in one of the suburbs of Paris, with +a household of sisters, daughters, and cats, to all of whom he was +deeply attached. Here he lived through the Prussian siege. On the +restoration of order he manfully grappled with his journalist work +again, all hopes of lucrative appointments having gone with the Empire. +But his health had been broken for some time, and he died in 1872. The +works by which Gautier will be remembered are, in miscellaneous prose, a +remarkable series of studies on curious figures, chiefly of the +seventeenth century, called _Les Grotesques_, and a companion series on +the partakers in the movement of 1830, besides his descriptive books. In +novel writing there must be mentioned an unsurpassed collection of short +tales (the best of which is _La Morte Amoureuse_); _Le Roman de la +Momie_, a clever _tour de force_ reviving ancient Egyptian life; and, +lastly, _Le Capitaine Fracasse_, a novel in the manner of Dumas, but +fashioned in his own inimitable style. In verse, he wrote, besides work +already mentioned, the _Comedie de la Mort_, some miscellaneous poems of +later date, and, finally, the _Emaux et Camees_. In prose he is, as has +been said, the greatest recent master of the ornate style of French, as +Merimee is the greatest master of the simple style. His mastery over +mere language is accompanied by a very fine sense of the total form of +his tales, so that the already-mentioned _Morte Amoureuse_ is one of the +unsurpassable things of literature. In general writing he has a singular +faculty of embalming the most trivial details in the amber of his style, +so that his articles can be read again and again for the mere beauty of +them. As a poet he is specially noteworthy for the same command of form +joined to the same exquisite perfection of language. In _Emaux et +Camees_ especially it is almost impossible to find a flaw; language, +metre, arrangement, are all complete and perfect, and this formal +completeness is further informed by abundant poetic suggestion. The +chief fault, if it be a fault, which can be found with Gautier is, that +he set himself too deliberately against the tendencies of his age, and +excluded too rigidly everything but purely aesthetic subjects of interest +from his contemplation, and from the range of his literary energy. + +[Sidenote: Alfred de Musset.] + +The most happily-gifted, save one, of the great men of 1830, the weakest +beyond comparison in will, in temperament, in faculty of improving his +natural gifts, has yet to be mentioned. Alfred de Musset was born at +Paris in 1810. His father held a government place of some value; his +elder brother, M. Paul de Musset, was himself a man of letters, and at +the same time deeply attached to his younger brother; and the family, +though after the death of the father their means were not great, +constantly supplied Alfred with a home. He was, fortunately or +unfortunately, thrown, when quite a boy, into the society of Victor +Hugo, the _cenacle_ or inner clique of the Romantic movement. When only +nineteen Musset published a volume of poetry, which showed in him a +poetic talent inferior only to Hugo's own, and, indeed, not so much +inferior as different. These _Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie_ were quickly +followed up by a volume entitled _Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuil_, and +Musset became famous. Unfortunately for him, he became intimate with +George Sand, and the result was a journey to Italy, from which he +returned equally broken in health and in heart. His temperament was of +almost ultra-poetic excitability, and he had a positively morbid +incapacity for undertaking any useful employment, whether it was in +itself congenial or no. Thus he refused a well-paid and agreeable +position in the French embassy at Madrid; and though he had written +admirable prose tales for his own pleasure, he was either unwilling or +unable to write them under a regular commission. As he grew older he +unfortunately became addicted to the constant and excessive use of +stimulants. He was elected to the Academy in 1852, but produced little +of value thereafter, and died in 1857. Alfred de Musset's work, +notwithstanding his comparatively short life and his want of regular +energy, is not inconsiderable in amount, and in quality is of the +highest merit and interest. His poems, its most important item, are +deficient in strictly formal merit. He is a very careless versifier and +rhymer, and his choice of language is far from exquisite. He has, +however, a wonderful note of genuine passion, somewhat of the Byronic +kind, but quite independent in species, and entirely free from the +falsetto which spoils so much of Byron's work. Besides this his lyrics +are, in what may be called 'song-quality,' scarcely to be surpassed. +_Les Nuits_, a series of meditative poems in the form of dialogues +between the poet and his muse on nights in the month of May, August, +October, and December; _Rolla_, an extravagant but powerful tale of the +_maladie du siecle_; the addresses to Lamartine and to Malibran, and a +few more poems, yield to no work of our time in genuine, original, and +passionate music. Next to his poems in subject, though not in merit, may +be ranked the prose _Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle_. His prose tales, +_Emmeline_, _Frederic et Bernerette_, etc., are of great merit, but +inferior relatively to his poems, and to his remarkable dramas. These +latter are among the most original work of the century. It was some time +before they commended themselves to audiences in France, but they have +long won their true position. They are of very various kinds. Some, and +perhaps the happiest, are of the class called, in French, _proverbes_, +dramatic illustrations, that is to say, of some common saying, _Il ne +faut jurer de rien: Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermee_, etc. +The grace and delicacy of these, the ingenuity with which the story is +adapted to the moral, the abundant wit (for wit is one of Musset's most +prominent characteristics) which illustrates and pervades them, make +them unique in literature. Others, such as _Les Caprices de Marianne_, +_Le Chandelier_, are regular comedies, admitting, as against the +classical tradition, that a comedy may end ill; and others, as +_Lorenzaccio_, nearly attain to the dignity of the historic play. The +dramatic instinct in Musset was very strong, and may, perhaps, be said +to have exceeded in volume, originality, and variety, if not in +intensity, the purely poetical. Altogether, Musset is the most +remarkable instance in French literature, and one of the most remarkable +in the literature of Europe, of merely natural genius, hardly at all +developed by study, and not assisted in the least by critical power and +a strong will. What, perhaps, distinguished him most is the singular +conjunction of the most fervid passion and the most touching lyrical +'cry' with the finest wit, and with unusual dramatic ability. + +[Sidenote: Influence of the Romantic Leaders.] + +These eight sum up whatever is greatest and most influential in the +generation of 1830. Victor Hugo gave direction and leading to the +movement, identified it with his own masterly and commanding genius, +furnished it, at brief intervals, with consummate examples. Sainte-Beuve +supplied it with the necessary basis of an immense comparative +erudition, by which he was enabled to disengage and to exhibit to those +who run the true principles of literary criticism, and to point the +younger generation to the sources of a richer vocabulary, a more +flexible and highly-coloured style, a more cosmopolitan appreciation. +Alexandre Dumas, with less strictly literary virtue than any other of +the group, occupied the important vantage grounds of the theatre and the +lending library in the Romantic interest. Balzac, equalling the others +in the range of his field, added the special example of a minute +psychological analysis, and of the most untiring labour. George Sand +taught the secret of utilising to the utmost the passing currents of +personal and popular sentiment and thought. Merimee, the master least +followed, supplied, in the first place, the necessary warning against a +too enthusiastic following of school models; and, in the second, himself +held up a model of prose style of severity and exactness equal to the +finest examples of the classical school, yet possessing to the full the +romantic merits of versatile adaptability, of glowing colour, of direct +and fearless phrase. Gautier exhibited, on the one hand, a model of +absolute perfection in formal poetry, the workmanship of a gem or a +Greek vase; on the other, the model of a prose style so flexible as to +serve the most ordinary purposes, so richly equipped as to be equal to +any emergency, and yet, in its most elaborate condition, worthy to rank +with his own verse. Lastly, again as an outsider (a position which he +shares in the group with Merimee, though in very different fashion), +Musset brought the most natural and unaffected tears and laughter by +turns, to correct the too scholastic and literary character of the +movement, and to show how the most perfectly artistic effect could be +produced with the least apparatus of formal study or preparation. + +Under the influence partly of these men, and directly exercised by them, +partly of the general movement of which they were the leaders and +exponents, the literature of France has developed itself for the rest of +the century. It remains to give a brief sketch of its principal +ornaments during that time. Many names, whose work is intrinsically of +all but the highest interest and merit, will have to be rapidly +dispatched, but their chief achievements and their significance in the +general march can at least be indicated. + +[Sidenote: Minor Poets of 1830.] + +At the head of the poets of this minor band has to be mentioned +Millevoye, who might, perhaps with equal or greater appropriateness, +have found a place in the preceding book. He is chiefly remarkable as +the author of one charming piece of sentimental verse, _La Chute des +Feuilles_; and as the occasion of an immortal criticism of +Sainte-Beuve's, 'Il se trouve dans les trois quarts des hommes un poete +qui meurt jeune tandis que l'homme survit.' The peculiarity of Millevoye +and his happiness was that he did not survive the death of the poet in +him, but died at the age of thirty-four. Except the piece just +mentioned, he wrote little of value, and his total work is not large. +But he may be described as a simpler, a somewhat less harmonious, but a +less tautologous Lamartine, to whom the gods were kind in allowing him +to die young. A curious contrast to Millevoye is furnished by his +contemporary, Ulric Guttinguer. Guttinguer was born in 1785, and, like +Nodier, he joined himself frankly to the Romantic movement, and was +looked up to as a senior by its more active promoters. Like Millevoye, +he has to rest his fame almost entirely on one piece, the verses +beginning, 'Ils ont dit: l'amour passe et sa flamme est rapide;' but, +unlike him, he lived to a great age, and was a tolerably fertile +producer. By the side of these two poets ranks Marceline +Desbordes-Valmore, who shares, with Louise Labe and Marie de France, the +first rank among the poetesses of her country. Madame Desbordes-Valmore +was born in 1787, and died in 1859. Her first volume of poems was +published in 1819, and, as in all the verse of this time, the note of +sentiment dominates. She continued to publish volumes at intervals until +1843, and another was added after her death. Great sweetness and pathos, +with a total absence of affectation, distinguish her work. Perhaps her +best piece is the charming song, in a kind of irregular rondeau form, +_S'il avait su_. Jean Polonius, whose real name was Labenski, was a +Russian, who contributed frequently to the _Annales Romantiques_, and +subsequently published two volumes of French poetry. Emile and Antoni +Deschamps were the translators of the Romantic movement. Antoni +accomplished a complete translation of Dante, Emile translated from +English, German, and Italian poets indifferently. They also published +original poems together, and separately. Madame Tastu was also a +translator, or rather a paraphraser, and an author of original poems of +a sentimental kind. Lastly, Jean Reboul, a native of Nimes, and born in +a humble situation, deserves a place among these. + +Three poets deserving of all but the first rank, and belonging to the +generation of 1830 itself, require each a somewhat longer notice. + +[Sidenote: Alfred de Vigny.] + +Alfred de Vigny was born at Loches, on the 27th of March, 1799. He was a +man of rank, and his marriage in 1826 with an Englishwoman of wealth +gave him independence. He left the army, in which he had served for some +years, in 1828, and spent the rest of his life, until his death in 1864, +in literary ease. He had been for some time a member of the Academy. His +poetical career was peculiar. Between 1821 and 1829 he produced a small +number of poems of the most exquisite finish, which at once attained the +popularity they deserved, and were repeatedly reprinted. But for +thirty-five years he published hardly anything else in verse, his +_Poemes Philosophiques_ not appearing (at least as a volume) until after +his death. Yet he was by no means idle. He had written and published in +1826 the prose romance of _Cinq Mars_, and he followed this up, though +at considerable intervals, with others, as well as with dramas, of which +_Chatterton_ is the best and best known. He also translated _Othello_ +and _The Merchant of Venice_. Alfred de Vigny may perhaps be best +described as a link between Andre Chenier and the Romantic poets. He is +not much of a lyrist, his best and most famous poems (_Moise_, _Eloa_, +_Dolorida_) being in Alexandrines, and the general form of his verse +inclines to that of the eighteenth-century elegy, while it has much of +the classical (not pseudo-classical) proportion and grace of Chenier. +But his language, and in part his versification, are romantic, though +quieter in style than those of most of his companions, whom it must be +remembered he for the most part forestalled. In _Moise_ much of what has +been called Victor Hugo's 'science of names' is anticipated, as well as +his large manner of landscape and declamation. _Eloa_ suggests rather +Lamartine, but a Lamartine with his weakness replaced by strength, while +_Dolorida_ has a strong flavour of Musset. The remarkable thing is that +in each case the peculiarities of the poet to whom Vigny has been +compared were not fully developed until after he wrote, and that +therefore he has the merit of originality. It is probable, however, +that, exquisite as his poetical power was, it lacked range, and that he, +having the rare faculty of discerning this, designedly limited his +production. The best of the posthumous poems already mentioned are fully +worthy of his earlier ones, but they display no new faculty. + +[Sidenote: Auguste Barbier.] + +If Alfred de Vigny is a poet of few books, Auguste Barbier is a poet of +one. Born in 1805, Barbier never formed part of the Romantic circle, +properly so called, but he shared to the full its inspiring influence. +He began by an historical novel of no great merit, but the revolution of +1830 served as the occasion of his _Iambes_, a series of extraordinarily +brilliant and vigorous satires, both political and social. The most +famous of all these is _La Curee_, a description of the ignoble scramble +for place and profit under the new Orleanist government. No satirical +work in modern days has had greater success, and few have deserved it +more; the weight and polish of the verse being altogether admirable. +Satire is, however, a vein which it is very difficult to work for any +length of time with any novelty, as may be seen sufficiently from the +fact that the works of all the best satirists, ancient and modern, are +contained in a very small compass. Barbier endeavoured to secure the +necessary variety of subjects by going to Italy in _Il Pianto_, and to +England in _Lazare_, but without success, though both contain many +examples of the nervous and splendid verse in which he excels. During +the last forty years of his life he wrote much, and he was elected to +the Academy in 1869, but _Les Iambes_ will remain his title to fame. + +[Sidenote: Gerard de Nerval.] + +A name far less generally known, but deserving of being known very well +indeed, is that of Gerard de Nerval, or, as his right appellation was, +Gerard Labrunie. He was born in 1805, and was one of the most +distinguished pupils of the celebrated Lycee Charlemagne, where he made +the acquaintance of Theophile Gautier. Gerard (as he is most generally +called) was a man of delicate and far-ranging genius, afflicted with the +peculiar malady which weighs on some such men, and which may perhaps be +described as an infirmity of will. He was not idle, and there was no +reason why he should not be prosperous. At an early age he translated +_Faust_, to the admiration of Goethe. His _Travels in the East_ were +widely read, and every newspaper in Paris was glad of his co-operation; +yet he was frequently in distress, and died in a horrible and mysterious +manner, either by his own hand or murdered by night prowlers. He has +been more than once compared to Poe, whom, however, he excelled both in +amiability of temperament and in literary knowledge. But the two have +been rightly selected by an excellent judge as being, in company with a +living English poet, the chief masters of the poetry which 'lies on the +further side between verse and music.' Most of Gerard's work is in +prose, taking the form of fantastic but exquisite short tales entitled +_Les Filles de Feu_, _La Boheme Galante_, etc. His verse, at least the +characteristic part of it, is not bulky; it consists partly of folksongs +slightly modernised, partly of sonnets, partly of miscellaneous poems. +But, if the expression 'prose poetry' be ever allowable, which has been +doubted, it is seldom more applicable than to much of Gerard de Nerval's +work, both in his description of his travels and in avowed fiction. + +Some minor names remain to be mentioned. Mery, one of the most fertile +authors of the century, was a writer of verse as well as of prose, and +displayed much the same talent of brilliant improvisation in each +capacity. Auguste Brizeux, a Breton by birth, made himself remarkable by +idyllic poetry (_Marie_, _La Fleur d'Or_) chiefly dealing with the +scenery and figures of his native province. Amedee Pommier is a fertile +and not inelegant verse writer, of no very marked characteristics. +Charles Dovalle, who was shot in one of the miserable duels between +journalists so common in France, at the age of twenty-two, would +probably have done remarkable work had he lived. Hegesippe Moreau, to +whom a life but very little longer was vouchsafed, devoted himself +partly to bacchanalian and satirical work, for which he had not the +slightest genius, but produced also some poems of country life, which +rank among the sweetest and most natural of the century. Much of his +work is little more than a corrupt following of Beranger. In the same +way the imitation of Lamartine was not fortunate for Victor de Laprade +(_Psyche_, _Les Symphonies_, _Les Voix de Silence_). This imitation is +not so much in subject (for M. de Laprade was a philosopher rather than +a sentimentalist) as in manner and versification. His verse is also much +more strongly impregnated than Lamartine's with classical culture. With +due allowance for difference of dates and countries, there is a +considerable resemblance between Laprade and Southey. Both had the same +accomplishment of style, the same unquestioning submission to the dogmas +of Christianity, the same width of literary information. It is +unfortunate for France that Laprade was somewhat deficient in humour, a +rare growth on her soil at all times. + +[Sidenote: Curiosites Romantiques.] + +[Sidenote: Petrus Borel.] + +[Sidenote: Louis Bertrand.] + +All these names are more or less widely known, but there is a class of +'oublies et dedaignes,' as one of their most faithful biographers has +called them, who belong to the movement of 1830, and whose numbers are +probably, while their merit is certainly, greater than is the case at +any other literary epoch. Few of them can be mentioned here, but those +few are worthy of mention, and it may perhaps be said that the native +vigour of most of them, though warped and distorted for the most part by +oddities of temperament or the unkindness of fortune, equals, if it does +not surpass, that of many of their more fortunate brethren. The first of +these is Petrus Borel, one of the strangest figures in the history of +literature. Very little is known of his life, which was spent partly at +Paris and partly in Algeria. He was perhaps the most extravagant of all +the Romantics, surnaming himself 'Le Lycanthrope,' and identifying +himself with the eccentricities of the _Bousingots_, a clique of +political literary men who for a short time made themselves conspicuous +after 1830. Borel wrote partly in verse and partly in prose. His most +considerable exploit in the former was a strange preface in verse to his +novel of _Madame Putiphar_; his best work in prose, a series of wild but +powerful stories entitled _Champavert_. His talent altogether lacked +measure and criticism, but it is undeniable. Auguste Fontaney was born +in 1803 and died in 1837, having, like many of the literary men of his +day, served for a short time in diplomacy. He was a frequent contributor +to the early Romantic periodicals, and somewhat later to the _Revue des +Deux-Mondes_. His work is very unequal, but at its best it is saturated +with the true spirit of poetry. Felix Arvers, like our own Blanco White, +has obtained his place in literary history by a single sonnet, one of +the most beautiful ever written. Auguste de Chatillon was both poet and +painter; his chief title to remembrance in the former capacity being a +volume of cheerful verse entitled _A l'Auberge de la Grand' Pinte_. +Napoleon Peyrat, who, after the fashion of those times (in which Auguste +Maquet, a fertile novelist, and a journalist, and a collaborateur of +Alexandre Dumas, called himself Augustus Mackeat, and Theophile Dondey +anagrammatised his surname into O'Neddy), dubbed himself Napol le +Pyreneen, survives, and justly, in virtue of a single short poem on +_Roland_, possessed of extraordinary _verve_ and spirit. Last of all has +to be mentioned Louis Bertrand, a poet possessed of the rarest faculty, +but unfortunately doomed to misfortune and premature death. Born at Ceva +in Piedmont, in 1807, and brought up at Dijon, he came to Paris, found +there but scanty encouragement, and died in a hospital in 1841. His only +work of any importance, _Gaspard de la Nuit_, a series of prose ballads +arranged in verses something like those of the English translation of +the Bible, and testifying to the most delicate sense of rhythm, and the +most exquisite power of poetical suggestion, did not appear until after +his death. He and Borel perhaps only of the names contained in this +paragraph represent individual and solid talent: the others are chiefly +noteworthy as instances of the extraordinary stimulating force of the +time on minds which in other days would probably have remained indocile +to poetry, or at least unproductive of it. + +[Sidenote: Second Group of Romantic Poets.] + +Three distinct stages are perceptible in French poetry since the date of +the Romantic movement, and we have now exhausted the remarkable names +belonging to the first. Another opens with those poets who, being born +in or about 1820, came to years of discretion in time to see the first +force of the movement spent, and found the necessity of striking out +something of a new way for themselves. Of this group three names stand +pre-eminently forward, those of Baudelaire, Banville, and Leconte de +Lisle, while some others may be mentioned beside them. + +[Sidenote: Theodore de Banville.] + +Theodore de Banville was born in 1820, of a good family, his father +being an officer in the navy. He began to write very early with the +_Cariatides_, and continued for fifty years to be active in prose and +poetry. M. de Banville displayed at once a remarkable mastery of rhyme +and rhythm, and it is in the exhibition of this that he chiefly +excelled. Under his auspices not merely the graceful metrical systems of +the Pleiade, but the older forms of the mediaeval poets, Ballades, +Rondeaux, Triolets, etc., were once more brought into fashion. But M. de +Banville was by no means only a clever versifier. His serious poetry +(_Cariatides_, _Stalactites_, _Odelettes_, _Les Exile's_, _Trente-six +Ballades_) is full of poetical language and sentiment, his lighter verse +(_Occidentales_, _Odes Funambulesques_) is charming, his prose is +excellent, and he was no mean hand at drama (_Gringoire_). + +[Sidenote: Leconte de Lisle.] + +As M. de Banville sought for poetical novelty in an elaborate +manipulation of the formal part of poetry, so M. Leconte de Lisle has +sought it in a wide range of subject. He is a great translator of Greek +verse. But in his original poems (_Poesies Antiques_, _Poesies +Barbares_, _Poemes et Poesies_) he has gone not merely to the classics +but to the East and to mediaeval times for his inspiration. A tendency +to load his verse with exotic names in unusual forms (he was one of the +first Frenchmen to adopt the fashion of spelling Greek names with a +strict transliteration) has brought, not perhaps altogether +undeservedly, the charge of affectation on M. Leconte de Lisle. But he +is a poet of no small power, not merely in outlandish subjects such as +_Le Massacre de Mona_, _Le Sommeil du Condor_, _Le Runoia_, etc., but in +much simpler work, such as the beautiful _Requies_. + +[Sidenote: Charles Baudelaire.] + +Charles Baudelaire had a more original talent than either of these. +Although a very careful writer, he is not studious of bizarre rhythm, +nor are his subjects for the most part outlandish. He chose, however, to +illustrate a peculiar form of poetical melancholy by dwelling on +subjects many of which would have been better left alone, while others +were treated in a manner unsuited to the time. His _Fleurs du Mal_, +therefore, as his chief work is entitled, had to undergo expurgation +before it was allowed to be published, and has never been popular with +the general public. But its best pieces, as well as the best of some +singular _Petits Poemes en Prose_, partly inspired by Louis Bertrand, +have extraordinary merit in the way of delicate poetical suggestion and +a lofty spiritualism. Baudelaire was also a very accomplished critic, +his point of view being less exclusively French than that of almost any +other French writer of the same class. He translated Poe and De Quincey. + +[Sidenote: Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group.] + +[Sidenote: Dupont.] + +The minor poets of this second Romantic school may again be grouped +together. Charles Coran, a miscellaneous poet of talent, anticipated the +school of which we shall shortly have to give some notice, that of the +_Parnassiens_. Josephin Soulary is remarkable for the extreme beauty of +his sonnets, in devoting himself to which form he anticipated a general +tendency of contemporary poets both English and French. Auguste +Vacquerie, better known as a critic, a dramatist, and a journalist, +began as a lyrical and miscellaneous poet, and achieved some noticeable +work. Gustave Le Vavasseur attempted, not without success, to revive the +vigorous tradition of Norman poetry. Pierre Dupont, better known than +any of these, seemed at one time likely to be a poet of the first rank, +but unfortunately wasted his talent in Bohemian dawdling and disorder. +His songs were the delight of the young generation of 1848, and two of +them, _Le Chant des Ouvriers_ and _Les Boeufs_, are still most +remarkable compositions. Louis Bouilhet (whose best poem is _Melaenis_) +has some resemblance to M. Leconte de Lisle, though he went still +further afield for his subjects. He had no small power, but the defect +of the old descriptive poetry revived in him, and in some of his +contemporaries and followers, the defect necessarily attendant on +forgetfulness of the fact that description by itself, however beautiful +it may be, is not poetry. With these may be mentioned Gustave Nadaud, a +song-writer pure and simple, free from almost any influence of school +literature, a true follower of Beranger, though with much less range, +wit, and depth. + +[Sidenote: The Parnasse.] + +Except Dupont and Nadaud, all the poets just mentioned may be said to +belong more or less to the school of Gautier--the school, that is to +say, which attached preponderant importance to form in poetry. Towards +the middle of the Second Empire a crowd of younger writers, who had +adopted this principle still more unhesitatingly, grew up, and formed +what has been known for some years, partly seriously, partly in +derision, as the _Parnassien_ school. The origin of this term was the +issue, in 1866 (as a sort of poetical manifesto preluding the great +Exhibition of the next year), of a collection of poetry from the pens of +a large number of poets, from Theophile Gautier and Emile Deschamps +downwards. This was entitled _Le Parnasse Contemporain_, after an old +French fashion. Another collection of the same kind was begun in 1869, +interrupted by the war, and continued afterwards; and a third in 1876: +while the _Parnassien_ movement was also represented in several +newspapers, the chief of which was _La Renaissance_. Another nickname of +the poets of this sect (which, however, included almost all French +writers of verse, even Victor de Laprade being counted in) was _les +impassibles_, for their presumed devotion to art for art's sake, and +their scorn of didactic, domestic, and sentimental poetry. Their numbers +were very great, and none, save a few, can be mentioned here. Perhaps +the chief of the original _Parnassiens_ were MM. Sully Prudhomme and +Francois Coppee, the former of whom experienced some reaction and +affected what is called 'thoughtful verse,' while M. Coppee, having +taken to domestic subjects, is as popular as any contemporary French +poet, and in at least one instance (_Le Luthier de Cremone_) has +achieved success at the theatre. A poet of great gifts, the latest of +the vagabond school of Villon, was Albert Glatigny, who lived as a +strolling actor, and died young. Many of his poems, but especially the +_Ballade des Enfans sans Souci_, have singular force and pathos. It +would hardly be fair to mention any other names, because a singular +evenness of talent and general characteristics manifests itself among +these poets. All sacrifice something to the perfection of form, or, to +speak more correctly and critically, most are saved only by the +perfection of their form, which is as a rule far superior to that of +English minor poets. Of late years the _Parnasse_ as a single group has +broken up somewhat, and during the last decade some isolated poets of +promise have appeared. M. Maurice Bouchor recurred to the bacchanalian +model for inspiration; M. Paul Deroulede is tyrtaean and bellicose. Both +of these may be said to be representative of reaction against the +_Parnasse_. The new naturalist school, which has produced such singular +work in prose fiction, is represented in poetry by M. Richepin and M. +Guy de Maupassant. The former, with much unworthy work, produced in _La +Mer_ and elsewhere excellent things. The latter, despite an unfortunate +licence of subject, showed himself the strongest and most accomplished +versifier who has made his appearance in France for the last twenty +years. But after his first efforts he appeared to abandon himself almost +entirely to prose. M. Paul Verlaine, a poet known from the early days of +the Parnasse, has more recently produced work of increased but very +unequal merit, exaggerating the faults but showing some of the charm of +Baudelaire; and, partly under his, partly under foreign influence, a +still younger school has begun to make experiments in prosody which are +not uninteresting, but which are too minute for notice here. + +[Sidenote: Minor and later Dramatists.] + +[Sidenote: Scribe.] + +[Sidenote: Ponsard.] + +[Sidenote: Emile Augier.] + +[Sidenote: Eugene Labiche.] + +[Sidenote: Dumas the Younger.] + +[Sidenote: Victorien Sardou.] + +The progress of French drama during the last half century is of somewhat +less importance to literature, but of even more to social history, than +that of poetry. The greatest masters of drama have already been +mentioned among the eight typical names of 1830, even Balzac having +attempted it, though without much success. The most famous and +successful playwrights, however, as distinguished from the producers of +literary dramas, have yet to be noticed[293]. Pixerecourt, a +melodramatist and a book-collector, achieved his first success with a +play on the well-known story of the Dog of Montargis (itself dating back +to the earliest days of the Chansons de Gestes), in 1814, and followed +it up with a long succession of similar pieces. Two years later Eugene +Scribe, who had been born in 1791, made his _debut_, as far as success +goes, with _Une Nuit de la Garde Nationale_. Scribe was one of the most +prolific, one of the most successful, and one of the least literary of +French dramatists. For nearly half a century he continued, sometimes +alone, and sometimes in collaboration, to pour forth vaudevilles, +dramas, and comedies, almost all of which were favourably received. +Scribe was generous to his associates, and would sometimes acknowledge +the communication of a bare idea by a share in the profits of the play +which it suggested. He had also an almost unrivalled knowledge of the +_technique_ of the theatre, and not a little wit. But his style is loose +and careless, and his dramas do not bear reading. His most important +later plays are _Valerie_, 1822; _Le Mariage d'Argent_, 1827; _Bertrand +et Raton_, 1833; _Le Verre d'Eau_, 1840; _Une Chaine_, 1841; _Bataille +de Dames_, 1851. One of the less famous partakers in the first Romantic +movement, Bouchardy, distinguished himself, in succession to +Pixerecourt, as a Romantic melodramatist, his most famous works being +_Le Sonneur de Saint Paul_, and _Lazare le Patre_. In 1843 a kind of +reaction was supposed to be about to take place, the signs of which were +the performance of the _Lucrece_ of Ponsard in that year, and of the +_Cigue_ of Emile Augier the year after. Ponsard, however, was only a +Romantic whose colour was deadened by his inability to attain more +brilliant tones. His succeeding plays, _Agnes de Meranie_, _Charlotte +Corday_, _L'Honneur et l'Argent_, showed this sufficiently. M. Emile +Augier is a more remarkable and a more independent figure. In so far as +he represents a protest against Romanticism at all (which he does only +very partially), it is because he shared in the growing tendency towards +realism, that is, to a recurrence in the Romantic sense to the _tragedie +bourgeoise_ of the preceding century, and because also he gave no +countenance to the practice, in which some of the early Romantics +indulged, of representing immoral personages as interesting. Almost all +M. Augier's dramas, such as _L'Aventuriere_, 1849, which is his +masterpiece, _Gabrielle_, 1849, _Diane_, 1852, _Le Mariage d'Olympe_, +1855, _Le Fils de Giboyer_, 1862, and others of more recent date, are +distinctly on the side of the angels. But the author does not make the +excellence of his intention a reason for passing off inferior work, and +he is justly recognised as one of the leaders of French drama in the +latter half of the century. About this same time (1845) was the date of +the appearance of a fertile and successful playwright of the less +exalted class, M. Dennery (_Don Cesar de Bazan_, _L'Aieule_). Auguste +Maquet, another of the old guard of Romanticism, distinguished himself +by helping to adapt to the stage the novels of Dumas the elder, which he +had already helped to write; and one of his colleagues on Dumas' staff, +M. Octave Feuillet, who was shortly to make a great reputation for +himself as a novelist, appeared on the boards with _Echec et Mat_. +During the whole of this decade (1840-1850) Delphine Gay, the beautiful +and accomplished wife of the journalist Emile de Girardin, was a +frequent and successful play-writer. Soon afterwards M. Legouve, son of +the academician of the same name, and himself an academician, began to +collaborate with Scribe in works of more importance (_Adrienne +Lecouvreur_) than the latter had before attempted; while George Sand and +her former friend, Jules Sandeau, were also drawn into the inevitable +theatrical vortex. In collaboration with Augier, Sandeau produced, from +one of his own novels, one of the best plays of the century, _Le Gendre +de M. Poirier_, 1855. Eugene Labiche, who had been born in 1815, +distinguished himself, in 1851, by _Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie_, and +in it laid the foundation of a long career of success in the lighter +kind of play which, at last, conducted him to the Academy. His +best-known play is _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_. The year 1852 was +memorable for the French stage, for it saw the production of _La Dame +aux Camelias_, the first important play of Alexandre Dumas _fils_. +Without much of his father's talent for novel-writing, M. Dumas has been +both a more successful, and perhaps a better, dramatist. Most of his +plays have been directed to some burning question of the social or +ethical kind, and it has been his practice to re-issue them after a +time, with argumentative prefaces, in a very singular style. _Diane de +Lys_, _Le Demi-Monde_, _La Question d'Argent_, _Le Fils Naturel_, _Le +Supplice d'une Femme_ (nominally composed with Emile de Girardin), _Les +Idees de Madame Aubray_, _Une Visite de Noces_, and _L'Etrangere,_ are +his chief works. In 1854 appeared a now almost forgotten work by +Victorien Sardou, who was destined to be the favourite dramatist of the +Second Empire, and to share with MM. Augier and Dumas _fils_ the chief +rank among the dramatists of the last half of the century. Seven years +later _Nos Intimes_ gave him a great success, and, in 1865, _La Famille +Benoiton_ a greater, which he followed up with _Nos Bons Villageois_, +1866. Since that time he has written many plays, of which the finest by +far, and one of the few comedies of this age likely to become classical, +is the admirable _Rabagas_--a satire of the keenest on the interested +politicians, who, in France as elsewhere, take up demagogy as a trade. +M. Sardou has attempted serious work in various plays, the best of which +is, perhaps, _Patrie_, but it is not his forte. Satirical observation of +manners, and especially of the current political and social follies of +the day, is what he can do best, and in this peculiar line he has few +equals. But he is admitted to be one of the most unequal of writers. A +peculiar offspring of the Second Empire are the brilliant burlesques of +Offenbach, which owed at least part of their brilliancy to the librettos +composed for them by MM. Meilhac and Halevy. The first-named of these +had produced successful dramas as far back as 1859. The collaborateurs +did not confine themselves to furnishing words for M. Offenbach's music, +but attempted the prose drama frequently and with success, _Froufrou_ +being their most important work in this way. M. Gondinet and M. +Pailleron also deserve notice as successful manufacturers of light +plays, the latter in especial having an excellent wit (_Le monde ou l'on +s'ennuie_, _Le Chevalier Trumeau_). This may also be asserted of M. +Halevy, who has latterly, in _Les Petites Cardinal_ and other +non-dramatic sketches, shown himself to even greater advantage than on +the stage. Indeed the Cardinal family may be said to be the most +striking literary creation of its kind for years. + +In a different class and earlier, Joseph Autran, a poet of the school of +Lamartine, obtained a great reputation by his tragedy of _La Fille +d'Eschyle_, which procured him a seat in the Academy, and gave him the +opportunity of writing not a few volumes of polished, but not very +vigorous, poetry. M. Theodore de Banville, who has tried most paths in +literature, produced, in 1866, a short play, with the old mystery-writer +Gringoire for hero and title-giver; a play which is admirably written, +and which has kept its place on the stage. M. Francois Coppee's graceful +_Luthier de Cremone_ has already been mentioned. Another literary +dramatist, to distinguish the class from those who are playwrights first +of all, is M. Henri de Bornier, who obtained some success, in 1875, with +_La Fille de Roland_, and, in 1880, with _Les Noces d'Attila_. Both +these are good, though not consummate, specimens of the poetical drama. + +[Sidenote: Classes of Nineteenth-Century Fiction.] + +Active, however, as was the cultivation of poetry proper and of the +drama, it is not likely that the nineteenth century will be principally +known in French literary history either as a poetical, or as a dramatic +age. Its most creative production is in the field of prose fiction. It +is particularly noteworthy that every one of the eight names which have +been set at its head is the name of a novelist, and that the energy of +most of these authors in novel-writing has been very considerable. Their +production may be divided into two broad classes--novels of incident, of +which Hugo and Dumas were the chief practitioners, and which derive +chiefly from Sir Walter Scott; and novels of character, which, with a +not inconsiderable admixture of English influence, may be said to be +legitimately descended from the indigenous novel created by Madame de la +Fayette, continued by Marivaux and still more by Prevost, and +maintained, though in diminished vivacity, by later writers. Of this +school George Sand and Balzac are the masters, though much importance +must also be assigned to Stendhal. At first the novelists of 1830 +decidedly preferred the novel of incident, the literary success of which +in the hands of Hugo, and its pecuniary success in the hands of Dumas, +were equally likely to excite ambitions of different kinds. + +[Sidenote: Minor and later Novelists.] + +[Sidenote: Jules Janin.] + +A rival of both of these in popularity during the reign of Louis +Philippe, though infinitely inferior to both in literary skill, was +Eugene Sue. With him may be classed another voluminous manufacturer of +exciting stories, Frederic Soulie, and somewhat later Paul Feval, with +next to them Amedee Achard and Roger de Beauvoir. A better writer than +any of these was Jules Janin, whose literary career was long and +prosperous, but not uniform. Janin began with a strange story, in the +extremest Romantic taste, called _L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinee_. +This at a later period he represented as an intentional caricature, +which is not on the whole likely. He followed it up with _Barnave_, a +historical novel full of exciting incident. Both these books, however, +with grave defects, have power perhaps superior to that shown in +anything that Janin did later. Being an exceedingly facile writer, and +lacking that peculiar quality of style which sometimes precludes +popularity with the many as much as it secures it with the few, he +became absorbed in journalism, in the furnishing of miscellaneous +articles, prefaces, and so forth, to the booksellers, and finally in +theatrical criticism, where he reigned supreme for many years. None of +his later novels need remark. With Janin may be mentioned M. Alphonse +Karr, who however has been more of a journalist than of a novelist. His +abundant and lively work has not perhaps the qualities of permanence. +But his _Voyage autour de mon Jardin_, his _Sous les Tilleuls_, and the +satirical publication known as _Les Guepes_, deserve at least to be +named. Here too may be noticed M. Barbey d'Aurevilly whose works +critical and fictitious (the chief being probably _L'Ensorcelee_) +display a very remarkable faculty of style, perhaps too deliberately +eccentric, but full of distinction and vigour. + +Under the Empire, a fresh group of novelists of incident sprang up. MM. +Erckmann and Chatrian produced in collaboration a large number of tales, +chiefly dealing with the events of the Revolution and the First Empire +in the north-eastern provinces of France. Criminal and legal subjects +were great favourites with the late Emile Gaboriau, who naturalised in +France the detective novel. His chief follower is M. Fortune du +Boisgobey. + +[Sidenote: Charles de Bernard.] + +The best novelists of the generation of 1830, outside the list of +masters, have yet to be noticed. These are Charles de Bernard and Jules +Sandeau. Charles de Bernard was at one time Balzac's secretary, but his +fashion of work is entirely different from that of his employer. He +divides himself for the most part between the representation of the +Parisian life of good society and that of country-house manners. His +shorter tales are perhaps his best, and many of them, such as +_L'Ecueil_, _La Quarantaine_, _Le Paratonnerre_, _Le Gendre_, etc., are +admirable examples of a class in which Frenchmen have always excelled. +But his longer works, _Gerfaut_, _Les Ailes d'Icare_, _Un Homme +Serieux_, etc., are not inferior to them in wit, in accurate knowledge +and skilful portraiture of character, in good breeding, and in satiric +touches which are always good-humoured. + +[Sidenote: Jules Sandeau.] + +Jules Sandeau was a novelist of no very different class, but with less +wit, with much less satiric intention, and with a greater infusion of +sentiment, not to say tragedy. His best novels, _Catherine_, +_Mademoiselle de Penarvan_, _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_, _Le Docteur +Herbeau_, are drawn from provincial life, which, from the great size of +France and its diversity in scenery and local character, has been a +remarkably fertile subject to French novelists. These novels are +remarkable for their accurate and dramatic construction (which is such +that they have lent themselves in more than one instance to theatrical +adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality. + +[Sidenote: Octave Feuillet.] + +[Sidenote: Murger.] + +[Sidenote: Edmond About.] + +[Sidenote: Feydeau.] + +[Sidenote: Gustave Droz] + +Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet, who began, as +has been mentioned, by officiating as assistant to Alexandre Dumas. His +first independent efforts in novel-writing, _Bellah_ and _Onesta_, were +of the same kind as his master's; but they were not great successes, and +after a short time he struck into an original and much more promising +path. His first really characteristic novel was _La Petite Comtesse_, +1856, and this was followed by others, the best of which are _Le Roman +d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_, 1858; _Sibylle_, 1862; _M. de Camors_, 1867; +and _Julia de Trecoeur_, 1872: the two last being perhaps his +strongest books, though the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is the most +popular. M. Feuillet wrote in a pure and easy style, and exhibited in +his novels acquaintance with the manners of good society, and a +considerable command of pathos. He was more studious of the proprieties +than most of his contemporaries, but has indulged in a somewhat +unhealthy sentimentalism. Henry Murger had a very original, though a +somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the +Parisian _Boheme_, the reckless society of young artists and men of +letters, which has always grouped itself in greater numbers at Paris +than anywhere else. The novel, or rather the series of sketches, +entitled _La Vie de Boheme_ is one which, from the truth to nature, the +pathos, and the wit which accompany its caricature and burlesque of +manners, will always hold a position in literature. Murger, who +experienced many hardships in his youth, was all his life a careless and +reckless liver, and died young. His works (all prose fiction, except a +small collection of poems not very striking in form but touching and +sincere in sentiment) are tolerably numerous, but the best of them are +little more than repetitions of the _Vie de Boheme_. Edmond About, a +very lively writer, whose liveliness was not always kept sufficiently in +check by good taste, oscillated between fiction and journalism, latterly +inclining chiefly to journalism. In his younger days he was better known +as a novelist, and some of his works, such as _Tolla_ and _Le Roi des +Montagnes_, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his +shorter and more familiar stories (_L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee_, _Le Nez +d'un Notaire_, etc.). In this same group of novelists of the Second +Republic and Empire ranks Ernest Feydeau, a morbid and thoroughly +unwholesome author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least +(in _Sylvie_) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels, +_Fanny_, _Daniel_, _La Comtesse de Chalis_, are chiefly remarkable as +showing the worst side of the society of the Empire. Among writers of +short stories Champfleury, a friend and contemporary of Murger (who has +more recently betaken himself to artistic criticism of the historical +kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas, and Gustave Droz +for the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches +entitled _Monsieur_, _Madame et Bebe_, and _Entre Nous_. The range of +subject in these is wide and not always what is understood by the +English word domestic. But the fancy shown in their design and the +literary skill of their execution are alike remarkable and worthy of the +ancient reputation of France in the short prose tale. Nor have they +lacked followers. + +[Sidenote: Flaubert.] + +The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave +Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Having a sufficient income he betook +himself early to literature, which he cultivated with an amount of care +and elaborate self-discipline rare among authors. In 1848 he contributed +to the _Artiste_ newspaper, then edited by Gautier, some fragments of a +remarkable fantasy-piece on the legend of St. Anthony, which was not +published as a whole till nearly a quarter of a century later. In 1859, +being then nearly forty years old, he achieved at once a great success +and a great scandal by his novel of _Madame Bovary_, a study of +provincial life, as unsparing as any of Balzac's, but more true to +actual nature, more finished in construction, and far superior in style. +It was the subject of a prosecution, but the author was acquitted. Next, +M. Flaubert selected an archaeological subject, and produced, after long +study, _Salammbo_, a novel the scene of which is pitched at Carthage in +the days of the mercenary war. This book, like the former, has a certain +repulsiveness of subject in parts; but the vigour of the drawing and the +extraordinary skill in description are as remarkable as ever. +_L'Education Sentimentale_, which followed, was Flaubert's least popular +work, being too long, and having an insufficiently defined plot and +interest. Then appeared the completed _Tentation de St. Antoine_, a book +deserving to rank at the head of its class--that of the fantastic +romance. Afterwards came _Trois Contes_, exhibiting in miniature all the +author's characteristics; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 1881, +the unfinished _Bouvard et Pecuchet_. The faults of Flaubert are, in the +first place, indiscriminate meddling with subjects best left alone, +which he shares with most French novelists; in the second, a certain +complaisance in dealing with things simply horrible, which is more +peculiar to him; in the third, an occasional prodigality of erudite +detail which clogs and impedes the action. His merits are an almost +incomparable power of description, a mastery of those types of character +which he attempts, an imagination of extraordinary power, and a singular +satirical criticism of life, which does not exclude the possession of a +vein of romantic and almost poetical sentiment and suggestion. He is a +writer repulsive to many, unintelligible to more, and never likely to +be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of +those who judge literature as literature. + +[Sidenote: The Naturalists. Emile Zola.] + +The name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been +not a little compromised, by a small but noisy school of novelists and +critics who call themselves naturalists, and affect to preach and +practice a new crusade for the purpose of revolutionising poetry, +fiction, and the drama. These persons, whose leader is M. Emile Zola, a +busy and popular novelist, an unsuccessful dramatist, and a critic of +great industry, include the brothers Goncourt (one of whom is now dead) +and a number of younger writers who deserve no notice, except M. Guy de +Maupassant, whose prose, if too often ill employed, is as vigorous as +his verse, and who in his excellent _Pierre et Jean_ broke his +naturalist chains. The naturalists affect to derive from Stendhal, +through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the analytic +method, and devote themselves chiefly to the study of character. But +they go farther than these great artists by objecting to the processes +of art. According to them, literature is to be strictly 'scientific,' to +confine itself to anatomy, and, it would appear, to morbid anatomy only. +The Romantic treatment, that is to say, the presentation of natural +facts in an artistic setting, is rigidly proscribed. Everything must be +set down on the principle of a newspaper report, or, to go to another +art for an illustration, as if by a photographic camera, not by an +artist's pencil. Now it will be obvious to any impartial critic that the +pursuance of this method is in itself fatal to the interest of a book. +The reader, unless of the very lowest order of intellect, does not want +in a novel a mere reproduction of the facts of life, still less a mere +scientific reference of them to causes. Accordingly, the naturalist +method inevitably produces an extreme dulness. In their search for a +remedy, its practitioners have observed that there are certain divisions +of human action, usually classed as vice and crime, in which, for their +own sake, and independently of pleasure in artistic appreciation of the +manner in which they are presented, a morbid interest is felt by a large +number of persons. They therefore, with businesslike shrewdness, +invariably, or almost invariably, select their subjects from these +privileged classes. The ambition of the naturalist, briefly described +without epigram or flippancy, but as he would himself say +scientifically, is to mention the unmentionable with as much fulness of +detail as possible. In this business M. Emile Zola has not hitherto been +surpassed, though many of his pupils have run him hard. Unfortunately, +for those who are proof against the attraction of disgusting subjects +merely because they are disgusting, M. Zola is one of the dullest of +writers. His style is also very bad, possessing for its sole merits a +certain vulgar vigour which is occasionally not ineffective, and a +capacity for vivid description. He is deeply learned in _argot_, or +slang, the use of which is one of the naturalist instruments, and his +works are therefore not useless as repertories of expressions to be +avoided. M. Zola's criticisms are more interesting than his novels, +consisting chiefly of vigorous denunciations of all the good writers of +his own day. + +M. Victor Cherbuliez, besides political and miscellaneous work of +inferior relative power, has produced a series of novels (_Le Comte +Kostia_, _Le Roman d'une Honnete Femme_, _Meta Holdenis_, _Samuel Brohl +et Cie_) which are remarkable for style, construction, and wit. M. +Alphonse Daudet, beginning early, produced in his first stage a charming +collection of _Lettres de mon Moulin_, and a pathetic autobiographic +novel _Le Petit Chose_. In his second, attempting the manner of Dickens, +he obtained with _Jack_, 1873, and _Froment Jeune et Risler Aine_, 1874, +great popularity. His later works, _Le Nabab_, _Les Rois en Exil_, _Numa +Roumestan_, _L'Evangeliste_, _L'Immortel_, shew, in their condescending +to the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity as to living or lately dead +persons, a great falling off. The capacity of M. Daudet (whose _Tartarin +de Tarascon_ with its sequel is wholly admirable extravaganza) cannot be +doubted: his taste is deplorable. Of still more recent novelists two +only can be mentioned: M. Georges Ohnet (_Serge Panine_, _Le Maitre de +Forges_, _La Grande Marniere_) whose popularity with readers is only +equalled by the unanimous disfavour with which all competent critics +regard him, and M. Viaud ('Pierre Loti'), a naval officer, whose work +(_Aziyade_, _Le Mariage de Loti_, _Mon Frere Yves_, _Madame +Chrysantheme_), midway between the novel, the autobiography, and the +travel-book displays some elegance and much 'preciousness' of style and +fancy. + +[Sidenote: Journalists and Critics.] + +[Sidenote: Paul de Saint-Victor.] + +[Sidenote: Hippolyte Taine.] + +After the Revolution the fortune of journalism was assured, and though +under the subsequent forms of government it was subjected to a rigid +censorship, it was too firmly established to be overthrown. Almost all +men of letters flocked to it. The leading article or unsigned political +and miscellaneous essay has never been so strong a feature of French +journalism as it has been of English. On the other hand, the +_feuilleton_, or daily, weekly, and monthly instalment of fiction or +criticism, has been one of its chief characteristics. Many, if not most, +of the most celebrated novels of the last half century have originally +appeared in this form, publication in independent parts, which was long +fashionable in England, never having found favour in France. In the same +way, though weekly reviews devoted wholly or mainly to literary +criticism have, for some reason, never been successful with the French +as they have with us, daily journalism has given a greater space to +criticism, and especially to theatrical criticism. All French criticism +subsequent to 1830 may be said to derive, whether it deals with +literature, with the theatre, or with art, from three masters, +Sainte-Beuve, Gautier, and Janin. The method of the first has been +sufficiently explained. Gautier's was rather the expression of a fine +critical appreciation in the most exquisite style, and Janin's, the far +easier, and, after a short time, unimportant plan of gossiping amiably +and amusingly about, it might be the subject, it might be something +quite different. The only successor to Gautier was Paul de Saint-Victor, +who, however, was inferior to his master in appreciative power, and +exaggerated his habit of relying on style to carry him through. Paul de +Saint-Victor was not a frequent writer, and his collected works as yet +do not fill many volumes. _Hommes et Dieux_, which is perhaps the +principal of them, exhibits a deficiency of catholicity in literary +appreciation. His latest book, _Les Deux Masques_, an unfinished study +of the history of the stage, contains much brilliant writing, but is +wanting in solid qualities. As a theatrical critic, Janin was succeeded +by a curiously different person, M. Francisque Sarcey, who has chiefly +been noteworthy for severity and a kind of pedagogic common sense, as +unlike as possible to the good-humoured gossip of Janin. M. de +Pontmartin was an acrid but vigorous critic on the royalist and orthodox +side. M. Hippolyte Taine, chief of Sainte-Beuve's followers, has +somewhat caricatured his master's method. Sainte-Beuve's principle was, +it must be remembered, to examine carefully the circumstances of his +author's time, in order to ascertain their bearing upon him. In M. +Taine's hands this wise practice changed itself into a theory--the +theory that every man is a kind of product of the circumstances, and +that, by examining the latter, the man is necessarily explained. M. +Taine chose for his principal exercising ground the history of English +literature. He produced under that title a series of studies often +acute, always brilliant in style, but constantly showing the faults of +the critical method just indicated. Of other literary critics, the two +chief besides M. Taine are M. Edmond Scherer and M. Emile Montegut. The +latter is a critic of a very fine and delicate appreciation. A short +essay of his on Boccaccio may be specified as one of the best of French +contemporary critical exercises. M. Scherer has a good deal of common +sense, a considerable acquaintance with literature, and a clear, +straightforward, and vigorous style. His judgment, however, is much +limited by prejudice, and some of his studies, such as those on +Baudelaire and Diderot, show that he is an untrustworthy judge of what +is not commonplace. + +[Sidenote: Academic Critics.] + +A separate school of criticism, of a more academic character than that +represented by most of the names just mentioned, has existed in France +during the greater part of the century, and during a great part of it +has found its means of utterance partly in the University chairs and in +treatises crowned by the Academy, partly in a well-known fortnightly +periodical, the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_. The master of this school of +criticism may be said to have been Villemain, 1790-1870, who represents +the classical tradition corrected by a very considerable study of other +European languages besides French. Not the least part of the narrowness +of the older classical school was due to its ignorance of these +languages, and its consequent incapacity to make the necessary +comparisons. Villemain's criticism, though not quite so flexible as it +might have been, was on the whole sound, and the same variety of the +art, though with more limitations, was represented by Guizot. Not a few +critics of merit of the same kind were born at the close of the last +century, or at the beginning of this. Among them may be mentioned M. +Nisard, a bitter opponent of the Romantic movement, and a prejudiced +critic of French literature, but a writer of very considerable +knowledge, and of some literary merit; Eugene Geruzez, author of by far +the best history of French literature in a small compass, and of many +separate treatises of value; Alexandre Vinet, a Swiss, and a Protestant, +who died at no very advanced age, leaving much work of merit; and +Saint-Marc Girardin, who busied himself nearly as much in journalism and +politics as in literary criticism proper, but whose professorial _Cours +de Litterature Dramatique_ is a work of interest, exhibiting a kind of +transition style between the older and newer criticism. Michelet, +Quinet, M. Renan, and others, who will be mentioned under other heads, +have also been considerable as critics. Philarete Chasles was a lively +writer, who devoted himself especially to English literature, and whose +judgment in matters literary was not quite equal to his affection for +them. The critics of the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_ proper include, besides +not a few authors named elsewhere, Gustave Planche, a person of curious +idiosyncrasy, chiefly remarkable for the ferocity of his critiques; +Saint Rene Taillandier, a dull man of industry; and M. Caro, a man of +industry who was not dull. Latterly some younger writers have +endeavoured (chiefly in its pages) to set up a kind of neo-classical +school, which is equally opposed to modern innovations, and to the habit +of studying old French, that is, French before the sixteenth century. +The chief of these advocates of a return to the Malherbe-Boileau dungeon +is M. Ferdinand Brunetiere. We must not omit among the older generation +M. Lenient, the author of two admirable volumes on the History of French +Satire; among the younger, M. Paul Stapfer, the author of an excellent +study of 'Shakespeare et l'Antiquite,' M. Jules Lemaitre, a brilliant +critic, who is perhaps a little more brilliant than critical, and M. +Emile Faguet, whose criticism is as sound as it is accomplished. + +Among the representatives of art criticism Viollet-le-Duc as a writer +on architecture, and Charles Blanc (brother of Louis) as an authority on +decorative art generally, made before their deaths reputations +sufficiently exceptional to be noticed here. Here also, as +representatives of other classes of literature, the names of Hector +Berlioz, the great composer, author of letters and memoirs of great +interest; of Henri Monnier, an artist not much less skilful with his pen +than with his pencil in satirical sketches of Parisian types (especially +his famous 'Joseph Prudhomme'); of Charles Monselet, a miscellaneous +writer whose sympathies were as wide and his temper as genial as his +literary faculty was accomplished; of X. Doudan, whose posthumous +remains and letters attracted much attention after a life of silence; +and of the Genevese diarist Amiel, selections from whose vast journal of +philosophical sentimentalism and miscellaneous reflection have also been +popular, may be cited. + +[Sidenote: Linguistic and Literary Study of French.] + +The revived study of old French literature just noticed is the only +department of the literature of erudition which can receive notice here, +for prose science and classical study fall equally out of our range of +possible treatment here. The _Histoire Litteraire_ was revived, and has +been steadily proceeded with. Every department of old French literature +has been studied, latterly in vigorous rivalry with the Germans. The +most important single name in this study has been that of the late M. +Paulin Paris, who edited reprints of all sorts with untiring energy, and +in a thoroughly literary spirit. The Chansons de Gestes have been the +especial care of M. Paulin Paris, his son M. Gaston Paris (_Histoire +Poetique de Charlemagne_), and M. Leon Gautier, who has written, and is +now republishing in an altered and improved form, a great work on the +early French epics. The Arthurian romances have been more studied in +Germany and Belgium than in France, though valuable work has been done +in them by M. Paulin Paris, M. Hucher, and others. The Fabliaux have +recently appeared in a nearly complete edition, by M. de Montaiglon. M. +P. Meyer has thrown new light on the _Roman d'Alixandre_. The _Roman du +Renart_, also published by Meon, has been undertaken again by M. Ernest +Martin. The separate authors of the later ages have, in almost every +case, been the subject of much careful work, and for some years past a +'Societe des Anciens Textes Francais' has existed for the express +purpose of publishing unprinted MSS. This society has undertaken the +great collection of _Miracles de Notre Dame_, the works of Eustache +Deschamps, and other important tasks. A great deal of excellent work in +the same direction has been done in Belgium by members of the various +Academies. The great classics of France, from the sixteenth century +onward, have been the object of constant and careful editing, such as +the classics of no other country have enjoyed. Nor has the linguistic +part of the study been omitted. The two chief monuments of this are the +great dictionary of Littre, and the complement of it, now in course of +publication, by M. Godefroy, which contains a complete lexicon of the +older tongue. Among the collections of old French literature, the +Bibliotheque Elzevirienne may be especially noticed. This, besides many +reprints of isolated authors, contains invaluable examples of the early +theatre, a still more precious collection of scattered poems of the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and one of miscellanies of the +sixteenth and seventeenth. Under the Empire the government began the +publication of all the Chansons de Gestes, but the enterprise was +unfortunately interrupted at the tenth volume. + +[Sidenote: Philosophical Writers.] + +[Sidenote: Comte.] + +The branches of literature, other than the Belles Lettres, which +naturally retain, longer than those which busy themselves with science +as it is now understood, the literary interest, are philosophy, +theology, and history. In philosophy France has produced, during the +present century, only one name of the first importance. As has been the +case with all other European nations, her philosophical energies have +chiefly been devoted to the historical side of philosophy, a tendency +specially encouraged by the already-mentioned influence of Cousin. +Damiron, the chief authority in French on the materialist schools of the +eighteenth century; M. Jules Simon and Vacherot, who busied themselves +chiefly with the Alexandrian philosophers--Cousin it should be +remembered was the editor of Proclus--and Charles de Remusat, a man of +great capacity, who, among other rather unexpected literary +occupations, devoted himself to Abelard, Thomas a Becket, and other +representatives of scholasticism, illustrate this tendency. The +philosophy of the middle ages was also the subject of one of the +clearest and best-written of philosophical studies, the _De la +Philosophie Scolastique_ of B. Haureau. The name, however, of the +century in French philosophical literature is that of Auguste Comte, the +founder of what is called Positivism. He was born at Montpelier three or +four years before the end of the last century, and died at Paris in +September, 1857. Comte passed through the discipline of initiation in +the Saint Simonian views--Saint Simon was a descendant of the great +writer of that name, who developed a curious form of communism very +interesting politically, but important to literature only from the +remarkable influence it had upon his contemporaries--but, like most of +Saint Simon's disciples, soon emancipated himself. To discuss Comte's +philosophical views would be impossible here. It is sufficient to say +that the cardinal principle of his earlier work, the _Cours de +Philosophie Positive_, is that the world of thought has passed through +successively a theological stage and a metaphysical stage, and is now +reduced to the observation and classification of phenomena and their +relations. On the basis cleared by this sweeping hypothesis, Comte, in +his later days (under the inspiration of a lady, Madame Clotilde de +Vaux, if he himself be believed), developed a remarkable construction of +positive religion. This was indignantly rejected by his most acute +followers, the chief of whom was the philologist and critic Littre. +Outside of Comtism, France has not produced many writers on philosophy, +except philosophical historians. M. Taine, in his _De l'Intelligence_, +turned his acute intellect and ready pen in this direction for a moment, +but not with much success. Perhaps from the literary view the most +important philosophical writer in French for the last half century is M. +Renan, who will find his place more appropriately in the next paragraph. +Between Saint Simon and Comte, if space allowed, notice would have to be +taken of many political writers of the middle of the century, whose +visionary and for the most part communistic views had a considerable but +passing influence, such as Cabet, Fourier, Pierre Leroux, and the +violent and not wholly sane but vigorous Proudhon. Here, however, +nothing but bare mention, and that only for completeness' sake, can be +given to them. + +[Sidenote: Theological Writers. Montalembert.] + +[Sidenote: Ozanam.] + +[Sidenote: Lacordaire.] + +[Sidenote: Ernest Renan.] + +In theology, as represented in literature, the dominant interest of the +period belongs at first to the continuators of the Liberal-Catholic +school of Lamennais. The greatest of these, beyond all question, was +Charles Forbes de Montalembert, whose mother was a Scotchwoman, and his +father French ambassador in Sweden. He was born in April, 1810, and died +on the 13th of March, 1870. Montalembert was young enough to come under +the influence of Lamennais only indirectly, and at the extreme end of +that writer's orthodox period. His immediate master was rather the +eloquent Abbe Lacordaire. His father was a peer of France, and +Montalembert succeeded early to his position, which gave him an +opportunity of supporting the great contention of the Liberal Catholics +under Louis Philippe, the right to establish schools for themselves. +Being devoted first of all to the defence of ecclesiastical interests by +every legitimate means, and having no anti-Republican prejudices, +Montalembert was able to accept the second Revolution, though not the +Second Empire, and he continued to be one of the most moderate, but +dangerous, opponents of the government of Napoleon III. His chief works, +which have much brilliancy and vigour, are his 'Life of Elizabeth of +Hungary,' his 'Life and Times of St. Anselm,' his _Avenir Politique de +l'Angleterre_, and, most of all, his great work on 'The Monks of the +West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard.' A fellow worker with +Montalembert, though earlier cut off, was Frederic Ozanam, a brilliant +student and lecturer in mediaeval history, who was the chief literary +critic of the Neo-Catholic movement during the later years of Louis +Philippe's reign. Ozanam's chief work was his study on Dante. About this +time a considerable resurrection of pulpit eloquence took place. Its +chief representative was the already-mentioned Jean Baptiste Henri +Lacordaire, who was born in 1802, and died in 1861. Lacordaire was a +partner of Lamennais in the _Avenir_. But, unlike his master, he took +the papal reproof obediently, and continued to preach in the orthodox +sense. He entered the order of St. Dominic in 1840, but was nevertheless +elected to the Assembly, in 1848, as a compliment, doubtless, to the +fervent radicalism he had displayed earlier. Lacordaire's literary +reputation is almost entirely confined to his sermons, the most famous +of which were preached at Notre Dame. Other celebrated preachers of the +middle of the century were, on the Catholic side, the Pere Felix, and on +the Protestant, Athanase Coquerel. Of the extreme orthodox party, during +the Second Empire, the chief names from the point of view of literature +were those of Monseigneur Dupanloup, bishop of Orleans, and the +journalist, Louis Veuillot. The former, one of the most eloquent and one +of the ablest men of his time in France, began with a certain +liberalism, but gradually hardened into extremer views, distinguishing +himself in his place in the Academy by violent opposition to the +admission of M. Littre, as a positivist. The latter, as editor of the +journal _L'Univers_, brought remarkable wit and a faculty of slashing +criticism, not often equalled, to the service of his party, indulging, +however, too often in mere scurrility. From this same literary point of +view, the chief name in the theological literature of this period is +once more on the unorthodox side. Since the days of Joseph de Maistre +the church had far more than held her own in the literary arena; but the +discouragement given at Rome to the followers of Lamennais seemed to +bring ill luck with it. Ernest Renan, who, with some faults, is one of +the most remarkable masters of French style in our time, was born in +1823, at Treguier in Britanny. He was intended for the priesthood, and +was educated for the most part at clerical seminaries. On arriving, +however, at manhood, he did not feel inclined to take orders; accepted +the place of usher at a school, and soon distinguished himself by +linguistic studies, especially on the Semitic languages. He also +exercised himself a good deal in literary criticism and as a journalist +of all work on the staffs of the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Revue des +Deux-Mondes_. His first really remarkable work, published in 1850, is +_Averroes et l'Averroisme_, a book injured by the author's want of +sympathy with the thought of the middle ages, but full of research and +of reflection. This gained him a post in the Paris Library. He then +produced several works, dealing more or less with the Hebrew Scriptures. +In 1860 he had a government mission to Phoenicia and Palestine, which +enabled him to examine the Holy Land very attentively. On his return he +was appointed to the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, but the +outcry against his unorthodoxy was so great that he was suspended. He +began about this time to publish his famous series of _Origines du +Christianisme_ with, for a first volume, a _Vie de Jesus_, imbued with a +curious kind of eclectic and romantic rationalism. This has been +followed by numerous volumes dealing with the early ages of +Christianity. In 1870 he made himself conspicuous by a letter to Strauss +on the subject of the Franco-German War. After the catastrophe he +confined himself for a time to literary and philosophical studies. +Recently, however, besides working at his _Origines_, which are now +completed, he has produced some half-political, half-fanciful studies of +great literary excellence, such as _Caliban_, a satire on democracy, and +_La Fontaine de Jouvence_, a brilliant mediaeval fantasy-piece, covering +a violent attack on Germany. M. Renan is, in point of style, perhaps the +most considerable prose writer of France now living who is a prose +writer only. His prejudices are strong, and his strictly argumentative +and logical faculty rather weak. In temperament he is what may be called +a sentimental rationalist. But his literary knowledge is extraordinarily +wide and very accurate, while his literary sympathies, though somewhat +irregular in their operation, are warm. These peculiarities reflect +themselves in his style, which is a direct descendant of that of +Rousseau through M. Renan's own countryman, Chateaubriand. As a +describer of scenery he is unmatched among his contemporaries. He has an +extraordinary power of vivid and interesting narration inclining +somewhat to the over-picturesque. No one is able more cleverly to seize +on the most striking and telling features of a landscape, a book, a +character, and, by adroit dwelling on these, to present the whole as +vividly as possible to his readers. No one again is more thoroughly +master of a certain rather vague but telling eloquence which deals +chiefly with the moral feelings and the domestic affections, and +exercises an amiably softening influence on those who submit themselves +to it. M. Renan in style is rather an orator than a writer, though the +extreme care and finish which he bestows on his work give him a high +place in literature proper. + +[Sidenote: Historians. Thierry.] + +In history a group of distinguished names, besides a still larger number +of names only less individually distinguished, deserve notice. First +among these, in order of time, may be mentioned the two brothers Amedee +and Augustin Thierry, the former of whom was born in 1787, and died in +1873, while the latter, born in 1795, died in 1856. Both devoted +themselves to historical studies. But, while Amedee employed himself +almost wholly on the history of Gaul during Roman times and on Roman +history, Augustin, who was by far the more gifted of the two, took a +wider range. He was born and educated at Blois, and for some time +devoted himself to politics and sociology, being a disciple of Saint +Simon, and a fellow-worker of Comte. He soon, however, betook himself to +history, and in 1825 published his 'History of the Norman Conquest in +England.' Blindness followed, but he was able to continue his work. In +1835 he published _Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques_, and in 1840, what is +perhaps his best work, _Recits des Temps Merovingiens_, a book which has +few rivals as exhibiting in a fascinating light, but without any +sacrifice of historical accuracy to mere picturesqueness, the +circumstances and events of an unfamiliar time. His last work of +importance was an essay on the Tiers Etat and its origin. Thierry is an +excellent example of an historian handling, with little guidance from +predecessors, a difficult and neglected but important age. + +[Sidenote: Thiers.] + +Far less important as a historian, but distinguished by his double +character of statesman and _litterateur_, in which he was more fortunate +than his two rivals in the same double career, Guizot and Lamartine, was +Louis Adolphe Thiers, who was born at Marseilles, of the lower middle +class, in 1797. He was brought up for the law, being educated at +Marseilles and at Aix. Then he went to Paris, and after a short time +obtained work on the _Constitutionnel_ as supporter of the liberal +opposition during the Restoration. His _Histoire de la Revolution +Francaise_ appeared between 1823-1827, and brought him much reputation, +which was very ill deserved as far as fulness and accuracy of +information are concerned. French readers, however, have ever been +indifferent to mere accuracy, and are given to admire even a superficial +appearance of order and clearness; at any rate, the book, added to his +considerable reputation as a political writer, made him famous. A paper, +which he founded in the beginning of 1830, the _National_, had much +share in bringing about the Revolution of that year. After it Thiers was +elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Aix, and in a short time became a +renowned debater. He held office again and again under Louis Philippe, +and was believed to be in favour of a warlike policy. When he retired +from office he began his principal literary work (a continuation of his +first), 'The History of the Consulate and the Empire.' He took no part +in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the Republic, but was banished +at the _coup d'etat_, though not for long. In 1863 he re-entered the +Chamber, having constantly worked at his History, which tended not a +little to reconstruct the Napoleonic legend. Yet he was a steady though +a moderate opponent of the Second Empire. On its downfall, Thiers, as +the most distinguished statesman the country possessed, undertook the +negotiations with the enemy--a difficult task, which he performed with +extreme ability. He then became President of the Republic, which post he +held till 1873. He died on the 3rd of September, 1877. The chief fault +of Thiers as a historian is his misleading partiality, which is +especially displayed in his account of Napoleon's wars, and reaches its +climax in that of the battle of Waterloo. He has, however, great merits +in lucidity of arrangement, in an eloquent, if rather declamatory style, +and in a faculty of conveying a considerable amount of information +without breaking the march of his narrative. + +[Sidenote: Guizot] + +By a curious coincidence, the chief rival of Thiers in politics (at +least during the greater part of his life) was of his own class and +condition, and, like him, primarily a man of letters. Francois Pierre +Guillaume Guizot was, however, ten years the senior of Thiers, having +been born in 1787, at Nimes. Guizot was a Protestant, and his father +perished in the Terror. He was educated at Geneva, but went to Paris +early, and produced in 1809 (being then only twenty-two) a dictionary of +synonyms. After this he did miscellaneous literary work of various +kinds, and at the Restoration filled, as a moderate Royalist, various +posts under government, being appointed, among other things, to a +history professorship at the Sorbonne. He became more and more liberal, +and in 1824 his lectures were forbidden. His literary activity, was, +however, incessant, his greatest work being a collection of early French +historical writings in thirty-one volumes. He also paid much attention +to the history of England, and published, in 1826, a _Histoire de la +Revolution d'Angleterre_. This was followed by many other works, of +which his 'History of Civilisation in Europe,' and 'History of +Civilisation in France,' are the best known. He had been elected a +member of the Chamber before the Revolution of 1830, and after it he was +appointed minister of Public Instruction, having the powerful support of +the Broglie family. He was afterwards ambassador to London, and then +Prime Minister, being, it is said, very much to blame for the Revolution +of February. He escaped to London with some difficulty, and, though he +revisited France, had to return to England at the advent of Louis +Napoleon. He was not, however, a permanent exile, but was allowed to +enjoy his estate at Val Richer in Normandy. He died in 1874, having been +incessantly occupied on literary work of all kinds (chiefly connected +with French and English history) for the last half century of his life. +The chief of these in bulk was a voluminous history of France not +completed till after his death. Guizot's enormous fertility (for not a +twentieth of his works has been mentioned) perhaps injuriously affected +his style, which is not remarkable. Sound common sense and laborious +acquaintance with facts are his chief characteristics. + +[Sidenote: Mignet.] + +A companion of Thiers at college, and a _protege_ of his during his +years of power, was Francois Mignet. Born a year before his friend, he +outlived him. Mignet, too, wrote, and at the same time as Thiers, a +History of the French Revolution of curiously different character. He +became secretary of the Institute, and in 1837 a member of the Academy. +His chief later works were on the 'Spanish Succession,' on Mary Stuart, +and on Charles the Fifth after his abdication, with, last of all, the +rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I. Mignet is as trustworthy as Thiers +is the reverse. But his historical manner is exceedingly dry, as also is +his style, though it is correct and not inelegant. + +[Sidenote: Michelet.] + +A very different writer was Jules Michelet, the most original and +remarkable historian in point of style that France has ever produced. +Born at Paris, in 1798, he was also educated there, and became a +schoolmaster. Soon after he came of age he was transferred to the Ecole +Normale. The Revolution of 1830, owing to the influence of Cousin and +Guizot, opened great opportunities for historical students, and Michelet +was enabled to publish not a few historical treatises, some of a rather +specialist nature, others popular abstracts of French history. In 1838 +he was appointed to a chair in the College de France, and, in +conjunction with his friend Quinet, he took part in the violent polemic +against the Jesuits which distinguished the time. He had already for +some years begun his strange and splendid _Histoire de France_, +1833-1867, but he accompanied its progress with a crowd of little books +of a controversial and miscellaneous character. Shortly before the +Revolution of 1848 he began, and soon after the _coup d'etat_ finished, +his _Histoire de la Revolution_. He declined to take the oaths to the +Empire, and so lost the place in the Record Office which he then held. +He died in 1874, and, notwithstanding his incessant literary activity +during his life, various unpublished works have appeared since, one of +which, describing the hunger-pinched population of the Riviera, is a +masterpiece of his volcanic style. This style is characteristic not only +of his great history, but also of his smaller books, of which _Des +Jesuites_, _Du Pretre_, _Du Peuple_, _L'Oiseau_, _L'Insecte_, _L'Amour_, +_La Sorciere_ (the last perhaps the most remarkable of all), are +especially noteworthy. It is entirely unlike the style of any previous +French writer, except that of Lamennais, who was, however, rather +Michelet's contemporary than his predecessor, and that of Victor Hugo, +in some of his more recent work. Broken and irregular in construction, +it is extraordinarily vivid in colour, and striking in the outline of +its presentment. The _History of France_ is a book to which little +justice can be done in the space here available. It is strongly +prejudiced by Michelet's republican and anti-Catholic views, and, like +all picturesque histories, it brings into undue relief incidents and +personages which have happened to strike the author's imagination. But +it is extraordinarily stimulating, full of energy and life, and almost +unequalled in the power with which the writer restores and revives the +past. + +[Sidenote: Quinet.] + +A bosom friend of Michelet, and his compeer in the attack on the +Jesuits, was Edgar Quinet, who was born near Bourg in 1803, and died in +1875. He was brought up for the most part at his country home in a +retired situation, where he early showed not only great devotion to +literature, but a curious tendency towards philosophic mysticism. He +travelled in Germany when young, and his translation of Herder's +_Philosophie der Geschichte_ introduced him to Cousin, and gave him some +profit and much reputation. He was sent to Greece on a government +mission, and after a time received a professorship, first at Lyons, and +then at Paris, though his republicanism did not recommend him. He was an +active supporter of the Revolution of February, and a consistent +opponent of the Empire, during which he remained in exile. Quinet's +works, both in poetry and prose, are numerous. The chief are a great +prose poem, or dramatic allegory, called _Ahasuerus_, 1834, a work on +the early French epics (insufficiently informed, but appreciative and +enthusiastic), _Le Genie des Religions_, 1843 (a series of discourses +full of the widest and vaguest generalisation, but stimulating and +generous), _Les Revolutions d'Italie_, _Merlin l'Enchanteur_, 1861 +(another curious book something after the fashion of _Ahasuerus_), a +nondescript miscellany on history and science entitled _La Creation_, +1869, and _La Revolution_, 1865. His poems (in verse) are _Promethee_, +_Napoleon_, _Les Esclaves_, of which the first and last are dramatic in +form. His style and thought were strongly tinged with mysticism, and +with a singular undogmatic pietism, as well as with strong but +speculative republicanism in politics. He is thus not a historian to +consult for facts (though his knowledge both of history and literature +was accurate and wide), but an inspiriting generaliser on the philosophy +of history. Both in Michelet and in Quinet there is an affectation of +the seer, as well as an undue fluency of language, and an absence of +precision in form and place, which detract from their otherwise high +literary value. The collected works of the first exceed fifty volumes, +those of the second fill nearly thirty; and much of this vast total is +ephemeral in interest and unchastened in form. Although neither was a +journalist, both exhibit the defects of a period of journalism. + +[Sidenote: Tocqueville.] + +The last of the greater names calling for mention is that of Alexis de +Tocqueville, who was born, of a noble Norman family, at Verneuil, in +1805. Tocqueville was educated for the bar, and called to it after the +Restoration. But after the revolution of July he exchanged his +appointment in the magistracy for a travelling mission to America, to +examine the prisons and penitentiaries of the United States. He, +however, studied something else than prisons, and, in 1835, published +his famous work on 'Democracy in America.' He married an Englishwoman, +and soon afterwards entered the Chamber. During the Republic he occupied +positions of some importance. The Empire dismissed him from public life, +but gave him the opportunity of writing his second great book on the +_Ancien Regime_. His health was, however, weak, and he died, in 1859, of +consumption. The characteristics of Tocqueville as a historian (or +rather as a philosophic essayist on history) are great purity and +clearness of style, unusual logical power, and an entire absence of +prepossession. He is one of the few historians who have treated +democracy without either enthusiastic love for it on the one hand, or +fanatical dislike and fear of it on the other; and his two books are, +and are likely to remain, classics. + +[Sidenote: Minor Historians.] + +A very rapid survey must suffice for the remainder of the names in this +division. A. de Barante, among numerous other works of merit, is best +known by a careful and detailed history of the Dukes of Burgundy; J. A. +Buchon, Petitot, J. A. Michaud, and J. Poujoulat, produced invaluable +collections of the chronicles and memoirs in which France is so rich. J. +J. Ampere occupied himself chiefly with Roman history, and with the +history of France and French literature in the Gallo-Roman time. A. +Beugnot, besides other work, arranged a precious collection of feudal +law. Emile de Bonnechose wrote a good short history of France. Louis +Blanc (an important actor in the Revolution of 1848) produced an +elaborate and well-written history of the Revolution from the moderate +republican side, and afterwards reprinted from newspapers some curious +letters from England during his exile here. In opposition chiefly to +Thiers, P. Lanfrey, in a laborious history of Napoleon, entirely +overthrew the Napoleonic legend, and damaged, it would seem irreparably, +the character of its hero. Philippe de Segur gave a history of the +Russian campaign of Napoleon. Mortimer-Ternaux accomplished a valuable +history of the Terror. M. Henri Martin was the author of the only recent +history of France on a scale which challenges comparison with Michelet. +It has no extraordinary literary merit, and its author was something of +a partisan. But it is full, sober, and fairly accurate. In recent days +M. Taine, deserting literary and philosophical criticism for history, +executed a new and remarkable history of the Revolution, which, by once +more putting its horrors in a clear and fair light, very much irritated +the partisans of the 'ideas of 89.' The Duke d'Aumale has made something +more than a mere addition to the works of 'Royal and Noble Authors,' in +his History of the Princes of Conde. The Duke de Broglie, a politician, +upon whom the political changes of France enforced political retirement, +has produced a series of historical works on the 18th century and has +edited the interesting memoirs of his father, the patron of Guizot. Of +other recent memoirs by far the most remarkable, whether as literature +or history, are those of Madame de Remusat, mother of Charles de +Remusat, who died early in the Restoration period, but whose memoirs and +letters, not published till after her son's death (but already referred +to here), have given her a posthumous reputation hardly inferior to that +of any of the literary ladies before her and not likely soon to wane. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[292] Merimee's work is not absolutely despicable in bulk, for it +extends to some eighteen volumes pretty closely packed. But much of +these is occupied with familiar letters, and much more with merely +miscellaneous writing. His finished and definitely literary publications +do not amount to a third of the whole. + +[293] In this notice of the acting drama of France, with which, as +contrasted with the literary theatre, the present writer has +comparatively little acquaintance, he is considerably indebted to Mr. +Brander Matthews' useful _French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century_. +London and New York; 1882. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + +In the five books of this _History_ the reader has, it is believed, +before him a sufficient though necessarily brief description of the +various men and works whereof knowledge is desirable to enable him to +perceive the main outlines of the course of French literature. In the +interchapters some attempt has been made to sum up the general phenomena +of that literature as distinguished from its particular accomplishments +during the chief periods of its development. Beyond this neither the +scale of the book, nor its plan as indicated in the preface, has +permitted of indulgence in generalising criticism. But it has been +suggested by authorities whose competence is not disputable that +something in the nature of a summary of these summaries, pointing out +briefly the general history, accomplishments, and peculiarities of the +French tongue in its literary aspect during the ten centuries of its +existence, is required, if only for the sake of a symmetrical +conclusion. It may be urged on the other side that the history of +literature--like all other histories, and perhaps more than all other +histories--is never really complete, and that there is consequently some +danger in attempting at any given time to treat it as finished. He must +have been a miraculously acute critic who, if he had attempted such +treatment of the present subject sixty or seventy years ago, would not +have found his results ludicrously falsified by the event but few years +afterwards. But this drawback only applies to generalisation of the +pseudo-scientific kind which attempts to predict: it can be easily +guarded against by attending to the strict duties of the historian and, +without attempting to speak of the future, dealing only with the +actually accomplished past. + +The first thing, and perhaps the most important thing, which must strike +anyone who looks upon French literature as a whole, is that, taking all +conditions together, it is the most complete example of a regularly and +independently developed national literature that presents itself +anywhere. It is no doubt inferior in the point of independence to Greek, +but then it has a much longer course, considered as the exponent of +national character. It has a shorter course than English, and it is not +more generally expository of national characteristics; but then it is +for a great part of that course infinitely more independent of foreign +influences, and, unlike English, it has scarcely any breaks or dead +seasons in its record. Compared with Latin (which as a literature may be +said to be entirely modelled on Greek) it is exceptionally original: +compared with Spanish and Italian it has been exceptionally long-lived +and hale in its life: compared with German it was exceptionally early in +attaining the full possession of its faculties. Just as (putting aside +minor and somewhat pedantic considerations) no country in Europe has so +long and so independently developed a political history, so in none has +literary history developed itself more independently and for a longer +space of continuous time. No foreign invasion sensibly affects the +French tongue; no foreign influence sensibly alters the course of French +literature. It has been shown at intervals during this history how +little direct influence classical models had on the original forms of +literature in France, how completely German and Celtic contributions of +subject were assimilated, how the Provencal examples of form were rather +independently followed than literally or slavishly adopted. The dawn or +rather the twilight of the Renaissance seemed to threaten a more +powerful and dangerous admixture. But the native genius of the language +triumphed, and finally, in the Pleiade reforms, reduced to harmlessness +the Rhetoriqueur innovations and the simultaneous danger of +Italianising. The criticism of Malherbe, harmful in some ways, served as +a counterpoise to the danger of Spanish influence which was considerable +in the early years of the seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth the +idiosyncrasy of French was so strong that, great as was the effect +successively produced by English and by German, it was unable to do more +than slightly modify French literature itself. Yet again the singular +[Greek: autarkeia] of French may be seen by turning from its general +accomplishments at different times to its particular forms. No one of +these was directly adopted from any foreign, not even from any classical +example, with the doubtful exception of the classical tragedy. The +French made their own epic, their own lyric, their own comic and +miscellaneous drama. They may be said almost to have invented the +peculiar and striking kind of history called the memoir, which has +characteristics distinguishing it radically from the classical +commentary. They apparently invented the essay, and though they only +borrowed the beast-fable, they are entitled to the credit of having seen +in it the germ of the short verse tale which has no direct moral +bearing. All the nations of Europe, so to speak, sent during the middle +ages their own raw material of subject to be worked up by French or +French-speaking men into literary form. France therefore gives (next to +Greece, and in some respects even before Greece) the most instructive +and trustworthy example extant of the chronology and order of +spontaneous literary development--first poetry, then drama, then prose: +in poetry, first epic, then lyric, then didactic and miscellaneous +verse: in drama, first ceremonial and liturgic pieces, then comedy, then +artificial tragedy: in prose, first history, then miscellaneous work, +and lastly artificial and elaborate fiction. It is a curious and +somewhat complex phenomenon that the cycle which began with verse +fiction should apparently end with fiction in prose, but the foregoing +pages will have shewn sufficiently how dangerous it would be to +generalise from this. + +One thing however may be safely concluded from the mere fact of this +remarkable resistance to foreign influence, or rather from the still +more remarkable power of assimilation which this resistance implies. The +literature which has been able to exert both must have very strongly +marked general characteristics of its own. As a matter of fact French +literature has these characteristics: and a brief enumeration and +description of them may complete, more appropriately than anything else +could do, the survey of its history. French literature, notwithstanding +the revolution of fifty years ago, is generally and rightly held to be +the chief representative among the greater European literatures of the +classical rather than the romantic spirit. It is therefore necessary to +define what is meant by these much controverted terms; and the +definition which best expresses the views of the present writer is one +somewhat modified from the definition given by Heine. The terms classic +and romantic apply to treatment not to subject, and the difference is +that the treatment is classic when the idea is represented as directly +and with as exact an adaptation of form as possible, while it is +romantic when the idea is left to the reader's faculty of divination +assisted only by suggestion and symbol. Of these two modes of treatment +France has always inclined to the classic: during at least two +centuries, the seventeenth and eighteenth, she relied upon it almost +wholly. But the fertility of her mediaeval and Renaissance literature in +strictly romantic examples, and the general tendency of the literature +of the nineteenth century, have shewn a romantic faculty inferior, but +only inferior, to the classical. To illustrate this statement by a +contrast, it may be pointed out that in Greek the romantic element is +almost in abeyance, while in English all without exception of our +greatest masterpieces have been purely romantic. Or to put the matter in +yet other words, the sense of the vague is, among authors of the highest +rank, rarely present to a Greek, always present to an Englishman, and +alternately present and absent, but oftener absent, to a Frenchman. + +The qualities which this general differentia has developed in French may +now be enumerated. + +The first is a great and remarkable _sobriety_. It is true that there is +nothing more extravagant than an extravagant Frenchman, but that is the +natural result of reaction. As a rule, the contributions of matter which +France received so abundantly from other nations are always toned and +sobered by her in their literary formation. The main materials of her +wonderful mediaeval literature of fiction were furnished by Wales, by +Germany, and by the East; all of them, to judge by the later but more or +less independent handlings which we have from indigenous sources, must +have teemed with the supernatural. In the Chansons de Gestes, in the +Arthurian romances, and even in the earlier Romans d'Aventures, the +supernatural, though recognised as became a devout age and country, is +yet to a certain extent rationalised. It rarely obtrudes itself, and it +still more rarely presents itself with exaggerated attributes. A +continual spirit of criticism exhibits itself throughout French +literature; it always, as represented by its most numerous and on the +whole most famous representatives, tends to order, to measure, to +symmetry. + +The next characteristic is abundant and almost superabundant _wit_. The +terms wit and humour have been argued over even more than classical and +romantic, and it is equally impossible to enter into the controversy +here. Suffice it to say that, according to the most satisfactory +definition of humour (thinking in jest while feeling in earnest), wit +might be defined to be thinking in jest without interrogating the +consciousness as to whether the feeling is earnest or not. At a very +early period, as soon indeed as the French spirit had thoroughly emerged +from its German-Latin-Celtic swaddling clothes, this faculty of half +reckless thinking in jest made its appearance. In classical literature +wit is notoriously absent with rare exceptions (Aristophanes and Lucian +being almost the only ones of importance); in scarcely any other modern +literature does it make its appearance early. But it shows in French by +the twelfth century, and it increases during every century that +succeeds: while joined to sobriety it begets that satirical criticism, +which is so noteworthy a secondary product of French. + +A third quality closely connected with the two former but not, like +satirical criticism, simply derived from them, is the close _attention +to form_ which has always distinguished French. At the present time, +despite the great advance made by other literatures and a certain +falling off in itself, French prose is on the average superior in formal +merit to any other prose written in a modern language. If we look back +for eight hundred years, French verse is found to be more carefully and +artistically arranged than the corresponding poetical beginnings of any +other European country. In the excogitation of careful rules and the +deft carrying out of those rules no literature can on the whole approach +this except Greek. No literature therefore, with that exception, gives +so much of the pleasure which is given by the spectacle of not +unreasonable difficulty skilfully overcome in a game which is well +played. + +A fourth merit is to be found in the _inventiveness_ of Frenchmen of +letters. In no literature is there a greater variety, and in none is +that variety so obviously the effect not of happy blundering but of +organised and almost scientific development of the possibilities of art. +The wonderful fertility with which the early Trouveres handled and +re-handled the motives of the Arthurian and Carlovingian legends has +been noticed; and, as a very different but complementary instance, the +surprising success and variety with which a scheme so limited as that of +the classical tragedy was applied, deserves mention. At the present day +in one important department of literature (the drama) inventiveness is +almost limited to Frenchmen, and there are few periods of their present +history at which they have not in this respect led the van in one +department or in another. + +Yet another characteristic must be noted, which is, in respect to +matter, the complement of the already mentioned attention to form. This +is the singular _clearness_ and _precision_ with which not merely the +greatest Frenchmen of letters, but all save the least, are accustomed to +put their meaning. Whereas the two great classical languages, from the +licence of order given by their abundant inflections and complicated +syntax, are sometimes enigmatic; whereas German notoriously lends itself +to the wrapping up of a simple meaning in a cloud of words; whereas +English seems to encourage those who use it not indeed to obscurity but +to desultoriness and beating about the bush, French properly used is +almost automatically clear and precise. Rivarol's somewhat sententious +conceit that the French language has a 'probite attachee a son genie' is +not a conceit merely. That this lucidity is sometimes accompanied by +want of depth is quite true, but it is equally true that it is often +mistaken for it. There is no want of depth in Descartes or in +Malebranche, yet there are no clearer writers in the whole range of +philosophic literature. + +To these main characteristics others which are in a way corollaries +might be added, such as urbanity, ease, ready adaptation to different +classes of subject, and the like. But those already dwelt upon are the +principal, and they have sufficed to make French, as far as general +usefulness and interest go, the best vehicle of expression in prose +among European languages. In poetry it is not quite the same. Most of +the qualities just enumerated are in poetry but of secondary use, some +of them are almost directly unfavourable to the vagueness, the +indefinite suggestion, the 'making the common uncommon,' which are +necessary to poetry. The clearness of French prose has a tendency to +become colourless in French poetry, its sobriety turns to the bald, its +wit to conceits and prettinesses, its inventiveness to an undue reliance +on complicated devices for creating an artificial attraction, its sense +of form and rule to dryness and lack of passion. Moreover the merely +sonorous qualities of French render it a difficult instrument for the +production of varied poetical sounds. It is almost wholly destitute of +quantity, and the intonation which supplies that want is of such a kind +that hardly any foot but the iambus is possible in it. On the other hand +its terminations admit of elaborate and harmonious rhymes (indeed French +poetry without rhyme is a practical impossibility), and the abundance of +mute _e_ endings has facilitated the adoption of an artificial source of +variation of sound in the so-called 'masculine and feminine' rhyming +which is in its perfection almost peculiar to the language. With these +aids and by the most elaborate attention to metre and euphony, the great +poets of France have been enabled to surmount to a very large extent the +corresponding difficulties of their prosody. But they have not on the +whole been equally fortunate in surmounting the difficulties caused by +the very genius of the language--the clear, sober, critical _ethos_ of +French. This is an enemy to mystery, to vagueness, to what may be called +the twilight of sense--all things more or less necessary to the highest +poetry. It will not I think be alleged by any impartial reader of this +book that its author is insensible to the majesty or to the charm of +French verse. But it is impossible for me to admit that that majesty and +that charm are shewn in the highest degree (in the degree in which not +merely Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Shelley, Heine, shew them, but many minor +names in Greek, in English, and in German), by any but a very few +Frenchmen, and by these in more than comparatively few places. A very +competent and obliging French critic has said that it is impossible for +any Frenchman to agree with me exactly in my estimate of La Fontaine, +and probably there is no better instance than La Fontaine of the +fundamental difference of conception of poetry which corresponds to the +English channel. Inexhaustibly inventive, full of criticism of life, a +master of harmonious language, managing rhythms and metres with a skill +only the more artful that it seems so artless, La Fontaine yet has too +little of dawn or sunset, still less of twilight or moonlight, too much +of the light of common day to deserve, according to my estimate, the +title of poet in the highest degree. The same may be said of most other +French poets except a few who are to be found almost exclusively in the +middle ages, in the Renaissance, and in the nineteenth century. Only in +one form of the highest poetry, the passionate declamation which is in +effect oratory of the most picturesque kind, France has never been +wanting, and in this she has for half the time been mightily helped by +the possession of the magnificent Alexandrine metre. + +[294]At the close of the eleventh century and at the beginning of the +twelfth we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in full +organisation for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the +forms of poetical writing. An immense outburst of epic and narrative +verse has taken place, and lyrical poetry, not limited as in the case of +the epics to the north of France, but extending from Roussillon to the +Pas de Calais, completes this. The twelfth century adds to these +earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the +subjects and varies the manner of epic verse, and begins the +compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St. Denis and of +Villehardouin, and the prose romances of the Arthurian cycle. All this +literature is so far connected purely with the knightly and priestly +orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by +classes of men, trouveres and jongleurs, who are not necessarily either +knights or priests, and in the case of the jongleurs are certainly +neither. With a possible ancestry of Romance and Teutonic _cantilenae_, +Breton _lais_, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain +pattern and model in Latin and for the most part ecclesiastical +compositions. It has the sacred books and the legends of the saints for +examples of narrative, the rhythm of the hymns for a guide to metre, and +the ceremonies of the church for a stimulant to dramatic performance. By +degrees also in this twelfth century forms of literature which busy +themselves with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The fabliau +takes every phase of life for its subject; the folk-song acquires +elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the next century, the +thirteenth, mediaeval literature in France arrives at its zenith and +remains there until the first quarter of the fourteenth. The early epics +lose something of their savage charm, the polished literature of +Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces which speak the more +prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to literary development. The +language itself has shaken off all its youthful incapacities, and, +though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modern life and +study, is in every way equal to the demands made upon it by its own +time. The dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the +mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit in the most +various kinds are published; _Aucassin et Nicolette_ stands side by side +with the _Histoire de Saint Louis_, the _Jeu de la Feuillie_ with the +_Miracle de Theophile_, the _Roman de la Rose_ with the _Roman du +Renart_. The earliest notes of ballade and rondeau are heard; endeavours +are made with zeal, and not always without understanding, to naturalise +the wisdom of the ancients in France, and in the graceful tongue that +France possesses. Romance in prose and verse, drama, history, songs, +satire, oratory, and even erudition, are all represented and represented +worthily. Meanwhile all nations of Western Europe have come to France +for their literary models and subjects, and the greatest writers in +English, German, Italian, content themselves with adaptations of +Chretien de Troyes, of Benoist de Sainte More, and of a hundred other +known and unknown trouveres and fabulists. But this age does not last +long. The language has been put to all the uses of which it is as yet +capable; those uses in their sameness begin to pall upon reader and +hearer; and the enormous evils of the civil and religious state reflect +themselves inevitably in literature. The old forms die out or are +prolonged only in half-lifeless travesties. The brilliant colouring of +Froissart, and the graceful science of ballade- and rondeau-writers like +Lescurel and Deschamps, alone maintain the literary reputation of the +time. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the translators and +political writers import many terms of art, and strain the language to +uses for which it is as yet unhandy, though at the beginning of the next +age Charles d'Orleans by his natural grace and the virtue of the forms +he used, emerges from the mass of writers. Throughout the fifteenth +century the process of enriching or at least increasing the vocabulary +goes on, but as yet no organising hand appears to direct the process. +Villon stands alone in merit as in peculiarity. But in this time +dramatic literature and the literature of the floating popular +broadsheet acquire an immense extension--all or almost all the vigour of +spirit being concentrated in the rough farce and rougher lampoon, while +all the literary skill is engrossed by insipid _rhetoriqueurs_ and +pedants. Then comes the grand upheaval of the Renaissance and the +Reformation. An immense influx of science, of thought to make the +science living, of new terms to express the thought, takes place, and a +band of literary workers appear of power enough to master and get into +shape the turbid mass. Rabelais, Amyot, Calvin, and Herberay fashion +French prose; Marot, Ronsard, and Regnier refashion French verse. The +Pleiade introduces the drama as it is to be and the language that is to +help the drama to express itself. Montaigne for the first time throws +invention and originality into some other form than verse or than prose +fiction. But by the end of the century the tide has receded. The work of +arrangement has been but half done, and there are no master spirits left +to complete it. At this period Malherbe and Balzac make their +appearance. Unable to deal with the whole problem, they determine to +deal with part of it, and to reject a portion of the riches of which +they feel themselves unfit to be stewards. Balzac and his successors +make of French prose an instrument faultless and admirable in precision, +unequalled for the work for which it is fit, but unfit for certain +portions of the work which it was once able to perform. Malherbe, +seconded by Boileau, makes of French verse an instrument suited only for +the purposes of the drama of Euripides, or rather of Seneca, with or +without its chorus, and for a certain weakened echo of that chorus, +under the name of lyrics. No French verse of the first merit other than +dramatic is written for two whole centuries. The drama soon comes to its +acme, and during the succeeding time usually maintains itself at a +fairly high level until the death of Voltaire. But prose lends itself to +almost everything that is required of it, and becomes constantly a more +and more perfect instrument. To the highest efforts of pathos and +sublimity its vocabulary and its arrangement are still unsuited, though +the great preachers of the seventeenth century do their utmost with it. +But for clear exposition, smooth and agreeable narrative, sententious +and pointed brevity, witty repartee, it soon proves itself to have no +superior and scarcely an equal in Europe. In these directions +practitioners of the highest skill apply it during the seventeenth +century, while during the eighteenth its powers are shown to the utmost +of their variety by Voltaire, and receive a new development at the hands +of Rousseau. Yet, on the whole, it loses during this century. It becomes +more and more unfit for any but trivial uses, and at last it is employed +for those uses only. Then occurs the Revolution, repeating the mighty +stir in men's minds which the Renaissance had given, but at first +experiencing more difficulty in breaking up the ground and once more +rendering it fertile. The faulty and incomplete genius of Chateaubriand +and Madame de Stael gives the first evidence of a new growth, and after +many years the romantic movement completes the work. That movement +occupied almost the whole of two generations and though at the close of +the second its force may appear to be spent, the results remain, and no +new or reactionary movement is visible, and the efforts of the Romantics +themselves have been crowned with an almost complete regeneration of +letters, if not of language. The poetical power of French has been once +more triumphantly proved, and its productiveness in all branches of +literature has been renewed, while in that of prose fiction there has +been almost created a new class of composition. + +Finally, we may sum up even this summary. For volume and merit taken +together the product of these eight centuries of literature excels that +of any European nation, though for individual works of the supremest +excellence they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French writer is lifted +by the suffrages of other nations--the only criterion when sufficient +time has elapsed--to the level of Homer, of Shakespeare, or of Dante, +who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the +thirty but attain not to the first three, Rabelais and Moliere alone +unite the general suffrage; and this fact roughly but surely points to +the real excellence of the literature which these men are chosen to +represent. It is great in all ways, but it is greatest on the lighter +side. The house of mirth is more suited to it than the house of +mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the unknown minstrel +who told Roland's death, of him who gave utterance to Camilla's wrath +and despair, and of him who in our day sang how the mountain wind makes +mad the lover who cannot forget, has amply made good its title of +entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in this strain +there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story, formulate the +most pregnant reflexion, point the acutest jest. There is thus no really +great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those imperfect and in a +faulty kind, little prose like Milton's or like Jeremy Taylor's, little +verse (though more than is generally thought) like Shelley's or like +Spenser's. But there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose +and in verse, that the world has ever seen, the most polished jewellery +of reflexion that has ever been wrought, songs of incomparable grace, +comedies that must make men laugh so long as they are laughing animals, +and above all such a body of narrative fiction, old and new, prose and +verse, as no other nation can show for art and for originality, for +grace of workmanship in him who fashions, and for certainty of delight +to him who reads. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[294] The courtesy of Messrs. A. and C. Black allows me to repeat the +following passage from an article of mine in the _Encyclopaedia +Britannica_. For this repetition I may borrow from a better writer than +myself the excuse that a man cannot say exactly the same thing in two +different sets of words so as to please himself, or perhaps others. + + + + +INDEX. + + +About, Edmond (1828-1885), novelist and journalist, 559. + +Academic influences, 486, 506-508. + criticism, 564. + +Academie Francaise, 334, 353, 367, 504-508. + +Actors, societies of, 122. + +Adalbert, St., 3. + +_Adam, mystery of_, 111. + +Adam de la Halle (13th cent.), trouvere and dramatist, 69, 70. + +Adenes le Roi (13th cent.), trouvere, 23 note 1, 93, 95. + +_Adolescence Clementine_, 174. + +_Adolphe_, 435. + +Aguesseau, H.F. d' (1668-1751), orator, 457, 480. + +Aisse, Mlle. (1693-1733), letter-writer, 445. + +Alba, 31. + +_Albigensian War, Chronicle of_, 30. + +Alembert, Jean le Rond d' (1717-1785), encyclopaedist, 419, 462, 481, + 483, 499. + +Alexander of Bernay (12th cent.), trouvere, 43. + +Alexandrines, 75, 76, 213, 300. + +_Aliscans_, 19, 22. + +_Alixandre, Chanson d'_, 43. + +Allainval, Leonor J. C. Soulas d' (1700-1753), dramatist, 412. + +Allegory, 81. + +_Almanach de nos Grands Hommes_, 466. + +_Alzire_, 408. + +_Amphitryon_, 312. + +_Amadas et Idoine_, 97. + +_Amadis of Gaul_, 237, 319, 320. + +_Amants Magnifiques_, 312. + +Amerval, Eloy d' (15th cent.), poet, 172. + +_Amis et Amiles_, 12, 21, 147. + story of, 16. + passage from, 18. + +Amyot, Jacques (1513-1594), translator, 232, 234, 246, 270. + +_Ancien Theatre Francais_, 117 seqq. + +_Anciennes Poesies Francaises_, 181, 182. + +Andrieux, Francois G. J. S. (1759-1833), dramatist and poet, 403, 414. + +_Andromaque_, 302. + +_Andromede_, 298. + +_Antioche, Chanson d'_, 20, 39, 48, 99. + +_Antiquites de Rome_, 203. + +_Antony_, 530. + +_Apologie pour Herodote_, 166, 194. + +Argenson, Rene Louis de Voyer, Marquis d' (1694-1757), memoir-writer, 442. + +Arnauld, A. (1612-1694), Port Royalist, 338, 374. + +Arnault, A. V. (1766-1834), poet and fabulist, 403. + +Arthur, 34. + tale of, its origins, 34, 151. + +ARTHURIAN ROMANCES, 34-42, 46 note. + +Arthurian cycle, French order of, 35, 97. + Romances, spirit and literary value of, 38. + comedy of, 48. + social characteristics of, 46. + +Arvers, Felix (1806-1851), poet, 548. + +_Asseneth_, 147. + +_Assises de Jerusalem_, 144. + +Assonance, 11, 27, 63. + +_Astree_, 319. + +_Athalie_, 302, 303, 306. + +Auberi of Besancon (12th cent.), poet, 28. + +Aubignac, Francois Hedelin, Abbe d' (1604-1676), dramatist, novelist, +and critic, 293, 322. + +Aubigne, Agrippa d' (1550-1630), poet and historian, 212, 213, 253, 254. + +_Aucassin et Nicolette_, 66, 149. + extract from, 150. + +Audefroy le Bastard (12th cent.), trouvere, 63. + +Augier, E. (b. 1822), dramatist, 553. + +Aulnoy, Marie C., Comtesse d' (d. 1720), tale-teller, 328. + +Autran, Joseph (1813-1877), poet and dramatist, 555. + + +Baif, Jean Antoine de (1532-1592), poet, 196, 198, 205, 206, 210, 226. + +---- Lazare de (?-1547) translator, 219. + +Balada, 31. + +Ballade, 101. + +_Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis_, 158. + +Balzac, Honore de (1799-1850), novelist, 532, 535, 537, 542. + +Balzac, Jean Guez de (1594-1655), essayist and letter-writer, 355, 356. + +Banville, Th. de (b. 1820), poet, 549. + +Barbey d'Aurevilly, J. (b. 1808), miscellaneous writer, 557. + +Barbier, Auguste (1805-1882), poet, 545. + +_Barbier de Seville_, 413. + +_Barlaam and Josaphat_, 81. + +Baron (1643-1729), comic writer and actor, 317. + +Bartas, Guillaume de Saluste du (1544-1590), poet, 211, 212. + +Barthelemy, Louis, Abbe (1750-1812), scholar, 427. + +Bassompierre, Francois, Marechal de, memoir-writer, 337. + +_Bastard de Bouillon_, 20, 99. + +Baude, Henri (1430-1495), poet, 163. + +Baudelaire, C. (1821-1866), poet and critic, 549, 550. + +_Baudouin de Sebourc_, 20, 99. + +Bayle, P. (1647-1706), philosopher and encyclopaedist, 375. + +Beaumarchais, Caron de (1731-1799), dramatist, 413. + +_Bele Erembors_, 63. + +_Belisaire_, 458. + +Bellay, Guillaume (1491-1543) and Martin (?-1559) du, memoir-writers, 256. + +Bellay, Joachim du (1524-1560), poet, 202, 204, 207, 210, 219, 270. + +Belleau, Remy (1528-1577), poet, 204, 226. + +Belloy, Burette de (1727-1775), dramatist, 408. + +Benedictine students, 503. + +Benoist de Sainte More (1154-1189), trouvere and chronicler, 44, 45, 79. + +Benserade, Isaac de (1612-1691), poet, 278. + +Beranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857), poet, 511, 512. + +Bergerac, Cyrano de (1620-1655), dramatist and novelist, 308, 324. + +Bergier, Nicolas Sylvestre (1718-1790), theologian, 460. + +Berlioz, H. (1803-1869), miscellaneous writer, 566. + +Bernard, C. de (1805-1850), novelist, 557. + +Beroalde de Verville (1558-1612), tale-teller, 194. + +Bersuire, Pierre (1290-1352), translator, 143. + +Bertaut, Jean (1552-1611), poet, 338. + +_Berte aux grans Pies_, 21, 93. + +Bertin, Antoine (1752-1790), poet, 401. + +Bertrand, L. (1807-1841), poet, 548. + +Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of (1660-1734), memoir-writer, 344. + +Besenval, Pierre Victor, Baron de (1722-1791), memoir-writer, 442. + +Bestiaries, 79, 145. + +Beyle, Henri (1783-1842), novelist and critic, 517. + +Beza, Theodore (1519-1605), dramatist and translator, 218, 231. + +Bible, 78. + +_Bibliotheque des Romans_, 502. + +Billaut, A. (1600-1662) poet, 280. + +Bichat, M. F. X. (1771-1802), scientific writer, 501. + +Blanc, L. (1813-1882), historian, 577. + +_Blancandin et l'Orguilleuse d'Amour_, 96. + +_Blandin de Cornoalha_, 30. + +Blason, 210. + +_Blasphemateurs_, 121. + +_Blonde d'Oxford_, 98. + +Blot (1610-1655) poet, 278. + +Bodel, Jean (b. 1269), trouvere, 42, 91, 111. + +Bodin, Jean (1530-1596), lawyer, 248. + +_Boethius_, Provencal poem on, 28, 29. + +Boetie, Etienne de la (1530-1563), poet and political writer, 209, 242, + 243, 249. + +Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), poet and critic, 284-287. + +Boisrobert, F. Le Metel de (1592-1662), poet and dramatist, 278. + +Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de (1754-1840), political +writer, 498, 515. + +Bordigne, Charles de (16th cent.), poet, 171. + +Borel, P. (1809-1859), poet and novelist, 547. + +Bornier, H. de (b. 1825), dramatist, 556. + +Borron, Robert and Helie de (12th and 13th cent.), 35, 36. + +Bossuet, Jacques Benigne (1627-1704), theologian and preacher, 380-383. + +Bouchardy, Joseph (1810-1870), dramatist, 553. + +Bouchet, Guillaume (d. 1607), tale-teller, 194. + +Bouchet, Jehan (1476-1555), historian and poet, 171, 172, 194. + +Bouciqualt, Jean le Maigre (d. 1421), memoir-writer, 105. + +Bougainville, Louis Antoine de (1729-1811), traveller, 502. + +Bouilhet, L. (1821-1872), poet, 550. + +Boulainvilliers, Henri de (1658-1722), historian and political writer, + 438. + +Bourdaloue, Louis (1632-1704), theologian, 387. + +_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, 312. + +Boursault, Edme (1638-1708), dramatist, 315. + +_Bradamante_, 224. + +Brantome, Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbe de (1540-1614), memoir-writer, + 249-252. + +Brebeuf, Guillaume de (1618-1661), poet, 287. + +Breu-doble, 31. + +Brienne, Comte de (17th cent.), memoir-writer, 339. + +Brizeux, Auguste (1803-1858), poet, 546. + +Brodeau, Victor (1470-1540), poet, 177. + +Brosses, Ch. de (1709-1777), miscellanist, 503. + +Brunetiere, F., critic, 565. + +Brueys, D. A. de (1640-1725), dramatist, 317. + +_Brun de la Montaigne_, 26, 92. + +Brunetto Latini (1220-1294), scholar, 145, 152. + +_Bueves de Commarchis_, 93. + +Buffon, George Lewis Leclerc, Count de (1707-1788), naturalist, 499. + +_Bug Jargal_, 521. + +Buttet, Claude (16th cent.), poet, 209. + + +Cabanis, J. P. G. (1757-1808), scientific writer, 501. + +Calmet, Dom Augustin (1672-1757), biblical historian, 440. + +Calvin, Jean (1509-1564), theologian, 230, 231. + +Campistron (1656-1737), dramatist, 307, 316. + +_Candide_, 423. + +Canso, 30. + +Cantilenae, 7, 62. + +_Caracteres_ of La Bruyere, 365. + +Carloix, Vincent (16th cent.), memoir-writer, 254. + +_Carte de Tendre_, 321. + +Cassel, glossary of, 3. + +Castelnau, Michel de (1500-1592), memoir-writer, 257. + +_Castoiement d'un Pere a son Fils_, 81. + +Caylus, Madame de (1673-1729), memoir-writer, 344. + +Cazotte, Jacques (1720-1792), novelist, 426. + +_Cenacle_, the, 530, 540. + +_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, 148, 283. + +Chamfort, N. (1741-1794), moralist and critic, 465, 466. + +Champcenetz, (1759-1794), journalist, &c., 464, 465. + +Champier, Symphorien (1472-1535), poet, 171. + +Chanson, 66, 511, 512. + +_Chanson d'Alixandre_, 42, 43, 46. + +_Chanson d'Amour_, 66. + +_Chanson de Roland_, argument of, 13. + passage from, 14. + +_Chanson des Albigeois_, 30, 31. + +Chansonnettes, 66. + +CHANSONS DE GESTES, 2, 6, 7, 9-24, 37, 43, 47, 50, 75, 76, 99. + +_Chanson des Rues et des Bois_, 524. + +_Chansons du XV'ieme Siecle_, 166. + +Chapelain, Jean (1595-1674), poet, 279, 285, 301, 349. + +Chapelle, C. E. L. (1626-1686), poet, 278. + +Chardry (13th cent.), trouvere, 81. + +_Charlemagne a Constantinople, Voyage de_, 21. + +Charlemagne in _Chansons_, 13, 14, 19, 22. + +Charleval, C. J. L. Faucon de Risseigneur de (1612-1693), poet, 278. + +_Charroi de Nimes, le_, 19. + +Charron, Pierre (1541-1603), moralist and theologian, 247, 248. + +Chartier, Alain (1390-1458), poet, 102, 105, 144, 165, 169, 270. + ballade from, 108. + extract from _Curial_, 150. + +Chasles, P. L. (1798-1873), critic, 565. + +Chassignet, J. B. (1578-1620), poet, 276. + +Chastellain, Georges (1403-1475), chronicler, 134, 148, 164. + +Chateaubriand, Francois Auguste de (1768-1848), novelist and miscellaneous +writer, 429, 430. + +Chatillon, A. de (1810-1884), poet, 548. + +Chaulieu, Abbe de (1639-1720), poet, 288. + +Chaussee, Nivelle de la (1692-1754), dramatic poet, 411, 415. + +_Chef d'oeuvre Inconnu_, 533. + +Chenedolle, C. de (1769-1833), poet, 403, 468. + +Chenier, Andre Marie de (1762-1794), poet, 402, 403. + +Chenier, Marie Joseph (1764-1811), poet, critic, and journalist, 401, 403, +519. + +Cherbuliez, V. (b. 1832), novelist, 562. + +_Chetifs_, 20. + +_Cheval de Fust_, 93. + +_Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche, la_, 20. + +_Chevalier a la Charrette_, extract from, 40, 41. + +_Chevalier as Deux Espees_, 97. + +_Chevalier au Cygne_, 20. + +_Chevalier au Lyon_, 37, 38. + +Chivalry, spirit of, 29, 38. + +Cholieres, Sieur de (16th cent.), 194. + +Chrestien de Troyes (d. c. 1195), trouvere, 37, 38, 39, 40. + +Chrestien, Florent (1541-1596), translator and political writer, 260. + +_Christ, Passion du_, 112. + +_Chronique de du Guesclin_, 75. + +_Chronique de Messire Jacque de Lalaing_, 148. + +_Chronique des Quatre Premiers Valois_, 131. + +_Chronique de Rains_, 130. + +_Chronique du Regne de Charles IX_, 537. + +_Chronique scandaleuse_ of Jean de Troyes, 136. + +_Chroniques_ of Froissart, 132. + +_Chroniques Grandes et Inestimables, du Grant et Enorme Geant +Gargantua_, 185. + +_Chroniques_ of Jean Lebel, 131, 132, 133. + +_Chute d'un Ange_, 514. + +_Cinna_, 207. + +_Cinq Mars_, 544. + +Clari, Robert de (12th cent.), chronicler, 130. + +Claude, Jean (1619-1687), theologian, 379. + +Claveret (17th cent.), dramatist, 293. + +_Clelie_, 321. + +_Cleomades_, 93. + extract from, 94. + +_Cleopatre_, drama, 219, 221, 224, 226. + +_Cleopatre_, novel, 307, 321. + +_Cleveland_, 422. + +_Cliges_, 38. + +_Clitandre_, 295, 297. + +Codes and Legal Treatises, 144. + +Colle, Charles (1709-1783), poet, dramatist, and memoir-writer, 404. + +Collerye, Roger de (16th cent.), 170, 171. + +Colletet, G. (1598-1659), poet, 278. + +Collin d'Harleville, J. F. (1755-1806), comic poet and dramatist, 414. + +_Combat des Trente_, 75. + +_Comedie des Academistes_, 405. + +_Comedie des Chansons_, 308. + +_Comedie des Comediens_, 308. + +_Comedie des Comedies_, 308. + +_Comedie des Proverbes_, 308. + +Comedie Italienne, 406. + +Comedie Larmoyante, 411. + +Comines, Philippe de (_c._ 1447-1511), memoir-writer, 159, 160. + +Commedia dell' arte, 308. + +Commedia erudita, 308. + +_Compere Mathieu_, 428. + +Comte, A. (1796-1851), philosopher, 568. + +_Comtesse de Ponthieu_, 147. + +_Condamnation de Banquet_, 121, 219. + +Conde, B. and J. de (14th cent.), trouveres, 78. + +Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de (1715-1780), philosopher, 495. + +Condorcet, Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat (1743-1794), economist and +philosopher, 491. + +_Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle_, 541. + +_Confession du Vicaire Savoyard_, 487. + +_Confessions_, 425, 485, 486, 487, 488. + +Confrerie de la Passion (licensed, 1402), 122. + +_Conjuration de Fiesque_, 334, 340. + +_Conjuration des Espagnols contre Venise_, 335. + +_Conquete de Constantinople_, 128, 129, 131. + +_Conspiration de Walstein_, 334. + +Constant, Benjamin (1767-1830), politician and novelist, 432, 435, 487. + +_Consuelo_, 534. + +_Contes Drolatiques_, 533, 537. + +_Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie_, 540. + +_Contes d'Eutrapel_, 193. + +_Contes et Joyeux Devis_, 192, 193. + +_Contes_ of La Fontaine, 281, 282, 283, 284. + +_Contrat Social_, 486, 487. + +_Contreditz du Songecreux_, 170. + +_Contre-un_, 249. + +_Conversation du Pere Canaye_, 361. + +Coppee, F. (b. 1842), poet, 551. + +Coq-a-l'Ane, 174, 177, 198. + +Coquillart, Guillaume (?1421-1510), poet, 162, 164. + +Coran, Ch. (b. 1814), poet, 550. + +_Corinne_, 432, 433. + +Corneille, Pierre (1606-1684), poet and dramatist, 295-301. + +Corneille, Thomas (1625-1706), dramatist, 306, 316. + +Corrozet, Gilles (1510-1568), poet and fabulist, 178. + +Cottin, Madame (1773-1807), novelist, 434, 435. + +Coucy, Chatelain de (13th cent.), poet, 68. + +---- Mathieu de (15th cent.), chronicler, 135. + +Courier, Paul Louis (1772-1825), translator and political pamphleteer, 469, +510. + +_Couronnement Loys_, 19. + +Cousin, Victor (1792-1868), philosopher, 516. + +Couvin, Watriquet de (14th cent.), trouvere, 78. + +Crebillon the Elder, C. Jolyot de (1674-1763), dramatist, 407, 408. + +Crebillon the Younger, C. P. Jolyot de (1707-1778), novelist, 426. + +Cretin, Guillaume (d. 1525), poet, 165, 172, 209, 270. + +_Crispin, Rival de son Maitre_, 410. + +_Cromwell_, 522. + +Cuvier, G. C. (1769-1832), naturalist, 501. + +_Cygne, Chevalier au_, 20, 29, 99. + +_Cymbalum Mundi_, 190, 248. + + +Dacier, Madame (1654-1720), 367. + +_Dames Galantes_, 251. + +Dancourt, F. C. (1661-1725), dramatist, 317. + +Dangeau, Ph. de Courcillon, Marquis de (1638-1720), memoir-writer, 345. + +_Daniel_, 111. + +Daniel, Pere (1649-1728), historian, 334. + +_Daphnis et Chloe_, 233. + +Dassoucy, C. Coypeau (1605-1674), miscellanist, 324. + +Daubenton, Louis Jean Marie (1716-1800), naturalist, 500. + +Daudet, A. (b. 1840), novelist, 562. + +Daurat, Jean (c. 1507-1588), poet, 196, 198, 203, 206, 211. + +_Daurel et Beton_, 23 note 2. + +_Defense et Illustration de la Langue Francaise_, 198, 206. + +Deffand, Madame du (1697-1780), letter-writer, 445. + +Definition of Chansons de Geste, 11. + +_De l'Allemagne_, 432, 433. + +_De l'Amour_, 518. + +_De l'Eglise Gallicane_, 496. + +_De l'Esprit_, 493. + +_De l'Homme_, 493. + +Delavigne, Casimir (1793-1843), poet, and dramatist, 519. + +Delille, Jacques (1758-1813), poet, 400, 507. + +Denis Pyramus (13th cent.), poet, 96. + +_Depit Amoureux_, 309, 310. + +Desaugiers, M. A. M. (1772-1827), poet, 404. + +Descartes, Rene (1596-1650), philosopher, 368-374. + +Deschamps, Emile (1795-1871), and Antoni (1809-1869), poets, 543. + +Deschamps, Eustache (1328-1415), poet, 103, 104. + +Descort, 31. + +Desfontaines, P. F. Guizot (1685-1745), critic, 460, 461. + +Deshoulieres, Madame (1638-1694), poetess, 288. + +Desmahis, J. F. E. (1722-1761), dramatist, 413. + +Desorgues, J. T. (1763-1808), poet, 401. + +Des Periers, B. (1500-1544), tale-teller, 190, 191. + +Desportes, Philippe (1546-1606), poet, 214. + +Destouches, P. H. (1680-1754), dramatist, 411. + +_Deux Bordeors Ribaux_, 50. + +_Devin du Village_, 413. + +_Diable Amoureux_, 426. + +_Diable Boiteux_, 417, 418. + +Dialects, 6, 141. + +---- and Provincial Literatures, 6. + +_Dictionnaire de Trevoux_, 325. + +Diderot, Denis (1713-1784), encyclopaedist, 411, 424, 449, 462, 481, 482. + +_Discours de la Methode_, 370, 372, 373. + +Dits and Debats, 50, 77, 78, 104, 115, 117, 118. + +_Dive Bouteille_, 187, 189. + +Dolet, Etienne (1509-1544), poet, translator, and printer, 178, 234, 270. + +_Dolopathos_, 52, 96. + +_Doon de Mayence_, 21. + +Dorat, C. J. (1734-1780), poet, 404. + +Doublet, Jean (16th cent.), poet, 209. + +Dovalle, Ch. (1807-1829), poet, 546. + +Droz, G. (b. 1832), novelist, 559. + +Dubos, Jean Baptiste (1670-1742), historian, 438. + +Du Cange, _see_ Dufresne. + +Ducis, J. F. (1733-1816), poet and dramatist, 409. + +Duclos, Charles Pinaud (1704-1772), historian and moralist, 423, 442, 457. + +Dufresne, Charles (Du Cange) (1614-1688), historian, scholar, 353. + +Dufresny, Charles Riviere (1648-1724), dramatist, 315, 316, 317, 476. + +Duguay-Trouin, Rene (1673-1736), memoir-writer, 345. + +Dulaurens, Henri Joseph (1719-1797), satirist and novelist, 428. + +Dumas the Elder, Alexandre (1806-1870), dramatist and novelist, 530, + 535, 542. + +Dumas the Younger, Alexandre (b. 1824), dramatist and novelist, 554. + +Dupanloup, F. A. P. (1802-1878), theologian, 570. + +_Du Pape_, 496. + +Du Perron, Cardinal (1556-1618), poet and controversialist, 276. + +Duplessis-Mornay (1549-1623), controversialist, 231, 249. + +Dupont, P. (1821-1870), poet, 550. + +Durant, G. (1550-1615), poet, 260. + +Duras, Madame de (1778-1829), novelist, 434. + +D'Urfe, Honore (1567-1725), novelist, 319. + +_Durmart le Gallois_, 97. + +Du Ryer, Pierre (1605-1658), dramatist, 293. + + +Eastern stories in Early French literature, 52. + +_Ecole des Femmes_, 311. + +_Ecole des Maris_, 311. + +_Emaux et Camees_, 539. + +_Emile_, 425, 486. + +Encyclopaedia, 480. + +_Enfances Godefroy_, 20. + +_Enfances Ogier_, 93. + +_Enfants sans Souci_, 123. + +'Enjambement,' 523. + +Epinay, Madame d' (1725-1783), memoir-writer, 443. + +Erckmann-Chatrian, novelists, 557. + +_Erec et Enide_, 38. + +_Esprit des Lois_, 476, 477. + +'Esprit Gaulois,' 48, 182, 263. + +_Esquisse des Progres de l'Esprit Humain_, 491. + +_Essais_ of Montaigne, 242, 243, 354, 365, 372. + +_Essai sur les Moeurs_, 439. + +_Essai sur les Regnes de Claude et de Neron_, 441, 482. + +_Essai sur l'Indifference en Matiere de Religion_, 514. + +_Essai sur l'Origine des Connoissances Humaines_, 495. + +Essayists, historical, 336. + +Estienne, Henri (1528-1598), scholar, 166, 194, 237. + +Estrees, F. A. d' (17th cent.), memoir-writer, 337. + +_Estula_, 52. + +_Etourdi_, 309, 310. + +_Eugene_, 220, 221. + +_Eulalie, St., Song of_, 4, 62. + +_Expedition Nocturne_, 435. + + +_Fables_ of La Fontaine, 281, 282, 283, 327, 403. + +_Fabliau des Perdris_, extract from, 58, 59. + +Fabliaux, 6, 47-52, 148, 153, 502. + +Fabre d'Eglantine, P. F. N. (1755-1794), poet and dramatist, 414. + +_Facheux_, 311. + +Fagan, C. B. (1702-1755), dramatist, 412. + +Farce, 117, 216, 218. + +_Farce du Cuvier_, 119. + +_Farce de Folle Bobance_, 120. + +_Farce du Paste et de la Tarte_, 118. + +_Faron, St., Song of_, 3, 8. + +Fatrasie, 194, 198, 424. + +Fauchet, Claude (1530-1601), critic, 235. + +_Fauvel_, 57. + +_Femmes Savantes_, 313. + +Fenelon, F. de Salignac de la Mothe--(1661-1715), theologian, 383. + +Fenin, Pierre de (d. 1506), chronicler, 135. + +_Festin de Pierre_, 310, 311. + +_Feuilles de Grimm_, 462. + +Feuillet, O. (b. 1812), dramatist and novelist, 554, 558. + +Feydeau, E. (1821-1874), novelist, 559. + +_Fiancee du Roi de Garbe_, 283. + +_Fierabras_, 20, 21, 22. + +Fievee, Joseph (1767-1839), novelist, etc., 434. + +Fitzwarine, story of, 146. + +'Five Poets,' the, 278, 295. + +_Flamenca_, 30. + +Flaubert, G. (1821-1881), novelist, 560, 561. + +Flechier, Esprit (1632-1710), preacher, 388. + +Fleury, Abbe (1640-1723), historian, 334. + +_Flore et Blanchefleur_, 96. + +Florian, G. P. de (1755-1794), poet and fabulist, 403. + +_Folles Entreprises_, 217. + +Fontaine, Charles (1513-1587), poet, 178, 182. + +Fontaines, Madame de (d. 1730), novelist, 419. + +Fontanes, L. de (1757-1821), poet, 403, 468. + +Fontaney, A. C. (?-1837), poet and critic, 547, 548. + +Fontenay-Mareuil, F. Duval de (1595-1647), memoir-writer, 336. + +Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de (1657-1757), miscellaneous writer, 453. + +Forbin, C. de (1656-1733), memoir-writer, 345. + +_Fourberies de Scapin_, 313. + +_Franc Archier de Bagnolet_, 158. + +_Frere Lubin_, 177. + +Freron, Elie Catherine (1719-1776), journalist, 460, 474. + +Froissart, Jean (1337-1410), historian and poet, 103, 104, 132-135. + +Furetiere, Antoine (1620-1688), novelist and miscellaneous writer, 325. + + +Gaboriau, E. (1835-1873), novelist, 557. + +Gace Brule (13th cent.), poet, 69. + +_Galerie du Palais_, 297. + +Galiani, Abbe (1681-1753), economist and letter-writer, 450, 490. + +Gamon, Achille (16th cent.), memoir-writer, 257. + +Ganelon, 13, 14, 21. + +Garat, D. J. (1749-1833), journalist, etc., 464, 465. + +_Gargantua_, 185-187. + +_Garin le Loherain_, 20. + +Garnier, Robert (1545-c. 1601), dramatist, 224, 225. + +_Gaspard de la Nuit_, 548. + +Gassendi (1592-1655), Neo-Epicurean philosopher, 375. + +Gautier, Theophile (1811-1872), poet, critic, and novelist, 537, 542, 546. + +Gaymar, Geoffrey (b. 1149), chronicler, 76. + +Gazetteers, the rhyming, 289. + +_Genie du Christianisme_, 429, 431. + +Genlis, Madame de (1746-1830), novelist, 434, 443. + +Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th cent.), historian, 34 sqq. + +_Gerard de Roussillon_, 20. + +_Gerard de Viane_, 21. + +Gerson, Jean Charlier de (1363-1429), theologian, 142. + +Geruzez, E. (1799-1865), critic, 565. + +_Gesta Romanorum_, 52. + +Geste, Meaning of, 10 note 1. + +Gielee, Jacquemart (13th cent.), poet, 55. + +Gilbert, N. J. L. (1751-1780), poet, 401. + +_Gil Blas_, 411, 417, 418. + +Gillot, Jacques (16th cent.), political writer, 260. + +Ginguene, P. L. (1748-1816), critic, etc., 464. + +Girardin, Madame de (1804-1855), dramatist, 554. + +_Girartz de Rossilho_, 25, 28, 29. + +_Giron le Courtois_, 36, 39. + +Glatigny, A., poet, 551. + +_Globe_, 520. + +_Glorieux_, 411. + +Godeau, A. (1605-1672), poet, 278. + +Golden Violet, etc., 32, 33. + +Gombaud, J. Ogier de (1570-1666), poet, 276. + +Gomberville, Marin le Roy Seigneur de (1600-1647), poet and novelist, 278, +322. + +Gourville, Jean Herault de (d. 1703), memoir-writer, 343. + +Graal, the Holy, Chapter iv., _passim_. + +Grammont, Chevalier de (_see_ Hamilton). + +---- Marechal de, and his family, literary work of, 344. + +_Grandes Chroniques de France_, 128, 130, 131. + +_Grand Cyrus_, 321. + +_Grandeur et Decadence des Romains_, 476. + +_Grands Capitaines_, 250. + +_Grands Jours d'Auvergne_, 389. + +Gratien du Pont (16th cent.), poet, 172. + +_Great St. Graal_, 35. + +Greban, Arnoul and Simon (15th cent.), dramatists, 115. + +Gresset, J. B. L. (1709-1777), poet and dramatist, 399, 412. + +Grevin, J. (1540-1570), dramatist and poet, 210, 223. + +Grimm, F. M. (1723-1807), miscellanist, 445. + +Gringore, Pierre (1478-1544), poet and dramatist, 169, 216, 217. + +_Grondeur_, 317. + +Guenee, Antoine (1717-1803), controversialist, 460, 474. + +Guiart, Guillaume (13th cent.), chronicler, 76. + +_Guillaume de Palerne_, 96. + +Guise, Francois, Duke of (1519-1563), memoir-writer, 257. + +---- Henri, Duke of (1614-1663), memoir-writer, 344. + +Guizot, F. P. G. (1787-1874), historian, &c., 573. + +Guttinguer, U. (1785-1866), poet, 543. + +Guyot de Provins, trouvere, 78. + +---- or Kyot, author of Provencal _Percevale_, trouvere, 30. + + +Habert, Francois (1520-1562 or 1574), poet, 178. + +---- Philippe (1605-1637), poet, 178. + +Haillan, du (1537-1610), historian, 258. + +Halevy, L. (b. 1834), dramatist and novelist, 555. + +Hamilton, Anthony (1640-1720), poet and tale-teller, 288, 328. + +_Han d'Islande_, 521. + +Hardy, Alexandre (1560-1631), dramatist, 292. + +Helgaire, Bp., 3 note 2. + +Helvetius, Claude Adrien (1715-1771), philosopher, 493. + +Henault, E. J. F., President (1685-1770), lawyer, &c., 443. + +_Henriade_, 396, 398, 399. + +Henri de Valenciennes (12th cent.), chronicler, 129. + +_Heptameron_, 191, 192. + +_Heraclius_, 298. + +Herberay des Essarts, Nicolas (d. 1550), translator, 237. + +_Hernani_, 522. + +Heroet, Antoine (d. 1568), poet, 179. + +_Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules_, 345. + +_Histoire Ancienne_, 438. + +_Histoire Comique de Francion_, 324, 325. + +_Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne_, 441. + +_Histoire de Port Royal_, 528. + +_Histoire Litteraire de la France_, 502. + +_Histoire des Indes_, 440. + +_Histoire des Oracles_, 454. + +_Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes_, 381. + +_Historia Britonum_, 34. + +_Historiettes_ of Tallemant des Reaux, 391. + +Holbach, P. H. Thiry Baron d' (1723-1789), _philosophe_, 494, 501. + +_Horace_, 297. + +_Housse Partie_, 51. + +Hugo, Victor Marie (1802-1885), poet, novelist, and dramatist, 521-527. + +_Hugues Capet_, 21. + +Hugues de Rotelande, trouvere, 46. + +_Huon de Bordeaux_, 19, 21. + +Huon de Mery (13th cent.), trouvere, 95. + + +_Iambes_ (Barbier), 545. + +_Iambes_ (Chenier), 403. + +_Illusion comique_, 295, 297. + +_Impromptu de Versailles_, 311. + +_Ines de Castro_, 406. + +_Institution Chretienne_, 230. + +_Iphigenie_, 303. + +_Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem_, 430, 431. + + +_Jacques de Lalaing_, 148. + +_Jacques le Fataliste_, 424, 428. + +_Jalousie du Barbouille_, 310, 312. + +Jamyn, Amadis (1530-1585), poet, 204, 209, 214. + +Janin, J. (1804-1874), novelist and critic, 557. + +_Jargon_, 157. + +_Jaufre_, 30. + +Jean de Tuim (13th cent.), trouvere, 146. + +Jeannin, Pierre (1546-1622), diplomatist, 256. + +_Jehan de Paris_, 103 note. + +_Jeu du Prince des Sots et de Mere Sotte_, 121, 216. + +Jeu parti, 66. + +_Joconde_, 283. + +Jodelle, Etienne (1532-1573), dramatist and poet, 219, 220. + +Joinville, Jean de (1224-1319), chronicler, 130, 131. + example from, 137. + +Joly, Claude (1607-1700), and Guy. (17th cent.), memoir-writers, 340. + +_Jonah, Book of_, 4. + +Joubert, Joseph (1754-1824), _pensee_-writer, 467-469. + +_Joufrois de Poitiers_, 98. + +_Jourdains de Blaivies_, 19, 21. + +_Juives_, 225. + +_Julie_, 486. + +_Jus de la Feuillie_, 115. + +Juvenal des Ursins, Jean (1350-1431), chronicler, 135, 136. + + +Karr, A. (b. 1801), novelist and journalist, 557. + +Kruedener, Madame de (1764-1824), novelist, 434. + + +Labe, Louise (1526-1566), poetess, 178, 179, 208, 288, 543. + +Labiche, E. (b. 1815), dramatist, 554. + +La Boetie, Etienne de (1530-1563), poet, &c., 209, 242, 249. + +La Borderie (16th cent.), poet, 179. + +La Bruyere, Jean de (1645-1696), novelist, 364-367. + +La Calprenede, Gauthier de Coste, Seigneur de (1610-1653), novelist, 321. + +La Chatre, E. de (17th cent.), memoir-writer, 339, 343. + +La Chaussee, Nivelle de (1692-1754), dramatist, 411, 415. + +La Condamine, C. M. de (1701-1774), scientific writer, 501. + +Lacordaire, J. B. H. (1802-1861), journalist and preacher, 569. + +Lacretelle, C. J. D. (1766-1855), historian, 464, 465. + +La Fare, Marquis de (1644-1712), poet, 288. + +La Fayette, Madame de (1634-1693), novelist, 322, 325-328, 362, 419. + +La Fontaine, Jean (1631-1697), poet and dramatist, 280-284. + +Lafosse, A. de (1653-1708), dramatist, 307. + +Lagrange-Chancel, F. J. de (1677-1758), poet, 397. + +La Harpe, J. F. de (1739-1803), dramatist and critic, 459, 465, 468. + +Lais, 6, 73, 100. + +_La Jacquerie_, 537. + +_La Legende des Siecles_, 524, 525. + +La Marche, O. de la (15th cent.), chronicler, 134. + +Lamartine, Alphonse Prat de (1791-1869), poet, historian, and + novelist, 513. + +Lambert (_li Cors_), 12th cent., trouvere, 43. + +Lamennais, Felicite Robert de (1782-1854), theologian and journalist, 514. + +La Mettrie, J. O. de (1709-1757), philosopher, 492. + +_La Morte Amoureuse_, 539. + +La Mothe le Vayer, F. de (1588-1672), moralist, &c., 375. + +La Motte, Antoine Houdart de (1672-1731), dramatist and critic, 455, 457. + +_Lancelot du Lac_, 36, 38, 39, 40. + +Lanfrey, P. (1828-1877), historian, 578. + +Langue d'Oc, 26, 27. + +Langue d'Oil, 26. + +_L'Annee Terrible_, 525. + +La Noue, F. de (1651-1691), memoir-writer, 253. + +---- J. B. Sauve (1701-1761) dramatist, 413. + +_La Nouvelle Heloise_, 425, 488. + +La Peruse, Jean de (16th cent.), poet, 209. + +Lapidaries, 145. + +Laprade, V. de (1812-1887), poet, 547. + +_La Princesse de Cleves_, 326. + +Larivey, Pierre (b. _c._ 1540), comic author, 226. + +La Rochefoucauld, Francois de Marcillac, Duke de (1613-1680), moralist and +memoir-writer, 326, 327, 362-364. + +La Salle, A. de (1398-1460?), romance-writer, 146-148, 152, 156. + +La Taille, Jacques de (1541-1562), poet and dramatist, 210, 223. + +La Taille, Jean de (1540-1608), poet and dramatist, 210, 223, 226. + +Latin to French, relation of, 1-3. + +Latin Literature, influence of, on Early French, 2. + +La Tour Landry, Chevalier de (14th cent.), moralist, 142, 143. + +_L'Avare_, 312. + +_Laws of William the Conqueror_, 144. + +League, preachers of the, 232. + +_Le Bel Inconnu_, 97. + +Lebel, Jean (14th cent.), chronicler, 131, 132. + +Lebrun, Escouchard (1729-1807), poet, 400-401. + +_Le Capitaine Fracasse_, 539. + +_Le Cid_, 505. + +Leconte de Lisle, C. M. R. (b. 1818), poet, 549. + +_L'Ecossaise,_ 291, 461. + +_Leger, St., Life of_, 4, 6. + +_Legislation Primitive_, 408. + +Legouve, G. M. J. G. (1764-1812), poet and dramatist, 409. + +---- Ernest (b. 1807), dramatist, 554. + +Le Houx, Jean (d. 1616), poet, 280. + +_Le Lepreux de la Cite d'Aoste_, 434. + +_L'Empereur Constant_, 147. + +_Le Roi Flore et la belle Jehanne_, 147. + +Le Maire de Belges, J. (1475-1548), poet and historian, 169, 235. + +Lemercier, N. (1771-1840), poet and dramatist, 403, 409, 414. + +Lemierre, A. M. (1723-1793), poet, 399. + +Lenient, C. F. (b. 1826), critic, 565. + +Leroy, Pierre (16th cent.), political writer, 260. + +Lesage, Alain Rene (1668-1747), novelist and dramatist, 409, 414, 417, 418. + +_Les Chatiments_, 524, 538. + +_Les Contemplations_, 524. + +_Les Contemporaines_, 428. + +Lescurel, Jehannot de (14th cent.), poet, 102, 104. + ballade from, 106. + +_Les Miserables_, 524. + +_Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit_, 525. + +Lespinasse, Mademoiselle de (1732-1776), letter-writer, 446. + +_Les Saisnes_, 21. + +L'Estoile, Pierre de (16th cent.), memoir-writer, 255. + +_Lettres de Quelques Juifs_, 460. + +_Lettres du Sepulcre_, 144. + +_Lettres Persanes_, 475, 476. + +Le Vavasseur, L. G. (b. 1819), poet and critic, 550. + +_L'Homme-Machine_, 493. + +_L'Homme qui Rit_, 524. + +L'Hospital, Michel de (1505-1573), 249. + +_Liber de Creaturis_, 79. + +Lingua romana rustica, 2, 140. + +L'Isle, C. J. Rouget de (1760-1836), poet, 405. + +Literature proper, beginning of, 7. + +Littre, E. (1801-1881), positivist and philologist, 567, 568. + +_Livre des Cent Ballades_, 106. + +_Livre des faits du Marechal de Bouciqualt_, 135. + +_Livres de raison_, 145. + +Loret, J. (d. 1665), poet and gazetteer, 289. + +Lorris, William of (13th cent.), trouvere, 82, 87. + +_Lutrin_, 285, 286. + +Lyrics, origins of, 62. + + +Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de (1709-1785), historian and publicist, 440. + +_Macaire_, 21. + +_Macette_, 268. + +Machault, Guillaume de (_c._ 1284-1377), poet, 102-104. + Chanson Balladee from, 107. + +Mademoiselle, La Grande, _see_ Montpensier. + +Magny, Olivier de (d. 1560), poet, 207, 208. + +_Mahomet_, 408. + +Maillard, Olivier (1440-1502), preacher, 166. + +Maimbourg, L. (1610-1688), historian, 333. + +Maintenon, Madame de (1635-1719), letter-writer, 323. + +Mairet, Jean (1604-1686), dramatist, 293. + +Maistre, Joseph Marie de (1753-1821), philosopher and political + writer, 496. + +Maistre, Xavier de (1763-1852), novelist, 434. + +_Malade Imaginaire_, 313, 315. + +Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715), philosopher, 377. + +Malfilatre, J. C. L. de Clinchamp, (1733-1767), poet, 401. + +Malherbe, Francois de (1555-1628), poet, 274-276. + school of, 276. + +_Manekine_, 97. + +_Manon Lescaut_, 416, 422. + +_Mantel Mautaillie_, 51. + +Map, Walter (12th cent.), prose romancer, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 127. + +Maquet, A. (1813-1888) dramatist and novelist, 548. + +Marguerite d'Angouleme, Queen of Navarre (1422-1549), poetess and + tale-teller, 190, 191. + +Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre and France (1553-1615), + memoir-writer, 254. + +_Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses_, 178, 192. + +_Mariage de Figaro_, 413. + +_Mariamne_, 292, 293. + +_Marianne_, 420, 423. + +Marie de France (13th cent.), poetess, 55, 60, 61, 73. + +Marigny, J. Carpentier de (17th cent.), poet, 278. + +Marillac, M. de (1573-1632), memoir-writer, 336. + +'Marivaudage,' 412, 420, 435, 453. + +Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de (1688-1763), novelist and dramatist, 412, + 419, 421, 423. + +Marmontel, Jean Francois (1723-1799), dramatist, critic, etc., 413, + 427, 458, 468. + +Marot, Clement (_c._ 1497-1544), poet, 172-177, 209, 269. + school of, 177, 180. + +Marot, Jean (1463-1523), poet, 165. + +Martial d'Auvergne (_c._ 1420-1508), poet, 163. + +Martin, H. (1810-1887), historian, 578. + +Mascaron, Jean (1634-1703), preacher, 389. + +Massillon, Jean Baptiste (1663-1742), preacher, 386, 388. + +Maucroix, F. de (1619-1708), poet, 278. + +Maupassant, G. de, poet and novelist, 552. + +Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de (1698-1759), mathematician and + physicist, 501. + +Maynard, Jean (1582-1646), poet, 276. + +_Mazarinades_, 323, 333, 351. + +_Medecin malgre lui_, 312. + +_Medecin Volant_, 310. + +_Medee_, 295, 297. + +_Meditations_ (Descartes), 370. + +_Meditations_ (Lamartine), 513, 520. + +_Melite_, 295, 297. + +_Memoires de Grammont_, 328. + +_Memoires d'Outre Tombe_, 430. + +Menage, G. de (1613-1692), scholar, 349, 367 note. + +_Menippee, Satyre_, 259-264, 271, 358. + +Menot, Michel (1440-1518), preacher, 166. + +_Menteur_, 297, 299, 308. + +_Menteur, Suite du_, 297. + +Meon, Dominique Martin (1748-1829), scholar, 502. + +_Meraugis de Portlesguez_, 82, 95. + +_Mercure Galant_, 316. + +_Mercuriales_ (D'Aguesseau), 457. + +Merimee, Prosper (1803-1870), novelist, historian, and miscellaneous + writer, 435, 536, 542. + +_Merlin_, 36. + +_Merope_, 408. + +Mery, J. (1798-1866), poet and novelist, 546. + +Meschinot, Jean (1415 or 1420-1491 or 1509), poet, 165. + +_Messeniennes_, 519. + +_Metromanie_, 404, 411. + +Meung, Jean de (13th cent.), political writer and poet, 83, 84, 86, 104. + +Mezeray, Francois Eudes de (1610-1683), historian, 333, 334. + +Michel, Francisque (1809-1888), scholar, 13. + +Michel, Jean (d. 1495), mystery-writer, 112. + +Michelet, Jules (1798-1874), historian, etc., 575. + +_Micromegas_, 423. + +_Mignardises Amoureuses de l'Admiree_, 208. + +Mignet, F. (b. 1796), historian, 574, 575. + +Millevoye, C. (1782-1816), poet, 543. + +_Miracles de la Vierge_, 111, 114. + +_Misanthrope_, 310, 312, 318. + +_Moise Sauve_, 279. + +Moliere, J. B. Poquelin (1622-1673), dramatist, 309-315. + his comedy, 318. + +Molinet, Jehan (d. 1507), poet and chronicler, 165, 169. + +_Moniage Guillaume_, 19. + +Monnier, H. (1799-1877), novelist and miscellaneous writer, 566. + +_Monologue_, 116. + +_Monologue du Gendarme Casse_, 163. + +Monselet, C. (1829-1888), miscellaneous writer, 566. + +Monstrelet, Enguerrand de (_c._ 1390-1453), chronicler, 134. + +Montaigne, Michel Eyquem, Sieur de (1533-1592), 241-248. + +Montalembert, C. F. de (1810-1870), historian and political writer, 569. + +Montchrestien, Antoine de (d. 1621), dramatist, 291. + +Montegut, E. (b. 1826), critic, 564. + +Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de (1689-1755), political + philosopher, 475-478. + +Montfleury, A. J. (1640-1685), actor and dramatist, 315. + +Montluc, Blaise de (1502-1577), memoir-writer, 252. + +Montpensier, A. M. L. de (La Grande Mademoiselle), (1627-1693), + memoir-writer, 341. + +Monuments, Early, 3-6. + +_Moralite des Enfans de Maintenant_, 120. + +Moralities, 120, 216, 217, 218. + +Moreau, Hegesippe (1810-1838), poet, 546. + +Morellet, Andre F. (1727-1819), critic and economist, 490. + +_Mort Artus_, 36, 39. + +_Mort de Pompee_, 297. + +Motteville, Madame de (1612-1689), memoir-writer, 338. + +Mouskes, Philippe (1215-1283), chronicler, 76. + +_Moyen de Parvenir_, 194. + +Mummolinus, St., bishop of Noyon, 3, 140. + +_Mundus, caro, daemonia_, 121, 218. + +Murger, H. (1822-1861), novelist, 559. + +Muset, Colin (13th cent.), trouvere, 69. + +Musset, Alfred de (1810-1857), poet, novelist, and dramatist, 534, 540, + 541, 545. + +MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS, 110-113, 153, 216, 218. + +_Mystere de Saint Louis_, 216, 217. + +_Mystere du Viel Testament_, 112, 113. + +_Mystery of Adam_, 111. + + +Nadaud, G. (b. 1820), poet, 550. + +Naimes, Duke, 13, 22. + +Nangis, Guillaume de (b. 1302), historian, 130. + +_Nanine_, 413. + +Naturalism and naturalists, 161. + +Nemours, Marie de (1625-1707), memoir-writer, 338. + +Nennius, (9th cent.), chronicler, 34, 35. + +Nerval, Gerard de (1805-1857), poet and novelist, 537, 545. + +_Neveu de Rameau_, 425. + +Newspapers, 463-465. + +Newspapers of the Revolution, 463. + +Nicholas of Troyes (16th cent.), novelist, 189. + +Nicole, P. (1625-1695), 351, 374. + +_Nicomede_, 298. + +Nisard, D. (1806-1888), critic, 565. + +_Nobla Leyczon_, 32. + +Nodier, Charles (1780-1844), miscellaneous writer, 518. + +Noel du Fail (1520-1591), tale-teller, 193. + +_Norma_, 519. + +_Notre Dame de Paris_, 522. + +_Nouvelles Recreations et Joyeux Devis_, 191. + + +_Obermann_, 471. + +_Odes et Ballades_, 521. + +_Oedipe_ (Corneille), 296, 298. + (Voltaire), 398, 406, 408. + +_Oisivetes de M. de Vauban_, 489. + +Old French Literature, revival of study of, 565, 566. + +_Oraisons Funebres_, 389. + +Oresme, Nicholas (1348-1382), translator, 143. + +_Orientales_, 521, 528. + +ORIGINS, The, 1-10. + of Chansons de Gestes, 11. + +Orleans, Charles d' (1391-1465), poet, 101, 105. + rondel from, 109. + +Ossat, Cardinal d' (1536-1604), letter-writer, 255, 256. + +Ozanam, F. (1813-1853), critic and historian, 569. + + +Pailleron, E. (b. 1834), dramatist, 555. + +Palaprat, Jean (1650-1721), dramatic author, 347. + +Palissot de Montenoy, Charles (1730-1814), dramatist and critic, 461. + +Palissy, Bernard (_c._ 1510-1589), potter and scientific writer, 238. + +Palma-Cayet, P. V. (1525-1610), historian, 255. + +Panard, C. F. (1694-1765), poet, 404. + +_Panhypocrisiade_, 403. + +_Pantagruel_, 185, 186, 193, 195, 235, 263, 319. + +_Pantagrueline Prognostication_, 187. + +Pare, Amboise (_c._ 1510-1590), surgeon, 239. + +Paris, Paulin (1800-1881), literary historian, 7, 25, 34. + +---- Gaston (b. 1839), literary historian, 566. + +Parmentier, Jean (1494-1530), poet, 172. + +_Parnasse_, the, and _Parnassien_ School, 551, 552. + +Parny, Evariste de (1753-1814), poet, 401. + +_Paroles d'un Croyant_, 515. + +_Partenopex de Blois_, 96. + +Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662), moralist, 356-360. + +Pasquier, Etienne (1529-1665), legist and antiquary, 236, 238. + +Passerat, Jean (1534-1662), poet, 210, 260, 263. + +_Passion_, Poem on the, 4-5. + mystery of the, 112, 123. + +Pastourelle, 64, 65, 67, 100, 115. + specimen of, 65. + +_Pathelin_, 117, 125, 148. + +Patru, O. (1604-1681), lawyer, &c., 367 note. + +_Paul et Virginie_, 427. + +Paulmy, A. R. de Voyer d'Argenson, Marquis de (1722-1787), historian and +bibliographer, 502. + +Pavillon, E. (1632-1705), poet, 279. + +_Peau de Chagrin_, 532, 533. + +_Pedant Joue_, 308, 324. + +Pellisson, P. (1624-1693), historian, 334. + +_Pensees_ (Joubert), 468. + +_Pensees_ (Pascal), 357, 359, 374. + +_Perceforest_, 147. + +_Percevale_, 36, 39, 92, 95. + +Perefixe, de Beaumont de (1605-1671), historian, 333. + +Period of Composition of Chansons de Gestes, 12. + +Perrault, Charles (1628-1703), fairy-tale-writer, 328. + +Perrot d'Ablancourt (1606-1664), translator, 367 note. + +_Pertharite_, 298. + +Petit, Jean (1360-1411), theologian and publicist, 141, 148. + +_Petit Jean de Saintre_, 148, 149. + +Peyrat, N. ('Napol le Pyreneen'), poet, 548. + +_Phedre_, 303, 306. + +Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beaumanoir (13th cent.), poet and + jurisconsult, 97, 145. + +PHILOSOPHE MOVEMENT, Bk. iv. Ch. ii.-vi. _passim_. + +'Philosophe,' 17th-cent. meaning of the word, 375 note. + +Pibrac, Guy de Faur de (1529-1584), poet, 210. + +Pierre de Saint Cloud (13th cent.), trouvere, 53. + +Pigault Lebrun (1753-1835), novelist and dramatist, 434. + +Piron, J. (1690-1773), poet and dramatist, 404, 405, 410, 411. + +Pisan, Christine de (1363-1420), poetess, 86, 102, 104, 105, 135, 144. + +Pithou, P. (1539-1596), lawyer and satirist, 260, 262. + +Pixerecourt, R. C. G. de (1773-1844), dramatist, 552. + +_Plaideurs_, 303. + +Planche, G. (1808-1857), critic, 565. + +Planh, 31. + +PLEIADE, the, 175, 176, 196, 221, 236, 245, 254, 265, 272, 275, +277, 278, 292, 304, 371, 392. + +Political economists, 489. + +'Politiques,' 260, 262. + +Polo, Marco (1256-1323), Venetian traveller, 145. + +Polonius, Jean (Labenski) (1790-1855), poet, 543. + +_Polyeucte_, 297, 300. + +Pompignan, le Franc de (1709-1784), poet, 399, 408. + +Ponsard, F. (1824-1867), dramatist, 553. + +Pontalais, Jean du (15th cent.), poet, 170. + +Pontchartrain, P. Phelypeaux de (1566-1621), memoir-writer, 336. + +Pontis, L. de (b. 1583), memoir-writer, 337. + +Port Royal, 374. + +Pradon, N. (1632-1698), dramatist, 307. + +_Precieuses Ridicules_, 309, 310, 313, 315, 320. + +Presles, Raoul de (1314-1383), translator, 143, 144. + +Prevost, Abbe (1697-1763), novelist, 421, 423, 452. + +_Prise d'Alexandrie_, 102. + +_Prise d'Orange_, 19. + +'Prophets' (the) of Christ, 110. + +_Propos Rustiques_, 193. + +Prose, general use of, 140. + +PROVENCAL LITERATURE, 26-33. + range and characteristics of, 27, 63. + periods of, 28; + First, 28, + Second, 29, + Third, 31. + +Provencal to French, relation of, 32. + +_Provinciales_, 357, 358, 374. + +Prudhomme, Sully, poet, 551. + +_Psyche_ (romance), 313. + +_Psyche_ (opera), 298. + +_Pucelle_, Chapelain's, 279. + +---- Voltaire's, 399. + +_Pulcherie_, 298. + +_Pyrame et Thisbe_, 293. + +Pyramus, Denis, 96. + + +_Quatre Fils Aymon_, 21. + +Quesnay, Francois (1694-1774), surgeon and economist, 489. + +Quesnes de Bethune (d. 1224), trouvere, 67, 68. + +_Quest of the Saint Graal_, 36, 39, 92. + +Quinault (1638-1688), dramatist, 307, 315. + +Quinet, E. (1803-1875), historian, etc., 576. + +_Quinze Joyes du Mariage_, 148. + + +Rabelais, Francois (1495-1553), 184-190, 235, 239, 241. + his followers, 153, 154, 155. + +Rabutin, Francois de (d. 1852), memoir-writer, 257. + +Rabutin, R. de Bussy (1618-1693), memoir-writer, 345. + +Racan, Marquis de (1589-1670), poet, 276. + +Racine, Jean (1639-1699), dramatist, 301-306. + +---- Louis (1692-1763), poet, 397, 398. + +_Raoul de Cambrai_, 20, 23. + +Raoul de Houdenc (13th cent.), poet, 82, 95. + +Rapin, Nicolas (1535-1608), poet and miscellaneous writer, 210, 260, + 263, 267. + +---- de Thoyras, P. (1661-1725), historian, 334. + +_Rapports de Physique et de Morale_, 501. + +Raulin (1443-1514), preacher, 166. + +Raynal, G. I. F. (1713-1796), historian, 440. + +Reboul, Jean (1796-1864), poet, 544. + +_Recherche de la Verite_, 377. + +_Recherches de la France_, 236. + +Refrains, 65, 66. + +Regnard, Jean (1656-1710), dramatist, 316. + +Regnier, Mathurin (1573-1613), poet and satirist, 264-273. + +Reichenau, glossary of, 3. + +Relation of French to Latin, 1, 2. + +Remusat, Madame de (1780-1821), memoir and letter-writer, 444. + +---- Ch. A. de (1797-1875), philosophical and miscellaneous writer, + 567, 568. + +RENAISSANCE, the, Bk. ii. + French, 276, 307. + course and result of, 270, 273. + period of, 155, 156, 168, 196, 197, 307. + forerunners of, 156. + prose-writers of, 228. + French, as compared with Italian, 152, 307. + late disenchantment of, 241. + and Middle Ages, 155, 502. + +Renan, E. (b. 1823), historian and critic, 570-572. + +_Renart, Couronnement de_, 55. + +_Renart le Contrefait_, 56, 57. + +_Renart le Nouvel_, 55. + +_Renart, Ancien_, 51-53. + +_Renaut de Montauban_, 21. + +_Rene_, 431. + +_Repues Franches_, 157. + +Restif de La Bretonne, N. (1734-1806), novelist, 428. + +Retz, Cardinal de (1614-1679), memoir-writer, 334, 339, 340. + +Retroensa, 31. + +_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 548. + +Revolution, memoirs of the, 444. + +_Reynard the Fox_, 53-57. + +'Rhetoriqueurs,' 106, 164, 169. + +Riccoboni, Madame (1713-1792), novelist, 422. + +Richelieu, Alphonse Louis du Plessis (1585-1642), memoir-writer, 337. + and the Academy, 504, 505. + Duke de (1696-1788), memoir-writer(?), 443. + +Richepin, J., poet and novelist, 552. + +Rivarol, A. de (1750-1801), journalist and moralist, 466. + +Rivet de la Grange, Dom Antoine (1683-1649), Benedictine and savant, 502. + +Robert de Borron (12th. cent.), trouvere, 35, 36, 38, 39. + +Robertet, F. (d. 1522), letter-writer, 165. + +_Robin et Marion_, 115. + +_Rodogune_, 296, 297, 299, 300. + +Rohan, Henri de (1579-1638), memoir-writer, 336. + +_Roland, Chanson de_, 7, 8, 9, 12, 19, 22. + history, argument, &c., specimen of, 12-16. + +Rollin, Charles (1661-1741), historian, 437. + +_Roman Bourgeois_, 325. + +_Roman Comique_, 308. + +_Roman de Brut_, 55, 76. + +_Roman de Dolopathos_, 96. + +_Roman des Eles_, 82, 95. + +_Roman d'Eneas_, 46. + +_Roman de Jules Cesar_, 46, 146. + +_Roman de l'Escouffle_, 97. + +_Roman de la Poire_, 87. + +_Roman de la Rose_, 77, 82-87, 96, 104, 120, 153, 165, 173, 174, 268. + +_Roman de Rou_, 76. + +_Roman des Sept Sages_, 52, 146. + +_Roman de Thebes_, 46. + +_Roman du Chevalier as Deux Espees_, 97. + +_Roman du Renart_, 42, 52, 77, 502. + +_Romans d'Aventures_, 40, 91, 92, 93, 95, 97, 98, 237. + +Romana Lingua, 2, 3. + +Romance, Picaroon, 322. + +Romance Tongue, 3. + +Romances, Arthurian, 38. + +Romances, Heroic, 320. + +_Romanzen und Pastourellen_, 62, 66. + +Rondeau and Rondel, 101, 163, 165. + +Ronsard, Pierre de (1524-1585), poet, 197-202, 205, 206, 211, 260, 266, + 275, 277. + +_Rossilho, Girartz de_, 23, 24, 28, 29. + +Rotrou, Jean de (1609-1660), dramatist, 293, 295, 300. + +Roucher, J. F. (1745-1794), poet, 400. + +Rousseau, Jean Baptiste (1669-1741), poet, 396, 400, 413, 507. + +Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), novelist and _philosophe_, 425, 431, + 433, 484-488. + +Rulhiere, C. C. de (1735-1791), historian, &c., 436, 440. + +Rusticien of Pisa, 145. + +Ruteboeuf (b. 1230), trouvere, 69, 71, 72, 78, 111. + + +Sagon, Francois (16th cent.), poet, 177. + +Saint-Aldegonde, Marnix de (16th cent.), polemical writer, 231. + +Saint-Amant, M. A. de (1594-1661), poet, 279. + +Saint-Bernard, sermons of, 141. + +Saint-Evremond, Charles de Marguetel de St. Denis, Seigneur de + (1610-1703), moralist and critic, 334-343, 354, 375, 376, 504. + +Saint-Gelais, O. de (1466-1502), poet, 165,180. + Mellin de (1491-1558), poet, 180. + +_Saint-Guillaume du Desert_, Miracle Play of, 113, 114. + +Saint-Lambert (1717-1803), poet, 399, 507. + +_Saint-Louis_, 279. + +Saint-Marc Girardin (1801-1873), critic, 565. + +Saint-Pavin, S. de (1600-1670), poet, 280. + +Saint-Pierre, C. F. Castel, Abbe de (1658-1743), political writer, 489. + +Saint-Pierre, J. H. Bernardin de (1737-1814), novelist, 427, 514. + +Saint-Real, Cesar Vichard, Abbe de (1631-1692), historian, 335. + +Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de (1675-1755), memoir-writer, + 345-348. + +Saint-Victor, P. de (1827-1882), critic, 563. + +Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin (1804-1869), critic, 201, 435, 464, 520, +527-529, 541, 543. + +Sainte-Palaye, La Curne de (1697-1781), philologist, 502. + +_Saisnes_, 21. + +Salel, Hugues (_c._ 1504-1553) poet and translator, 178, 210, 235. + +Sales, Francois de (1567-1635), devotional writer, 379. + +Saliat, Pierre (16th cent.), translator, 234. + +Salut d'Amour, 66. + +Sand, George (A. L. A. Dupin, Madame Dudevant, 1804-1876), novelist, + 471, 534, 542. + +Sandeau, J. (1811-1883), novelist and dramatist, 557, 558. + +Sarcey, F. (b. 1828), critic, 563. + +Sardou, V. (b. 1831), dramatist, 555. + +Sarrasin, J. (1605-1654), poet and historian, 278, 334. + +_Satyre Menippee_, 259-264. + +Saucourt, ballad of, 8. + +Saurin, Bernard Joseph (1709-1781), poet and dramatist, 408, 412, 413. + +Saurin, Jacques (1677-1703), preacher, 389. + +Scarron, Paul (1610-1660), novelist and dramatist, 308, 322, 323, 325. + +Sceve, Maurice (d. 1564), poet, 178, 179, 180. + +Schelandre, Jean de (1585-1635), poet and dramatist, 277, 292. + +Scherer, E. (1815-1889), critic, 563. + +_Science et Asnerye_, 121. + +Scribe, E. (1791-1861), dramatist, 553, 554. + +Scudery, Georges de (1661-1667), poet and dramatist, 279, 293, 320. + +Scudery, Madeleine de (1607-1701), novelist, 320, 322, 326. + +Sedaine, Michel Jean (1719-1797), dramatist, 413. + +Segrais, J. R. de (1624-1701), poet, 278. + +Senancour, Etienne Pivert de (1770-1846), moralist, 471. + +Senecan drama, 300, 307. + +September massacres, memoirs of, 444. + +_Sept Sages de Rome_, 52. + +_Seraphita_, 532. + +_Serees_, 194. + +Serena, 31. + +Serres, Olivier de (1539-1619), scientific writer, 239. + +_Sertorius_, 298. + +Serventois and Sirvente, 66. + +_Servitude Volontaire_, 249. + +_Sestina_, 31. + +Sevigne, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de (1626-1696), 348-351. + +_Sganarelle_, 311. + +_Siecle de Louis Quatorze_, 439. + +_Siege de Calais_, 408. + +_Siege of Metz_, 257. + +_Siege of Orleans_, 122. + +_Siege of St. Quentin_, 257. + +Sirvente, 30, 31, and Serventois, 66. + +_Socrate Chretien_, 355, 372. + +_Soirees de St. Petersbourg_, 496. + +_Songe du Verger_, 144. + +Sonnets, 203, 278. + +_Sophonisbe_, 298. + +Sorel, Charles (d. 1674), novelist, 324. + +Soties, 121, 122, 216, 217. + +Soulary, J. (b. 1815), poet, 550. + +Soulie, F. (1800-1847), novelist, 556. + +Soumet, Alexandre (1788-1845), dramatist, 519. + +Sourches, Marquis de (17th cent.), memoir-writer, 348. + +Souza, Madame de (1761-1836), novelist, 434. + +_Spartacus_, 408. + +Staal, Madame de (Mlle. de Launay, 1684-1750), memoir-writer, 441. + +Stael, Madame de (A. L. G. Necker, 1766-1817), novelist, &c., 431-433, + 487, 510. + +Stapfer, P. (b. 1840), critic, 565. + +Strasburg Oaths (sworn in 842 between Charles the Bald and Louis the + German against their brother Lothaire), 1, 4. + +Sue, E. (1804-1854), novelist, 556. + +Sully, Maurice de (1160-1196), sermon writer, 141. + +Sully, Maximilien de Bethune, Duke de, memoir-writer, 256. + +_Surena_, 298. + +_Systeme de la Nature_, 494. + + +Tabarin (17th cent.), dramatist, 307 note. + +Tuhureau, Jacques (1527-1555), poet, 208. + +Taine, H. (b. 1828), critic and historian, 564, 578. + +Tallemant des Reaux, Gedeon (1619-1692), anecdotist, 352. + +_Tartuffe_, 310, 311, 312. + +Tastu, Madame (b. 1798), poetess, 543. + +Tavannes, Jean and Guillaume de, memoir-writers, 257. + +_Telemaque_, 384, 385, 427. + +_Temple de Gnide_, 475. + +Tencin, Madame de (C. A. Guerin), (1681-1749), novelist, 419. + +Tenson, 66. + +Testament, 79. + +_Testaments_, of Villon, 157-159. + +Thaun, Philippe de (12th cent.), trouvere, 79. + +_Theagenes and Chariclea_, 232. + +Theatre de la Foire, 406, 410, 412. + +_Theatre de l'Agriculture et du Menage des Champs_, 239. + +Theatre Francais, 522. + +_Thebaide_, 301. + +_Theodore_, 297. + +_Theophile_, Miracle, 111. + +'Theophile,' poet, _see_ Viaud. + +Thibaut de Champagne (1201-1253), poet, 32, 66, 68, 69, 82. + +Thierry, Augustin (1795-1856), historian, 572. + +Thierry, Amedee (1787-1873), historian, 572. + +Thiers, A. (1797-1877), historian, 572, 573. + +Thomas, A. L. (1732-1785), essayist, 460. + +_Thuana_, (_sc._ Historia), 257. + +Tillemont, S. le Nain de (1637-1698), ecclesiastical historian, 334. + +_Tite et Berenice_, 298. + +Tocqueville, A. de (1805-1859), historian and political writer, 577. + +_Toison d'Or_, 298. + +Torneijamens, 31. + +Tory, Geoffroy (16th cent.), grammarian, 239. + +'Tragedie Bourgeoise,' 412. + +_Tragiques_, 213. + +_Traite des Sensations_, 495. + +_Travailleurs de la Mer_, 524. + +Tresors, 145. + +Tressan, L. E. de la Vergne, Comte de (1705-1782), romance-writer, 52, + 502. + +Trevoux, _Dictionaire de_, 325. + +---- _Journal de_, 453. + +Triolet, 118. + +_Tristan_, Romance of, 36, 39, 92. + +Tristan (17th cent.), dramatist, 293. + +_Troie, Roman de_, 44. + +_Troilus_, 147. + +Troubadour Poetry, forms of, 30. + +Trouveres and Jongleurs, 8, 23, 92, 502. + +_Turcaret_, 410, 411. + +Turgot, A. R. J. (1727-1781), economist, 436, 490. + +Turoldus (11th cent.), trouvere, 13. + +Turpin, chronicle of, 127 note. + +Tyard, Pontus de (1521-1603), poet, 196, 198, 207. + +_Tyr et Sidon_, 277, 292. + + +_Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuil_, 540. + + +Vachot, Pierre (16th cent.), poet, 172. + +Vacquerie, A. (b. 1819), critic and poet, 550. + +Vade, Jean Joseph (1719-1757), poet, 404. + +Vair, Guillaume du (1556-1621), lawyer and moralist, 248, 356. + +_Vair Palefroi_, 51. + +_Valerie_, 434. + +Valmore, Marceline Desbordes (1787-1859), poetess, 543. + +_Varietes Historiques et Litteraires_, 351. + +Varillas, A. (1624-1696), historian, 333. + +Vauban, Sebastien le Prestre de (1633-1731), engineer and political + economist, 489. + +Vaudeville, 415. + +Vaugelas, C. F. de (1585-1650), grammarian, 356, 392, 506. + +Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1536-1606), poet, 208, 210, 218, 265. + +Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de (1715-1747), essayist and + moralist, 455-457. + +_Venceslas_, 294. + +_Vengeance de Raguidel_, 95. + +_Venus, de, la Deesse d'Amors_, 87. + +_Veritable Saint Genest_, 294. + +Vers de Societe, 277, 404. + +Vers, Provencal, 30. + +Verse Chronicles, 75. + +Vertot, Abbe (1655-1735), historian, 333-334. + +_Ver-Vert_, 369, 412. + +Veuillot, L. (1813-1880), journalist, 570. + +Viaud, Theophile de (1590-1626), poet and dramatist, 277, 293. + +Vieilleville, Marechal de (1509-1571), memoir-writer, 254. + +Vigny, Alfred de (1799-1864), poet and novelist, 544. + +_Vilain, le, qui conquist Paradis par Plaist_, 51. + +_Vilain Mire_, 51. + +Villanelle, 101. + +Villanesques, 210. + +Villars, Boyvin du (16th cent.), memoir-writer, 257. + +Villars, L. H., Duke de (1653-1734), memoir-writer, 344. + +Villedieu, Madame de (1631-1683), novelist, 17, 322. + +Villehardouin, Geoffroi de (_c._ 1160-1213), 128-130. + examples from, 136. + +Villemain, A. (1790-1870), critic, 564. + +Villon, Francois (1431-1485), poet, 156-158. + +Vinet, A. (1797-1847), critic, 565. + +Viollet le-Duc, E. E. (1814-1879), architectural writer, 565. + +_Virgins, Ten_, 7, 27, 111. + +_Voir Dit_, 102. + +Voiture, V. (1598-1648), poet and letter-writer, 277, 356. + +Volney, C. F. de Chasseboeuf, Comte de (1757-1820), _philosophe_ and +traveller, 441, 492. + +Voltaire, F. Arouet de (1694-1778), + life and poems, 398, 399. + plays, 407, 408. + tales, 423, 424. + histories, 439. + criticism, 461. + philosophy, 478, 479. + scientific work, 501. + +_Voyages a la Lune et au Soleil_, 324. + +_Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, 434. + +_Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople_, 48. + +_Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis_, 427. + + +Wace (_c._ 1120-1174), trouvere, 76. + +William of Lorris, _see_ Lorris. + +William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, chronicle of, 76. + +William IX., Count of Poictiers (1020-1090), troubadour, 28, 30. + +William of Tudela (13th cent.), poet, 30. + +William of Tyre (d. 1129), historian, 130. + + +_Ysopet_, 60. + + +_Zadig_, 423. + +_Zaide_, 326. + +_Zaire_, 407. + +Zola, E. (b. 1840), novelist and critic, 561, 562. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of French Literature, by +George Saintsbury + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 33062.txt or 33062.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/6/33062/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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