CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARX GOLDWIN SMITH LIBRARY DATE DUE .^j^^r^m fMl2^^ge§~^ GAYLORD )7,^ ^^S^~Z PRINTEDINU.S.A. Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014437044 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHBR TO THB UNIVBRSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK A SHORT HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE (FROM THE EARLIEST TEXTS TO THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY) BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AHD ENGLISH LITERjkTUBB IV TBS UNIVERSITY OF SDIRBURCH SIXTH EDITION OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1901 1^0/ O;cfor& PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, H.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION The fourth edition of this book (1892) was printed from the third, with corrections, not inconsiderable in number, if individu- ally of no great significance ; but in view of a possible further demand it seemed, for more reasons than one, desirable to recast the book materially for the next issue. In the first place, the appearance, also at the Clarendon Press, of Mr. Toynbee's Specimens of Old French, gave me an opportunity of omitting the illustrative extracts in the first part of the present volume, and so gaining a substantial amoimt of space. These extracts had originally been included by me not so much out of predilection for them, as because, in the absence of any book in which English readers were presented with anything of the kind, they seemed indispensable. But they were something of an anomaly ; and I took the first opportimity of suggesting to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press that, as the need was now elsewhere and better supplied, my own makeshift had better go. I am much obliged to them for the promptitude 'ffith which they at once met my wishes as to recasting the book. There could be little doubt on what part of it to bestow the space saved by the retrenchment. No material change in the way of expansion seemed to be required in the Second, Third, or Fourth Books. The subject-matter of these has long been a definite and settled quantity ; and though, as in the case of every previous edition, I hope that the present will shew marks of revision, it is not vi Preface. likely to shew much substantive change. Some expansion was called for in the same Book from which these extracts have dis- appeared, but not much. The enormous stores of mediaeval literature are no doubt far from being exhausted by research, and still farther from being all in a condition easily accessible to students who cannot spend their lives in libraries. But the ardour and the industry of the half-century from 183Q to 1880 had discovered most of the principal things, and, though Old French study is now carried on more widely and actively than ever, its ' age of discovery ' is mostly past. It therefore seemed that most of the space at disposal might be bestowed on the last Book — that dealing with the nineteenth century; and there were special reasons why this was desirable. It had been frequently objected (and I could not but admit some force in the objection) that the spac6 allotted to this period — than which certainly none has been more fertile, while it may be questioned whether any has produced work of greater value — was in proportion rather niggard. Here again what had been done was done rather of force than of choice. It was very desirable that the book should not exceed certain limits : and it seemed impossible! to curtail the space assigned to those epochs which were finished and judged, in favour of one which was still, though pretty certainly nearing its end, in progress, fluid, and unsettled. The fifteen years which have passed since the first drafting of the book have made a very great change in this state of things. The death of Victor Hugo in 1885 began, and the death of M. Renan in 1892 may be said to have completed, not merely the end of French nineteenth-century literature in a chronological sense, but the end of it as a school, as a phase, as a division in thought as well as in time. Without disrespect to M. Renan's survivors it may be said that on the morrow of his death there was no one left in France like or second to him as a man of letters, while almost all his nearest companions in age or value — M. Taine, M. Leconte de Lisle, M. Dumas, fits, M. de Goncourt— have followed him since. Preface. vii At no time since the death of Diderot has France been left so much, to use school language, ' without a sixth form.' Nor was it merely a matter of individual talent. Not only had the old ways lost their best wayfarers, but they had ceased to be trodden, and men were wandering about in by-paths of uncertain experiment which had as yet led to no promised land. It was and is, of course, uncertain what the result of this may be. It may be that, as happened a hundred years ago in England, the period of pause will change at once and sharply into one of new and vigorous accomplishment. It may be that, as happened a hundred years ago in France itself, nearly a whole generation will pass with little of the first class in individual production and nothing of the first class as regards combined action and general form. But the past at least is certain. When M. Renan received a state funeral there was practically buried in his grave the French literature of the nineteenth century, the literature of which Chateaubriand was the herald, Lamartine the first pioneer. The history of Victor Hugo and the men of 1830, the conquistadores and the triumphant expeditionaries, could now be written, for it was now history. I therefore here endeavour, by adding the forty pages or so saved by the omission of the extracts (and also of former prefatory matter to the first, second, and third editions of 1882, 1884, and 1889, which, whether explanatory or controversial, seems now superfluous), to expand and recast the Fifth Book so as to make it a history of French nineteenth-century literature in all respects proportionate and parallel to the histories of former periods contained in the earlier books. I never revise this Short History without finding some mistakes, but I have at least the consolation that at every revision the mistakes grow fewer. And I have been encouraged to be thus lavish of labour on the book, instead of letting it be reprinted as it stood, whenever there was a demand, not merely by a sense of duty to my readers, but by one of gratitude to my critics. I was conscious from the first that an examination of French literature by an viii Preface. Englishman, conducted without any regard either to pet French orthodoxies or to pet French heresies, was in danger of seeming extremely presumptuous to French critics ; and I owe all the greater thanks to M. Gaston Paris, to M. Paul Bourget, to M. Beljame, and to others, for the generosity which they showed to my work, not merely when pointing out errors of fact, but (which is still more diflScult for a critic) when intimating dissent of opinion. I am afraid I could write a severer criticism of the book than any that has yet appeared; but I have at least spared no pains hitherto, and shall spare none so long as I have the opportunity, to make it as complete, as accurate, and as original a survey of the subject as is possible in the space and scheme '. GEORGE SAINTSBURY. Edinburgh, Sept. i, 1897. ' I have to acknowledge in this edition some valuable snggestions on the First Book from Mr. Paget Toynbee, and on the Second from Mr. Arthur TiUey. Preface to Sixth Edition. — Only minor alterations have here been made, no others suggesting themselves. But it has been thought not improper, now that the nineteenth century has actually closed, to draw attention, here and on the title page, to the fact that the book is practically complete, pro viribus auctoris, up to that point. Edinburgh, February., 1901. CONTENTS Preface BOOK I. Mediaeval Literature. Chap. I. The Origins i Kelation of French to Latin. Influence of Latin Liteiatnre. Early Monuments. Dialects and Provincial Literatures. Beginning of Literature proper. Cantilenae. Trouvtes and Jongleurs. ^Chansons de Gestes 9 Origin of Chansons de Gestes. Definition. Period of Composition. Chanson de Roland. Amis et Amiles. Other principal Chansons. Social and Literary Charac- teristics. Authorship. Style and Language. Later History. Provencal Literature 22 Langue d'Oc. Range and characteristics. Periods of Proven9al Literature. First Period. Second Period. Forms of Troubadour Poetry. Third Period. Literary Relation of Provenfal and French. Defects of Provenjal Literature. , u, IV. Romances of Arthur and of Antiquity ... 30 The Tale of Arthur. Its Origin. Order of French Ar- thurian 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. \^'f' Fabliaux. The Roman du Renart .... 39 ^-^ Foreign Elements in Early French Literature. The Esprit Ganlois makes its appearance. Definition of Fabliaux. Subjects and character of Fabliaux. Sources of Fabliaux. The Roman du Renart. The Ancien Renart. Le Couron- nement Renart. Renart le Nouvel. Renart le Contrefait. Fauvel. X Contents, PAGE '^Chap.VI. Early Lyrics 51 Early and Later Lyrics. Origins of Lyric. Romances and Pastourelles. Thirteenth Century. Changes in Lyric Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century. Qnesnes de Bethune. Thibaut de Champagne. Minor Singers. Adam , de la Halle. Ruteboen£ Lais. Marie de France. U^-'^IL Serious and Allegorical Poetry 61 Verse Chronicles. Miscellaneous Satirical Verse. Didactic Terse. Philippe de Thaun. Moral and Theological verse. Allegorical verse. T he^Roman de la Ro se. Popularity of the Roman de la Rose. Imitations. ■u^-VHi. Romans d'Aventures ....... 73 Distinguishing features of Romans d'Aventures. Looser application of the term. Classes of Romans d'Aventures. AdenH le Roi. Raoul de Hondenc. Chief Romans d'Aventnres. General Character. Last Chansons. Ban- douin de Sebourc. \^1'K: Later Songs and Poems 81 The Artificial Forms of Northern France. General Cha- racter. Varieties. Jehannot de Lescurel. Guillaume de Machault. Eustache Deschamps. Froissart Christine de Fisan. Alain Chartier. The Drama 88 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. w^ XL Prose Chronicles ........ 103 Beginning of Prose Chronicles.. Grandes Chroniques de France. Villehardouin. Minor Chroniclers between Ville- hardouin and Joinville. Joiaville. Froissart. Fifteenth- 'i century Chroniclers. XII. Miscellaneous Prose . . , . . . .113 General use of Prose. Prose Sermons. St. Bernard. Maurice de Sully. Later Preachers. Gerson. Moral and Devotional Treatises. Translators. Political and Po- lemical Works. Codes and Legal Treatises. Miscellanies and Didactic Works. Fiction. Antoine de la Salle. Interchapter L Summary OF Mediaeval Literature . .123 Contents. xi BOOK IL The Benaissance. ,^-1 PAGE CHAF^I. ^ILION, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY . 12/ The Middle Ages and the Renaissance; \_pharacteristics of Fifteenth-century Literattu^ Villon. Comines. Co- quillart. Eande. Martial d'Auvergne. The RhitoriqneursT} Chansons du xv^™" Siicle. Preachers. II. Marot and his Contemporaries 140 Hybrid School of Poetry. Jean le Maire. Jehan du Fontalais. Roger de Collerye. Minor Predecessors of Marot. Clement Marot. The School of Marot. Mellin de Saint- SP' /-"^ Gelais. Miscellaneous Veise. AnciennesPoesiesFranfaises. / Ily Rabelais and his Followers 155 V ^ Fiction at the beginning ofthe Sixteenth Century. Rabelais. Bonaventure des Periers, The Heptameron. Noel du Fail. G. Bonchet. Cholites. Apologie pour Herodote. . — Moyen de Parvenir. / — -^Jw. The Pl]&iade ..,..»... 168 V_,/ Character and Effects ofthe Pleiade Movement. Ronsard. The Dtfense ^t Illustration de la Langue Fran9aise. Du Bellay. Bellean. Baif. Daurat, Jodelle, Pontus de Tyard. Magny. Tahurean. Minor Ronsardists. Da Bartas. D'Aubigne. Desportes. Bertant. V. The Theatre from Gringore to Garnier . , . 188 Gjringore. Thelast Age ofthe Mediaeval Theatre. Begin- nings of the Classical Drama. Jodelle. Minor Pleiade Dramatists. Garnier. Defects of the Pleiade Tragedy. Pleiade Comedy. Larivey. VI. Calvin and Amyot 200 Prose Writers of the Renaissance. Calvin. Minor Re- formers and Controversialists. Preachers of the League. Amyot. Minor Translators. Dolet. Fauchet. Pasquier. /^-/^N Henri Estienne. Herberay. Palissy. Pari. Olivier de Serres. Vll. Jmontaigne and Brant6me ...... 213 Disenchahtment of the late Renaissance. Montaigne. Charron. Du Vair. Bodin and other Political Writers. Brantdme. Montluc. La None. Agrippa d'Aubigne. Marguerite de Valois. Vieilleville. Palma-Cayet. Pierre de I'Estoile. D'Ossat. Sully. Jeannin, Minor Memoir- writers. General Historians. VIII. The Satyre MiwiPpiE. Regnier 231 Satjrre Mfoippit Regnier. Interchapter II. Summary of Renaissance Literature . . 242 xii Contents. BOOK III. The Seventeenth Century. PAGE ChajoA Poets 246 MalhCTbe. The School of Malherbe. Vers de Society. Voitnre. Epic School. Chapelain. Bacchanalian School. Saint- Amant. La Fontaine. Boilean. Minor Poets of the Seventeenth Century. I Dramatists 262 Montchrestien. Hardy. Minor predecessors of Comeille. Rotron. Corneille. Racipe.^ Minor Tragedians. De- velopment of Comedy. Moli^re. Contemporaries of Moliire. The School of Molierei Regnard. Characteristics of Molieresque Comedy. III. Novelists 291 D'Urfe. The Heroic Romances. Scarron. Cyrano de Bergerac. Furetifere. Madame de la Fayette. Fairy J Tales. Perrault. ' I IV. Historians, Memoir-wri'ters, Letter-writers . . 304 General Historians. M^zeray. Historical Essayists. Saint -Real. Memoir - writers. Rohan. Bassompierre. Madame de Motteville. Cardinal de Retz. Mademoiselle. La Rochefoucauld. Saint-Simon. Madam^de S^vignd. Tallemant des R^aux. Historical Antiquaries. Du Cange. .s, V. Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics .... 3261 Balzac. Pascal. Saint-Evremond. La Rochefoucauld. La | Bruyfere. ^ VI. Philosophers ; .340 Descartes. Port Royal. Bayle. Malebranche: VII. Theologians and Preachers 351 ^ St. Franyois de Sales. Bossnet. F^nelon. Massillon. Bo^dalone. Minor Preachers. Interchapter^III. ) Summary of Seventeenth-century Litera- ■v:t&-^ 363 BOOK IV. _r\ The Eighteenth Century. Cha/.L IJoets ^(,A Literary Degeneracy of the Eighteenth Century, especially | manifest in Poetry. J. B. Rousseau. Voltaire. Descrip- tive Poets. Delille. Lebmn. Pamy. Ch&ier. Minor Poets. Light Verse. Piron. D^saugieis. Ly Contents. xiii PACE Chap.'^EIDramatists 378 Divisions of Drama. La Motte. Crdbillon the Elder. Voltaire a nd his followers. Lesage. Com^die Larmoyante. LaChanssee. Diderot, Mariranx. Beaumarchais. Char- acteristics of Eighteenth-centnry Drama. (^^iST/NOVELISTS . . ^. , .^ 388 Lesage. MarivayK. Prevost^ Voltaire. Diderot. Rousse au. Cr^billon the Yomiget.^-Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. ' Kesilf de la Bretonne. Chateaubriand. Madame de Stael. Xavier de Maistre; Benjamin Constant. IV. Historians, Memoir-wkiters, Letter-writers . . 408 Characteristics and Divisions of Eighteenth-century His- tory. Rollin. Dubos. Bonlainvilliers. Voltair e. Mably. Rnlhiire. Memoirs. Mme. de Staal-Delaunay. Duclos. B&enval. Madame d'Epinay. Minor Memoirs, Memoirs of the Revolutionary Period. Abundance of Letter-writers. Mademoiselle Aiss£. Madame du Deffand. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Voltaire. Diderot. GaUani. T^ Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics .... 424 Occasional writing in the Eighteenth Century. Periodicals. Fontenelle. La Motte. Vauvenargues. D'Aguesseau. , Duclos. Marmontel. La Haipe, 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. RivaroU Joubert. Courier. S^nancour. VI. Philosophers 445 The philosophe movement. Montesquieu. Lettres Fer- sanes. Grandeur et Decadence des Romains. ' Esprit des Lois. Voltaire. The Encyclopaedia. Diderot D'Alem- bert. Rousseau. Political Economists. Vanban, Quesnay, etc. Turgot. Condorcet Volney. La Mettrie. Hel- T^tius. Syst^me de la Nature. Condillac Joseph de Maistre. Bonald. VII. Scientific Writers 471 Bnfibn. Lesser Scientific Writers. Voyages and Travels. Linguistic and Literary Study. Imterchapter IV. Summary of Eighteenth-century Litera- ture 476 xiv Contents. BOOK V. The Nineteenth Centuet. MGI Chap. I. The Writers of the Later Transition . . •481 The Romantic Movement. Writeis of the Later Transition. B&anger. Lamartine. Lamennais. Victor Consin. Beyle. Nodier. Delavigne. Soumet Minor Poets erf the Transi- tion and the Early Romantic Movement. 496 II. 1830 The Romantic Propaganda in Periodicals. Victor Hugo. Sainte'Benve. His Method. Dangers of the Method, Dnmas the Elder. Honore de Balzac. George Sand M&im^e. Th^ophile Gautier. Alfred de Musset. In. fluence of the Romantic Leaders. Alfred de Vigny. Anguste Barbier. Gerard de Nerval. -Curiesitis Soman- iigues, P^tms Borel. Lonis Bertrand. HI. Poets op the Later Nineteenth CentIjrv . . 531 The Second Group of Romantic Poets, Baudelaire. Theodore de Banville. Leconte de Lisle. Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group. Dnpont. The Pamasse ,| and the Romantic Dispersion. Sully Prudhomme. Fran- cois Coppfe. Paul Verlaine. His Methods, His Im- portance. 'Symbolists, etc. IV. The Modern Drama 546 1830 in Drama. Minor and Later Dramatists, Scribe. Ponsard, Emile Augier. Eugine Labiche. Dumas the Younger, Victorien Sardou. Other Dramatists, V, The Modern Novel ........ sjS Classes of Nineteenth-century Fiction. Minor Novelists of Incident in the First Period. Jnles Janin, Charles de Bernard. Jnles Sandeau. Octave Feuillet. Mnrger. Edmond About. Feydean. Gustave Droz. Flaubert. His Literary Position. The Naturalists. 'Les Deux Gonconrt.' Their Claims, Their Position. Emile Zola. Criticism of him. Alphonse Dandet. Guy de Maupassant. ' Pierre Loti,' Paul Bourget. Auatole France, Younger Novelists, Contents. xv FACE Chap.VI. The Contemporaries and Successors of Sainte-Beuve 575 Jonmalists and Critics. Paul de Saint- Victor, Hippolyte Taine. Estimates of him. His true position. Edmond Soberer. His solid value. Emile Mont^gnt. Academic Critics. Ferdinand Bruneti&re. Anatole France. Emile Fagnet. Jnles LemaJtre. Other Critics. Eugtee Fro- mentin. Linguistic and literary stndy of French. VII. Philosophy, Theology, and History .... 58S Philosophical Writers. Comte. Theological Writers. Montalembert. Ozanam. Lacordaire. Ernest Renan. Historians. Thierry. Thiers. Guizot. Mignet. Michelet. Qninet. Tocqueville. Minor Historians. INTERCHAPTER V. SUMMARY OF NiNBTEENTH-CENTURY LITERA- TURE >..«.. 601 Conclusion .607 Index , . . 619 BOOK I. IHEBIABVAI. IiITBBATlTBB. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGINS. Of all European literatures the French is, by general consent, that which possesses the most uniformly fertile, brilliant, and un- broken history. In actual age it may possibly yield to others, but the connection between the language of the oldest and the lan- guage 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 pre- vious 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 j c>00jjhat is to say until a greater lapse of time had passed since Caesar's cam- paigns than has passed from the later date to the present day. Taking the earliest of all monuments, the S trasburg Oaths , as start- ing-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 BeUtion is unquestionably a daughter of Latin, yet it is not of French such a daughter as Italian or Spanish. A knowledge *° ^■'*™- of the older language would enable a reader who knew no other '- B 3 Mediaeval Literature, [Bk. I. 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. Th6 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 fir.st mention of a lingua romana rusiica is found in the seventh cen- tury, 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. ^ Meanwhile, however, Latin was doing more than merely fur- Influence wishing the materials of the new language. The lite- of iiatin rary faculty of the Gauls was early noticecl, and before liiterature. j-jjgjj 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 un- doubtedly 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 Pnidentius' that really influenced the youthful tongue. Ecclesiastical Latin, and especially the wonder- ful melody of the early Latin hymn-writers, had by far the greatesi;^ effect upon it. Ingenious affd' not wholly groundless efforts hav# been made to trace the principal forms of early French writing to the services and service-books of the chiu-ch, 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, in deed, displays in its matter and style many traces of Germanic origin, but the metre with its regular iambic l/cadence and its rigid caesura testifies to Latin influence. The service thus performed to the literature was not unlike the serviced Ch. I.] The Origins. 3 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 in- troduced, ^^^yme 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. 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 dis- Early Monu- tinguished from Latin and from German dialect refers ments. to 659, and occurs in the life of St. Mummolinus or Momolenus, bishop of Noyon, who was chosen for that ofiice because of his knowledge of the two languages, Teutonic and Romanic'. 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'', 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 °, and to the same period are referred the glossaries of Reichenau and Cassel, lists contain- ing in the first case Latin and Romance equivalents, in the second Teutonic and Romance'- 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 ° ; and to this same era has been referred a fragmentary commentary on the Book of * ' Fama bonorum operum, qiria praevalebat non tantum in Teutonica sed in Romana lingua, I^tharii 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. ' 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 iiisticitatem,' ' carmen rusticnm ; ' and Lingua RusHca is usually if not universally synonymous with Lingua Romana. ' 'Si vulgari id est romana lingua loqueretur omnium aliarum pntares inscium.' * 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). ' Ordered by the Councils of Tours, Rheims, and Aries (Sij-Sfl), B 2 4 Mediaeval Literature. LBk. i. - Jonah', included in the latest collection of ' Monuments V 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. T he tenth' c entury 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 lan- guage assumed a tolerably regular form, but its great division into L angue d 'Oc and Langue d'Oil is already made, and grammar, prosody, and other necessities or ornaments of bookwriting, are present. Moreover, it is to 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, unfor- tunately, we have no monuments to mark progress with accuracy. Les Serments de Strasbouko de 842. Pro deo amnr et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist'di in avant, in qnant dens savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon firadre, Karlo et in aindha et in cadhnna cosa, si cum cm per dreit sou fradra salvat dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunqua prindrai, qui meon vol dst 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 retumar nun Tint pois, ne ip ne neuls, cni eo retumar int pois, in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuwig nun liji iv er. * CantilAne de Sainte Eulalie. Bnona 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 manatee regiel ne preiement. ■ In the Library at Valenciennes. • Les plus anciens Monuments de la Langue Fran^aise. Paris, 1875. ' The Oaths and the Eulalia poem (which some date from the end of the ninth century), as the first extant specimens of French prose and verse respec- >; tively, must be saved from the exclusion here pronounced on the extracts which >5 appeared in the earlier editions of this book. ch. I.] The Origins. Nlnle cose non la pouret omque pleier, la poUe sempre non amast lo deo meuestier. E poro Alt presentede Maximiien, chi rex eret a eels dis sovre pagiens. El li enOTtet, dont lei nonque chielt. qned elle Aiiet lo nom christiien. Ell' ent adunet lo suon element, melz sostendreiet les empedementz, Qn'elle peidesse sa virginitet: poros iiiret morte a grand honestet. Enz enl fou la gettereut, com arde tost, elle colpes non auret, poro nos coist. A ezo nos voldret concreidre 11 rex pagiens; ad une spede li roveret tolit 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 degnet preier, Qued auuisset de nos Christus mercit post la mort et a lui nos laist venir Par souue dementia. 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 varia- tions. The characteristics of these dialects, Norman, Dialects and Picard, Walloon, Champenois, Angevin, and so forth. Provincial have been much debated by philologists. But it so Literature*, happens that the different provinces displayed considerable literary 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 pf Reynard the Fox ; Picardy, Eastern Normandy, and the Isle of France were peculiarly rich in Haa 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 Cambr^sis, having a special geste of their own. /it is however with the eleve nth cen tury that the history of 5 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. French literature properly so called begins. | We have indeed few Romance manuscripts so early as this, the date of most of them BeeinninB of i^o' being earlier than the twelfth. But by the eleventh liiteratura century not merely were laws written in French proper. (charters and other formal documents were somewhat later), not merely were sermons constantly composed and preached in that tongjue, 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 tha obscure and doubtful Canfillnes, was certainly indulged in to a considerable extent. From this date it is therefore possible to abandon generalities, and taking the successive forms and de- velopments 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 neces- sary to deal very briefly with two questions, one of which concerns the antecedence of possible ballad literature to the existing Chan- sons de Gestes, the other the machinery of diffusion to which this and all the early historical developments of the written French i language owed much. ' It has been held by many scholars, whose opinions deserve respect, that an extensive literature of Cantilenae \ cantilenao. i i . • i . 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?! to these Cantilenae upon which the theories alluded to have beenil 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 Proven9al epic, only one defect, 'le ' The subject of the Cantilenae is discussed at great length by M. Leon | Gautier, Les Epofies Franfaises, Ed. 2, vol. i. caps. 8-13. Paris, 1878. ' These, which are for the most part very vague and not very early, will be found fully quoted and discussed in Gautier, 1. c. Ch. I.] The Origins. 7 d^faut 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 ^ In default of direct evidence it has been sought to found an argument 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 hand- lings of the same subject, such as might be expected in work which was merely that of a diaskeuast^ of existing lays. 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 wi^ Jongleurs. TrouvSres The former (which it is needless to say is the same and word as Troubadour, and Trobador, and Trovatore) Jongleuis. 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 Trouvferes * 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 Trouvfere nor Jongleur ; nor should it be forgotten that, so long as recitation was general, repetitions of this kind were almost inevitable as a rest * Pablished by Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1837). ' This woid ( = arranger or pntter-in-order) is familiar in Homeric discussion, and therefore seems appropriate. M. Gaston Paris speaks with apparent con- fidence 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. * The older and in this case more usual form. 8 Mediaeval Literature. to the reciter's memory, and were scarcely likely to attract unfavour- able 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 evi- dence has been shown of the existence previous to the Chansons de Gestes of a ballad literature identical in subject with those com- positions, at the same time the existence of such a literature is neither impossible nor improbable. It is otherwise with the hypo- ' thesis 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 monu- ments, and thus demands or deserves treatment here'. > In some recent writing (and especially in tbe interesting and veryliandsome collection of monographs by specialists now (1896-7) appearing under the general editorship of M. Petit de JuUeville, Histoire de la Langue et de la Littiratun FranfaUe, Paris, Colin) great importance is attached' to the Vie de Saint Alexis. This is a poem, apparently of the second half of the eleventh century, in 625 assonanced decasyllabics, which are arranged, not like the Chansom in irregular laisses but, in five-lined stanzas (ed. G. Paris and L. Pannier, 1873- 1887). It is interesting from its combination of apparently certain earliness with an at least relative accomplishment of form. But to use a phrase of its own ferdude at son color, ' it has lost its colour,' in comparison with Roland— its elder probably in reality, and but a very few years its junior in actual 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 ^ or heroic families of legendary or his- torical 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 recogni- tion 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 appre- ciation 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 *- Since that time investigation has been constant and fruitful, and • Gesta or Gestt has three senses : (a) the deeds of a hero ; (*) the chronicle of those deeds ; and (c) ^e family which that chronicle illustrates. The three Sa&i gestes are those of the Kihg, of Doon de Mayence, and of Garin de Mont- glane. Each of these is composed of many poems. The ' petites gestes * include only a few Chansons. Most writers now nse the form ' Chansons de Geste.' • 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 tiie 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 Lion Gautier (seventh edition), 1877. lo Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I there are now more than one hundred of these interesting poems known. The origin and sources of the Chansons de Gestes have been Origin of ii^^de a matter of much controversy. We have Chansons de already seen how, from the testimony of historians Oestes. 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 subse- quent centuries in these rude compositions, first produced inde- pendently, then strung together, and lastly subjected to some process of editing and un^on. 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. 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, com- paingnons, 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 Ch. ii.J The Chansons de Gestes* ii 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 Gesie, by matter and by form, serves to exclude from the title other important and interesting classes of compositions slightly later in date. The period of composition of these poems extended, speaking roughly, over three centuries. In the eleventh they Period of' I ">■ began, but the beginnings are represented only by Composition. Rolan d, the Voyage de Charlemagne, and perhaps Le Rot 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 transfor- mation rather than neglect, and we shall meet them at a later period in other forms. Before dealing with other general cha- racteristics 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 sufiScient to give some account when we come to the compositions which chiefly influenced it, namely the rmnan ces of Art h?"" "tiH rfLnxika^-ai^. The Chanson de Roland, the most ancient and characteristic of these poems, though extremely popular, in the middle chanson de ages S passed with them into obscurity. The earliest Eoland. allusion to the Oxford MS., which alone represents its earliest form, ' Wace (Roman de Ron, iii. 8038 Andresen) speaks of the Norman Taillefer as singing at Hastings ' De Karlemaigne et de RoUant.' It has been sought, but perhaps fancifully, to identify this song with the existing chanson. 13 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. was made by Tyrwhitt of Chaucerian fame. Conybeare afterwards 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, pub- lication or transcription by a certain Turoldus'- 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 tc 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 ^ ■ Ci fait la geste que Turoldus declinet.' The sense of the word decliiut is quite uncertain, and the attempts made to identify Turoldus are futile. Ch. II.] The Chansons de Gestes. { ^sj 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 cham- pion named Thierry, and is ruthlessly put to death with all his clans- men who have stood surety for him. Episodes properly so called 1 the poem has none, though the character of Oliver is finely brought out as contrasted with Roland's somcAyhat 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. It may be noticed that there occurs at irregular intervals throughout the poem a curious refrain, Aoi. This has puzzled all commentators, though in calling it a refrain we have given the most probable explanation. As Roland is by far the most interesting of those Chansons which describe the wars with the Saracens, so Amis et Amt'les^ may be taken as representing those where the interest is mainly Amis et domestic. A mis eiA miles is the earliest vernacular form Amiles. of a story which attained extraordinary popularity in the middle ages, bemg 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 * Amis et Amiles, ed. Hoffmann. Erlangen, 185J. 14 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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 like- ness 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 Hardrd,a felon knight, of Ganelon's lineage and like- ness. Hardrd 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 Hardr^ unfortunately becomes aware of the matter. He at once accuses Amiles of treason, and the knight is too con- scious 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 Hardr^, 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 him- self while playing the part of Amiles; and this sin is punished, accord- ing 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 Ch. II.] The Chansons de Gestes. 15 Amis of his leprosy. Amiles, learning the hard eondition, does not hesitate. 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 faith- fulness of the friends now that suffering has purged them of their sin. This story, touching in itself, is most touchingly told in the Chan- son. 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 faith- ful, 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 dis- tinguished 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 i?o/a«^ misnomer. It should be Soman de Renart, for this latter is a proper name. The class name is goupil (vulpes). The sftindard edition is that of M&n (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. M. Ernest Martin has re-edited the Ancien Renart (3 vols., Strasburg and Paris, 1882-1887, with Supplement). Cf. Sudre, Les Sources du R. de R. (Paris, 1893-). C!h. v.] Fabliaux. The ^ Roman du Renart^ 45 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 exaipples 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, pro- bably 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 im- portance 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 develop- ments 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 Conlrefait, or the diflferent developments of the Ancien Renart, recently published by M. Ernest Martin. The order and history of the building up of this vast compo- sition are as follows. The oldest known ' branches,' Tiie Anoieu as the separate portions of the story are called, date Eenart. 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 46 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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 Renari, Mdon 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 inter- dependence. 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 ReynadE 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 dis- tinguishes 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 aller gorising, 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. a The next stage of the composition shows an alteration and a ch.v.] Fabliaux. The ^ Roman du Renart^ 47 degradation. Renari le Couronni, or Le Couronnement Renart^, is a poem of some 3400 lines, which was once attri- i,e oouron- buted to Marie de France, for no other reason than nement that the manuscript which contains it subjoins her Eenart. 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 con- trives to be appointed his successor, after which he holds tourna- ments, 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 chrono- logical indication as to its composition is the eulogy of William of Flanders, killed (' jadis,' says the author) in 1251. The next poem of the cycle is of much greater length, and of at least proportionately greater value, though it has Benart not the fireshness and verve of the earlier branches, le Houvel. Renart le Noteoel was written in 1288 by Jacquemart Gi^lde, 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 ' 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. 48 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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 re- miniscences 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. The cycle was finally completed in the second quarter of the Benartle fourteenth century by the singular work or works Contrefait. 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 appa- rently identical with one which Mdnage 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 sitigle 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 '. Notwithstanding this, however, there are * This is a free translation of the last line of the original, which is as follows: — Pour renaid qui gelines tue. Qui a la rousse peau vestue, Qui a grand queue et quatre pi^s, N'est pas ce livre communi^s; ch. v.] Fabliaux. The ^ Roman du Renart' 49 many passages where the old ' common form' of the epic is ob- served, 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 ' com- press.' The warning cannot be said to be unnecessary: but works as long as Renart le Contrefaii, 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. 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 certjun Franfois 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. Mais pour cellui qui a deux mains Dont il sont en ce siicle mains, Qui ont sous la chappe Faulx Semblant. Wolf, Op. at. p. 5, The final allusion is to a personage of the Roman de la Rose. 5o Mediaeval Literature. This chapter would be incomplete without a reference to the Ysopet of Marie de France', 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 has been published recently'; 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' (sup- posed 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. ' Ed. Roquefort, vol. ii. See next chapter. " By Dr. W. Forster. Heilbronn, 1882. CHAPTER VI. EARLY LYRICS. The lyric poetry of the middle ages in France di^^des itself naturally into two periods, distinguished by very strongly marked characteristics. The end of the thirteenth century is Early and the dividing point in this as in many other branches Later liyrics. 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. Before the twelfth century we find no traces of genuine lyrical work in France. The ubiquitous Cantiknae indeed origins of again make their appearance in the speculations of Lyric, literary historians, but here as elsewhere they have no demon- strable historical existence. Except a few sacred songs, some- times, 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 £ 2 52 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.i. of Romanzen und Pastourellen '. These are the two earliest forms Bomanoes of French lyric poetry. They are recognised by the and Troubadour Raimon Vidal as the special property PastouieUei. gf 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 oiief'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". These early poems bubble over with natural gaiety, their refrains, musical though semi-articulate as they are, are sweet and mani- fold 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 Provengal poetry. It has been observed by nearly all students, that the love-poems cS. 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, 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 versifi- cation. » Leipsic, 1870. a See note at end of chapter. ch. VI.] Early Lyrics. 53 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. The stanzas are usually longer, and consist of shorter lines than in 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. So various, notwithstanding the simplicity and apparent mo- notony of their subjects, are these charming poems, that it is difiScult to give, by mere reading of any one or even of several, an idea of their beauty. In no part of the literature of the middle ages are its hghter characteristics more pleasantly shown. The childish freedom from care and afterthought, the half uncon- scious 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 charac- teristic, 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 Bdranger know, the fashion was preserved in France long after it had been given up elsewhere. After the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases Thirteenth to be anonymous, and individual singers — some of Century, them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very great Changes in merit and individuality — make their appearance. In Lyiio. the second place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in form, and exhibits evident marks of the com- >munication between troubadour and trouv^re, and of the imitation 54 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.l. by the latter of the stricter forms of Proven9al 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 Souths 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 Proven9al 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 decasyllabic being more commonly used in the Chanson. Of this the complainte is only a variety. Again, the Proven9al 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 gfraceful form. But the lyric forms of the thirteenth century are to some extent rather imitated than indi- ^ This miscellaneous lyric for the most part awaits publication. M. G. Ray- naud has given a valuable Bibliographie des Chansonniers Franfois des XIII' et XIV' sticks. 2 vols., Paris, 1884. Also a collection of motets. Paris, 1881. The Society des Anciens Textes has given 2 vols, of lyrics. M. Jeanroy's Ongines de la PolHe Lyrigue en France (Paris, 1889) is the chief monograph on the subject, and full of varied information and speculation. It should be read with an admirable review of it by M. Gaston Paris, reprinted from the Journal des Savants. Paris, 1892. Ch.vi.] Early Lyrics. 55 genous, and it is no doubt to the fact of this imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priority to the Langue d'Oc, imfounded 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. It has been said that the number of song writers from the end of the twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is qipaogg j,f extremely large. M. Faulin Paris, whose elaborate Lyric in the chapter in the Histoire Littiraire is still the great Thirteenth authority on the subject, has enumerated nearly Century, two hundred, to whose work have to be added hundreds of anonymous pieces. It would seem indeed that during a con- siderable 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 six- teenth. 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 remark- able for eloquence ' is a very striking one. It gives us approxi- mately 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 Ville- hardouin has chronicled. His poems ^ are of all Quesnes de classes, historical, satirical, and amorous, some of the Bethune. 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 Chdtelain de Coucy, and whose love for the lady of Fayel resulted in an interchange * Flulippe Mouskis. This is it : La terre fnt pis en cest an Qnar li vienx Quesnes estoit mors. • \i\?i 1 11 Philippe Treatise (1119), dedicated to an uncle, who was de Thaun. chaplain to Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and a Bestiary, or Zoological Catalogue (1130), dedicated to Adela of Louvain, the wife of Henry the First. These poems, written before the vogue of the versified Arthurian Romances had consecrated the octosyllable, are in couplets of six syllables.. 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, medi- cine, history, the art of war, all had their treatises ; and latterly Tre'sors, 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. 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 uojal and not only abundant moralising, but also more or less Theological theology of the mystical kind. It would therefore verae. have been strange if ethics and theology themselves had wanted special exponents in verse. Before the middle of the twelfth cen^ tury 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 ^ 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 ' Well edited by Koch. Heilbroqn, 1879. F 66 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. important was the Casioiement d'un Phe & son Fits, which comes from the Pdnchaiantra, 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 Bes trots Marts et des trots 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. The question of the origin of this habit of allegorising and personi- fication is one which has been often incidentally discussed by lite- Allegorioal rary historians, but which has never been exhaustively veiae. treated. It is certain that, at a very early period in the middle ages, it makes its appearance, though it is not in fiill 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 ' something very like the imagery of the Roman de la Rose is dis- coverable. 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 re- strained by circumstances within a very narrow range of employ- ment However this may be, the allegorising habit manifests itself recognisably enough in French literature towards the close of the twelfth century. In the M&augis de Portlesguez of Raoul de Houdenc, the passion for arguing out abstract questions of love- lore is exemplified, and in the Roman des Hies 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, Loyauti, are introduced by that poet as persons whom he met as he rode on his travels. In Thibaut de Champagne a still further ' See especially ffysminias and Hysmine. Ch. VII.] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 67 advance was made. The representative poem of this allegorical literature, and moreover one of the most remarkable composi- tions furnished by the mediaeval period in France, is The Eoman the jRomande la ^ose\ It is doubtful whether any other deiaEose. 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 Lords' 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 suflBciently indicated by the heading, — Ci est le Rommant de la Rose Oil I'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, Filonnie, Villonie, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, /'a^e/ar& (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 Ddduit (Delight) and his company are within. He finds the com- ' Ed. F. Michel. 2 vols. Paris, 1864. F 2 68 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk, i. pany dancing and singing, Dame Liesse (Enjoyment) being the chief songstj-ess, 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, Dangler '^ 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 Dangler, both directly and by ambas- sadors, 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 Dangler. 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 expressifft|J that the charm of the poem lies^ and this is very considerable. The deficiency of action, however, and the continual allegorising ^ Dangler is not exactly ' danger,' To he ' en dangier de qnelqu'nn ' 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. Ch. VII.] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 69 threaten to make it monotonous had it been much longer con- tinued 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 dis- posed, was accomplished in all the learning of his day, and hai strong political opinions. He determined accordingly to make thi poem of Lorris, which was in all probability already popular, thi 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 BerAcueil, and with the suspicions of Dangler 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 allegcffy 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 70 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. 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 personifica- tion 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 conversa- tion 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 after- ward 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. 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 ch. VII.] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 1i Pisan and from Gerson. But the general taste was entirely in favour of it. Allegorical already, it was allegorised in fresh pop^j^jit- senses, even a religious meaning being given to it. of the The numerous manuscripts which remain of it attest its Bomaa de la popularity before the days of printing. It was frequently °'*" printed by the earliest typographers of France, and even in the six- teenth 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 ' ; 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 Lords 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 Hterary 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 faithfiilly 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. 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 here- after. 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 Guil- laume de Lorris, but an imitation of considerable merit, is the Roman de la Potre^, where the lover is besieged by Love in ' The anthoTship of the English Hose has been much discussed. The poem was adapted in Italy as // fiore, a sonnet-cycle. * Ed. Stehlich. Halle, 1881. 7a Mediaeval Literature. a tower. The other, of a dififerent class, and free from trace of direct imitation, is the short poem called De Venus la Deesse dt Amors \ written in some three hundred four-lined stanzas, each with one rhjrme only. Some passages of this latter are very beautiful, and it has even been thought ^ to have given suggestions to Guillaume, instead of being a piece from him. ' Ed. Forster. Beme, 1880. ' By M. Langlois in his Origines et Sources du Soman de la Rose. Paris, 1890. CHAPTER VIII. 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 Digtjjj~„igji. is called the Roman d'Aventures, of which the first ing features and main feature is open and almost avowed fictitious- °^ Komans ness, and the second the more or less complete aban- ^^^ ™^®*" donment of any attempt at cyclic arrangement or subordination to a central theme. Until quite recently it was not unusual to apply the term Roman d'Aventures with less strictness, and to make it include Loogg, ^p. the Romances of the Round Table. There can, how- plication of ever, 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 appli- cation. In these later poems the ambition of the writer to class his work under and with some precedent work is almost entirely 74 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. absent. He allows himself complete freedom, though he may some- times, 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 Trouvbres 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 ™ J Gestes over which the influence of the Roman Komans d'Aventures has passed. But the Chanson having a d'Aventures. 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 fore- runners, and the works which compose the class are still to some extent unpublished. Ch. VIII.] Romans d'Aventures. 75 Adenfes or Adans le Roi perhaps derived his surname from the fimction of king of the minstrels, if he performed AdenSs it, at the court of Henry III, duke of Brabant. He le ^o*- was, most likely, born in the second quarter of the thirteenth cen- tury, 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 Bueues de Commarchis \ In these three poems Adenfes 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 compa- rison 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 CMomadis% a poem extending to ao,ooo verses, and not less valuable for its intrinsic merit than as a type of its class. Its popu- larity 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^ 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 CUomades are not so universally found, but its extreme length is not common. Few other Romans d'Aventures (a class of work which it may be observed was more freely Imitated in English than any we have yet mentioned) exceed 10,000 lines. • Ed. ScWler. Brussels, v. d. • Ed. van Hasselt. Brnssels, i866. ' The wooden horse. 76 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.i, Raoul de Houdenc is an earlier poet than Adenes, and repre- Eaoul do sents the Roman d'Aventures in its infancy, when it Houdenc. still found it necessary to attach itself to the great cycle of the Round Table. His works, besides some shorter poems ^, consist of the Roman des Eles (Ailes), a semi-allegorical composi- tion, 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 Miratigis de Portlesgtiez, an important composition, possessing some marked peculiarities of style ; and possibly also of the Vengeance de Ragmdel, 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 Trouvfere Huon de M^ry 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 Miraugis, 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 constantiy 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 fi:om his composition of the Roman des Eles) is a tendency to allegorising, and to scholastic disqui- sitions on points of amatory casuistry. The whole plot of Me'raugis indeed turns on the enquiry whether physical or metaphysical love is the sincerest, and on the quarrel which a difference on this • The Songe cCEnfer and the Voie de Paradis, published by Jubinal, as the Roman des Eles has been by Sch^ler, Miraugis by Michelant, and the Vengeance de Raguidel by Hippeau. Ch.vrii.] Romans eTAveniures. 77 point brings on between the hero and Gorvein Cadrus his friend and his rival in the love of the fair Lidoine. Many other Romans d'Aventures deserve mention, both for their intrinsic merits and for the immense popularity they chief once enjoyed. Foremost among these must be men- Eomans tioned Partmopex de Blots ' and Flore et Blancheflmr \ d'Aventures. 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 Elanchefleur 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^ 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 V Orguilleuse d' Amour* 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 °, as has been already mentioned, is written in Chanson form, and deals with the famous Forest of Broceliande in Britanny. Guillaume de Palerne ° is a still more interesting work It introduces the favourite mediaeval idea of lycanthropy, the hero being throughout • Ed. Crapelet. Paris, 1834. ' Ed. Du M^ril. Paris, 1856. ' Ed. Brunet et Montaiglon. Paris, 1856. * Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1867. » Ed. Meyer. Paris, 1875. ' Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1876. 78 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. helped and protected by a friendly were-wolf, who is before the end of the poem freed from the enchantment to which he is sub- jected. This Romance was early translated into English, Of the same class is the Roman de VEscouffle, where a hawk carries away the heroine's ring, as in a well-known story of the Arabian Nights. Amadas ei Idoine ^ 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 ", which (from a curious misunderstanding of its older form Li Biaus Desconnus) occurs in English form as Lyhius Disconim, 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 Espies'; 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 Durmari k Gallois*, 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 Rdmy, Seigneur de Beaumanoir (who has other claims to literary dis- tinction) is held to be author of two Romans d'Aventures ", La * Ed. Hippean. Paris, 1863. ' Ed. Hippeau. Paris, i860. ' Ed. Forster. Halle, 1877. • Ed. Stengel. Tubingen, 1873. " Both edited in extract by Bordier. Paris, 1869. Complete edition begun by Snchiel. Paris, 1884. Ch. vin.] Romans dAventures. 79 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 *, 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 ei Galeron and Eracle, both by Gautier d' Arras, Cristal et Larie, La Dame d. la Licorne, Guy de Warwike, G&ard de Never s or La Violeite'^, Guillaume de Dole, Ele'dus et SMna, Florimont. Like most kinds of mediaeval poetry, these Romans d'Aventures have a very considerable likeness the one to the General other. It may indeed be said that they possess Character, a 'common form' of certain incidents and situations, which re- appear 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, Bictu resqne , 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 Rolnances ; and its higher passions are also less dealt with. The Romans d'Aven- tures 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 stand- ards of propriety. The courtesy which was held to be so great a knightly virtue, if it was not sufiicient to ensure a high standard of morality in conduct, at any rate secured such a standard in ' Ed. Hofinann and Mnncker. Halle, i88a '.£d. Michel. Fans, 1834. 8o Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.i. 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, four- teenth of the name. Reference has already been made to the influence which these poems had on the Chansons de Gestes. Few of the later Last developments of these are worth much attention, but Chansons. -^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ j^gt Original Chanson deserves Baudouin •' -i j . i i_ do Sebourc. some notice. Baudouin de Sebourc^ and its sequel the Bastard of Bouillon' worthily close this great division of literature, and, setting as they do a finish to the sub-cycle of the Chevalier an 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 Bastari de Bouillon °. ' Ed. Boca. 2 vols. Valenciennes, 1841. ' Ed. Scholar. Brussels, 1877. ' Among Romans d'Aveutures which have recently (1896) been added to the list of those in print may be mentioned Galerant, ed. Boncherie, Paris, 1888; Floris ei Liriope, ed. von Zengnle, Leipzig, 1891 ; and IIU et Galeron, ed. Forster, Halle, 1 891. Dr. Forster has also le-edited (same place and date) Wistasse [,Eustache] le Maine. CHAPTER IX. LATER SONGS AND POEMS. Not the least important division of early French literature, in point of bulk and peculiarity, though not always the most im- portant 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, Artificial while, on the Other hand, the influence of the regular Forms of forms of Proven9al poetry had had tiipe to make ^rti'em 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'Orl^ans. The principle underlying all these forms is the same, that is to say, the substitution for the half-articulate refrain General of the early Romances, of a refrain ■ forming part Character, of the sense, and repeated with strict regularity at Varieties, 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', the Ballade, with its modification the Chant ' 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 83 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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'Orl^ans and Villon re- spectively, 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 £quivoqu^e, Fra- tris^e, Couronn^e, etc., culminating in the preposterous Emperifere, arfe 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. The chief authors of these pieces during the period we are dis- cussing were Jehannot de Lescurel, Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps, JeanFroissart, Christine de Pisan, Alain Chartier, and Charles d'OrMans. Besides these there were many others, though 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 Lescnrel and Chartier will illustrate this sufficiently. There is no need to enter into the absurdity oi ballades iquivoquies, emperiires, 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 villantllt alternates one of two refrain lines at the end of each three-lined stanza. These are the principal forms, though there are many others. ch. IX.] Later Songs and Poems. 83 the epoch of the Hundred Years' War was not altogether fertile in lighter poetry or poetry of any kind. Jehannot de jehannot Lescurel ' is one of those poets of whom absolutely ^ Lesourei. 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 ^ 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 four- teenth century, and thus they are anterior to most of the work of the school. GuillaumedeMachaultwas a person sufficiently Ouiliaume do before the world, and his work is very voluminous. Maohauit. 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 Luxem- bourg, 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 §erved John and Charles V., finally, as it appears, becoming in some way connected with Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cypras. 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'Akxandrie^, a rhymed chronicle of the exploits of Lusignan, and the Voir Dit*, ' Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1855. ' The Rondeau is not in Lescurel sjrstematised into any regular fonn. ' Ed. L. de Mas Latrie. Soci^t^ de I'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 Ml of power. • Ed. P. Paris. Soci^t^ 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 P^ronelle d'Armentifees, and was written in 1362, when the author was probably very old, G 2 84 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. a curious love poem in the style of tiie 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*. Deschamps has left no less than 1175 ballades, and as the ballade usually contains twenty-four lines at least, and frequently thirty- Bustaohe four, this of itself gives a formidable total. Rondeaus, Deschamps. 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 occa- sional 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 zoo,ooo lines, and still partly 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 hot two ballades " with a list of the chief oaths in use, it is difficult not to lament the lack of critical spirit displayed. Froissart, though inferior to Lescurel, and though far less re- markable as a poet than as a prose writer, can fairly hold his own 1 Deschamps is said to have been also named Morel. A complete edition of his works was executed for the Old French Text Society by the Marquis de Qneux de Saint Hilaire. 8 vols. Paris, 1878-1893. » Ballades, 147, 149. Ed. Qnenx de St Hilaire. Ch. IX.] Later Songs and Poems. 85 with Deschamps and Machault, while he has the advantage of being easily accessible. The later part of his life „ . _ . . , . , . . ProiBsart. 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 i Amour and the Trisor 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, in- terspersed with shorter l3n:ical 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 DU du Florin, Le Dihai du Cheoal et du LSvrier, 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 hyper- bolical passion tricked out with all the already stale allegorical imagery and the inappropriate erudition of the Roman de la Rose. 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 Christine would appear, though here again judgment has to be de Fiaan. formed on fragments, a complete edition of Christine never having been published, though the Sociiii des Anciens Textes has at last under- taken the collection of her poetical works. Besides a collection of Ballades, Rondeaux, and so forth, she wrote several Z^z'/j (the Dit de la Pastoure, the Dit de Poissy, the Ditti^ de Jeanne dArc, and some Dits Moraux\ besides a Mutation de Fortune, a Livre des Cent Histoires de Troie, etc., etc. Alain Chartier, who was born in or about 1390, and who died in 1458, is best known by the famoi^ story of Matgaret of Scotland, ' Ed. Scb^ler. 3 vols. Brussels, 1870-1873. To this add the long poem of Miliador, supposed to be lost, bnt ibnnd recently by M. Longnon. 86 Mediaeval Literature. \ax..i.. queen of France, herself an industrious poetess, stooping to kiss Alain his poetical lips as he lay asleep. He also awaits Chartier. a modem 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 his ballades of ethical meditation 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 con- siderable writer of original work who Latinises much ; and his practice in this respect was eagerly followed by the rMtoriqueur 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 ele- gance is discoverable, and this quality manifests itself most strongly in the poet who may be regarded as closing the stricdy mediaeval series, Charles d'Orleans'. The life of this poet has been fre- quently 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 con- trol, 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 per- sonage for his master and protector. There is thus litde fervency > Ed. H^ricauU. i vols. Paris, 1874. Charles d'OrWans was the son of the Duke of Orleans, who was murdered by the Burgundians, and of Valentina of Milan. He was bom in 1391, taken prisoner at Agincourt, ransomed in 1449, and he died in 1465. His son was Louis XII. Ch. IX.] Later Songs and Poems. 87 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'Orldans, and few deserve their popu- larity 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 ', 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 Rhitoriqueurs 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 de- cadence 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. ' Ed. Qnenz de St. Hilaire. Paris, 1868. CHAPTER X. THE 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 Origins of learning. On the other hand, a more probable and Drama. historical source has been found in the ceremonies and liturgies of the Church, which in themselves possess a con- siderable 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 suflScient 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 suiBcient to account for the beginnings of dramatic literature in France. It so happens too that such historical evidence as we have BarUest entirely bears out this supposition. The earliest com- vemaouiar positions of a dramatic kind that we possess in "f*km" ^''^'^*^'*' ^^^ 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, The Drama. 89 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 in- jiygteries dependently performed outside the church walls. It and is accompanied by full directions in Latin for the Miracles, decoration and arrangement of stage and scenes. Another im- portant instance, already mentioned, of somewhat dubious age, but certainly very early, is the Mystery of Tht 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 de- grees a distinction was established between mystery and miracle- plays, the former being for the most part taken from the sacred S criptures , the latter from legends and lives of the Saints and'of t he Virgin . Early and interesnng specimens of the miracle are to be found in the TMopkik of Ruteboeuf and in the Saint Nicholas of Jean Bodel d' Arras, both belonging to the same (thirteenth) century '. 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 diflFerent times, and the whole is now in course of publication by the Old French Text Society *. As the miracles were mostly concerned with isolated legends, Hiraoles de they did not lend themselves to great prolixity, and 1» Vierge. 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. ' These, as well as The Ten Virgins and many other pieces soon to be men- tioned, are to be found in Monmerqu^ and Michel, Thi&tre Fran^ns au Moyen Age, Paris, 1874, last ed. ; Adam, ed. Lnzarches, 1854. * Vols. 1-7. Paris, 1876-1883. 90 Mediaeval Literature. [6k. i. 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 under- stood 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'^ of Arnould Gr^ban, and the Viel Testament^, 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 Mystire du Viel Testament, of which no manuscript is now known, but which was printed in the last year of the fifteenth century, has also been reprinted, and extends to * nearly 50,000 verses. Additions even to this are spoken of j 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 ' Ed. G. Paris and G. Raynaud. Paris, 1878. ' Ed. J. de Rothschild. Vols, i-iii. Paris, 1878-1881. Ch. X.] The Drama. 91 occupied in the performance of a mystery, cannot be thought excessive. The enormous length of the larger mysteries makes analysis of any one of them impossible ; but as an instance of Heteroeene- the curious comedy which is intermixed with their ous Character most serious portions, and which shocked critics even of Mysteries, up to our own time, we may take the scene of the Tower of Babel in the Mystire du Viel Tesiameni^. Here the author is not content with describing Nimrod's act in general terms, or by the aid of the con- venient messenger; he brings the actual masons and carpenters on the stage. Gaste-Bois (Spoilwood), Casse-Tuikau (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 pent en fin qne faillir. Besongnons; mais qu'on nous pale 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 some- thing 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 ven- geance and pardon. Instances such as this abound in the mys- teries, which are sometimes avowedly interrupted in order that the audience may be diverted by a farcical interlude. Of the miracles, that of Si. Guillaume du Desert will serve as a fair example. It is but 1500 lines in length, yet .^jgument the list of dramatis personae extends to nearly thirty, of a and there are at least as many distinct scenes. Miracle Play- William, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, has rendered him- self in many ways obnoxious to the Holy See. He has recognised ' Mystire du Viel Testament, i. 259-272. 9a Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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, howeverj 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 *. 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 mysteiy 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 suflScient to furnish them with interest. Even in these, however, ' Miracles de la Vierge, ii. 1-54. Ch.x.] The Drama. 93 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 Gr^ban — 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. Although the existence of the drama as an actual fact was for a long time due to the performance and popularity of profane the mysteries and miracles, specimens of dramatic Drama, work with purely profane subjects are to be found at Adam de la 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 *. 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 develcfpe themselves. The verse dialogues and dibats, which both trouba- dours and trouvferes had favoured, were in themselves incom- pletely dramatic. The pastourelUs, 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 ' See Monmerqu^ and Michel, op. cit. Also ed. Rambean. Marburg, i885. 94 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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 suflBcient 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 F6e and of the mesnie (attendants) of a certain shadowy King Hellequin, There is a doctor, too, whose revela- tions of his patients' aifairs 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, Mattre 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. The monologue is the simplest form of dramatic composition and needs but little notice, though it seems to have Monologues. . , , , , , , . met with some favour from playgoers of the time. By dint also of adroit changes of costume and assistance from scenery, eta, the monologue was sometimes made more compli- cated than appears at first sight possible, as for instance, in the ch. X.] The Drama. 95 Monologue du Bien et du Mai 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. 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 influ- ence. 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 diflScult of access. It is still not easy to get together a complete collection, but the reimpression of the British Museum pieces in the Bibliothlqw Ehivirienne'^ with M. Ed. Fournier's TMdtre avant la Renaissance ^ contains ample materials for judgment. In all, we possess about a hundred farces, most of which are probably the composition of the fifteenth cen- tury, 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,hA.aa.%i, it is believed, to the middle or earlier part of the fifteenth, and sj)eaking 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 treat- ment. 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 * Ancien Thl&tre Franfais, vols. 1-3, Paris, 1854. ' Vans, u. d. 96 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i, 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 Ughter kind. The number of per- sonages 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 Mat 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 Pasti et de la Tarte ^ 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 com- panion to try and secure it Meanwhile, however, the enraged pastry-cook has come home hungry and demands his eel-pie. His wife m vain assures him that she has sent it by the messenger who brought his token. Her husband disbeUeves 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 ' AncUn Thi&tre Franfais, ii. 64-79. Ch. X.] The Drama 97 rage upon him. The stick makes him confess the device, and smarting under the "blows, he is easily induced to make his com- panion a sharer in his own sorrows. This is eifected by an obvious stratagem. The pastry-cook thus avenges himself of both his enemies, who however, with some philosophy, console them- selves 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 Cieoier, 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 hus- band 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 roUet' (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 Molibre 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 Molifere'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 more- over 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 ta 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 H 98 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.l, 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 mors alkgorical style of treatment is attempted. Such is the farce of Folle Bohance, in which the tendency of various classes to loose and light Eying is satirised amusingly enough. A gentleman, a mer- chant, a farmer, are all caught by the seductive offers of FoUe Bobance, and are not long before they repent it. Such again is the Farce des TMobgastres, in which the students of the Paris theological colleges are ridiculed, the Farce de la Pippie, and many others. In strictness, however, those pieces where allegorical personages make their appearance are not farces but moralities. These com- positions 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, Z'Bomme /us/e ei VHmm Mandain, 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 Morality des En/am de Mainienant contains thirteen characters who are indifferently abstract and concrete; ch. X.] The Drama. 99' Maintenant, Mignotte, Bon Advis, Instruction, Finet, Malduit, Discipline, Jabien, Luxure, Bont^, D^sespoir, Perdition, and the Fool. This list almost sufl&ciently 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 ex- plained by their titles. La dmdatnnation de Banquet is a rathei spirited satire on gluttony and open housekeeping. Marchebeau attacks the disbanded soldiery of the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury. CharM points out the evils which have come into the world for lack of charity. La Moraliti d'une Femme qui avail voulu trahir la Cit£ 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 ^J««r)'<— ignorance— have of obtain- ing benefices and posts of honour and profit as compared with those of learning. Mundus, caro, daemom'a, again tells its own tale. Les BlaspMmaieurs, 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. The Sctie 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 pecu- liar form. It is essentially political comedy,j and it has the pecu- liarity 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 cele- brated author was Gringore, and his Sotie, which forms part of Le Jeu du Prince des Sots et Mire Sotte, is still the typical example of the kind. Besides these two characters (who represent, roughly speak- ing, 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 Gayet^, etc. These H 2 loo Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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. The profane mysteries may be briefly despatched. They were the natural result of the vogue of the mysteries proper, with which Profane they vie in prolixity. Some of them were based on Mysteries, 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. Of considerable interest and importance in connection with Societies of these early forms of drama is the subject of the Actors. 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 Confririe 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 con- stituted. The clerks of the Bazoche, or Palace of Justice, had ch.xj The Drama. lOI 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 Enfanis sans Souci, young men of good families in the city, devoted them- selves rather to the Sotie, and the stock personages of that curious form correspond to the official tides of the officers of their guild. Besides these, many other similar but less durable and regularly constituted societies arose, whose heads took fantastic tides, such as Empereur de Galilee, Roi de I'Epinette, Prince de I'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 in- fluence, 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 H6tel de Bourgogne, a name which brings us at once into the presence of Moliere. In these last sentences we have a little out- stripped the mediaeval period proper, but in dramatic matters there is no gap between the ancient and modern theatre until we arrive at the PMiade '. And even then we must be careful not to ex- aggerate, as some modern writers both in France and elsewhere have exaggerated, the separation between the two. This is wider in French drama than in English, and wider in tragedy — especially • The two first volumes of M. Petit de Jnlleville's history of the Mediaeval Theatre contain an excellent acconnt of the Mysteries (Paris, 1880). Informa- tion on other points is rather scattered, but it will be found well summarised in Anbertin, Histoire de la Langzte et de la Littlrature Frangaise 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. loa Mediaeval Literature. French trage(Jy-"than in comedy. But in the last case it is very narrow indeed, and even in the case of tragedy the fancy of French Renaissance and Augustan writers for biblical and hagiological subjects helps to make a more than practicable bridge. There is no question but that the passion for theatrical performances created and fostered by the mediaeval drama was met and satisfied in this case as in others by a change in the food provided for it ; but the change was the introduction not of anything new, but only of a new kind of the old. CHAPTER XI. PROSE CHRONICLES. In all countries the use of prose for literature is chronologically later than the use of poetry, and France is no excep- Begiimiiig tion to the rule. The Chansons de Gestes were in of Prose their way historical poems, and they were, as we have Ohionioies. 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 Pr^s, 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\ These two are composed in a southern * 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 dt 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 I04 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. dialect bordering on the Proven9al, 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, Grandes became the original of a compilation very famous Chroniques in French literature and history, the Grandes Chro- dePramoe. niqms jg France, which was regularly continued by members of the same community until the reign of Charles V, from o£Bcial 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. 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 litera- ture, the first, or one of the first, was also the best. The Con- Viliehar- f^^'fe ^ Constantinobk * of Geoflfroy de Villehardouin douin. was written in all probability during the first decade of the thirteenth century. Its author was born at Villehardouin, near Troyes, about 11 60, and died, it would seem, in his Greek fief of Messinople in 1 2 1 3. 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 par- tition of Greece among French barons. Villehardouin's memoirs are by universal consent among the most attractive works of the 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 consultmg M. Gaston Paris, De pseudo-Tur^no, Paris, 1865, or M. Leon Gautier, Efopdes FrangaUes, Paris, 1878. But, from the literary pomt of view, It IS sufficient to say that, while Tur^in is of the very smallest Uterary merit, Roland is among the capital works of the middle ages ' Ed. N. de WaUly. Paris, 1874. Ch. XI.] Prose Chronicles. 105 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 Conqttile de Constantinohle to these latter is exceedingly striking. The form, putting the differ- ence between prose and verse aside, is very similar, and the merits of vigorous and brightly coloured language, of simplicity and vivid- ness of presentation, are identical. At the same time either his own genius or the form which he has adopted has saved Villehar- douin 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 in- direct 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 ex- ' ponent 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 ad- vantage. The Fourth Crusade was fertile in chroniclers. Villehardouin's work was supplemented by the chronicle of Henri . . , Minor de Valenciennes, which is written in a somewhat chroniclers similar style, but with still more resemblance to the between manner and diction of the Chansons, so much so ViUehar- . , , J t -ii. douin and that It has been even supposed by some, with or join-^lle. without foundation, to be a rhymed Chanson thrown into a prose form. This process is known to have been io6 Mediaeval LiUrature. [Bk. i. actually applied in some cases. Another historian of the expedi- tion 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 GrawLes Chroniques de France, was continued by original work and attained, under the title of Chroniqm de Baudouin d'Avesnes, very considerable dimensions. The thirteenth century also supplies a not inconaderable 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^. Of the Flanders group, the already mentioned chronicle called of Baudouin d'Avesnes is the chiet 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. As Villehardouin is the representative writer of the twelfth cen- tury, so is Joinville' of the thirteenth, as far as history is concerned. Jean de Joinville, S^n^chal of Cham- pagne, was bom in 1224 at the castle of Joinville on the Mame, which afterwards became the property of the Orleans family, and was destroyed during the Revolution. He died in 13 19. He accompanied Saint Louis on his unfortunate crusade in 1248, but • Ed. P. Paris, a vols., 1879-80. It is characteristic of'the middle ages that this work usually bore the title of Roman SEracle, for no other reason than that the name of Heraclius occurs in the first sentence. ' Ed. N. de Wailly. Paris, 1874. Besides the Histoire de St. Louis, Join- ville has left an interesting Credo, a brief religious manual written much earlier in his life. C!h. XI.] Prose Chronicles. 107 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 Conquite, and is com- posed 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 Join- ville 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 contempo- rary 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 contem- porary documents on matters of business which Joinville seems to have dictated, M. de Wailly has eflfected 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 four- teenth century, and about 13 10 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 Chroniques de France and the Chroniques de Flandre, there are perhaps only two which are worth mentioning. The first is a Chroniqtie des Quaire Premiers Valois, written from authentic sources of information. The other is the Chronique of Jean Lebel, canon of Lifege'. This is not only a work of ^ Ed Polain. Brnssels, 1863. io8 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. 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. Froissart was born in 1337 and did not die till after 1409, the pre- cise date of his death being unknown. There are few problems of literary criticism which are more difficult than that of Froissart. ^^^^^^^^ a, definitive edition of his famous Chro- niques ^ 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 em- barrassing 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 hs^ve 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 was unfinished at his death. The editor, however, 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 out- side 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, ^ Ed. Kervyn de Lettenliove. 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 suc- cessively curS of Lestines and canon of Chimay. In early life he was much in England, being specially patronised by Edward III. and Philippa. Ch. XL] Prose Chronicles. 109 attained to the gossiping picturesqueness of the later books (there are four in all), in which the historian relies entirely on his own col- lections. Although Cressy, Poitiers, and Najara may be of more importance than the fruitless cheuaticMe 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 TSte-Noire, they are much less characteristic of Froissart. The Uterary instinct of Scott enabled him (in a speech of Claverhouse ') 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 T§te-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 diflScult even with the clearest knowledge of the facts to rise from a perusal of Froissart without an impression that the eariier period of the Hundred Years' War was a sort of golden age in which all the virtues flourished, except for occasional ugly out- breaks of the evil principle in the Jacquerie, the Wat Tyler insurrection, and so forth. As a historian Froissart is, as we ' Old Mortality, chap. 35. 110 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. should expect, not critical, and he carries the French habit of dis- figuring 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. The last century of the period which is included in this chapter is extremely fertile in historians. These range themselves natu- Pifteentt- '^'^^ '" **° classes ; those who undertake more or less Century of a general history of the country during their time, Chromelera. and those who devote themselves to special persons as biographers, or to the recital of the events which more par- ticularly concern a single city or district. The first class, more- over, 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 Mon- strelet, belongs to this party. Monstrelet^, who wrote a chronicle covering the years 1400-1444, is not remarkable for elegance or picturesqneness of style, but takes particular pains to copy exactly official reports of speeches, treaties, letters, etc. Another im- portant chronicle of the same side is that of George Chastellain ^ a busy man of letters, who was historiographer to the Duke of Burgundy, and wrote a history of the years 1419—1470. Chastel- lain 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 i4^9. ^-nd are also somewhat heavy, but less pedantic than those of Chastellain. Dealing with the same period, ' Ed. Bnchon. Paris, 1858. " Chastellain has been fortunate, like most Flemish writers, in being excel- lently and completely edited (by M. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 8 vols., Brussels). ch.xi.] Prose Chronicles. iii and also -written in the Burgundian interest, are the memoirs of Jacques du Clerq, 1 448-1467, and of Leffevre de Saint R^my, 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. Jhe 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 ', 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 suc- cessors. The second class has the longest list of names, and perhaps the most interesting constituents. First may be mentioned Le Livre des Fails et bonnes Moeurs du sage rot Charles V. This is an elaborate panegyric by the poetess Christine de Pisan, full of learn- ing, good sense, and sound morality, but somewhat injured by the classical phrases, the foreign idioms, and the miscellaneous eru- dition, which characterise the school to which Christine belonged. Far more interesting is the Livre des Fails du Marichal de Bouci- quall^, a book which is a not unworthy companion and commen- tary 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 ' Ed. Michaud et Foujoulat. ' Ed. Michaud et Foujoukt. II a Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. 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 (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 VilleStuve, complete the list of works of this class that deserve mention. CHAPTER XII. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE. It was natural, and indeed necessary, that, when the use of prose as an allowable vehicle for literary composition was General use once understood and established, it should gradually of Fxoie. but rapidly supersede the more troublesome and far less appro- priate form of verse. Accordingly we find that, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, the amount of prose literature is con- stantly 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 con- temporary and kindred literature in verse. For in the nature of things much of it was occupied with what may be called the journeywork of literature, — ^the stuff which, unless there be some special attrac- tion 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 su£Sce for its mediaeval prose, and such a review will appropriately close the survey of the literature of the middle ages. It has already been pointed out in the first chapter that docu- mentary evidence exists to prove the custom of preaching in French (or at least in lingua remand) at a very early date. It is not, however, till many centuries after the date of Mummolinus, 1 14 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. that there is any trace of regularly written vernacular dis- courses. When these appear in the twelfth century the Proven9al Prose dialects appear to have the start of French proper. Sermons. Whether the numerous prose sermons ' of St. Bernard St. Bernard. y,hich 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 Maurice de does not depend on that of St. Bernard's author- Sully, ship. Maurice de Sully, who presided over the See of Paris from 1 160 to 1196, has left a considerable number of sermons which exist in manuscripts of very diflferent 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 Iiater Orleanist, or Armagnac parties, and the ecclesiastical Preachers. Squabbles of the Great Schism, produced some figures Geraon. gf greater interest. Such are Jean Petit, a furious Burgundian partisan, and Jean Charlier, or Gerson, one of the most * Ed. Forster. Erlangen, 1885. ch.xiu] Miscellaneous Prose. 115 respectable and considerable names of the later mediaeval literature. Gerson was bom 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 Imita- tion. 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. This is indeed th& 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 uoral and Gerson is again conspicuous. The most popular, Devotional perhaps, and in a way the most interesting of all Treatises, such moral and devotional treatises, is the book of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry \ written in the third quarter of the fourteenth ' Ed. Montaiglon, Fans, 1854. IZ ii6 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.l. 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 trans- lations 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 elabora- tion of the peculiarities of syntax and style necessary for rendering the sentences of languages so highly organised as TrauslatorB. j^^^.^^ ^^^ ^^.^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ 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 Fresles, have left special reputations. The eldest of these, Pierre Bersuure or Ber- cheure, a friend of Petrarch, was bom 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 neo- logisms necessary for his purpose. Raoul de Presles executed ch. XII.] Miscellaneous Prose. 117 translations of the Bible and of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei. All these writers furnished an enlarged vocabulary to their suc- cessors, 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 Quadribge Inveciif and Curt'al, both satirical or, at least, polemical books, are his chief productions in this kind. Raoul de poUtioal and Presles also composed a polemical work, dealing Polemical chiefly with the burning question of the papal and Works, royal powers, under the title of Sotige du Verger. 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 Couiumkr de 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 king- codeg ^nd dom of Jerusalem in 1099, and known also as the liegal Leitres du Sipulcre, from the place of their custody. Treatises. The original text was lost or destroyed at the capture of Jeru- salem 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 Letlres du Sipulcre, 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 ii8 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk.i. codes were observed. The chief remaining works of the same kind which deserve mention are the Eiablissements de St. Louis and the Livre de Justice et dePkt, which both date from the time of Louis himself; the Cornell, 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 four- teenth century is abundant, but possesses considerably less interest. Last of all, before coming to prose fiction, a vast if not very MigceUanies interesting class of miscellaneous prose work must be and Didactic mentioned. Books of accounts and domestic economy "Works, of all sorts (generally called livres de raisott) were very common. We have a Minagier 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 Tr/sors, 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 Brunette 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*; some miscellaneous travels; and last, but not ' I am aware that the 'mastership ' is now disputed : bnt with all lespect to Dante-experts, of whom I do not pretend to be one, the reference in the Inferno seems to me to have no other possible meaning. ' For instance, the Saint Voyage de Jerusalem (1385), ed. Bonnardot and Longnon. Paris, 1878. The famous book called Sir John Mandeville's, though perhaps originally French, is too much a part of English literature to be more than mentioned here. Ch. xii.J Miscellaneous Prose. 119 least, those of Marco Polo, which seem 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. 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 pecuUar de- fects 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 Biblio- ihkque Elzivirienne ' / the versions of such collections of legends, chiefly oriental in origin, as the History of the Seven Wise Men and the Gesia 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 °, and of the Violier des Histoires Romaines, by M. Gustave Brunet', 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 C^sar > Nottvettes du 1 3' et du 14' sUcle, Ed. Moland et Hencanlt. 3 vols. Paris, 1856. ' Paris, 1876. • Paris, 1858. I20 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk-i- of Jean de Tuim', 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 Perce/orest 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 pub- lished by MM. Moland and H^ricault, 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. Mole's legend of Troilus and Cressida, through the channel of Guide Colonna and Boccaccio ; and a very curious English story, that of the rebel Fulk Fitzwarine. The thirteenth-century tales consist of L'Empermr 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 etAmiks; of Le rot 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 NicoUtte. 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 trfes- douce mie,' and which is, of course, at last rewarded. But the ex- treme beauty of the separate scenes makes it a masterpiece. Antoine de la Salle is one of the most fortunate of authors. The tendency of modem criticism is generally to la Salle 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 > Ed. Settegast. Halle, 1881. Cb. XII.] Miscellaneotis Prose. lai Salle, on the contrary, critics have vied with each other in heaping unacknowledged masterpieces on his head. His only acknow- ledged work is the charming romance of Petit Jean de Saintri^- The first thing added to this has been the admirable satire of the Quinze Joyes du Manage *, the next the famous collection of the CentNomelles", and the last the still more famous farce oi Pathelin*. 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 Ren^ the count of Saint Pol, and Philip the Good of Burgundy, who was his natural sovereign. Nothing is known of him after 146 1. 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 k I'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 mis6rable- ment ses jours.' The satire is much quieter and of a more humor- ous 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 bald- ness or dryness. Petit Jehan de Saintri is, together with the Chronique de Messire Jacques de Lalaing ' of Georges Chastellain (a delightful biography, which is not a work of fiction), the hand- ' Ed. GnichaTd. Paris, 1843. 'Ed. Jannet. Paris, 1853; 2nd ed. 1857. ' Ed. Wright. Paris, 1858. * Ed. Foumier, The&tre Frartfais avant la Renaissance. Paris, a. d. ' Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, viii. 1-259. laa Mediaeval Literature. book of the last age of chivalry. Jehan de Saintr^, 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. 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 extremes! chronological limits, over some eight centuries. But, until the end of the eleventh, the monuments of ancient French literature are few and r scattered, and the actual manuscripts which we possess date in hardly any case fiirther 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. iJuring 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 modem times ; the drama is begun in all its varieties of tragedy, comedy, and opera ; Ijrric 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 an- tiquity 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 134 Summary of Mediaeval Literature. which not a little decided falling oflF is noticeable. Except the formal lyric poetry of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and the multiphed 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 ar- rangements 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 master- piece 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 intel- lectual 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 Summary of Mediaeval Literature. 125 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 Proven9al 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 comer 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 neces- sary 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 uni- versal 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 litde 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 126 Summary of Mediaeval Literature. effect, but it was fatal to elegance or dignity except in the om- nipotent 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 niil fabliau in this. Nothing like a critical spirit had yet mani- fested 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 BEISTAISSAH'CK CHAPTER I. VILLON, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 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 unmis- takeable 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 \ 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 .j^^ middle authors, moreover, have in them the characteristic Ages and the which perhaps more than any other distinguishes Kenaissanoe. modem from mediaeval literature, the predominance Charactens- tics of of the personal element. In their works, especi- pifteenth- ally if Villon be taken with the immediately preced- century ing and partially contemporary Charies d'Oridans, a Literature. 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 » Villon sut le premier, dans ces slides grossiers, D^brouiller I'art confus de nos vieux romanciers. Jrt Poll. Ch. L 128 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii. that his personality is still, so to speak, generic rather than indi- vidual. He is still the Trouvfere 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 modem reader. That reader is cut off from Charles d'OrMans' world by a gulf across which he can only project himself by a great eifort 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'Orldans 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 blooining 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 rMtoriqueurs who preceded the Pl^iade 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 per- sons 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. Fran90is Villon ^ 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 ' Ed. p. L. Jacob. Paris, 1854. Villon's life has been much dealt with, and best by A. Longnon (Paris, 187^), who re-edited the poems in 189a. Dr. Bijvanck, a Dutch scholar, has dealt with the MSS. Ch. 1.] Villon, Comities, and. the later Fifteenth Century. 129 century in order to adjust Rabelais' anecdotes of him^ others sup- posing 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 dis- tinction, 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 con- demned 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, con- signed 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'Orl^ans. Such are the bare facts of his singular life, to which the peculiar character of his work has directed perhaps disproportionate at- tention. 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^ J 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 ' One of these anecdotes makes him patronised by Edward the Fifth of England. But the very terms of it are unsuitable to that king. ' 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. . 130 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. Dialogue between two characters, the Seigneurs de Majlepaye and Baillevent, and a still better Monologue entitled Le Franc Archier de Bagnolet. The Litde Testament was written after the affair with Catherine de Vausselles, the Great Testament after his libera- tion from the, Bishop's Prison at Meung. Many of the minor poems contain allusions which enable us to fix theni 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 edi- tions), the number had reached thirty-two. The characteristics of Villon may be looked at either techni- cally 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'OrMans 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 recur- rent 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 Heaulmifere after the recital of her former triumphs^- Que m'en reste-t-il? honte et p^ch^; and the despairing conclusion of the lover of La Grosse Margot — Je suis pailUrd, paillardise me snit-^ are examples in point ; of the latter the line in the rondeau to Death — Deux ^tions et n'avions qu'un coeur. No one has bolder strokes of the picturesque, as for instance — De Constantinoble L'empdrier aax poings dords; Ch. I.] Villon, Comities, and the later Fifteenth Century. 131 and no one can render the sombre horror of 9, scene better than Villon has rendered it in the famous epit^iph of the gibbeted corpses^ La pluie nous a debu& et lay&, Et le soleil dess^ch& et noirds, Fies, corbeaulx nous ont l«s yeux eav^s Et arrache? la barbe et les spurpils. These are some of Villon's strongest points. Yet in his com- paratively 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 conse- quence 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 uni- versally perceived, as well as distinguished by consummate art of expression. In the great literature which we are discussing, the latter characteristic is almost univeFsa,lly present, the former not so constantly. The literary excellence of Comines ' 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 im- plies) 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 bom before 1447, and entered the service of Philip of Burgundy and of his son Charles of Charolais, the future Charles le TdmiSraire. Comines was present at MontMry and at the siege of Li^ge, while he played a considerable part in ' Ed. Cbantelauze. Paris, 18S1. Also usefully in Michaud et Poujoulat. E 2 iga The Renaissance. [Bk. ir. the celebrated affair of P^ronne, when Louis XI. was in such danger. Before 1 471 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 en- joyed the forfeited fief of Talmont, a domain of the first import- ance, which he afterwards had to restore to its rightful owners, the La Tremoilles. 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 151 1 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, espe- cially inversions of phrase and sudden apostrophes which enliven an otherwise rather awkward manner of writing. Thus, in de- scribing the bad education of the young nobles of his time, he says, ' de nuUes lettres ils n'ont connaissance. Un seul sage homme on ne leur met k I'entour.' And in his account of the operations before the battle of Moral he says, ' II (the Duke of Burgundy) sdjourna k Losanne en Savoie oft 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 ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century, 133 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 con- nection 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 posi- tively immoral, statecraft. Again, his reflexions, though usually lacking neither in acuteness nor in depth, are often appended to a common-place on the mutability of fortune, the error of anger, the necessity of adapting means to ends, and so forth. Every- where 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 M^moires 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 Letlres et Negotiations '. There are three persons who, while of very much less import- ance 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 cen- tury, the extreme verge of which the life of all three appears to • Ed. Kervyn de I.ettenhove. 2 vols. Brussels, 1867-8. 134 The Rimissmce. [Bk.ii. have touched. These are Gtiillatifti6 CoqtiiMart, Henri Batide, and Martial d'Auvergne. All three were poets, all three have been someivhat over-praised by the schblats Mvho ift dayS more ot less recent have draWh them from their obscurity, but all three made creditable head against what was mistaken and absurd ih the literary fashions bf the time. In the writings bf all of them more- over thete is to be foilnd sbtnfethihg, if not much, ^lirhich is positively good, and which deserves the attentioh, hardly perhaps of the ^ .„ ^ general reader, biit of students of literature. Co- Coquillart. . .. , > ,.4. quiUatt' was a native, and for great part of his life an inhabitant, bf Rheims. The eXtrettife dates given for his birth and death are 1421 and igib, but thefe is in reality, as is usual in the case bf all meti Of letters befote the sixteenth cefttui-y, very little solid authority for his bibgfaphy. It tnay be inen- tioned that Matbt declares him to ha'^e Cut short , his life by gaming. A life caii hardly be said to bfe (5ut sfcbrt at ninety, nor is that an age at which gaiflihg is a freiqueht ruling passibii. AU that can be said is that he *aS certainly, a^ we shbUld now say, iii the civil service of the province of Champagne duting the reigh of Louis XI., that like many other men of the time he united eccle- siastical With legal functiohs, beihg ttot otily a town-eoUUcillor but a canon, and that he has left Satirical wotks of Some merit and importance. These last alone tbncei-n us much. His chief ptodue- tion is a poem entitled Les Droits NoUveaux, in bctb^yllabtc VerseS, not arranged in stanzas of definite length, but, on the o'their hand, interlacing the Aymes, and not in couplets after the older fashion. The plan Of this poem is by Iio means easy to describe. It is partly a social satire, partly a professiohal lampoon on the current methods of learning and teaching la*, partly a political diatribe oh the alterations introduced into provincial and natiOiial life and polity under Louis XI. Not very different in chai'acteirahd exactly similar in fbrttl, except that it is arranged as the age would have said peer 'persimnages, that is to say Semi-dramatically, is the Plai- dt^er de la Sttftpie el di l& Rush. The Blason des A rmes ei Aes t)ames takes up a mediaeval theme ih a mediaeval Style. The procureurs (advocates) of arms and of ladies endeavour to show each that his ' Ed. Hericault. 2 vols. Paris, 1857. ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later fifteenth Century, 135 client — war or love^^^deserves the chief attention of a prince. Here, as elseVirhere with Coquillart, though of course more Covertly, isatire dominates. But the best of the pieces attributed to Coquillart are his monologues. There are three of these, the Momlbgut Coquilhtri, the Monohgm du Puys, and the Monologue du Gendarmt Cass/. This last is A ferocious Satire on its subject, coarse in language, like most of the author's poenis, but full of rude vigOul". The profes- sional soldier as distinguished from the feudd militia Or th6 train- bailds of the towns was odiotls to the later middle ages* ■ Henri Baude^ is a still less substantial figure. He seems to have been an /lu (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 t}uarter of the century, and formed part of the poetical circle of Charles d'Orl&ns in his old age. He had troubles with lawless seigneurs and with the police of Paris ; he finally succeeded in obtaining the protectioh Of the Duke of Bourbon, and he did not die till the end of the century. Only a seleCtiOft 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 ofteii 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. Martial d'AuvergneS or Martial de Paris (for by an odd chance both Of these local surnames are given hita, probably Martial from the fact that, like Baude, he was a native d'Auvergne. > Edited in part by J. Quicherat. Paris, 1856. ' Martial d'Auvergne had the exceptio&^l good luck to he reprinted in the i8th century {Vigilles 1724, ArrlU 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 Soci^t^ des Anciens Textes. The tiotice by M. de Montaiglon (the promised editor of the edition just mentioned) in Crep^t's Poltes Fratifais, i. 427, has been chiefly used here for facts. 1^6 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii of the centre of France and spent his life in the capital), like Coquillart and Baude, was something of a lawyer by pro- fession, and has left work in prose as well as in verse. He certainly died in 1508, and, as he is spoken of as senio confecius, 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 V 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 Hesse, Car ils ont douleurs L'accueil et I'addresse, Et des mauls greigneniS) L' amour et simplesse, Mais pour nos labeurs De bergeis pasteurs. Nous avons sans cesse Qu'avolr h. largesse Les beaulx pres et fleurs. Or, argent, richesse. Fruitages, odeurs Ne la gentillesse Et joye & nos cceurs De ces grants seigneurs. Sans mal qui nous blesse. There is something of the old pastourelUs in this, and of a note of simplicity which French poetry had long lost. Such verse as this of Martial d'Auvergne was, indeed, the exception at the time. The staple poetry of the age was that of ijjjg the grands rMoriqueurs, as it has become usual EhStori- to call them, apparently from a phrase of Coquillart's. queuTB. Georges Chastellain' was the great master of this school. But to him personally some injustice has been done. ' Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, as previously cited. For the remainder of the poets reviewed in this paragraph, few of whom have found modem editors, see Crepet, Poites Franfais, vol. i. ch. 1.] Villon, Cotnines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 137 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 Foetica. 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 cox- combry, 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 alle- gorical 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 CMment, 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 Ramina- grobis, the ' vieux pofete franjais ' of Paniagruel^, is Cretin's, and 138 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. 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 pdie souverain, Rabelais no doubt felt it time to protest in his own wayk Marot himself, it is to be observed, confines himself chiefly to citing Cretin's 'vers ^quivoqu^s, which of thfeir kind, and if we could do otherwise thaii pronounce that kind hopelessly bad, are without doubt ingenious. His poems are chiefly occasional verse, letters, d^bals, etCk, besides ballades and rondeaus ol all kinds. One charming book which has been preserved to us gives a pleasant contrast to the formal poetry of die tifflie. The Chansons Chansons du ^^ XT^"" SilcU, which M. Gaston Paris has pub- xv*™Si6ole, lished for the Old French Text Society', exhibit informal and popular poetry in its most agreeable aspect. They are one hundred and forty-three in number, some of theffi no doubt much older than the fifteenth century, but certainly none of them younger. There are pastmreUes, war-songs, love-songs in great number, a few patriotic ditties, and a few which may be called pure folk-songs, 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. Few of the miscellaneous branches of literature at this time deserve notice. But there was a group of preachers Freaohers. , , . , . ,.,..;, who have received attention, which is said by stu- dents 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 Apoldgk pour He'rodote of Henri fistienne. These are Menot (1440-1518) and Maillard the FtanciscanSj and Raulin (1443-1514)) a doctor of the Sotbonne. 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 werC 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 ' Paris, 1876. Ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 139 illustrations of the singular licence which the middle ages per- mitted 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, hpropos of the marriage of Panurge. CHAPTER 11. MAROT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 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 natipnal life of each people, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that while Italy felt the full in- fluence 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 humanist thought was only displayed in Shakespeare, but by that time, as is the wont of all such things, it had already mani- fested itself partially, though in each part more fully and characteris- tically, elsewhere. It is in the literature of France that we find the most complete exposition of these partial developments. Marot, Hybrid Ronsard, Rabelais, Calvin, Gamier, Montaigne, will School of not altogether make up a Shakespeare, yet of the Poetry. 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 Marot and his Contemporaries. 141 mediaeval diflferentia, 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. Between the rMtoriqueurs 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, con- siderable at least in numbers, intervened. The chief of these was Jean le Maire des Beiges ^. He was the nephew of jeau le Molinet, and his birth at Beiges or Bavia in Hainault, Maire. 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 Illtistraiions 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 el de Verlu, 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 rMtoriqueur influence is less apparent, may be said of Pierre Gringore, whose true title to a place in a history of French ' De Beiges, though the less usnal, is the more accnrate form. Ed. Stecher. 3 vols. Louvain, 1882-5. He, with others of this time, disputes the honour of insisting on the importance of alternating masculine and feminine rhymes. He was bom 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. 142 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii, 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 remark- Jehan du able figures, Jehan du Pontalais and Roger de CoU^rye, Pontalais. represent it in the first quarter of the century. The former indeed ' owes his place here rather to a theory than to certain information ; for if M. d'H^ricault's notion that Jehan du Pontalais is the author of a work entitled Conireditz du Songeereux be without foundation, Jehan falls back into the number of half mythical Bohemians, bilkers of tavern bills and successful out- witters of the ofiicers of justice, who possess a shadowy personality in the literary history of France. Les Conireditz du Songe- ereux 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'Orl^ans, 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 illus- trating the former power may be found in the line descriptive of the hen-pecked man's condition — Tons 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. Roger de CoU^rye ' was a Burgundian, living at the famous and Boger de vinous town of Auxerre, and he has celebrated his Coiifirye. loves, his distress, his amiable tendency to conviviality, in many rondeaux and other poems, sometimes attaining 3. very ' See Poites Franfais, 5. 532. It is perhaps well to say that M. C. d'Hiricault, though a very agreeable as well as a very learned writer, is par- ticularly open to the charge that his geese are swans. " Ed. C. d'Hdricault. Paris, 1855. Ch. Ti.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 143 high level of excellence. ' Je suis Bon-temps, vous le voyez ' is the second line of one of his irregular ballades, and the nickname ex- presses his general attitude well enough. Mediaeval legacies of alle- gory, however, supply him wit;h 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 Hind. CoU^rye has less perhaps of the rh^toriqueur 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 alle- gorisers. Jehan Bouchet *, a lawyer of Poitiers (not to Minor Pre- be confounded with Guillaume Bouchet, author of the deoessors of Series), imitated the rMtoriqwurs for the most part in jw-aro . form, ^nd surpa,ssed them in length, excelling indeed in this respect even the long-winded and long-lived poets of the close of the four- teenth century. Bouchet is s^id to have composed a hundred thousand verses, and even M. d'H^ricault avers that he read two- thirds of the number without discovering more than six quotable lines. Such works of Bouchet a§ we have exa,mined fully confirm the statement. Still, he was an authority in his way, and had some- thing of a reputation. His fanciful nom. de plumf ' Le Traverseur des Voies P^rilleuses ' is the most picturesque thing hje produced, and is not uncharacteristic of the later middle age tradition. Rabe- lais 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 Bordign^ is only remarkable for having, in his Legends d^ Pierre Faifetf, united the rMtoriqtieur style with a kind of Villonesque or rather pseudo-Villonesque subject. The title of the chief poems of Symphorien Champier, Le Nefdes Dames Amoureuses, suflSciently indicates his style. But Champier, thoggh by no means a good poet, was a useful and studious man of letters, and did much ^ See Poites Franfais, vol. i. ad fin., for the poets mentioned in tjiig paragraph and others of their kind. 144 T^fi^ Renaissance. [Bk. ii. to form the literary cinade which i 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 ' continued the now very stale mediaeval calumnies on women in his Controverses des Sexes Masculin et Fitninin. Eloy d'Amerval, a Picard priest, also fell into mediaeval lines in his Livre de la Diablerie, 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 lehaiiiCar France esiCyme/t^reauxAnghis, 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 is ceuvres Cr^limqties et Boitcheliques, 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 diflBculty. Clement Marot ^ was a man of more mixed race than was usual Clfiment at this period, when the provincial distinctions were Marot. still as a rule maintained with some sharpness. His father, Jean Marot, a poet of merit, was a Norman, but he emigrated ' He was in his old age conspicuous among the enemies of ^fitienne Dolet See Btienne Dolet, by R. C. Christie. London, 1880. ' Ed. Jannet et C. d'Hiricanlt. 4 vols. Paris, 2nd ed. 1873. M. d'H^ricault 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. Gamier. The late M. Guiffrey published two volumes of a costly and splendid edition, which his death intennpted. Ch.ll.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 145 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. CMment was born probably at the beginning of 1497, and his father educated him with some pains in things poetical. This, as times went, neces- sitated an admiration of Cretin and such like persons, and the practice of rondeaux, and of other poetry strict in form and alle- gorical 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 accom- panied her husband to Genoa in 1507. The University of Paris, and a short sojourn among the students of law, completed Cle- ment'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 Cr^tinic lessons was composed; but in 15 14, being then but a stripling, he presented his Jttgement de Minos to Franfois 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 rMtoriqueur style. In 15 19, having already re- ceived or assumed the tide of 'Facteur' (poet) to Queen Claude, he became one of the special adherents of Marguerite d'AngoulSme, 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 im- mediate followers were distinguished, some by their adherence to the principles of the Reformation, others by free thought of a still 146 The Renaissance. [Bk.11. more unorthodox description, and Marot soon after his return was accused of heresy and lodged in the Chitelet. 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 chais fourris 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 Adokscettce CUmentim. 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 B^arn and then to Ferrara. Here, under the protection of Ren^e 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 rMtoriqmur character for the most part, in dizains of ten and eight syllables alternately, a Dialogue of two Lovers, an Eclogue to the King ; L'En/er, a vigorous and picturesque description of his imprison- ment in the ChStelet, and some poems bearing a strong Hugfuenot impression. Then come sixty-five epistles written in couplets for the most part decasyllabic. These include the celebrated Coq-h-TAne, a sort of nonsense-verse, with a satirical tendency, which derives from the mediaeval fatrasie, and was very popular Ch. II.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 147 and much imitated. Another mediaeval restoration of Marot's, also very popular and also much imitated, was the Mason, a descrip- tion, 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^nd forty-two songs for music, contain much of Marot's raosFSeautifiil 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'Orl^ans and Villon. Numerous e'trennes 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 j 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 P16iade, 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 be- sides 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 Pldiade on the one hand, the purely mediaeval writers on the other, have pushed him from his stool.' But sane criti- cism, 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 poetiy. 148 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. 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 cha- racteristics of the lighter French, poetry, from La Fontame to B^ranger, 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 arid 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 dis- tinguish it since,-elggaijce-and urbanity. His style is somewhat pedestrian, though on occasion ^e' can write with exquisite ten- derness, and with the most delicate suggestiveness of expression. But as a rule he does not go deep ; ease and,grace,,not pass ion or lofty flights, are his strong points. Representing, as he did, the reaction from the stiff forms and clumsily classical language of the rMioriqtieurs, it was not likely that he should exhibit the ten- dency of his own age to classical culture and imitation very strongly. He and his school were thus regarded by their immediate successors of the Pl^iade 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, g^ven the difference of a century in point of ordinary progress, Charles d'Orl&ns is Marot's equal in elegance and grace, and his superior in sentiment, while Marot is not comparable to Villon in passion or in humoiu'. 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 ch.ii.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 149 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 long^er pieces, are ..very, infjerjor to Jbis 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 Frlre Lubin is among the very best things of its kind ; while as much may be said of the rondeaus ' Dedans Paris ' in the lighter style, and ' En la Baisant ' in the graver. Perhaps the famous line — Un doux nenny avec tin 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^ tendgcaEd elegant sentiment, and supple- ness,-fiase7-andIBiiencyof style. Marot formed a very considerable school, some of whom directly imitated his mannerisms, and composed hlasons'^ and The School Coq-h-l'Ane in emulation of their master and of each of Marot. 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 cen- tury, a century fertile in such things, was that between Marot and a certain insignificant person named Francois Sagon, a belated rMtoriqueur, 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 prin- cipals, but of their followers, the MaroUques and Sagonttques, 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, ' The blasan (description) was a child of the mediaeval dit. Marot's examples, Le beau Titin and Z« laid Titin, were copied ad infinitum. The first is pane- gyric, the second abuse. 150 Ttte Renaissance. [Bk. 11. who, like his master, held places in the courts both of Marguerite and her brother,' wrote not merely a devotional work, Les Louanges de J/stts Christ notre Seigneur, which fairly illustrates the devotional side of the Navarrese literary coterie, but also epigrams and ron- deaux of no small merit. £tienne Dolet, better known both as a scholar and translator, and as the publisher of Marot and (surrep- titiously) 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, Margtierites de la Marguerite des Princesses ^, is perhaps not the worst thing about them. Farces, mysteries, religious poems, such as Le Triomphe de I'Agneau, and Le Miroir de I' Ante P^cheresse, 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'Aubign^ and the choruses of Garnier and Montchrestien. Bonaventure des Purlers, an admirable prose writer, was a poet, though not a very strong one. Fran9ois Habert, ' Le Banni de Liesse,' must not be confounded with Philippe Habert, author of a remarkable Temple de la Mart 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 For- cadel, deserve at least to be named. Of more importance were Hugues Salel, Charles Fontaine, Antoine H^roet, Maurice Scfeve. All these were members of the Lyonnese literary coterie, and in connection with this Louise Labd 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 Masons in imitation of Marot, as well as by composing many small poems of the occa- sional kind. Charles Fontaine exhibited the fancy of the time for conceits in the entitling of books by denominating his poems Ruis- • Ed. Frank. 4 Tols. Paris, 1873-4. Additions made recently (Paris, 1896). Ch. II.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 151 seaux 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 PMiade. But perhaps he would hardly deserve much re- membrance, save for a charming little poem to his new-born son, which M. Asselineau has made accessible to everybody in Crepet's Poltes Frangais '- He also iigures in a literary tournament very characteristic of the age. La Borderie, another disciple of Marot, had written a poem entitled UAmye de Cour, which defended libertinism, or at least worldly-mindedness in love, in reply to the Parfaite Amye of Antoine H^roet, 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 Scfeve 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 PMiade 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 Scfeve, Jeanne Gaillarde, and above all Louise Labd. Scfeve's poetical work is strongly tinged with classical affectation and Platonic mysticism ; and his chief poem, DeVObjeidelaplus 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 Lab^, ' La belle Cordi^re,' 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 \ 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 Pl^iade, or » i. 651. ' Ed. Tross. Paris, 1871. 15a The Renaissance. [Bk.ii, the obscurity of her master Scbve. 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 Cordibre ' 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 ad-- vantages of reprints, which have of late years fallen to the lot of sixteenth-century authors in France. Mellin de Saint-Gelais \ the last to be mentioned but the most Mellin do important of the school of Marot, has been very Saint-Oeiais. variously judged. The mere fact that he was pro- bably the introducer of the sonnet into France (the counter claim of Pontus de Tyard seems to be unfounded) would suflSce 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 Pl^iade onslaught, and knew how to defend him- self, 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 Mdlusine. 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 emmiell^s,' 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 ' Ed. Blanchemain, 3 vols. Paris, 1873. ch. II.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 153 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 contem- poraries only second to that of Marot. 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 sufScient 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, jj-jg^gu^j^g. a vast collection of which has been made accessible ous Verse, by the reprinting of rare or unique printed originals Ancieimes in the thirteen volumes of MM. de Montaiglon and -Poesies Francaises. de Rothschild's Andennes Pohies Franfatses, pub- lished in the BiblioMque EMvirienne\ 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 ' This great collection, which awaits its completion of glossaiy, 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. 154 "^^ Renaissance. commonplace, and perfection of literary form and style. The stiffness which characterises much mediaeval and almpst 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, strength- ened, 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 '. ' 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, Z« Seiziime Siicle en France (Paris, 1878), one of the best histories extant in a small compass of a brief bnt 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 (Cambridge University Press). CHAPTER III. RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. At the beginning of the sixteenth century prose fiction in France was represented by a considerable mass of „. . Fiction at literature divided sharply into two separate classes thebegin- of very different nature and value. On the one hand ning of the the prose versions of the Chansons de Gestes and the s^^^®"*** Century, romances, Arthurian and adventurous, which had suc- ceeded 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 ^ 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 sup- posed, 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 * Among these may be mentioned the charming story oijehan 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. 156 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. 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 eifected by the greatest man and the greatest book of the French Renaissance. Fran9ois Rabelais* was bom at Chinon about 1495 (the alternative date of 1483 which used to be given \s Babe ais. j^jpfgijable if not impossible), and at an early ag^ 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 Fran- ciscans, 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 suflFered 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 Mont- pellier, 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 prac- tised 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 ' Ed. Jannet and Moland. 7 vols, (jnd ed.) Paris, 1873. Also ed. Marty- Laveanx, vols. 1-4. Paris, 1870-81. The eariieT editions of Le Duchat in the last, and of Esmangart and Johanneau in the present century, are useful for variorum notes, in which respect the standard English translation by Sir Thomas Urquhart (a version of unmatched quaintness) and Motteux is also valuable. A new English translation by Mr. W. F. Smith, of St. John's College, Cambridge, appeared, privately printed, in 1893, with notes and introductions summarising the recent French literature on the subject Ch. III.] Rabelais and Ms Followers. 157 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 hfe which has been overlaid with a good deal of fiction, and many of the facts of which are decidedly obscure. Rabelais did not become an author very early, 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 per- haps in part re-wrote, a prose romance, Les Grandes et Inestimables Chrontcques du Grant et ^norme Giant 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 Rot des mpsades Restilu^ 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 Pantagrtul not being pubUshed 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 varia- tions 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 suflScient value to discredit Rabelais' authorship, while? the internal testimony in its favour is overwhelming. 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 sup- posed, with a good deal of probability, that the book was left in the 158 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. 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 ofthought and expression this boo k is perhaps superior to any other ; and, if it were decidea that Kabelais did not write it, much ot what areliow 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 Garganiim and Pantagruel : indeed, from the studied desultoriness of the work, any such abstract must of necessity be nearly as long as the book itself '. 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/&s3 tj^ejaai ^tween Grandgousier , Garfrantna's father, the pa ttern of easy-goitig royalty , a nd ricrochole, king o f Lerne, the ideal of an arbitrary despot in tent only on conquest; andQeconcl^ the founding of the Abbey of 'i'helema, 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 com- munities 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 Panurg e, 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, the Macaronic Italian poet", but on the ' The best general commentary on Rabelais is that of M. J. Fleniy. 2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1876-7. ' For an excellent account of Folengo, see Symonds' Renaissance in Italy, vol. V. chap. 14. ci\. III.] Rabelais and his Followers. 159 whole he is original, and is hardly comparable to any one else in literature except Falstaff. The main idea of Panurge is the a^se.a £e of morality i a-thfL wide Aristotelian sense with the pre- sence of almost all other good qualities. After a time, in which Pantagruel and his companions (among whom, as in the former romance, F riar John is the^ 'mh^t^jment nf tiparty apH tip^-lfhy a nimalism, as P anurge is of a somewhat diseased intellectualjrejSne- ment}^ are engaged in wars of the old romance kind, a whim of Panurge dete rmines the conclusion of the sto ry. He desires to get m^ngii ^nd 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 voYap;e must be made to th e oracle of the Dive Bouteille. . The^Iast t wo books are occupie d withjhigjyoyagg^jn w hich many strange countries are yisited^arulat kist, the oracle being reached, the wor d TVzVzy is^ v ouchsafed,_not onlyT ffwbidd seem, tosolve Panurge's doubts, butalsoasageneral an swer to the riddle -of the painful earth. Besides his great wofk, Kabelais 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 Paniagrueline 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 perfectl y seriou s, and allows no touch of humour or satire to escape him. Elsewhere he indulges in the wildest buflFoonery. Two of the most notable . characteristics of Rabelais are, first, his extraordmany-jJiedilection for hea]^ng_ up piles _of synonymous 'words, ^nd huge lists of ^things ; secondly, his habit of indulging in the coarsest allusiops and descriptions. Both of these were to some extent mere exag- gerations of his mediaeval models, but both show the peculiar i6o The Renaissance. [Bfc. (i. characteristics of their author. The book as a whole has received the most various explanations as well as the most various ap- preciations. 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 manufactiu'e 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 pre- scribed 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 prosriSF^ve 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 inde- pendently of all this, he had an immense_JiunjQuiv-ani, this pervades the whole book, turiiiiig the' preposterous adventures into satirical allegories or half allegories, irradiating the somewhat Ch. III.] Rabelais and his Followers. i6i miscellaneous erudition with lambent light, and making the whole alive and fresh to this day. The extreme coarseness of language, which makes Rabelais diflScult to read now-a-aays, seems toliave arisen from a variety of causes. The essence of his book was e^aggsiaJi£5> 3'"'d 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 doeSj/But besides all this, there was in Rabelais a knowledgeof human nature, and a _ faculty of expressing that knowledge in literary form,^n which he is~ii rf erio r to -Shakggpeare~alOne. ' Ca:ricatured as his types"puf=" p"osefy-a*e,-th€y-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 g[r^t_^rt jehlEacteristic of humanity at all , times and in all places, but, as also with all great writers except - Shakespeare, more of it is local a nd temporar y_ni£iely. This l ocal and temporary element gives him his great historical im- . portance. Rabelais is the literary exponent of the earlier Re- \ naissance, 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 M 1 6a The Renaissance. [Bk. ii. was completed, spurious supplements and continuations appeared, all of them without exception worthless. A more legitimate imita- tion coloured the work of many of the fiction writers of the remain- ing 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 1 533, Nicholas of Troyes, a saddler by trade, produced a book en- titled 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 Conks of Margfuerite de Navarre, usually termed the ' Heptameron,' and the Conks etjoyeux Devis of her servant Bonaventure des Pdriers. Neither of these books was published till a considerable period after the death, not merely of Rabelais, but of their authors. There are few persons of the time of whom less is known than Bonaventvira of Bonaventure des P^riers ', and, by no means in con- des P&iers. sequence merely of this mystery, there are few more interesting. He must have been born somewhere about the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, and his friend Dolet calls him Aeduum poeiam, 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'Angoul^me. 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 com- mitted 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 P^riers 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 but no great merit ; perhaps some translations and minor prose pieces ; and two undoubted works of the highest interest, the- Cymbalum ' Ed. Lacour. a vols. Paris, 1866. Ch. III.] Rabelais and his Followers. 163 Mundi (1537) and the Nouvelks R/cre'ations el 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 P^riers' own day. The Nouvelks Rkriations 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 Nouvelks Nouoelles 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 P^riers 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 repre- sentatives, 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 intel- lectual truth, and at the same time always conscious of the nothingness of things, the instant pressure of death, the treacherous- ness of mortal delights. The rare sentences in which Des P^riers 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. The same spirit which has just been described found even fuller expression, with greater advantages of scale and setting, in the Heptameron'^ of Marguerite of Navarre. The The exact authorship of this celebrated book is something Heptameron. of a literary puzzle. Marguerite was a prolific author, if all the works which were pubhshed under her name be unhesitatingly ascribed* to her. Besides the poems printed under the pretty • Ed. Leroux de Lincy. 3 vols. Paris, 1855. ' She was bom in 149a, and lyas thus two years oldei than her brother M 2 164 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. 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 Bonaven- ture des Pdriers, 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 P^riers 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 P^riers, 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 origin- ality 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 Francis I. She married first the Duke (i'Alen9on, then Henri d'Albret 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'AngoulSme from her father's title ; d'Alen9on from her first husband's ; and de Navane from that of her second. In literature, to distinguish her from her great-niece, the first wife of Henri IV., Marguerite d'AngoulSme is the term most commonly used. I ought perhaps to add that my friend Mr. Tilley, who has made a special study of this period, takes an exactly opposite view to mine in respect of the styles of Des Periers and Marguerite. I cannot alter my own opinion, which has only been confirmed by frequent readings ; but I wish to give full weight to his. ch. 111.] Rabelais and Ms Followers. 165 have been noticed in connection with the Conies etjoyeux Deots, 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. 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. 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 suc- cessors of Rabelais was Noel du Fail, a gentieman and magistrate of Britanny, who, five years before the master's death, produced two little books, Propos Rustiques^ and Baliver- neries, which depict rural life and its incidents with a good deal of vividness and colour. The imitation of Rabelais is very per- ceptible, and sometimes a little irritating, but the work on the whole has merit, and abounds in curious local traits. The Propos Rusiiqites, 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 ^'EutrapeP, 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 ' Ed. La Borderie. Paris, 1878. The bibliography of this book is very curious. * Ed. Hippeau. 2 vols. Paris, 1875. i66 The Renaissance. [Bk.ii. 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 G. Bouohet. j^^^ Bouchet, the poet of the early sixteenth century) wrote a large collection of Ser&s ' (Soirees), containing gossip on a great variety of subjects, mingled with details of Angevin manners ; and Tabourot des Accords composed his Escratgnes Dijonnaises, Synathrisie, Les Bigarrures and Les Touches. Les Matinees and Les Aprls-DMes'^ were produced by a person, the caio 1 res. ggjgjjgyj jg Choliferes, of whom Uttle else is known. Choliferes 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. There remain two books of suflBcient importance to be treated Apologie separately. The first of these is the Apologie pour poiir H&odoie* (1566) of the scholar Henri Estienne. In Hfirodote. ^^ g^jgg qJ g^ ggrious 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 Heplanuron ; much from the preachers of the fifteenth century. Its Uterary merit has been a good deal exaggerated, and its extreme desultori- ness 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 Moyen de spirit of Rabelais was sounded in the Moyen de Par- Parveiiir. •amir * of B^roalde 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 ' Ed. Roybet. Paris. " Ed. Tricotel. 2 vols. Paris, 1879. ' Ed. Ristelhuber. z vols. Paris, 1879. * Ed. Jacob. Paris, i868. It b possibly not B&oalde's. ch. III.] Rabelais and kis Followers. 167 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 buf- foonery, 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 con- siderations 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 character, if not the excellence, of Garganfua and Pantagruel. CHAPTER IV. THE PLEIADE. Almost exactly at the middle of the sixteenth century a move- ment 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 \ PUiade, a term applied by the classical affectation of the time to the group of seven men*, Ronsard, Du Bellay, Belleau, BaVf, 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 y 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, ' The list is sometimes giveli rather differently ; instead of Jodelle and Pontns de Tyard, Scevole de Sainte-Marthe and Muretus are substituted. But the enumeration in the text is the accepted one. The PUiade. 169 would have honourably distinguished the French Renaissance from the Italian and German forms of the movement. In „, Til. . ,-1 Character Italy the humanists, for the most part, contented them- andEffeots of selves with practice in the Latin tongue, and in tiie PWiade Germany they did so almost wholly. But no sooner ™°''e™ent. had the literature of antiquity taken root in France than it was made to bear novas frondes el non sua poma of vernacular literature. There were some absurdities committed by the PIdiade 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 Pl^iade 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 re- action of the next century could not wholly undo it, but it was mainly study of the Pl^iade that armed the great masters of the Romantic movement, the men of 1830, in their revolt against thci 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 wonder- fully 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. Pierre de Ronsard ^, Prince of Poets ^ was born at La Poisson- nibre, in the Vend6mois, or, as it was then more often called, the Gitinais, on the banks of the river Loir, in 1534. He died in hig 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. • Ed. Blanchemain. 8 vols. Paris, 1857-67. ' The term usually applied to him by contemporaries. 170 The Renaissance. [Bk. Ii. 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 Scot- land and England in the suite of French ambassadors, and re- mained 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, Bai'f, were his fellow-students, and the four with their master, with £tienne Jodelle, and with Pontus de Tyard, afterwards bishop of Chalon, formed, as has been said, the Fl^iade 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 lan- guage and French literature by study and imitation of the ancients. Th DSf ^^ ^^^'i the manifesto of the society issued, in the et lUustra- shape of Du Bellay's Defense el Illustration de la Langue tiondela Frangaise, and in 1550 the first practical illustration Langue ^j- ^^ method was given by Ronsard's Odes. The prmciples of the D(fenst 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 plaisanie invention Italienne, of dizains and huitains, regular tragedy and comedy of moralities and farces, regular satires of Fatrasies and Coq-k-l'dne. He takes particular pains to demonstrate the contrary proposition to Wordsworth's, and to prove that merely natural and ordinary language is not suflScient 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 Bannl de Liesse,' 'Le Traverseur des Voies P^rilleuses/ etc. He speaks, indeed, not too respectfully ciuiv.] The PUiade. 171 of mediaeval literature generally, and uses language which probably suggested Gabriel Harvey's depreciatory remarks about the Fairy Quern 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 PMiade 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 ipicertes, 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 lan- guage. The peroration of the book in a highly rhetoritial style speaks of the writer and his readers as having ' ^chappd du milieu des Grecs et par les escadrons Romains pour entrer jusqu'au sein de la tant ddsir^e 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, poturvu qu'au dixifeme il y ait le petit mot pour rire.* They are to accustom themselves to long and weary studies, • car 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 Fl^iade ; 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- sufiScient 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, pubUshed in 1550. These he followed up, in 1552, by Les Amours de Cassandre, in 1553 by a volume of Hymnes, as well as by Li Socage Royal, Les Amours de Marie, sonnets, etc., all of which 17* The Renaissance. [Bk. Ii. 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 suc- cessful, 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 re- turned, and in his last Amours, Sonnets to HiUne, 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 Ron- sard. From the time of his betaking himself to literary work, he seems to have been wholly given to study, and to the contempla- tion of natural beauty. Although jealous of his own great repu- tation, 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 possibiUty 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.' Ch. IV.] The PUiade. 173 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, F^nelon 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 estima- tion 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 admir ed ' Quan d vousrsere z bien vieiile,' not a few of his n des pgpppially the eq ua lly famous ' Migno nne, allons voir si la rose,' rank among those poem s o f which it can only be said that they miild tint hp hpffgj^ and detached passages innumer able deserve hardly lower prais e. 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 174 The Renaissance, [Bk. ii. a great monotony had come upon French poetry. The fault of the artificial forms of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries, the ipiceries of Du Bellay's scornful allusion, was that they induced their writers to concentrate their attention on the arrange- ment of the rhymes and stanzas, to the neglect of the individual line, the rhythm of which was but too frequently lame, stiflf, and prosaic in the extreme. With Marot and Saint Gelais the introduc- tion of less formal patterns, dizains, huitains, etc., had had the ad- ditional 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. Next to Ronsard, and perhaps above him, if uniform excellence rather than bulk and range of work is considered, ranks Joachim Du BeUay. *^" Bellay ^ 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 diflBculties, but ' Ed. Marty-I 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 direc- tion. 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 '^ ai6 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii. of his private aflfairs and exhibits himself in undress; secondly, the .favour 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, how- ever, 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 pro- educed 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 de- scribed 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 ^, or an average of less than ten pages each. The second (exclusive of the long ' Apologie de Raymond Sebonde,' which occupies 300 page? 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 ' The references are to the edition of Lonandre. ch. VII.] Mmitaigne and Brantdme. 217 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 ques- tion what virtues are most proper to a sovereign. On the other hand, such large titles as ' De la Vanit^ de I'Exp^rience,' 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 I'Un est Dommage de I'Autre,' ' Par Divers Moyens on arrive k Pareille Fin,' etc. In a literary history, however, of the scale and plan of this present, the question of Montaigne's subjects and sentiments, in- teresting 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 im- portance 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 j 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 Pldiade, Montaigfne 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, 2i8 The Renaissatice. [Bk. ii. 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 corre- sponding 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 idio- syncrasy 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 practi- tioner 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 undoubt- edly take rank at the head of all the writers of the century when bulk and variety of examples are taken into account. 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 ch. VII.] Montaigne and Brantdme. 319 teacher of ethics and political philosophy in his centuiy. His own mantle was taken up, or attempted to be taken up, by Pierre Charron'. Born at Paris in 1541, Charron was well „, CrLarron. 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, consciolis of their need of elo- quent advocates, did not permit. Charron belonged rather to the moderate ot polttiqtie party than to the fanatics of Catholicism, and he directly attacked the League in his Discours Chretiens, published in 1 589. Five years later appeared a regular theological treatise entitled Les Trois VirMs, aflSrming, first, the unity of God, and consequently of orthodox religion; secondly, the sole authority of Christianity among religions; thirdly, the sole authority of Ca- tholicism 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 re- garded orthodoxy as a valuable and necessary condition for the common run of men, while the elect would prefer a refined Agnosticism. These sceptical opinions were by no means the invention of Jfontaigne; they were part of the new learning grafted by the study * De la Sagesse. 2 vols. Paris, 1789. aao The Renaissance. [Bk.ii. 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 Pdriers, 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 ten- dency. Du Vair was a writer of great merits 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 ' were numerous : Sainie Philosophie, De la Philosophie des Sloiques, De la Constance ei Con- solation des Calamtt/s PuUiqties. He translated, not merely Epic- tetus, 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 Lot Saligue, 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. A greater name than Du Vair's in purely philosophical politics Bodin and ^^ ^^^^ °f }^^^ Bodin ', who in his conception of other Pouti- ' sovereignty,' of climatic influence and other things, is cal Writers. tj,g precursor of Hobbes and Montesquieu. Born at Angers in 1530, he became a lawyer, was king's procureur at Laon, and died there in 1596. His great work, entitled after Plato La Re- publique, 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, un- like his masters, Bodin declares for absolute monarchy, of course wisely and temperately administered. The general literary sentiment was perhaps the other way. The aflfection of Montaigne, and a certain fertility of rhetorical commonplace which has always 'Ea.1641. 'Ed. is?8. Ch. VII.] Montaigne and Brantdme. 22 1 seduced Frenchmen in political matters, have given undue reputation to the Contre-un or Discours de la Servitude volontaire of feienne de la Boetie '. 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 I'Hospital, however, published many speeches, letters, and pamph- lets 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. 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 Brant6me^ has been chosen as the central and re- _ .. Brantome. presentative 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 re- semblance to that of the great contemporary author with whom he is linked at the head of this chapter. Brant6me neither wrote actual history nor directly personal memoirs, but desultory bio- graphical essays, forming a curious and perhaps designed pendant to the desultory moral essays of his neighbour Montaigne. 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 » Ed. FengJre. Paris, 1846. ' £d. Bnchon. 1 vols. Paris, 1839. Edited in 11 vols, for the Soci£t£ de I'Histoire de France by M. Lalanne (Paris, 1864-83). M^rimfe, who was a great admirer of Brantdme, began an edition for the Bibliothiqne Elz^virienne, which was continued by M. Lacour. 223 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii. from uniformity of plan, and from regard to the decencies of literarture. Pierre da Bourdeille[s] (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 en- counter with Jarnac his nephew has described in a well-known pas- sage. In the court of Marguerite d'AngoulSme, 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 Abb6 de Brant6me at the age of sixteen. He was thus suflSciently 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 Mardchal de Erissac. He accompanied Mary Stuart to Scotland, served in the Spanish array 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, how- ever, 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 rsth of July, 161 4. The form of Brant6me'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 Capitaims Strangers et Franfais, while others consist of separate Ch. VII.] Montaigne and Brantdme. 223 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 Illusires, 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 s&nt de parler mal des honnestes dames bien qu'elles fassent I'amour,' ' S9avoir qui est plus belle chose en amour,' etc. Thesfe discourses are, however, in reality little but a congeries of anecdotes, often scandalous enough. Besides these, his principal works, Brant6me 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 Brant6me 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 repre- sents, as hardly any age has ever been represented, the character- istics of the great society of his time. It is needless to say that the morals of that time were utterly corrupt, but Brant&me 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. Brant6me 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 unques- tioning 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 oS character, superficially it is true, yet with suflScient distinction, which Brantdme has. There is something individual ' about all the innumerable characters who move across his stage. 234 1^^ Renaissance. [Bk. ii. 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 con- siderable vein of moralising in Brant&me 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 readi- ness to set down on paper anything that came into their heads, there is little likeness between the two. Brant6me was emphati- cally an /crivain (unscholarly and Italianised as his phrase some- times 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. Next to Brant6me, and in some respects above him, though of a „ somewhat less remarkable idiosyncrasy, come Montluc, La Noue, and D'Aubign^, with Marguerite de Valois not far behind. Blaise de Lasseran-Massenc6me, Seigneur de Montluc S 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 Consoles. 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 ' Ed. Michand and Poujonlat, as for others. For ' critical' editions consult those of the Sociiti de I'Histoire de France. Ch. VII.] Montaigne and Brantdme. 225 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. The Memoirs of La Noue are usually spoken of separately, though in reality they form a part of his Discours Politiques et Militaires. Fran9ois 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 oflf during a siege), was a Breton, and of a good family. He was born in '53*) fought through the religious wars, escaped St. Bartho- lomew by being Alva's prisoner in Flanders, took an active part against the League, and died at the siege of Lamballe, Aug. 4, 1 59 1. 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 Brant6me, who warned his future craftsfellow of it. Agrippa d'Aubign^ belongs to this section of the subject by his Vie a ses Enfants, often called his memoirs, by his Agrippa Hisloire Universelle, and by a great number of letters. d'Aubignfi. The same qualities which distinguish D'Aubignd 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 Hisloire Universelle and the Vie h ses Enfants were Q 236 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii. 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 Untverselle, like the book which Raleigh wrote almost at the same time, and under not dissimilar circum- stances, is necessarily in great part a compilation, but has many passages worthy of its author at his best. The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois contain what is perhaps Marguerite the best-known and oftenest quoted passage of any de Valois. 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 Brant6me, but shows in its manner rather the influence of Ronsard and the Pl^iade by the classical correctness of the style, the absence of archaisms, and the precision and form of the sentences. According to the prin- ciples of the school, the vocabulary is simple and vernacular enough, for the PMiade regarded ornate classicisms of language as proper to poetry. In a rank not much below those mentioned must be placed the so-called Memoir es de Vieilleville, the Chronologies of Palma-Cayet, the Regislres-Journaux of Pierre de I'Estoile, the Letters of Du- plessis-Mornay, Cardinal d'Ossat, and Henri IV. himself (these last excellent), and the Negotiations of the President Jeannin. The Mar^chal de Vieilleville was one of the foremost French VieiUeviUe. S^"^''^^^ °f *« 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 (d eliberate panegyric; but Carloix is a vigorous and able writer, who, without completely emancipating himself from the tyranny of the long involved ch.viij Montaigne and BrantSme. 227 sentence, contrives to write clearly, and often with much pictur- esque effect. Pierre Victor Palma-Cayet was of mean extraction, but received a good education, and was introduced by La None to Paima- Jeanne d'Albret as a suitable assistant-tutor for her Cayet. son. After the accession of his pupil, he was appointed to various offices, one of which, that of Chronologer Royal, no doubt occa- sioned the odd titles of his two principal works. Chronologic NovAiaire and Chronologic Scptinaire, 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'Aubign6 the doubtful honour of being the author of the Divorce Satiriqtie, a scurrilous pamphlet against Marguerite. The Chro- nohgies are extremely full of matter, and admirably precise in their information, but their literary value is not great From this point of view Pierre de I'Estoile * is of a higher class. He was a lawyer of rank and an indefatigable writer, pierre de Day by day he put down in his Tahlettes all sorts of I'BBtoUe. public and private affairs, as well as literary extracts, obituary notices, and, in short, almost the entire material of a modern newspaper. Pierre de I'Estoile, much more than Brant6me, 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. 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 ahnost entirely devoted to subjects ' The earlier editions of this writer are not complete. In 1875 a full reprint was began. Q 2 228 The Renaissance. [Bk. ii. 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. The last two boots 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. Pierre Jeannin was, like D'Ossat, a diplomatist in the service of a_,jjj, Henri IV. He had previously discharged many legal functions of importance, and subsequently he was Controller-General of the Finances. His N^goliations 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. There were many other writers of memoirs during the period, Minor ™°st of whose works are comprised in the invaluable Memoir- collections of Petitot, Michaud, Poujoulat, and Buchon. writers, -g^ £g^ ^j- ^jjgni 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 Lts Ogdoades, it being divided into seven batches of eight books each. ch. VII.] Montaigne and Brantdme. 229 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. Fran9ois de Rabutin, author of Commentaires des Guerres de la Gaule Belgt'gue, 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 S^vign^ 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 literaty merit. Nicholas de Neufville, Seigneur de Villeroy, was a politician of eminence and a vigorous writer, as was Regnier de la Planche, Protestant historian of the reign of Francis II. Some short pieces may be noticed, such as the Siege of Metz, by Ber- trand 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. The general histories, which make up a second class of historical writings, are, as a rule, of very much less value than General these personal memoirs. Not till the extreme end Historians, 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'Aubignd's Hisioire Universelle of his own time has been mentioned for convenience' sake already. Lancelot de la Popelinifere 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 23° The Renaissance. 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. Fran9ois de Belleforest also wrote a general history of France, which was long read, and the names of Du Tillet, Jean de Serres, Charron, Du- pleix, etc. may be mentioned. But they represent writers of little importance, either from the point of view of history, or from that of literature. The historical pamphleteers, on the other hand, at the head of whom stand Agrippa d'Aubignd and (somewhat earlier) Frangois Hotman (152 4-1 593), author of the violent attack on the Cardinal of Lorraine entitled Epitre envoy/e au Tigre de la France, are vigorous enough, but too numerous and of an importance too ephemeral to dwell much on. For literary history in small compass they are best represented by the Minippie, which will be dealt with in the next chapter. CHAPTER VIII. THE SATYRE M£NIPPAE. REGNIER. 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 Saiyre Menippie and the Satyre satires of Regnier are separated in point of date of M^nippfio. 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 Menippie 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 Minippie * was a remarkable, and, for those who take an interest both in literature and in politics, a most en- couraging 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, ' Ed. Labitte. Paris, 1869. 332 The Renaissance. [Bk.ii. for the most part uncomplimentarilyj as Let Politiqms. These persons professed themselves unable to find, in the simple dif- ference of Catholic v. Protestant, a casus belli for Frenchmen against Frenchmen. Their influence, however, though it occa- sionally 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 Minippie 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 hmited, though perhaps individually greater, abiUty of any one man. The Me- nipp^e, prose and verse, was due to the working of a new Pldiade — 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 repre- sented 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 dis- tinguished members of the French bar, and had a deserved reputation for every kind of learning in his time. Lastly, Durant, who contri- buted 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 Ch. viii.] Tlu ' Satyre Minipp^e^ Regnier. 233 kind, pardy 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 Minippie (the title of which, it is hardly neces- sary 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 comple-rendu of the assembly of the states at Paris. The full title is De la Vertu du Catholicon d!Espagnt et de la Tenue des J&iats 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 pro- cession. To this succeeds a sketch of the tapestries with which the hall of meeting was hung, all of which are, of course, alle- gorical, and deal with murders of princes, betrayal of native countries to foreigners, etc. Next comes L'Ordre tenu pour ks 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 Pelvd, 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-itat. A burlesque coda concludes the volume, the joints of which are, first, a short verse satire on Pelvd ; secondly, a collection of epigrams due to Passerat ; and, thirdly, Durant's Regret Funibre ct Mademoiselle ma Comrnire sur le Tripas 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 Minipp& 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 834 The Renaissance. [Bk. ir. 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, Pelvd, 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 Salyre Minippie 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 frank- ness his extreme surprise that he should have become a gentle- man and the representative of the nobility, and mildly reproaches Mayenne and the League for not having given carte-hlanche to himself and his likes to finish off the Poliiiques bag-and-baggage. But in the last harangue, that of the representative of the Tiers- Atat^ 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 in- stance. 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 sus- pension 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 ch.viii.] The 'Saiyre Mhiippee^ Regnier. 235 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 Na- varre.' After this discomposing harangue the assembly breaks up in some confusion. The Saiyre Menipp/e 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 oigaulois 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 ex- hibits 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 Pl^iade pedantry, with which at least two of the contributors, Passerat and Rapin, were sufficiently imbued, is conspicuously absent. Rabelais is fre- quently 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 Garganiua 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 Minippie than in Hudilras, 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 Saiyre M^nippA, next to those already mentioned, is the con- stant rain of slight ironical touches contributing to the general effect. Thus the arms of the processioning Leaguers are, 'le 236 The Renaissance. [Bk. 11. tout rouill^ par Humility Catholique ; ' the League scholastics and ■preachers 'ferment tous leurs arguments in /erto! The deputies' benches are covered with cloth, ' parsemdes 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 MMpp^e, which trusts to the intelligence of the reader for understanding and emphasis. ' Vous pr^voyez bien,' says Mayenne, ' les dangers et inconvdniens de la paix qui met ordre \ tout, et rend le droit \ 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. A similar but a still more remarkable, because an individually complete, example of the combination of Galilean tradition with classical study was soon afterwards shown by Mathurin Regnier '. _^ . Regnier was born at Chartres on the 2 ist 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 Paiis. 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 Ed. Courbet. Paris, 18^5. In this edition some of the dates and statements in the text, which have been generally accepted, are contested. ch.vin.] The ' Satyre MAiipph.' Regnier. 237 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 after- vi^ards, in 1613, on the 22nd of October, he died at Rouen, having not quite completed his fortieth year. His way of life had unfor- tunately 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 rela- tive 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 hiiii 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 Molifere, who best knew human nature. The ap- proval of Boileau secured that of the eighteenth century, while Regnier's defence of the Pldiade 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 re- specting 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'Aubignd, had preceded him. But in breadth as well as, except in the case of D'Aubign^, 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 con- 338 The Renaissance. [Bk. il. siderably 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 indigna- tion which his English contemporaries, Hall and Marston, bor- rowed from Juvenal, and which sits so awkwardly on them and on many other satirists. He has avoided such still more awkward foUowings 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 ab- stractions instead of lifelike individuals embodjdng 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 M^itant im sonnet, m^dite on ^v€ch£; and as the couplet which concludes a lively sketch of his diplo- matic experiences — Mais instruit par le temps k. la fin j'ai connn Qne la fidelity 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 gofit par- ticulier ddcide de tout.' It contains some of Regnier's finest pas- sages. A subject somewhat similar in kind, ' L'honneur ennemi de la vie,' gives further occasion, in the sixth, for the display of the Ch.viii.] The ' Satyr e M^nipp^e! Regnier, 239 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 com- ment on the text Video meliora proboqtte. 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 diflBcult 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 outri, and is an extraordinarily vigorous and happy remonstrance against the intolerant pedantry with which Malherbe was criticising the Pldiade. This satire is addressed to Rapin, the veteran contributor to the Menippie. 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'i regratter un mot douteux au jugement, Prendre garde qu'un qui ne heurte une diphtongne; Espier si des vers la rime est brive ou longue; On bien si la voyelle, k I'antre s'uuissant, Ne rend point a I'oreille un vers trop languissant. Us rampent bassement, foibles d'inventrons, £t n'osent, pen bardis, tenter les fictions, Froids k I'imaginer; car s'ils font quelque chose C'est proser de la rime, et rimer de la prose. Que I'art lime et relime, et polit de fa9on, Qu'elle rend h. I'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 aifords Regnier an excellent opportunity for displaying his talent for Dutch painting, but is in this respect inferior to the sequel 'Le mauvais gtte.' 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, 240 The Renaissance. [Bk.ii. 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. In- debted 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 ceil tout pteitent ne plenre qn'eau b6niste. L'honnenr est nn vieux saint que Ton ne chomme plus. La sage se salt vendre oil la sotte se donne. Nowhere is Regnier so uniformly free from technical defects and from colloquialisms in which he sometimes indulges. The four- teenth returns to general and somewhat vague satire, dealing with the vanity of human reason and conduct, while the fifteenth is once more personal, ' Le Pofete malgrd soi.' Lastly, the sixteenth sums up the author's theoretical philosophy in the opening line, ' N'avoir crainte de rien et ne rien espdrer.' 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 con- siderably 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 melan- choly 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 : — ch. VIII.] The ' Saiyre Mhiippk' Regnier. 241 Un regret pensif et confiis D'avoir est^, et n'estre plus, Rend mon ^e aux doulenrs ouverte; A mes despens, las I je Tois bien Qu'un bonhenr 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 Pl^iade in its best form. His Alexandrines, if not quite so vigorous as D'Aubignd's, have all the polish that could be expected before the administration of Malherbe's rules. His lyric measures have the boldness and har- mony 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. 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 Pldiade 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 Alarot and in Rabelais, there was actually a kind of reaction from the movement which faintly and imperfectly foreshadowed that of the Pl^iade, the rMtoriqueur pedantry of the writers from Chartier to Crdtin. In this first half of the century, while some- thing 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 modem 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 £tienne 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, repre- senting 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 Summary of Renaissance Literature. 243 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 P&iers, who displays both the vernacular purity free from classical tnixture, and at the same time the Re- naissance admiration and imitation of the classics in a very high degree. Yet the same lesson is taught by the prose of Des Pdriers 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 PMiade 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 Pldiade, the stately descriptions of Du Bartas, the fiery invective of D'Aubign^, the polished satire of Regnier, the essays of Mont- aigne, the immortal pasquinades of the M^nippde^t 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 R 2 344 Summary of Renaissance Literature. 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 con- fusion 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 Pl^iade 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 de- liberately turned their backs on the traditions of the language and the literature. Their importations and imitations had been some- times 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 com- position of one really dramatic play. In short, though the PMiade movement had begun by being nothing if not critical, it had not kept up the habit of self-criticism. The application of this Summary of Renaissance Literature. 245 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'Aubign^, the nervous and yet eifortless strength of Regnier, have never been surpassed, and until the nineteenth 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 in- exhaustible 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 SEVENTEXSH'TH CEITTXTBT. CHAPTER I. POETS. I The history ofJhepnetrjjnf_the seventeenth century in France natmall^^nd necessarily ope ns with M alherbe, though he was forty-five years old at its beginning, and con- siderably the senior of Regnier, who has been included among the poets of the Renaissance. !E ran9ois dp MinlhCThs^jg^ born ^ JOsSD^ -iii-iaSSi. being the eldest son of his father, another Francois de Malherbe, and both on the father's and mother's side of jjolileLfemily. 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 F^rier, 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 pastfortjr^ that his best-known poems were written, and the whole amount of his surviving woik4s.not large. During the first two- Ihirds of his life he was not rich, for his patrimony was scanty, and the death of the Grand Prior, Henri d'AngoulSme, to whom he had attached himself, deprived him of the chances of preferment " Ed. Lalanne. 5 vols. Paris, 1863-67 ; 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 Feiresc, a savant of the time who is best Icnown from Gassendi's Life of him. Poets. 247 But in i6o6 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 .bl7n'1'"f;d . pacs, 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 v jcn ce qne 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. H e deliberate ly- assy lined tbe-fimrtinps of a, jefprnier of literature ; andjwhate2£i-Jiiay..be.-tbought, of -the result of his reforms,^ -their du rability and the almost &ntu;e acquiescence with which they were received prove ,th§,t,j^ere must have been something in tEern remarkably germane to the spirit and taste and genius of tEe^ na^^^Tjis^first attempt was the overthrow of the PMiade. 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 that, when some one pointed out the mass of lines that were left, 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 avoid- ance of original and daring metaphor and suggestion, the per- fecting of a few metres (with the Alexandrine at their head) into 348 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. ill, 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 g^reatest 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 de- lighted 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. 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. The School Cardinal du Perron, Malherbe's introducer at court, of Malherbe. was himself a poet of merit, but rather in the Pldiade style. His Temple de rinconstance, 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 char- acteristics with a graver and more eleg^iac 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 bom 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 ^ was the author of a pastoral drama, Les Bergeries, founded on, or imitated from, the Asirie of D'Urf^ of an elaborate version of the Psalms, and of a considerable number of the miscellaneous poems, stances, odes, ^piires, etc., which were fashionable. Racan, though his amiable private char- acter and the compliance of his principal work with a fashionable folly of the time have caused him to be somewhat overestimated ' Ed. Lemerre. 3 vols. Paris, 1885-8. ' Ed. Latour. a vols. Paris, 1857. Ch. I.] Poets. 249 traditionally, was a thoroughly pleasing poet, with a great com- mand 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 2yr el Sidon, Jean de Schdlandre, 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 seven- teenth century, was Th^ophile de Yiaud, often called Thdophile ^ 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 Temp6te,' and the stanzas beginning ' Quand tu me vols baiser tes bras,' have all the fervour and picturesqueness of the Pl^iade without its occasional blemishes of pedantic ex- pression. Th^ophile was a loose liver and an unfortunate man. He was accused, justly or unjustly, of writing indecent verses, was imprisoned, and died young. All these poets were writers who, except in so far as they held to the elder tradition of Ronsard or the new gospel of Mal- herbe, 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, vers de who devoted themselves to producing vers de sociitiy SooiStfi. either for the ladies, or for the great men of the Voiture. period. The chief of this school was beyond all question Voiture*. 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 circum- stances, somewhat frivolous is almost unavoidable. But, especially after the cessation of the great flow of inspiration which had » Ed. Alleaume. a vols. Paris, 1855. * £d. UbicinL 3 vols. Parii, 1855. 350 The Seventeenth Century. [Blciii. 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 Urania, 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 Pl^iade 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 oi ihe Belk Malinettse,iNas 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 com- pany with Bachaumont, a Voyage in mixed prose apd verse, the form of which was long very popular in France and was imitated ch. I.] Poets. 251 with especial success by Anthony Hamilton and Voltaire ; Pa- vilion, who deserves a very similar general description, but who gave no such single example of his abilities : all belong to this class. Side by side with the frivolous school, but in curious contrast with it, there existed a school of ponderous epic writers, Epio School, the extirpation of which is the best claim of Boileau Chapeiain. to the gratitude of posterity. The typical poets of this class are Georges de Scuddry, the author of Alaric, and Chapeiain, the author of the Pucelle. Scud^ry was a soldier and a man of con- siderable 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 astonish- ing platitudes and extravagances, has occasional good lines. But Chapeiain 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 Chapeiain 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 Pbre 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 Motse Saaw/ showed how far below himself a clever writer may be when he mistakes his style. Saint-Amant *, who, to do him justice, did not call Motse Sauv/ an epic but an 'idylle h^roique,' is the link between this school and a third composed of purely convivial poets, who even in this ' Ed. Livet. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. a53 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. century furnished work of remarkable excellence, and who pro- Baooha- duced a numerous and brilliant progeny in the next. naiian Saint-Amant's Anacreontic poems are of great merit. School. Of the same class was Saint-Pavin; who was not merely Samt-Amant. ^ fj.gg jj^gj.^ ^^^ ^ 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 Bdranger's days. , 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 ^ was born at Chateau Thierry in Champagne yi the year 1621, and died at Paris in 1695. ^i^ father held a Considerable post as ranger of the neighbouring forests, an ofiice 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 Hdricart, 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 oflSce 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 • Ed. Moland. 7 vols. Paris, 1879. Also ed, Regnier, vol i. Pari^, 1883. Ch. I.] Poets. 253 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 magnifi- cent 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 mis- cellaneous poems, the 'Pleurez, Nymphes de Vaux*.' The mis- fortune unsettled him for a time, and he travelled about. But re- turning 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 ydth Boileau, Moli^e, and Racine, the four meeting at regular intervals, either in taverns or at lodging[s 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 Sablibre. In 1668 appeared the first part of the Fables with universal approval. But the loose 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 friend- ship, 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, ' This is in reality the beginning of the second line of the poem, though it is often quoted as if it were the first. 254 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. La Fontaine with the grudging terms ' Vous pouvez recevoir La Fontaine ; 11 a promis d'itre 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 Conies 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 1 664 *, the second in 1667, the third in 1671, but the author added pieces in succes- sive 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 Due de Bourgogne, who is said to have been taught by F6nelon to delight in La Fon- taine, 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 Molifere, 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, whicS is also hardly equalled and as certainly ' In prerions editions this date was, by an oversight, wrongly printed as i66a. M. Scherer in correcting it has himself made a probable mistake in giving ' 1665.' That date is on the title-page, but the achevl d'tmprimer is dated Dec. 10, 1664, and as a second edition was finished by Jan. 10, i66j, it is practically certain that the book was out before the end of the year. ch. I.] Poets. 255 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 virginiius puerisque, the Conies 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 NouvelUs 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 compa- rison 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 Fon- taine'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 im- morality of the Renaissance. Therefore, despite the wonderful variety and vivid painting of the Conies, presenting a series of pic- tures 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, im- possible to read the Fables without prejudice and not be captivated 256 The Seventeenth Century. "^pk-ili. by them. As mere narratives they are charming, ana the per- petual presence of an undercurrent of sly, good-humouftd, 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 naXf. Something has to be said of the form and strictly poetical value of these two remarkable books — as remarkable, let it be remem- bered, 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 narra- tion. 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. Thdodore de Banville pleads, to the ' Faucon ' and ' Courtisane Amoureuse ' of the Conies. 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 wonderfiil 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. Nicola§3oil«a&V'*^-w*s^-i^^'8iJ'iio»'i^i^*-Eiance-as-tfee^^ giver of Parnassus,' and who,, perhaps, exercised, a. more powerful. „ ., and lasting influence over the literature of his native Boileau. ° country than any other critic has ever enjoyed, was bom 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 * Ed. Foninier. Paris, 1873. cii. i.j Poets. 357 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 — Desprdaux — 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 Desprdaux and sometimes Boileau-Despr^aux. 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 raade attempts^ in literature, and when he was a man of seven- or eight-and-twenty, he joined La Fontaine, Racine, and Molibre 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^howe ver, so on 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, in- creased on him, and was doubtless aggravated by the bad health from which he suffered during the whole of his long life. He died in 1 7 1 1 , having outlived all his friends except Louis himself. T!r>;ipgn'B . works consist of twelve satires, of the same number f Art Po/tigue, of the Luirin, a serio-comic poem, tof three or four score epigrams and miscellaneous 358 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. Iir. 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 CoUetet (son of the CoUetet men- tioned above), at another that of Pelletier, though both were noto- riously 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 Luirin, 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 con- ventional, 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 ibft-fitories . which are recorded of him (and they are many) natured remarks. In his heart of hearts he knew an Ch. I.] Poets. 259 the greatness of Corneille, yet formally and in public he could not refrain> from directing unjust satire at the veteran whose master- pieces 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. I^is-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 in- justice 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. 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. jiinoj i»<,ets Brdbeuf might have been mentioned before, as he of the later was Boileau's elder, and, dying young, did not reach Seventeenth 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 trans- lation 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 fairas 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 pot usually inclined to recognise. Br^beuf is decidedly of what may be called s 2 36o The Seventeenth Century. [Bk-in, 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 Deshouliferes, still more unjustly criticised by Boileau, is unquestionably one of the chief poetesses of France ; indeed, with Louise Lab^ and Marceline Des- bordes-Valmore, she is almost the only one of importance. Her poems, like those of most of her contemporaries, are of the occa- sional order, and have too much in them that is artificial, but fre- quently also they have real pathos and occasionally not a little vigour. ' Le Songe ' is a very admirable ode, having some of the character- istics of the English Caroline school. Racine himself, independ- ently of his dramas, and the choruses inserted in them, wrote some poetry, chiefly religious, which has his usual characteristics of refine- ment 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 Abb^ 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 Ven- d6me 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 in- habitant of towns). La Fare, on the other hand, is best known by his stanzas to Chaulieu on ' La Paresse,' which he was well quali- fied 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 sub- ject, 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. ch.i.] Poets. a6i 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 pre- served many curious particulars, was Loret, who was succeeded by Robinet, Boursault, Laurent, and others. I ) CHAPTER II. DRAMATISTS. While the influence of Malherbe was thus cramping and wither- ing 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 ^jtself. 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 Pldiade, and pursued with but little alteration afterwards, was a ' highly artificial and a highly limited kind. It lent itself success- fully to comparatively few situations ; it excluded variety of action an the stage ; it gave no opening for the display of complicated cha- racter. 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 Dramatists. a6'3 corrective. The astonishing genius of Molifere succeeded in com- bining 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. We have seen that the early tragedy, which was more or less directly reproductive of Seneca, attained its highest pitch in the work of Gamier, This pitch was on the whole well maintained by Antoine de Montchrestien, a man of a singular history Mont- and of a singular genius. The date of his birth is not ohrestien. exactly known, but he was the son of an apothecary at Falaise; and belonged to the Huguenot party. Duels and lawsuits suc- ceed 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 par- doned, 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 Poli- tical Economy ' (he is even said to have been the first to introduce the term into French), some poems, and six tragedies, Sophonisbe, or JLa Cartaginoise, Les Laclnes, David, Aman, Hector, and L'Ecos- saise. Racine availed himself not a little of Aman, but L'Ecossaist 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-Gamier 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 con- siderable 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. For a not inconsiderable time the fate of French tragedy trembled » Ed. Fnnck-Brentano. Paris, 1889. 364 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.iii. in the balance. During the first thirty years of the seventeenth century the most prominent dramatist was Alexandre Hardy ^ 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 Cotifr&te at the H6tel 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 exer- citations of the Pldiade 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 consider- able 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 Sch^landre, made, in a play' which does not seem ever to have been acted, a remarkable attempt at enfranchising French tra- gedy with the full privileges rather of the English than of the Spanish drama; but this play, Tyr et Sidon, had no imitators and no in- fluence, 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 ' Ed. Stengel. 5 vols. Marburg, 1884. Cf. Rigal, Alexandre Hardy. Paris, 1889. ' This singular work has been published in vol. 8 of the Ancien Thi&tre Franfais in the Bibliothique Elz^virienne. 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. Ch. II.] Dramatists. 465 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 Minor Corneille, and his earlier contemporaries, at least half- predecessors a-dozen are more or less known to fame, besides of Corneille. the really great name of Rotrou. Mairet, Tristan, Du Ryer, Scud^ry, 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 (Mariarane), 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. Scuddry's Amour Tyrannique is vigorous and bombastic. Claveret and D'Aubignac (the latter of whom was an active critic as well as a bad play-wright) 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 Thdophile de Viaud be passed over in this connection. His Pyrame et Thisbi 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, Uke all Th^ophile's work, Pyrame et Thisbe has value, and so has the unrepresented tragedy of Pasiphai. Among these forgotten names, and others more absolutely for- gotten still, that of Rotrou ' 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 ' Ed. VioUet-le-Dac. Also in a convenient selection of his best plays, by L. de Roncbaud. Paris, 1882. 2,66 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. ill. at once betook himself to dramatic poetry, his Hypocondriaqut being represented before he was nineteen. He formed with Cor- neille, Colletet, Bois-Robert, and L'Etoile, the band of Richelieu's 'Five Poets,' who composed tragedies jointly on the Cardinal's plans '. He also worked unceasingly at the theatre on his own account. Thirty-five pieces are certainly, and five more doubt- fully, 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 re- turning. 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 V&itable 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 Milite. The two poets were friends, and though Corneille in a manner supplanted him, Rotrou was un- wavering 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 ' 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 pos> sessed no merit. Ch. II.] Dramatists. 267 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. 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 ^ was born at Rouen in i6o6. „ .„ ■* ComeiUe. His father, of the same name, was an ofScial 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 prac-^ tised, but ' sans gofit et sans succ^s,' says Fontenelle, his nephew and biographer. His first comedy, Milite, 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 M^d^e, 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 la Cid. ^his 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 — Tont Paris pour Chimine a les yenx de Rodrigue, > Ed. Marty-Laveauz. la vols. Paris, 1862-67, a68 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 1 masterpieces. Horace, Cinna, Polyeucie, Le Menteur (a remarkable comic effort, to which Molifere acknowledged his indebtedness), and Rodogune, in some respects the finest of all, succeeded each other at but short intervals. Half-a-dozen plays, which were somewhat inferior in merit, and had the drawback of coming before a public used to the author and his method, followed, and the last and least good of them, Periharite, 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 CEdipe, 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 senescenlem. 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 affamd d'argent ' is one of the numerous ^yings 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 Sdvign^, and his own confidence in his genius never deserted him. Corneille's dramatic career may be divided into four parts ; the Ch. II.] - Dramatists. 269 first reaching froni M^iU to E Illusion Comique; the second (that of his masterpieces), from the Ctd to Rodogtme ; the third, from TModore to Per thorite ; the fourth, that of the decadence, from (Edipe to Surina. The following is a list of the names and dates (these latter being sometimes doubtful and contentious) of his plays. Me'lite, 1629, a comedy improbable and confused in inci- dent 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 contem- porary 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^ Mid^e, a tragedy (same year), incomparably the best French tragedy up to its date. E Illusion Comique, 1636, a tragi-comedy of the extremest Spanish type, com- plicated 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 motuftt' of the elder Horace is equally characteristic. Cinna, 1639, the general favourite in France, but somewhat stilted and devoid of action to foreign taste. Polyezicte, 1640, the greatest of all Christian tragedies. La Mort de Pomp/e, 1641, full of stately verse, but heavy and somewhat grandiose. Le Menteur, 1642, a charming comedy, followed by a Suite du Menteur, 1643, not infe- rior, though the fickleness of public taste disapproved it. Thiodore, 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 che/-doeuvre of the style, displaying from begin- 270 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. ning to end an astonishing power of moving admiration and terror. This play marks the climax of Corneille's faculty. In H&aclius, 1647, no real falling-oflf is visible; indeed, the character of Phocas stands almost alone on the French stage as a parallel in some sort to lago. Andromlde, 1650, introduced a considerable amount of spectacle and decoration, not unhappily. Don Sanche d'Aragon, 1651, Niiomide, 1652, and Perthariie, 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, (Edipe, 1 659, and La Totson dOr, 1660, both show the benefit of the rest the poet had had, together with certain signs of advancing years. La Totson d'Or, like Andromide, 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 Seriorim, 1662, there are occasional passages of much grandeur and beauty, but Sophonisie, 1663, is hardly a success, nor is Ol?ion, 1664. Ag^silas, 1666, and Attila, 1667, have been (the latter unfairly) damned by a quatrain of Boileau's. But TUe ei BMnice, 1670, must be acknowledged to be inferior to the play of Racine in rivalry with which it was produced. Pulcherie, 1672, and Surina, 1674, are last fruits off an old tree, which, especially the second, are not unworthy of it. Nor was Corneille's contribution to the re- markable opera oiPsycM, 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 Totson 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 Comeille the academic criticism of the time found the fault that he rather excited admiration Ch. II.] Dramatists. 271 than pit y imd tni am r^ a^i^ it hp jfl tViat a^lrni V atJon was 'not a tragic pa^on.' The criticism was clumsy, and to a great extent futile, but it has a certain basis of truth, TtJ ^ mmparativply ra rp fnr Comeille to attempt, after his earliest period, to interest his hearer s orreaders In tlie fortunes of his ch aracters. It is ratbj^r in \\\ c w^Ttnat they bear their fortunes, and particula rly in a kind o f haughty disdain tor fortune itself, that these character s impress us . Sometimes, as in the Cieopatre-of liifJogwit, lUfcTHasterful 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 Bruyfere of the famous comparison between the Greek tra- gedians 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 Molifere on these sudden flashes is well known. 'My friend Corneille,' he said, 'has a famiUar 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 273 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 ncS 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 ex- jjsected, been obliged to introduce love-making into most of his plays. To a modem 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, the chief of which are the Cid, Horace, Polyeucle, Rodogune. Du Bartas, D'Aubignd, 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 difficile!, by which Racine attracted his hearers, nor was his verse so uniformly smooth as that of his younger rival. But what it l acked in p olish and gra ce_itjmoreJhan mad^ "p i" grandpnr anH di gnity . The best lines of Corneille, like those of D'Aubignd, of Rotrou (from whom, comparatively stammering as was the teacher, Corneille perhaps learnt the art), and of Victor Hugo, have a I peculiar crash of sound which hardly any other metre of any other ^language possesses. A slight touch of aichaism (it is very slight) which is to be discovered in his work assists its efiFect not a little. The inveterate habit which exists in England of com- paring 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. The character, career, and work of Racine were curiously Ch. IIJ Dramatists. 273 different from those of Corneille. Jean Racine' was more than thirty years younger than his greater rival, having been „ , bom at La Fert^ Milon, at no great distance from Soissons, in 1639. His father held an ofScial position at this place, but he died, as Racine's mother had previously died, in the bo/s in- fancy, leaving him without any fortune. His grandparents, however, were alive, and able to take care of him, and they, with other rela- tives, 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, from which he benefited much. 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 un- decided 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 com- paratively 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 si? hundred livres for an ode on the king's recovery from sickness, and the same year La ThibcCide was accepted and pro- duced. 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 Cor- neille, between whom and Racine rivalry was industriously fostered. The somewhat indecent antagonism which Racine had shown to- wards 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 historio- grapher to the king, and became more or less fervently devout ' Ed. Hesnaid. 8 vols. Fans, 1867. T 374 "^f^ Seventeenth Century. [Bk. ill. 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 sin- gular 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 ex- haustion 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 pre- ferred, in the language of the French gaming table, /aire Charle- magne, and to run no further risks. He had, however, worse fail- ings than any yet n)entioned. Molibre gave him valuable assist- ance, and he repaid it with ingratitude. With hardly a shadow of provocation he attacked in a tone of the utmost acrimony th& 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 con- cern 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 TMbdide, 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 sub- ordination 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 soupits et de flammes is more than ever prominent. In Andromaque, 166'j, an immense advance is perceptible. The characters become personally inter-* esting (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 Ch. 11.] Dramatists. 275 about it, appears. This was followed by Racine's only attempt in the comic sock, Les Plaidmrs, i668, 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 im- posed on him by his plan. Briiannicus, 1669, BMnice, 1670, Bajazet, 1672, and Mithridate, 1673, with all their perfection of Itchnique, 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. Iphiginie, 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 Phldre, 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. Briiannicus was indeed preferred by eighteenth-century judges; but for excellence of constructio^ti, artful beauty of verse, skilful use of the limited means of appeal at the command of the dramatist, no play can surpass PMdre ; 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, zn^ Alkalie, 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 T 2 %'j6 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 peda- gogic 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 versifica- tion 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 decasyllabic of Dryden, and as Virgil treated the hexameter of Lucretius. In his hands it acquired smoothness, softness, polish , andjnaechanicaJ_perfectipns of many kinds, only to sufier 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 PMiade 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 ch.n.] Dramatists. ayy nothing but the result of an unflinching adherence to this standard. It is impossible to reproduce the suhHlitas 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 cha- racters, a duplication or triplication of plot, and a complete disregard of pre-established ' common form.' Now this ' com- mon 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. pectacles. 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 Molibre a poet at all, _ despite his extraordinary creative faculty. He was too positive, I too much given to literal transcription of society, too little able to I convey the vague suggestion of beauty which, as it 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 i 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 gfreatest 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 Molifere's works were well calculated to encourage imitators, it was some time before the imitators appeared. Unlike Racine, whose methgd was at once caught up, Molifere saw during his lifetime no one who could even pretend to be a rival. Those who are nowj classed as being Ch. n.] Dramatists. 287 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 Bipit Amoureux and only three years before the appearance of Les Pr&ieuses 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. Molibre is identified with the age of Louis XIV., yet Les Pr^cieuses 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. 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 contempor- none of his pupils has surpassed him) by the ex- ariea of cellence of his operas. Of these Armida is held the MoUSre. best. His comedies proper are not quite so good as his operas, but much better than his tragedies. One of them, EAmant In- discret, supplied Newcastle and Dryden with hints to eke out L'Etourdi, and most of them show a considerable command of coniic situation, if not of comic expression. Montfleury, whose real name was Antoine Jacob, was, like Molifere, 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 Ji^e et Par tie and La Fille Capitaine. They belong to an older style of comedy than Molibre's, being both extravagant and coarse, but there is considerable vis comica a88 Tlte Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. in them. Boursault, who was born in 1638 and died in 1701, had still more merit, though he too was an enemy of Moli^re. His Mercure Galant is his principal play, besides which &ope h la Cour, £sope h 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-Molibresque fancy for Comedies des Chansons and other tours deforce may be perceived. Besides these three writers others of Molifere'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 Comeille 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 genera^ tion who have been mentioned. Jean Frangois Regnard, the second of French comic dramatists in general estimation (though it is doubtful whether any single The Sohool piece of his equals Turcaret), was bom at Paris in of Molifere- 1 656, and lived a curious life. He was heir to con- Begnard. giderable 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 en- slaved. 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 pleasiures 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 Menichmes, Le L^gataire, the first and the last named being his principal titles to fame. Regnard trod as closely as he • could in the steps of Molibre. He was destitute of that great dramatist's grasp of character and moral earnestness; Ch. II.] Dramatists. 389 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, ' II n'est pas m^diocrement 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 Rivifere 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 some- what destitute of finish. Besides those in which Regnard colla- borated he was the author of eleven pieces, of which L' Esprit de Contradiction, Le Doubk 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 i, country life and to the practice of religious duties. His tMdtre is con- siderable, 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 h la Mode, per- haps also Le Galant Jardinier and Les Trois Cousines, deserve mention. The collaboration of Brueys and Palaprat resulted in the modem version of the famous mediaeval farce, L'Avocat Pathelin, and in an excellent piece of the Molifere-Regnard type, Le Grandeur. Some other plays of less merit were written by the friends, while each is u ngo TJte Seventeenth Century. responsible for two independent pieces. Both were Proven9als, David Augustin de Brueys having been born at Aix in 1640, Jean Falaprat at Toulouse ten years later. Brueys, who, as an abb^ 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. 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 Character- * ^^^ different degree from the artificial tragedy which isties of accompanied it. It was, moreover, far less trammelled Moiidresque 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 Molifere 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, McI^Ig^ took typ es. The advantage j^ the latter method for enforcing a moral lesson is evident; its literary disadvantages are evident like- wise. It leads to an ignoring of the complexity of human nature and to an imnatural 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 Jotieur, Le Gran- deur, 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 Molibre is but too apt to forget the fact in his anxiety to enforce his moral and deepen the strokes of his general type. CHAPTER III. NOVELISTS. Prose fiction, for reasons which it is not at all hard to dis- cover, 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 Garganitta and Panlagruel, 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 Honor^ d'Urfd in the Astrie, which was, however, rather ■n'TiriB pastoral than heroic. D'Urf^, 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 adop- tion 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. z^z The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. 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 eccle- siastic, Camus de Pontcarr^, 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, Palomhe, is known, because of an edition of it in the present century. D'Urfd belonged as much to the sixteenth as to the seventeenth century, though the Astrie was the work of the latter part of his life, and was indeed left unfinished by him. It was shortly after- wards, under the influence chiefly of the growing fancy for literary The Heroic c oterie s, that the heroic romance properly so called Bomances. ■^as 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 Moli^re 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 Scud^ry, La Calprenfede, and Gomberville. Mademoiselle de Scud^ry, known in the coterie nomenclature of the time as ' Sapho,' was the sister of Georges de Scuddry, and a woman of considerable talent and more considerable industry. Madeleine de Scuddry 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 miUtary and literary reputation of her brother and her own talents made her the centre and head of an important colerie in the capital. Her romances, the earliest of which was Ibrahim, were published under her brother's name, but Ch. III.] Novelists. 293 their authorship was well knowa. She was extremely accomplished, nol^merely in the accomplishments of a blue-stocking but in art, an4 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 at- tracted 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 S^vignd, 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, other- wise Artamine, CUlie, 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 Cyrtis is, at least by title, the best remembered, but it is in CUlit that the best-known and most characteristic trait appears, the delinea- tion and description namely of the Carte de Tendre '. Tendre is the country of love, through which flows the river of Inclination water- ing 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 Calprenfede, a Gascon by birth, was the author of CUopdtre (which ranks perhaps with Cyrus as the cl?ief 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 Historieties of Tallemant, who says of him, ' II n'y a jamais eu un homme plus Gascon que celui-cL' 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 hdros,' says he, speaking of Cassandre. ' se ressemblent comme deux gouttes d'eau, parlent tous Ph/ous (the euphuist jargon of the time), et sent tous des gens k 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 ' Not du Tendre, as it is often erroneously cited in French and English works. 294 1^^ Seventeenth Century. [Bk. ill. Alcidiane, Caritie, Polexandre, and CytMrie. Though earlier in date he is inferior in power to Mademoiselle de Scuddiy and to La Calpren^de, the first of whom had some wit and much culture, while La Calprenfede 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 in- comprehensible 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* (who wrote under the name of Madame de Villedieu) produced numerous books (the chief of which is Le Grand Al- candre), not indeed so absolutely preposterous in general con- ception, but even more vapid and destitute of originality and distinction*. 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 fary tale attained, in the hands of Anthony ' The learned editor of Tallemant des R^aux 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 Abb6 d'Anbignac. ' I cannot boast of an intimate or exhanstive acquaintance with the ' heroic ' romances ; but I have taken cate to satisfy myself of the accuracy of the statements in the text ch. HI.] Novelists. 395 Hamilton, Ferrault and Madame d'AuInoy, its most delightful and abundant development. 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 com- pleteness. 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 suflSciently 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 1 6 10, 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 abb^. 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 Fran9oise d'Aubign^, the future Madame de Maintenon, the granddaughter of Agrippa d' Aubignd, 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 incon- siderable, 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 396 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iri. greater value. Many of his nowvelles, mostly imitated from the Spanish, have merit, and his Roman Comiqtu \ though also inspired to some extent from the Peninsula, has still more. It is the unfinished history of a troop of strolling actors, displaying extra- ordinary 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. 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 Cyrano de often entirely misled foreign critics. Cjorano de Ber- Bergerac. gerac 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 Pidant Joui, a comedy, gave Molifere some useful hints ; his Agrippine, a tragedy, has passages of declamatory energy. But his best work comes under the head of fiction. The Voyages & la Lune et au Soleil^, 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 boastfillness 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. Dassoucy, alternately a friend and enemy of Cyrano, was a light writer of some merit with a character of very little. Charles Sorel, an exceedingly voluminous author, historiographer of France, deserves mention in passing for his Histoire Comique de Francion'^, in which, as in almost all the fictitious work of the time, • Ed. Dillaye. 3 vols. Paris, 1881. ' The full title is Histoire Comique des £tats de la Lune ei du Soleil. Cyrano's works have been edited by P. L. Jacob, a vols. Paris, 1858. • Ed. Colombey. Paris, 1877. Ch. lit] Novelists. 397 serious as well as comic, living persons are introduced. The chief thing remarkable 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 Furetifere, author of the Roman Bourgeois''-- Furetibre, 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 BoUeau 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 in- fringed 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 Tre'voux. Furetibre'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 impro- priety 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. Of very different importance is the Countess de la Fayette, who has the credit, and justly, of substituting for mere Madame ds romances of adventure on the one hand, and for lal'ayette. 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 Bias, 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 Bias, and even Tom Jones, are types rather than > Ed. Jannet. a vols. Paris, 1878. 398 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. 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 suflScient 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 Abb^ 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 ' was Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, and she was bom at Paris in 1634. Her father was governor of Havre. She was carefully brought up under Manage and Rapin, among others, and was one of the most brilliant of the pr^cieuses of the H6tel Rambouillet. In 1655 she married the Count de la Fayette, who figures little in her history. Later 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 ip 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 S^vign^ 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 Zdide, published in 1670, a book of considerable excellence; and this in its turn by La Princesse de CUves, 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 ' £d. Gamier. Paris, 1864. ch. III.] Novelists. 399 ' portentous bulk of the Scud^ry 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 Clfeves, and Rochefoucauld the Duke de Nemours, while other characters are identified with Louis XIV. and his courtiers by industrious com- pilers 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 twQ^ centuries of progress in the way which Madame de la J'ayette opened. But when it is re- mfimbered that her book appeared thirty years before Gil Bias, forty before the masterpieces tof 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 \ 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 *. Three, how- * Madame de la Fayette also wrote La Cemiesse de Tende, and interesting Memoiis of Henrietta of England. Zaiide was published under the name of Segrais, who was a nouvelle-wnXer of no great merit, though a pleasant poet. ' See H. Bonhomme, Le Cabinet des Fees. 300 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. ever, 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. Marie Catherine, Comtesse d'Aulnoy, was born about the middle of the seventeenth century, and died in 1720. It is suflBcient 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 Pairy Tales. 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 bom 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 M/moires 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 intentioUj 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 ' B^lier, mon ami, tu me ferais plaisir si tu voulais commencer par le commencement.' 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 Perrault. 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 ch. III.] Novelists. 301 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 167 1 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 arid partly serious, notably a SHcle de Louis XIV., he embarked on the rather unlucky work which gave him his chief reputation among his own contemporaries, the ParalUle des Anciens et des Modernes, in which he took the part of the moderns. The dispute which fol- lowed, 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 EngUsh, 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 ^, a good many miscellanies in prose and verse of no particular value, and died in 1703. His first tale, Grisdidis (in verse, and by no means his best), appeared in 1691, Peau d'Ane and Les Souhaiis Ridicules in 1694, La Belle au Bois Dormant in 1696, and the rest in 1697. These are Le Petit Chaperon Mouge, La Barhe Bleue, Le Mailre Chat ou le Chat BoM, Les F/es, Cendrillon, Piquet h 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 » Ed. Lefevre. Paris, 1875. Ed. Lang. Oxford, 1888. 3oa The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. ui. 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 innu- merable imitators chiefly among persons of quality, who, as M. Honord 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 gene- rally 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 illustra- tion 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, condi- tions are needed which are eminently ' the gift of fortune.' These remarks apply more or less to all the following chapters and books Ch. III.] Novelists. 303 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. CHAPTER IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR -WRITERS, LETTER -WRITERS. Although the seventeenth century did not witness the accept- ance in France of what may be called a philosophical conception of history, and though few or none of the regfular histories of the time (with the exception of that of Mdzeray) hold high rank as lite- rature, no period was more fruitful in memoirs, letters, and separate historical sketches of the first merit. The names of Madame de S^vign^, 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 mis- cellaneous authors of historical gossip and other matters. ^ 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 ' The following paragrapli contains, except as far as Mezeray is concerned, chiefly second-hand information. I have never yet been able to devote the time necessary to enable me to speak at first hand of these books, which are very bnlky, not as a rule interesting or important in manner, and for the most part long obsolete in matter. Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 305 mention. The great history of De »Thou was written in Latin. But the century produced in M^zeray's History of General France the first attempt of merit on the subject. Historians. Fran9ois Eudes de M^zeray was the son of a surgeon, Mifoeray. who seems to have been of some means and position. M^zeray" was educated at Caen (he was born in i6ro), 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 con- ception and attention to documentary evidence, which he showed. Mdzeray 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. M^zeray 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. P^r^fixe (who may have been assisted by M^zeray) is responsible for a history of Henri IV. ; Maimbourg for a history of the League which has some interest for English- men 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, pro- duced a school of historians who, with some merits of style, were almost deliberately unfaithful to fact. If the well-known saying (' Mon si6ge est fait ') attributed to the Abbd Vertot is not apocryphal *, he must be ranked in the less respectable class. But ' The legend, familiar probably to most readers, is that Vertot required documents for his account of a certain military operation. Tired with waiting 3o6 The Seventeenth Century, [Bk. iii. 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 Pfere Daniel wrote a history of France, the Pbre d'OrMans 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 Mdzeray, 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 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 IS orioa ^^g ransacked to discover forms of composition admit- ting 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 oflFered, 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 Fiesqtte 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 Cr^qui 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 Abbd Vertot preluded his larger histories by a short tract on for them, he constructed the history out of his own head, and when they anived made the ejaculation in the text C!h. IV.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 307 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 centre Venise^ of Saint R^al, 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. Cdsar Vichard, Abbd de Saint Rdal, was born at Chamb^ry ^ J J- J, 1 , . , -r-r Saint BSal. m 163 1, and died at the same place m 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. The memoir-writers proper, who confine themselves to what they in their own persons have done, heard, or Memoir- thought, are, as has been said, of far more importance, writers. Their number is very great, and investigations into the vast record treasures which, after revolutionary devastation, France still pos- ' This, with some other of the pieces here mentioned, will be fonnd in two volumes of the Collection Didot, entitled Petits Chefs-itauvrt Historiques. X 2 308 71^1? Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iir. sesses, 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 im- portance 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 Fran9ois 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 Phdlypeaux de Pontchartrain (1566-162 1) 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 T> 1, ('S79~i638) 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 pur- chasing 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 Capilaine, 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 Franfois, Mar^chal de Bassompierre, another of the adversaries of Richelieu, ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 309 and who, less fortunate than Rohan, languished twelve years in the Bastille. Few persons played a more active part Bassom- in the first years of the reign of Louis XIII. than pierre. Bassompierre, and no one has left a livelier description, not merely of his own personal fortunes, but of the personality of his con- temporaries, 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, Fran9ois Annibal, Mardchal d'Estr^es, brother of the mistress of Henri IV. D'Estrdes ex- cludes all gossip, confines himself strictly to matters of public business, and recounts them apparently with scrupulous accuracy, and in a plain but clear and suflBcient 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 Condd and Madame de Sdvignd, and are by no means unworthy of the honour. The actual composition of the memoirs is said to be the work of Thomas du Fossd. 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 pr&is of documents. There is, therefore, no need to dwell on them. In the memoirs of Arnauld d'Andilly and of his son, the Abbd 3IO The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. III. 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 Jan- senism in France, was also an assiduous courtier of Gaston d'OrMans, and not too well satisfied with the results of his courtier- ship. 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. More important still among the memoirs of this time are those Madame de of Frangoise Bertaut, Madame de Motteville, a Motteville. 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 Riche- lieu'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 Sdvignd. 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 re- Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 311 flections, 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 P^re 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 Mon- trdsor 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 Ch^tre, an industrious courtier and intriguer, and a vivid and picturesque writer, whose work, as will presentl)r 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). The works and personages of some other writers demand a fuller notice. Paul de Gondi', Cardinal de Retz, who occupies cardinal de with Saint Simon, and perhaps La Rochefoucauld, the Eetz. first place among French memoir-writers of the seventeenth century, was bom 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 church- man 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 ^ £d. Feillet, Gonrdanlt and Chantelauze. Paris (in progress). 31 a The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. ill. 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 minis- ters. The history of tliis 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, how- ever, was the payment of his enormous debts, which he eifected 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 S^vignd 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 Fiesqtte 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 con- fidant 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. Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 313 Of very great importance historically, and by no means unim- portant as literature, are the Memoirs of Pierre Lenet, a man of business long attached to the house of Cond^. These memoirs are, in fact, memoirs of the great Cond^ himself, up to the peace of the Pyrenees. Personal and literary interest both appear in a very high degree in the Memoirs of Anne Marie Louise de Mont- pensier, commonly called La Grande Mademoiselle. Hademoi- The only daughter of Gaston of Orleans and of the sella. 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 Cond^, 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 unfor- tunate 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, Made- moiselle 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 314 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 suflBcient 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. The Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld ' would have assured him a considerable place in the history of literature, even had he never LaBooho- written the Maxims, and the singular fate of these foucavad. 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 dupUcates 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 sus- picion almost to the present day. Probably, however, he was 1 Ed. Gilbert et Gourdault. Paris, 1 868-8*. ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 315 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 18 17, 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 Chitre, 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 fiill, 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 abready visible in them, as well as the profundity of in- sight which accompanies width of range. The form is less finished, but its capacities are seen. Jean H^rault de Gourville stood to La Rochefoucauld in some- thing 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 Cond^ 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 ofiices, 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 31 6 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. 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 Mar^chal de Grammont were composed from his papers by his second son, Louvigny, afterwards Duke de Grammont. The eldest son. Count deGuiche, 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. This was an exploit much exaggerated by the king's flatterers, but really a brilliant feat of arms, and it was mainly due to Guiche himself. Like those of Grammont, the Memoirs of the Mar^chal 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 Mimoires pour servir h VHisioire du XVIP"" Steele, though evidently a com- pilation, 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 important rather 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, Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 317 Forbin, and Duguay-Trouin. The last two are among the some- what 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. 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 S^vign^, and one of the boldest, most un- scrupulous, and most unlucky of aspirants after fortune, has left a considerable number of letters and memoirs in which he ex- poses his own projects and wrongs, and, above all, a kind of scan- dalous chronicle called the Histoire Amour euse 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' 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 now under review — the skill shown by writers 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 reflec- tion virith which contemporary events are taken in and represented. Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de Saint Simon ', was born at La Fertd ' Memoirs, &c., ed. Lalanne. 8 vols. Paris, 185^. Histoire Amoureusi, ed. Livet. 4 vols. Paris, 1856. ' Ed. Fenillet de Conches. 19 vols. Paris, 1854-61. ' Memoirs, ed. CWrael. 20 vols. Paris, i^'ji. Now being re-edited by M. de Boislisle. Miscellaneoas works are also appearing. 31 8 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.iii. 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 value 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 I'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 in- veterate 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'Orl^ans, 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 pre- cedence 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 Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 319 the Regent's granddaughter. There he was made a grandee of the first ckss. Soon after his return he gave up interference in public affairs, but he lived for thirty years longer, writing inces- santly, 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. As he died intestate, and with no immediate heirs, 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 faith- fully 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 over- come, and three difi'erent workers, M. de Boislisle, M. Drumont, and M. Faugfere, have been engaged in editing or re-editing dif- ferent 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 poUtician, though that standpoint was not without influence on his literary characteristics. He is valu- able to us as, without exception, the most vivid and graphic painter of contemporary history of the anecdotic kind in French or any other 320 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. language. His style is incorrect, and sometimes barely gramma- tical, 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 hear- say 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 S^vign^. 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 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*, 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. The most famous and remarkable of all the letter-writers of the Madame de time — perhaps the most famous and remarkable of all sgvignS. letter-writers in literature — was Marie de Rabutin- Chantal, Marquise de Sdvign€ ^ She was born at Paris on the 6th of ' Ed. Bertrand et de Cosnac. Paris, i88a. ' Ed. Monmerqni 14 vols. Paris, 1861-66, to whicli mnst be added 2 vols, of Leitres Inldites discovered and published by M. Capmas. Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 321 February, 1626, and died at Grignan, of small-pox, on the loth 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. Franjois 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 Abbd 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. Manage and Chapelain had, among others, much to do with her educa- tion, and she was a member of the celebrated coterie of the H6tel Rambouillet, though her satirical humour saved her from being a pricieuse. At the age of eighteen she married the Marquis de Sdvign^, of a good and wealthy Breton family. Her husband was, however, a selfish profligate, who wasted her substance with Ninon de I'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, Franfoise 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 S6vign6 came scathless out of the ordeal. In 1669 her daughter, then twenty-two years old, married the Count de Grignan, a Proven9al gentleman of the noblest birth, of great estate, rank, and fortune, but already twice a widower, past middle age, plain, and of some- what 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 sin- cerely attached to him. The great bulk of Madame de Sdvignd's voluminous correspondence was addressed to her daughter, for Y 332 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.in. ■whom she had an almost frantic fondness ; Charles de S^vign^ 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 Sdvignds, near Vitr^ 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 S^vign^ visited in conse- quence 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 S^vign^'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 i8th 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 S^vign^ 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 poli- tical 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 ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 323 suflScient 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 S^vign^ 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 hke Mademoiselle de Scud^ry, 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 ex- pression. She is, indeed, except in politics, on which few persons of her class had at the time any clear or distinct ideas, never super- ficial ; and this union of just thought with accurate observation and exceptional power of expression makes her position in literature. Madame de Sdvign6, 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 Sdvign^, but it displays the great intellectual powers of the writer '-. 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 anec- dotes, 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. Foumier in his VariMs Historiques et Litter aires'^. These, ' A full and excellently edited selection has been given by A. Geffiroy. 2 vols. Paris, 1887. » 10 vols. Paris, 1855-63. Y 2 324 TJie Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 Tallemant here, the Historiettes of Tallemant des Rdaux '. The des KSaux. author of this singular book, Gdddon Tallemant des R^aux, 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 H6tel de Rambouillet in his youth, and that in his old age he underwent some not clearly de- fined 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 litera- ture 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 Brant6me. They are, as published by Monmerqu^, 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 informa- tion were in many cases good, and his statements are confirmed by independent evidence sufiiciently 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. * 10 vols, in 5. Ed. Monmerque. Third edition. Paris, n. d. ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter - Writers. 325 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, Historical too numerous, and", from the purely literary view, too Antiquaries, unimportant to detain us. Exceptions may be made in favour of Andrd 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 Latinitaiis, contributed not a little to the study of the oldest form of French. CHAPTER V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS. The enormous popularity which the Essays of Montaigne en- joyed 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 compo- sition descended from it. Such were the Pensie, 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 Pensie, just as the Pens& was a condensed essay. In these various styles some of the most excellent work ex- isting 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 Evremondj 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. Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 327 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 Mal- herbe does in that of French poetry. Balzac was a gentleman of rank and fortune in the province of Angoumois, where'i he was bom towards the end of the sixteenth century, and where he died in 1655. Ii* his younger days he served in some diplo- matic 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 con- siderable part of them is composed of letters — not such letters as have been discussed in the preceding chapter, but elaborate episdes 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 Chritien. In all, his work was sufficient to fill two folio volumes when it was collected ^ 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. * He has not recently been re-edited, but a selection was published in 1822. 3a8 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.iTi. But the general use of the printing press, and the adaptation of literature to all sorts of journey-work, made it imperatively neces- sary 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 Traitide Ttloquence Fran- faise ; Vaugelas, a Savoyard by birth, was shortly to undertake some valuable Remarques on French grammar and style, which long re- mained 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 im- portant 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 sen- tences 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. Blaise Pascal' was born at Clermont, in Auvergne, on the 19th ' Editions of Pascal are numerous, but a complete and definite one is still wanting. Of the Pensies, etc., the editions of Faugfere, Havet, and Rochei may be mentioned ; of the Provinciaies, the edition of 1867. Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 329 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 pre- cocity 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 baro- meter 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 PrcminciaUs, 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, mathe- matical, 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 Pmsks. 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 ol Les Provinciales is only a convenient ab- breviation of the original, which is Lettres Eeriies par Louis de MontdUe h un Provincial de ses Amis et aux Rdv&ends Peres Jesuites sur le Sujet de la Morale ei de la Politique de ces Plres. This somewhat cumbrous appellation has at any rate the merit of 33© The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. 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 in- flicted 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 MMppie 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 controversial irony, excelling Swift as much in elegance 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. Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics, 331 The Pensies 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 Provinciaks. 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 Pensies 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 shape 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 accompUshed 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 stereo- typed 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 Pens&s (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 Provinciates 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 332 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. and younger manners. But Pascal, who wrote merely to please himself, ha4 this great advantage over Dryden, that his work con- tains no mere journey-work, and especially nothing unworthy of him. Admirable as it is in style, it is equally admirable in mean- ing 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 ex- planation 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 any- thing that is not serious, can complain of levity in the Pens/es. 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, more- over, 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 Molifere (with perhaps Saint Evremond or La Rochefoucauld as thirdsman) supply an almost complete reflection. Saint Evremond \ who was thirteen years Pascal's senior, and Saint who Outlived him by more than forty, was, except in Evremond. 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 Condd'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 » Ed. Giraud. 3 vols. Paris, 1866. (A selection only, but conUining al- most everything of importance.) Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. ^^^ 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 dis- quisitions and tractates on subjects of historical and ethical in- terest. 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 osten- tatiously pretended never to have heard of Dryden, Saint Evre- mond, 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 remark- able as having formed, in conjunction with Pascal and Bayle, a singular trio, which supplied Voltaire with the models' whence he drew his peculiar style of persiflage. As far as form is con- cerned, 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 ' Perhaps Anthony Hamilton should be added, as a channel of communi- cation with Saint Evremond and some of the seventeenth centiuy coterie- writers. 334 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iil. 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. Fran9ois da Marcillac ', Duke de la Rochefoucauld, was born in LaKoohe- 1613 of one of the noblest families of France. His fouoavad. 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 aflfection for the celebrated Madame de Chevreuse. After Richelieu's death and the comparative efface- ment 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 Sdvign^. 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 after- wards, and at once attained a wide popularity. The first edition appeared in 1665, and four others were published, with con- siderable 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 ' Ed. as before noticed. The Maxims have been constantly reprinted by themselves. Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 335 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 Roche-" fpucauld's maxims, without exception, are on ethical subjects, and wim 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 moraHsts. 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 col- lection of facts, and who expounds and arranges them on a certain coherent and suflScient hypothesis. As a work of literary art the result of his exposition is unrivalled. The whole of the Maxim^ 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 worfc_ 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. 33^ The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. The motto of the book (at least in the fourth and fifth editions), ' Nos vertus ne sont le plus souvent que des vices d^guisds,' 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 I'amour est d'aimer, et Ton est plus heureux par la passion qu'on a que par celle que I'ori 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 I'amour est d'aimer ' might have had by themselves. La Roche- foucauld 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 con- tinuelle, c'est la fibvre de la sant^, c'est la fdlie 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 fifevre de la raison,' the improvement of which in point and fresh- ness is sufiiciently 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 XHL 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. These critics generally give the palm of style, as concerns writing of this kind, to Jean de la Bruyfere *. Less is known of the personal \ Ed. Serrois. Paris, 1865-1883. Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 337 history of this author than of that of any contemporary writer of great eminence. He was born at Paris, in August 164s, and _ ° Iia Bruydre. 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 Cond^, in whose household he continued till his death in 1696. He had published his Caractires'm. 1687, and was elected to the Academy in 1693. The works of La Bruyfere consist of the Caractkres 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 F^nelon, but not published till after the author's death. The Caractlres 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 Bruyfere's 338 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.iii. is a book of almost unparalleled interest to take up and lay down at odd moments. Its apparently continuous form and its inter- mixture of narrative save it from the appearance of severity which the avowed Maxim or Pensde 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 Mal^zieux 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 j 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 Molifere, and La Fontaine, and La Rochefoucauld. But La Bruyfere (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 Ve,rsailles 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 Bruyfere'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 Bruyfere was one of those who, according to a famous phrase of his enemy and successor, Fontenelle, ' may have their hands full of truth, but Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 339 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 abso- lute period of Louis the Fourteenth's rule. His remark that ' les grands sujets sont d^fendus ' 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 '. ' 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 miscel- laneous writers of criticism from Corneille in his Examens downwards, the classical commentators, editors, and translators. Few of these have left a veiy 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 infidfeles,' 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 repre- sentative 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. Z 2 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. Ren^ Descartes^ was born at La Haye in Touraine on the 3rst of March, 1596. His family belonged by descent to the province in which he was born, but by occupation and ofGcial 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 Rend was Seigneur du Perron, though, quite contrary to the wont of the day, he ' Not fully edited yet. Cousin's edition is the fullest, but the important French works figure in many popular collections and are easily accessible. Philosophers. 341 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 beg^n his studies very early. In 1604 he was sent to the Jesuit College of La Flbche, 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 161 7, 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 em- ployment. 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 Lore'tto, then returned to France, and dwelt in Paris for some time j 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^. 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 Stock- holm, 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 ' He was 'as restless as a hysena,' says De Quincey, not unjustly. 342 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. point of not rising till eleven), put an end to his life, by inflamma- tion of the lungs, on Feb. ii, 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 Mdthode, 1637, and his letters. The MMtations, of equal importance philosophically with the Discours, and the Principia Philosophies, 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 meta- physical 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 '. 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 excep- tion must be made. According to Mr. Mahaffy's view it is Descartes' few letters to Balzac which have gained him a reputa- tion 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 » Professor Mahaffy, Descartes. Edinburgh, 1880. Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 343 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 draw- backs 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 Mon- taigne. 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 Pldiade had enriched the language, and the reaction against the Pldiade 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 ahready 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 difiicult to realise the difference. The grotesque by-play and the archaic vocabulary of Gargantua, the garrulous digression and anecdote of the Essays, 344 Tfi^ Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 sunple, 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 con- temporary, and in some sort predecessor, Balzac, and his advantage over the author of the Socrate Chritien 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. Th^r 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 Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 345 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 rdveille I'esprit ; ' the comparison of the reading of the best authors not merely to a conversation, but a cmversation itudiie, in which the speakers ' show only their best thoughts ; ' the contrast between eloquence and poetry (too often forgotten by the writer's country- men) ; the ironic touch ^ 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 Dis- cours di la Mithode appeared within a few months of the Cid. Thus it happened that the first complete models of French classical style in prose and verse, alid 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 • 'La philosophie doime moyen de parler vraisemblablement de toutes choses, et se faire admirer des moins savants.' 346 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. iii. 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. We are not here concerned with the religious fortunes of the com- munity of Port Royal *. It is suflScient 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 Mfere Ang^lique Arnauld, and that, chiefly owing to the inspiration of the Abb^ 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 litera- ture. 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 com- mon 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 Letires sur les Visionnaires cor- responding to the Provinciates of his greater contemporary, while he was the author of Pensies, which, unlike Pascal's, were regularly finished, and which, though much inferior to them, have something * Sainte-Beuve, Port Royal. 6 vols. Paris, 1859-61. Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 347 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 ^ 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. 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 con- verted by his teachers, his conversion being however so little of a * These men, snch as Saint Ibal, Bardonville, Desbarreaux, and others, figure largely in the anecdotic history of the time. In the persons of Th^ophile 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. 348 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.iii, solid one that he reverted to Protestantism in less than two years. After this he resided for some time in Switzerland, studying Car- tesianism. 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, especi- ally in Holland. They were mostly critical, and dealt with scientific, historical, philosophical, and theological subjects. Bayle's utter- ances 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, Hoif- mann, 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 1 706. 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 ch. VI.] Pkilosopkers. 349 and Pascal, he is nearer to him in spirit than either. The dif- ference 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. 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 Male- Nicolas Malebranche^ was the unquestioned chief, branohe. He was bom at Paris, where his father held a lucrative ofl6ce, 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 con- troversies 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 17 15. 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 TraiM de Morale, Conversations Me'iaphysiques, etc., but his greatest and most remarkable contribution to French literature is his Recherche de la VMM, 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 diiference between the style of Malebranche and that * £d. Simon. 1854. 350 The Seventeenth Century. 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. 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 pre- dominance 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, Fdnelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Fl^chier, 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. 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. Frangois de Sales was born at Annecy in 1567. He was destined for the law, and completed his education ^^ s^l"' 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 354 l^he Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in, 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 poUtical 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 con- troversialist 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 Hisloire 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 enthpsiasm 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 Fdnelon; 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 ^tonnante 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 Ch. VII.] Theologians and Preachers. j^e^^ 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 convic- tion 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. The contrast between Bossuet and his chief rival was in all respects great. To begin with, F^nelon 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 F^nelon. Bossuet was a vigorous student of certain defined branches of know- ledge, but of general literature he took little heed. F^nelon was a man of almost universal reading, and one of the most original and soundest literary critics of his time. F^nelon 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 Fdnelon — quite as justly as to Berkeley — every virtue under heaven may be assigned. Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fdnelon ^ was born at the castle of the same name in the province of Perigord, on August i6th, 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. ' There is a fairly representative edition of F&elon in five vols, large 8vo. Dldot, Separate works are easily accessible. A a 2 356 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. 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 Te'Umaqm (or at least the first sketch of it). In 1697 he was appointed arch- bishop 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. F^nelon 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, Fdnelon 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. F^nelon was known to disapprove of much in the actual government of France, and the surreptitious publication of TiUmaque 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 17 15. F^nelon 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 Ftlles, and his Dialogues des Moris, 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, F^nelon was a Car- tesian, and his TraiU de t Existence de Dieu is a philosophico- religious work of no small merit. In literary history he is remark- able for having directly opposed the victorious work of Boileau. He has left several exercises in literary criticism, such as his Letlre sur les Occupations de F Academic Fran^aise, one of the latest of Ch.vii.] Theologians and Preachers. 357 his works ; his Dialogues sur T 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, TdUmaque, 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 TiUmaque, 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 TiUmaque 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 com- position 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. The third greatest name of the period in this clasfr of men of 358 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk.iii. letters is beyond all question that of Massillon. He, like F^nelon, 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 ^ was a native of Hibres, 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 Oraisom Futii- bres 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 Carime, or course of Lent sermons, before Louis XV. In 17 19 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 pre- ceded 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, ex- • Edition as in F^nelon's case. Selections of all the oitbodox sermon-writers are abundant Ch. VII.] Theologians and Preachers. 359 position of doctrine and eflfect upon the consciences of his hearers, he was admittedly inferior to Massillon. The latter, moreover, has, of all French preachers (for Fdnelon, 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 discon- tented 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. 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 _ ° Bourdaloue. 20th August, 1632, and was thus not many years the junior of Bossuet. He entered the Society of Jesus early, and 360 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. m. 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 S^vign^, who was no mean critic. He died in 1704. The chief characteristic of Bourdaloue's eloquence is a remark- able absence of ornament, and a strict adherence to dialectical order. None of the great French preachers admit of logical abstraction and picis so well as he. Another peculiarity is his preference for ethical subjects. More than any of his contempo- raries 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 eflfects, 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 Fl^chier, Mascaron, Claude, and Saurin. Esprit Fl^chier was bom at Pesmes in 1632. For a time he Minor was a member of the congregation of the Brothers of PreaclieTs. Christian Doctrine, which, however, on an alteration of its constitution by a new superior-general (he had been intro- duced 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 mis- cellaneous literature. The most curious and interesting of these Ch.Vll.] Theologians and Preachers. 361 works is a little account of the Grands Jours d'Auvergne, a sort of provincial assize which he visited. This has much livelinesSj 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 Funibre 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 Fl^chier's discourses are those on Madame de Montausier (the heroine of the Guirlande de Julie ^ and the idol of the H6tel de Rambouillet), that on Madame de Montausier's husband, and that on Turenne. Fl^chier 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 re- proached 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, • This was an album to which the poets of the day, from Conieille down- wards, contributed verses, each on a different flower. 36a The Seventeenth Century. long continued to be the most popular body of household divinity with French Protestants. He was born at Nimes, i677i 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 any- where else, and to the vexation of these is said to have been partly due his comparatively early death in 1730. He left a very con- siderable 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. Inci- dentally, however, much that was intended to be read, not heard,N was of course written. But less of it has been thought worthy the attention of posterity. The chief theological names in this depart- ment 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. 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*. 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 dis- couraging the more poetical utterances of thought. In prose, how- ever, 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 voca- bulary had been somewhat impoverished, it had been considerably refined. All good authorities admit that the influence of the salon- coteries and the pricieuses — 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 R^aux, shows sufficiently the nlsed of this double purification. French literature has at no time been distinguished by prudery, but from the fif- teenth 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 ' P- 239- 364 Summary of Seventeenth-Century Literature. coarse. The poetry of the PMiade 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 under- went revision. Other constituents of literature shared in the same experience, and much more beneficially, for the expurgation of the dictionary was unfortunatdy 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 picturesque- ness. No such concomitant defect attended the reformations in grammar which, begun by the grammarians of the sixteenth cen- tury, 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 voca- bulary 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 Sdvignd, La Fontaine, and Molifere, in other " words, most of the greatest names) illustrating the so-called Grand Steele, or Sifecle de Louis Quatorze. , The two names tfi^t at&nd first in this list, Descartes and Corneille, represent at once fhe 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 in- variably 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 Summary of Seventeenth-Century Literature. 365 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 Bruyfere's opening sentence, ' tout est dit,' and to draw from this discouraging fact the same conclu- sion 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 merely led to an attempt to innovate within those limits, which could only be done by a kind of new ' preciousness ' — an affecta- tion in short. This affectation showed itself first (though La Bruyfere himself is not quite free from it, enemy of Fontenelle as he was} in Fontenelle, who was a descendant of the old pricieme "■IpdI 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 sufiiciently 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 CorneiUe and Bossuet, it is not often grand : it is still seldomer pas- sionate, or suggestively harmonious, or quaintly humorous, or even ^66 Summary of Seventeenth-Century Literature. 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 Molifere, a tirade of Racine, a maxim of La Rochefoucauld, a letter of Madame de Sdvign^, a character of La Bruyfere, 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 ques- tion of criticism formulated by Victor Hugo, ' I'ouvrage est-il bon ou est-il mauvais ? ' (not ' aimez-vous I'ouvrage ? ' which is the ille- gitimate question which nine critic^ 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. BOOK IV. THE EIOHTEBWTH CEHTtTBT. CHAPTER I. POETS. 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 Degeneracy matter, a period of decadence. In all the departments of tte of Belles Lettres a servile imitation of the models of Eighteenth Century, 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 Fdnelon and La Bruybre, themselves foresaw and deprecated, became more and more incapable of expressing deep passion, varied scenery, the in- tricacies and eccentricities of character. For a time a few survivors of the older class and manner, such as Fontenelle, Saint Simon, Mas- sillon, 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 tem- porary 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. 36B The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. Poetry and the drama naturally suffered most from this course of events, and poetry pure and simple suffered even more than the especially drama. By the opening of the eighteenth century epic manifest in and lyric in the proper sense had been rendered nearly Poetry. impossible by the full and apparently final adoption of the conception of poetry recommended by Malherbe, and finally ren- dered 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, how- ever, 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, Andrd Ch^nier, showed what he might have done under happier circum- stances. 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. 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 secbnd also, for few poets of the time were wholly serious. The first poet who is distinctively of the eighteenth J. B. B.OUS- century, and not the least remarkable, was Jean Bap- seau. tiste Rousseau* (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 probabiUty 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 oSended the irritable disciple and was long the butt of * 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. Ch. I.] Poets. ■ 369 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 Can- tates 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 con- trasted 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 per- haps 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 excel- lent 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 Bb 370 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv, 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. 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 Voltaire. ,,,.,. t ■ was acknowledged to be its greatest poeL It is probable that few Englishmen think of Voltaire as a poet at all ; and h.e 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 occa- sional pieces. It is, however, as a poet that he was chiefly re- garded 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 agree- able 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 cor- rectly, with the composition of CEdipe, 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 ChStelet, at the remote frontier chSteau of Cirey, then with Frederick II. at Berlin, then on the neutral territory of Switzer- land, or close to its border, at Les D^lices 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 Ch. I.] Poets. 37 1 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 Pticelle 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 cha- racter. Besides these two long poems Voltaire produced an im- mense quantity of miscellaneous work, tales in verse, epistles in verse, discourses in verse, satires, epigrams, vers de socUti 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 par- ticularise 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 Uh-ique of Prussia as a model of artificial but exquisitely polished gallantry in verse. 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 (Za Peinture, Les Fasles, etc.), written B b 2 37* The Eighteenth Century. [Bfc.iv. on ill-selected subjects and in a style full of conventional man- nerism, have at best the occasional striking lines which are to be found in Armstrong and other followers of Young or Thomson Descriptive in England. Jacques Delille and his extraordinary Poets. popularity form, perhaps, the greatest satire on the DeliUe. 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 long period of contempt, and his wdrk 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 r^veur qu'inventa Palar mfede.' Backgammon is 'le jeu bruyant ovi, le cornet en main, L'adroit joueur calcule un hasard incertain.' Sugar is 'le miel Am&icain Que du sue des roseaux exprima I'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 oiLes Mois, who fell a victim to the guillotine, was a member of this school, pos- sessing 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. 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 ad- mirer. Like his forerunner, he divided his time between bombastic lyrics and epigrams of very considerable merit. Lebrun was not cai. I.] Poets. 373 destitute of a certain force, but his time was too much for him. He was a very longlived man, and in his old age celebrated by turns the Republic and Bonaparte. His chief rivals as poets of the Republic were M. J. Chdnier 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. Malfilitre, 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. The places accorded by their contemporaries to Delille and Lebrun really belonged to two writers of very different character and fortune, Parny and Andr^ Chdnier. Evariste de _ Pamy, 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 com- mand 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 remark- able 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. 374 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. Andr^ Marie [de] Ch^nier *, beyond question the greatest poet Z , . of the eighteenth century in France, was bom 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. Andr^ Ch^nier is sometimes con- sidered 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 birth-place, 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 tradi- tion, without, however, permanently strengthening or renovating it. The poetry of Ch^nier 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 TarenHne, La Jeune Captive, L'Aveugle, and some others, are of extreme merit, and all over ' The most complete and accurate edition (though it is hi irom perfect) is that of M. Gabriel de Chteier. 3 vols. 1879. Also, partially, in a vols, (one prose, one verse), by Becq de Fouqniires. Paris, 187a. ch. I,] Poets. 37^ his work (much of which is in the most fragmentary condition) lines and phrases of extraordinary beauty are scattered. The noble lanibes, or political and satirical poems, which he wrote in prison, just before his death, bear out, perhaps better than any- thing else, his well-known saying, as he touched his head when sentence had been passed, 'et pourtant il y avait quelque chose Ik.' 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 Ch^nier, the younger brother of Andr^, 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 bom a little later, was Nepomucfene 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 ChSnedoU^ 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 aiiy per- formances 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. ChSne- doll6 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 376 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. the contemplation of natural objects, distinguish him from his predecessors. The vigorous, if not always edifying, work of the song-writers and authors of vers de socUti 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 FiTon, ^ place here. No history of French literature, how- ever, 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 vaude- villist, is remarkable for the number and excellence of his drink- ing songs, and the variety and melody of their rhythm. ColM, 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 Abb^ BoufHers, and Dorat, were all writers of vers de socidti, the last being much the best. Their style of writing was frivolous and conventional in the extreme, but long practice and the vogfue which it enjoyed in French society had brought it to something like the condition of a fine art. Dorat was surnamed by a con- temporary 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. Vad^ 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 Ddsaugiers, the best light song-writer of France, with the single exception of B^ranger, and preferred to him by some critics. D&augiers escaped the Ch.i.] Poets. 377 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 Desaugiers. letters which had been instituted by Piron and his friends, and which long continued to be a literary and social rendezvous. D&augiers was the last of the older class of Chan- sonniers, 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 in- dulgence in cheap patriotism. His songs have great sweetness and ease, but they contain nothing that can compare with Bdranger in his more serious and pathetic mood. 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 un- worthy 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 fijeld of great and noble work, it cannot but be of subordinate interest, and as such requires but cursory treat- ment here^ ^ Rouget de L'Isle, the anthor 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. At the beginning, and indeed during the whole course, of the eighteenth century, the theatre continued to enjoy all the vogue Divisions of which the extraordinary brilliancy of the authors of Drama. 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 Com^die Frangaise and the Com^die Italienne, down to the vaude- villes and operettas of the so-called 'fair' theatre, TMdlre 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 trag^die bourgeoise and corrUdU 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 (Edipe. This is, as always with its author, lively and ingenious, but ill-informed, destitute of true critical principles, and entirely in- La Motte conclusive. La Motte himself wrote a tragedy, Iriis de Castro, in which he did not venture to cany out his own principles, and which had some success. But the justice of his Dramatists. 379 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 remark- able talent of Crdbillon the elder, not a single tragedy of the age would be worth reading for any motive except curiosity, simple or studious. Cr^billon was bom 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 enthu- siastically encouraged by his master in his poetical attempts. His first acted tragedy, Idominie, appeared in 1703 ; his last, ' The Tri- umvirate,' more than fifty years later. In the interval CrSbillon he was irregularly busy, and the duel of tragedies, *^^ Elder, 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. Cr^billon's best works were Atrie, I'jo'j, and RhadamisU et Zinobie, 17 1 1, the latter being his masterpiece. He had, in the eyes of the minute critics of his time, some technical defects of style and con- struction. But, despite the restraints of the French stage, he suc- ceeded 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. Voltaire's own tragedies have been very differently judged by different persons. It has been said that they owed their popu- larity chiefly to the adroit manner in which, without Voltaire and going too far, the author made them opportunities ^* foUowers. 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 acquaint- ance with the objects and methods of the playwright, and an ex- traordinary affection for the theatre. If to this be added his astonishing dexterity as a literary workman, his acuteness in dis- cerning the taste of the public, and his complete mastery of the language, and if it be remembered that the classical French 380 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 akeady-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, (Edipe, 1 7 18, was astonishingly successful, and is still astonish- ingly clever. La Mort de Char, another Shakespearian adapta- tion, is less happy. In Alzire, a play written in the time of the poet's greatest intimacy with Madame du Ch^telet, and dedicated to her, his extraordinary talent once more appears, as also in Le Fanatisme, better known as Mahomet, 1742. The best, how- ever, of his plays, next to Zaire, is certainly Mirope, 1743, which is a prodigy of ingenuity. The author has deliberately eschewed the means whereby both Corneille and Racine respectively alle- viated 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 piu:e 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 Cr^billon, 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 SUge 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. Ch. II.] Dramatists. 381 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 fa- vourably 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 Ch^nier 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 Gracchtis, Henry VIII., Tihere, the last a work of some merit. Legouvd dramatised Gessner's Death of Abel on the principles of Boileau. Nepomucfene Lemercier, the strange failure of a genius who has been already noticed in the last chapter, produced much more re- markable work. His Agamemnon, his FreWgotide 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. 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, 38a The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. who, during the greater part of his life, earned by vaudevilles and operettas, composed either alone or in co-operation for the Thddtre 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 indi- genous 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 Com^die Fran9aise, 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 Molibre. The more extravagant and farcical side of the master's genius is represented by Crispin Rival de son Mattre, 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 the play satirises as well the loose morals of the nobility, the follies of provincial coteries, the meanness of the trading classes; while each Ch. II.] Dramatists. 383 character, instead of being an abstraction, is as sharp and individual as Gil Bias himself. Like Lesage, Firon worked much for the theatre ; indeed he made his d^but, 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 Mitromanie, 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 Marii, 1727, and Le Glorieux, 1732, are among the classics of French comedy. Le Dissipateur, Le Tambour Nocturne, U Obstacle Imprivu have also much merit; and if Za Fausse Agnts has something of the farcical in it, it is farce of the right kind. Destouches wrote seventeen comedies ; and, if bulk and merit are taken together, he deserves the first place, or one second only to Marivaux, among the comic dramatists of the century in, France. In contrast to these three writers, who all followed the traditions of the comedy of Molibre and Regnard, Nivelle de la Chaussfe invented, or at least brought into fashion, what was called comidie larmoyante, or drame. La Chaussde 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 Chaussde was followed by a greater writer, but a worse dramatist, than himself. comSdie While La Chaussde was a clever versifier and an Larmoyante. adroit playwright, Diderot understood the theory both La chaussfie. of poetry and of the theatre much better than he Diderot, understood the practice. Thus L'^cole des Meres, La Gouvernante, Le Pr£jug£ h la Mode are better plays than Le Fere de Famille or Le Fils Naiurel. It ought to be said that Diderot succeeded better in two small pieces, La Fihe et le Frologue and Est-il Bon ? Est-il M&hant? which were never acted. It should perhaps also 384 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. be explained that the peculiarity of what was almost indiflferently called irag^die bourgeot'se and comidie larmoyanfe is the choice of possible situations in real life, which neither of the two con- ventional treatments of heroic tragedy and comedy purely comic can afford. Many writers followed La Chauss^e 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 UEmbarras des Richesses, by D'AUain- val, 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 (CoUd and Panard may be added), wrote vaudevilles, parades, etc. for the Th^Stre de la Foire. In the titles of most of these pieces the close following of Molifere, which was usual, and wisely usual, during the first half of the century, may be noticed. The same tradition is observed in one of the best comedies of the century, the M^chant 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 V Amour et du Hasard, 1730, Le Legs, 1736, Les Fausses Confidences, I'j^'j, have con- tinued 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 centvury, disguising a considerable affectation under a mask of simplicity, and the latter (sparkling with abundant, if somewhat precious wit) is in- geniously 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 Ch. 11.] Dramatists. 385 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 protdgd of Voltaire, produced, in 1730, a good comedy, H 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 Corrigie. A third member of the same class, Saurin, already twice mentioned, must be mentioned again, and still more deservedly, for Les Mceurs 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 Pkilosophe sans le Savoir, 1765, and La Gageure Imprdiiue, 1768, are both admirable pieces. The author, like many of his predecessors, was a constant worker for the Op^ra Comique, and one of the best of the class. Marmontel also adopted this line of composition, to which the musical talent of Grdtry gave, at the time, great advantages. His best light dramatic work is a kind of comedy vaudeville, the Ami de la Maison. Beyond all doubt, however, the most remarkable, if not the best, dramatist of the late eighteenth century is Beaumar- Beaumar- chais. Some critics have seen in the enormous ohais. success of the Barhier de Seville, 1775, and the Mariage ^ Figaro, 1784, nothing but a succh 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 some- thing very like genius in the manner in which the author has suc- ceeded in shaping his subject, without choosing a specially political one, so as to produce the effect acknowledged. The wit of these two play's, moreover, is indisputable. But it may be allowed that Beaumarchais' other productions are inferior, and that his Me- moires, which are not dramatic at all, contain as much wit as the Figaro plays. As a satirist of society and a contributor of c c 386 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 173 1 ; became music master to the daughters of Louis XV. ; engaged in a law-suit, the subject of the Mimoires, 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 Mire Coupahle, 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 Chdteaux en Espagne, L' Inconstant, L'Opti- miste, and Ze Vieux Cdlibataire, 1792, all sparkling pieces, which only need freeing from the restraints of rhyme. Andrieux, the author of Les £tourdis, I'jS'j, Le Tr/sor, Le Vieux Fat, and others, has something of the same character. Nepomucfene Le- mercier 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 Des- moulins on the scaffold, is better remembered for his death than for his life. But his Intrigue Epistolaire and Philinte de MolHre shew talent. Le Sourd, by Desforges, is an amusing play. It will be seen that the positive achievements of drama during this period were considerably superior to those of tics of " po^t^'y- The tragedies of Voltaire are prodigies of Kigbteenth- literary cleverness. In comedy proper Lesage pro- oentury duced work of enduring value; Destouches, Mari- vaux, 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 Ch.ii.] Dramatists. 387 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 Chaussde 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 ex- periments 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 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 some fifty years 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. c c 2 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 notice- able than in the department of prose fiction'. The names of Lesage, Prdvost, Marivaux, Voltaire, Rousseau, are deservedly re- corded 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 com- paratively 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 com- posed. The example of Manon was left for the nineteenth century to develop, the others either died out (the adventure romance, • 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. Ass&at, will give a very fair idea of his peculiarities. Of most of the other authors mentioned convenient, handsome, and not too ex- pensive editions will be found in the Bibliothique Amusante of MM. Gamier Frbres. This includes Mesdames de Tencin, de Fontaines, Riccoboni, de Beau- mont, de Genlis, de Duras, de Souza, as well as Marivaux and Fi^v&. Le- sage'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. Novelists. 389 after Lesage's model, flourishing brilliantly in England, but hardly at all in France), or else were subordinated to a purpose, the pur- pose 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 litera- ture were more fertile than this during the period. The first, and on the whole, the most considerable name of the century in. fiction is that of the zxAior oi Gil Bias. Alain Ren6 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 Abb^ 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 Cal- deron. It was not, however, till he was nearly forty that he pro- duced anj1:hing of real merit. The DiaUe 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 Com^die Fran9aise was at that time more under the influence of clique than at any other time of its history; and Lesage, disgusted with the treat- ment he received from it, gave himself up entirely to writing farces and operettas for the minor theatres, and to prose fiction. Gil Bias, his greatest work, originally appeared in 1715, but was not 390 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. completed till twenty years later. He also wrote — besides one or two bright but trifling minor works of a fictitious character, La Valise Trouv^eia, letter-bag supposed to be picked up), Urn Journ£e 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'Al/arache, EsMvaniUe Gonzales, Le Bachelier de Sala- manque, and a curious Defoe-like book entitled Vie et Aventures de M. de BeaucMne. 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 1^47, he died in his eightieth year. His works have hitherto been very insufficiently collected and edited. Le Diable Boiteux and Gil Bias 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 ro- mance of Spain, a kind of Roman d' Aventures transported from the days and conventional conditions of chivalry to those of ordi- nary but still adventurous life in the Peninsula. The directly satirical intention predominates in the Diable Boiteux, the more purely narrative faculty in Gil Bias. In both the piercing ob- servation 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 Shake- speare. Besides his skill in character-drawing, and his faculty of spicing his narrative with epigram, Lesage also possessed ex- traordinary narrative ability. His books are not remarkable for what is called plot, that is to say, the action rather continued inde- finitely 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 Ch. III.] Novelists. 393 that it had no successors of importance or merit in Fil wit. The is probably to be accounted for by the cosmopolitan ton. that it has been already remarked upon. Indeed Lesage, as a rule, has Kac ' 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 AnUnophis. Madame de Tencin (Claudine Alexandrine Gu^rin), the mother of D'Alem- bert, th^ friend of Fontenelle, and one of the most famous salon- s' 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 Mimoires du Comte de Commtnges and the SUge de Calais, besides some minor works. The fault of almost all ro- mances of the La Fayette school, the habit of throwing the scene into periods about which the writers knew nothing, appears in these works. 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 under- jjgjjj^.^ stand, 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 390 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. completed till twenty years later. He also wrote — besides one or two bright but trifling minor works of a fictitious character, La Valise Trouv/e{a. letter-bag supposed to be picked up), Une Journie des Pargues, 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, EstdvaniUe Gonzales, Le Bachelier de Sala- manque, and a curious Defoe-like book entitled Vie et Aveniures de M. de BeaucMne. 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 insufiiciently collected and edited. Le Diable Boiieux and Gil Bias 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 ro- mance of Spain, a kind of Roman d'Aventures transported from the days and conventional conditions of chivalry to those of ordi- nary but still adventurous life in the Peninsula. The directly satirical intention predominates in the Diable Boiieux, the more purely narrative faculty in Gil Bias. In both the piercing ob- servation 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 Shake- speare. Besides his skill in character-drawing, and his faculty of spicing his narrative with epigram, Lesage also possessed ex- traordinary narrative ability. His books are not remarkable for what is called plot, that is to say, the action rather continues inde- finitely 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 Ch. III.] Novelists. that it had no successors of importance or merit in Fi- ts probably to be accounted for by the cosmopolitan toiv has been already remarked upon. Indeed Lesage, as a rule, has hav. 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 Comiesse de Savoie, the date of the story being the eleventh century. She also wrote a short story of less merit called Am^nophis. Madame de Tencin (Claudine Alexandrine Gu^rin), the mother of D'Alem- bert, 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 M^moires du Comie de Commtnges and the Siige de Calais, besides some minor works. The fault of almost all ro- mances of the La Fayette school, the habit of throwing the scene into periods about which the writers knew nothing, appears in these works. 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 under- __ . stand, 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 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. -ed his first play, Le Pire Prudent et Equitable, at the eighteen, and his dramatic industry was thenceforward con- siderable. As a romancer he worked more by fits and starts. His first attempt at prose fiction is said to have been — for the authen- ticity 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 Fdnelon 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 sufiiciently shown by its borrowed title, Le Spectateur Frangais, 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 Com^die Frangaise, 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 ofMarianm, 1731-1742, and the less-known one of the Pqysan 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 diflScult 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 in- tellectually admirable contemporary, Crdbillon the younger, de- scribed 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 Ch. III.] Novelists. 393 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 in- J- cident (though incident is still prominent), and the first in which/ an elaborate style, strongly imbued with mannerism, is applied to this purpose. The Pqysan Parvenu, the title of which sug- gested 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. 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 Abbd Prdvost, sometimes called Provost d'Exilles, was horn 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 him- self 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 el le Conire, something like those of Marivaux, but more like a modern critical review. He received the protection of several persons of position and in- fluence, notably the Prince de Conti and the Chancellor D'Agues- seau, 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, 394 ^'^^ Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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. Provost 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 Mimoires d'un Homme de QualUe, 1729, CUveland, and the Doyen de KilUrine, i735> ro- mances 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 Mimoires 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 yohng as herself, falls frantically in love. The pair fly to Paris, and the novel is occupied with the descrip- tion 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 ab- solute 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 Ricco- boni (Marie Jeanne Laboras de M^ziferes), 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 Ernesline, with an exceedingly clever continuation (which, however, stops short of the conclusion) of Ch. 111.] Novelists. 395 Marivaux' Marianne. All these books are constructed with con- siderable 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 pricieuses — Fon- tenelle being a link between the two ages — and Prdvost 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. No long work of prose fiction stands under the name of Voltaire, but it may be doubted whether any of his works displays his pecu- liar 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 ; Bdbouc, 1746, social; Memnon, 1747, ethical. Mi- cr omegas, 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'lng^nu, 1767, and E Homme aux Qua- rante J^cus (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 phi- losophical 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, 396 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. human weakness, ambition, love, loyalty, all come in for the unfailing sneer. The moral, wherever there is a moral, is, 'be tolerant, and cuUivez voire jardinl that is to say, do whatsoever work you have to do diligently. But in all these tales the de- structive 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. 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 Cr^billon 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 Za 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 Xht/atrasie 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 faith- less 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 oi Jacqties le Fataliste are good, but the whole is unequal. The strangest of all Diderot's attempts in Ch. III.] Novelists. 397 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. 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 pro- priety, and Rousseau's only other large books. La Nouvelle Hdlo'ise, 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 ha^ 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 after-piece, 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 Hdlo'ise that both sentimental and picturesque fictions fairly owe their original popu- larity ; yei 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. 398 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. Some lesser names group themselves naturally round those of the greater Philosophes in the department of prose fiction. Vol- taire's style was largely followed, but scarcely from Voltaire's point of view, and those who practised it fell rather under the head of Conieurs pure and simple than of noveKsts with a pur- pose. The prose Conie of the eighteenth century forms a re- markable branch of literature, redeemed from triviality by the Cr6biiion exceptional skill expended on it. The master of the Younger, thg gfyig ^^s Crdbillon the younger, in whom its merits and defects were both eminently present. Son of the tragic author, Cr^billon 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 extra- ordinary mastery of the art of narrative of the lighter kind. Around Cr6billon 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. Marmontel's Contes Moraux seldom deserve this last censure, and considerably excel most of the kind in variety, ingenuity, and • criticism of life.' Voisenon, Caylus, BoufHers, Moncrif (the most original and most eccentric of all), La Morli^re, are also of the class. Their prose may, on the analogy of Vers de Soci^t^, be called Prose de Socidtd, 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 Diahle Amour eux, 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 Didble Amoureux is a singularly powerful story ch. III.] Novelists. 399 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 TiUmaque was felt by Voltaire himself, though in his case it resulted in history pure and simple. Marmontel in Bdlisaire and Les Incas, Florian in Numa Pompilius and Gonsalve de Cordoue, returned to historical romance. Something of the same class, though based upon much more solid scholarship, was the Vy/age du Jeune Anacharsis of the Abb6 Barthdlemy. 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. Rousseau had a far more important disciple in fiction. Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was born at Havre in Bernardin de 1737. He was by profession an engineer, and both Saint-Pierre, 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 Chaumiire 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 quick- ened 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 400 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. a very remarkable faculty of word-painting, and also of influencing the feelings. The later eighteenth century saw a vast number of novelists and novels, few of which were of much hterary 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 Compare Mathieu, a book presenting some points of likeness to Jacques le Fataliste, and like it in- spired partly by Sterne, and partly by Sterne's master, Rabelais. Writers like Louvet and La Clos continued the worst part of Crd- billon's tradition without exhibiting either his literary skiU or his wit. Eestif de la -A- much more remarkable name is that of Restif de Bretonne. 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 debateablfe land between the eighteenth Ch. III.] Novelists. 401 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. Francois Rend de Chateaubriand was bom at Saint Malo, where he is now buried, in 1768, and died in 1848. chateau- He belonged to a family which was among the briand. 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 ti 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 GMe 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 Frarice.. Pursuing the vein which he had opened in the Ginie, he made a journey to the East, the Dd 4oa The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. result of which was his ItMraire de Paris h 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 po- Ktical 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 Memoir es d' Ouire-Tomhe, — an autobiography which, though marred by some of his peculiarities, contains much of his most brilliant writing. Of the works not hitherto noticed, Reni, Le Dernier Abenc&age, 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 estima- tion 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 difiicult 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 adven- titious 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 Ch. III.] Novelists. 403 classical standards of the eighteenth century to the principles of the romantic and eclectic schools, of reaction against the philo- sophe era. He was one of the earliest and most influential ex- ponents of the so-called maladie du Steele, 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 Reni seems hollow now-a-days, it must be re- membered that this is almost entirely a matter of fashion and of novelty. The Gdnie du Chrisiianisme, 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 Itiniraire 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. His chief rival in the literature of the empire was also essen- tially, 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 D d 2 404 TJie Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. as Madame de Stael, was the daughter of the great financier Necker, and of Susanne Curchod, Gibbon's early *^ s^taT ^ '°^^- ^^* ^^® introduced young to salon life in Paris, and early displayed ungovernable vanity, and much of the sensibiliU 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, Difense de la Reine, De V 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 deter^ mined 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 pub- lished 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. Cerinm, her principal novel, and her greatest work but one, appeared in 1807, her book De TAllemagne being suppressed in Paris, whither she had returned, but which she soon had to leave again, 18 10. 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 181 7. Her Dix Annies d Exil and her Considerations sur la Revolution Frangaise 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 con- Ch. III.] Novelists. 405 temporaries, 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 Hdloise. But she is a very important figure in French literature. Part of her influence, as represented by the book De I'Allemagtte, 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 inc ulcated was the sense o f ttis hpanty-^nf older and simpler tim^^ countries, and faiths which the self- satis'faction of the eightee nth century had obscaredT'what Madame de Stael had to impress were general ideas of liberalisni_and progress to which tne same century, in its crusadej gainst sup er- stition and Its rather shon-sighted behet m its own enlig htenment, was eqi ^y blin d. Uelphine, 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 hadinc ul- cated the story of nature and sa vagelile, as Chateaubriand was , at the'same time, inculcating the study ol C hristian antiquity and t he middle— ages, s o Madame u e siaei in culcated the cultivation_af assthPtip ottintirmg^TijjTnpiTlgpg qg a new inlluence to be brought to be g~onTife. Her st yle, though n otto be spoken of d isre- spectfiilly, is, on the whole, inferior to h^'' Tn^^pr It is full of the d rawback s of eighteenth-century ihges and academic d kcourses, now tawBry, now deiicient in colour, flexibility, and life, at one time below the subject, at another pufied 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 wasnot devoid of passion. 4o6 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 Veillies du Chdleau, 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 Mile, de Clermont produced work of merit. Fi6vde, a journalist and critic of some talent, is remembered for the pretty story of the Dot de Suzette. Madame de Souza, in her Adlle de S^natiges and other works, revived, to a certain extent, the style of Madame de la Fayette. Ourika and Edottard, especially the latter, preserve the name of Madame de Duras. Madame Cottin, in Maleh Adel, Elizabeth or Les Exiles de SiMrie, etc., com- bined a mild flavour of romance with irreproachable moral senti- ments. 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 VaUrie. Two novelists, singularly different in idiosyncrasy, complete Xavierde what may be called the eighteenth-century school. Maistpe. Xavier de Maistre, younger brother of the great Catholic polemist, Joseph de Maistre, was born at Chamb&y, in 1763. He served in the Piedmontese army during his youth, and his most famous work, the Visage autour de ma Chambre, was published in 1794. The national extinction of Savoy and Pied- mont, 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 Citi d'Aoste, in which the same inspiration and the same inde- pendent use of it are noticeable ; and Les Pristmniers du Caucase, ch. in.] ' Novelists. 407 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 Pras- covia, which' contrasts very curiously with Madame Cottin's more artificiaf 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 M^rim^e side by side as the most perfect tellers of tales in the simple fashion. Benj amin Cons tant's Adolphe, 18 15, is a very different work, but an equally remarkaBle une. — II may be a question whether it is not entitled to take rank rather as the first book of the nine- Benjamin teenth-century school than as the last of the eighteenth. Constant. But its author (better known as a politician) published no further attempt to pursue the way he had opened ; and though he him- self 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 eflfort of art. It is very shorty dealing with the love of a certain Adolphe for a certain EU^nore and his disenchantment. The psychological draw- ing, though one-sided, is astonishingly true, and though sensibiliii 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 fore- runners 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. CHAPTER IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR -WRITERS, LETTER -WRITERS. In the three branches of literatiire included in this chapter the interest of the eighteenth century is great, but unequally divided. In diaraoteria- history proper, that is to say, the connected survey from ties and documents of a greater or lesser period of thp past, the Ei™teenth- ^^^ ^^^' '^ *^°'^^^li^ beginning, certainly the maturing of oentuiy a philosophical conception of the science. Putting History. Bossuet out of the question, Vico in Italy, Montesquieu and Turgot in France, are usually and rightly credited with the work- ing 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 his- torical 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 RoUin'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 prac- tised, and which had one special practitioner of merit in Rulhifere. 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 * of this * In studying the history, and especially the memoirs, of the eighteenth century, the reader is at a (Usadvantage, inasmuch as the admirable collections of MM. Buchon, Petitot, Michaud et Foujoulat, 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. Barriire for MM. Didot. This is Historians, Memoir -Writers, Letter-Writers. 409 time equal those of the seventeenth century in literary power, though they are useful as sources of historical and social informa- tion. 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 S^vign^ in bulk and in completeness of merit, the letters of Mademoiselle de I'Espinasse, of Madame du Deffand, of Diderot to Mademoiselle VoUand, and some others, are of very great excellence, and almost unsurpassed in their character- ization of the intellectual and social peculiarities of the time. The absence of regular histories of the first merit would be more sur- prising 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, ecclesias- tical, 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. 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 CoUbge du Plessis, he became Professor at the College de France, and, in 1694, Rector nseful 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 nseful 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. 4IO The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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. RoUin's book (that is to say the only one by which he is re- membered) 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 Traiti des Etudes was a very useful book in its time. 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 Abb^ Dubos. Dubos was a writer of some merit on a great vanety of subjects ; his Riflexions sur la Poisie et la Peinture being of value. His chief historical work is entitled Histoire Critique de T Etahlissement de la Monarchic Franfaise 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 die 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 Bouiam- by the arguments of the Count de Boulainvilliers. viiiiers. 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 Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir -Writers, Letter - Writers. 411 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. 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 Mceurs (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 Siicle 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, how- ever, 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 con- ception, such as Montesquieu had, of the philosophy of history, or of the operation of general causes. His reading, though exten- sive, 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 modem history and society simply impos- sible, because the origins of both were wilfully ignored. These various drawbacks had perhaps less influence on the S^ele de Louis Quatorze than on any other of his historical works, and it is accord- ingly 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 excel- lent, 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. The third and fourth quarters of the century are the special 41 a The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. period when histoiy was, as has been said, degraded to the level of a party pamphlet, especially in such works as the Abb6 Raynal's Hisloire des Indes. This was a mere vehicle ior 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 ' Dic- tionary of the Bible.' But the chief historical names of the later eighteenth century are Mably and Rulhifere. Mably, who might be treated equally well under the head of philosophy, was an abb^, 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 Enlretiens de Phocion, the Observations sur F Hisloire de France, the Droits de t Europe fondis sur les Traits, 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. Rulhifere, who was really a historian of excellence, and who Hiiihi& niight under rather more favourable circumstances have been one of the most distinguished, was born about lYsS- 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 Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 413 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 Eclatrcissemenis Historiques sur les Causes de la RA)ocation de tAdit 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 TAnarchie 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 -Rdal in vividness and precision of drawing. These are the chief names of the century in history proper, for Vohiey, 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 Rignes de Claude et de N&on. 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. The first memoirs, properly so called, which have to be mentioned as belonging to the eighteenth century, Memoirs are those of Mademoiselle Delaunay, afterwards Madame ds Madame de Staal. Mademoiselle Delaunay was at- Staal- tached to the household of the Duchess du Maine, l>eiauiiay. the beautiful, impetuous, and highborn wife of one of the stupidest 414 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv, and least interesting of men, who happened also to be the illegi- timate 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-gfrandson, 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 Mimoires 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 CoUd, which have been only recently edited in full. CoUd, who, though a time-server and an ill-natured man, had much lite- rary talent, was an acute observer, and enjoyed great opportu- nities, has left important materials for the middle of the century. „, , The Baron de Bdsenval, 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 Ch.iv.] Historians, Memoir -Writers, Letter -Writers. 415 later years of Louis XV., and a connected narrative of the out- break 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 Madame of Madame d'Epinay (the friend of Grimm, of Galiani, d'Epinay. 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'Epina/s are among the most charac- teristic of the period. There is a certain group 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. Circumstances rather poUtical than literary have given a place in literary history to the memoirs of Linguet and Latude Minor concerning the Bastile. That celebrated building, how- Memoirs, ever, figures largely in the memoirs of the time, and the experiences of Voltaire, Marmontel, Cr^billon, and others show ho^y 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 abbd of very dubious character : but they at least rest upon authentic data, and abound in the most curious information. The President H^nault, a man of probity and learning, has left memoirs of value which have been considerably added to of late. 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 of the dealt with in three sets of memoirs, on which all his- Bevolu- torians have been obliged to draw, those of Madame p°^*T Campan, of Weber, and of Cl^ry, all three of whom were attendants on Louis XVL 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 F^licie, which is somewhat fictitious in form 41 6 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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 Bouill^ 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 Sdgur, 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. The exceedingly interesting episodes of the Vend^an War, the subsequent Chouannerie, and the Emigra- tion, were long very insuflSciently known by original documents, the chief authorities for the first being the narrative of Madame de Lescure on one side and of the Republican general Turreau on the other. The approach and passage of the centenary of the Revo- lution stimulated the publication of a good many others more valuable to the historian than to the critic and the reader. 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 Rdmusat, and of Count Miot de Melito. Still more recently those of Marbot and Thi^bault, subordinate generals of Napoleon's, have excited much- interest, the first for their descriptions — at once vivid and businesslili,e — of battle scenes, the second for varied merits. But no one of these (those of Madame de R^musat perhaps excepted) is of the first literary importance or interest. It is otherwise with letters, of which the century contributes to literature some of the most remarkable which we possess. The most typical may be noticed with some minuteness. Among these the ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir-Writers, Letter-Writers. 417 correspondence of Grimm, though one of the bulkiest and most important, may be dismissed with a brief reference; for Abundance it will be noticed again in the succeeding chapter, and of Letter- most of it is not either the work of one man or real cor- writers, respondence. 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 sum- maries 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. Of the letter-writers proper three women and three men may be selected, — Mademoiselle Aiss^, Mademoiselle de Les- pinasse, and Madame du Defifand ; Voltaire, Diderot, and Galiani. Mademoiselle Aiss6 had a singular history. When a child she was carried off by Turkish rovers, and sold at Con- Mademoi- stantinople to the French ambassador, M. de Ferriol. ^^^^ AissS. 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 Aifssd 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 sensibility of the time in a decided form, but in a milder one than the later letters of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Both beyond all doubt were much indebted to the famous and passionate Lettres Portugaises published in French by Claude Barbin in 1669, but avowedly translated from the Portuguese, and written in that language by Marianna Alcoforado, a nun of Beja, to Noel Bouton, afterwards Marshal de Chamilly, who while serving with the French auxiliaries in Portugal had met, captivated, and deserted her. There is something in Mademoiselle Ai'ssd more than mere sensihilii^—a, tender and affectionate spirit finding graceful expression and deserving a happier fate. She, like most other people of her time, turned devout, but earlier than most, and died in 1733. Madame du Deffand was a very different person. She was born in 1697, and was married in 1718 to the Marquis du Deffand. But she £ a 41 8 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. soon separated from him, and lived for many years the then usual life Madame of gallantry. This merged insensibly into a life of du Deffand. literary and philosophical society. Though Madame du Defifand was not, like the wealthier but more plebeian Madame Geoffrin, and like Madame Helv^tius later, a 'nursing riiother 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 philo- sophism. 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, and 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, Hdnault, Montesquieu, etc.). But her most remarkable correspondence, and perhaps her most interest- ing 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 commu- nity of tastes, belongs to the later part of her long life. Madame du Deffand is the typical French lady of the dghteenth century, as Richelieu is the typical grand seigneur. She was perhaps the wittiest woman (in the strict sense of the adjective) who ever lived ', and an astonishingly large proportion of the beSt sayings of the time is traced or attributed to her. Nearly seventy years of con- versation 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 S^vignd 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 Sdvign^'s death), though it must be admitted that the earlier cha- racter shows perhaps the germs of what is repulsive in the second. The third most remarkable lady letter-writer of the century. Made- Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, was closely connected moiseiie de with Madame du Deffand. She was indeed her com- Lespinasse. panion, her coadjutor, and her rival. Julie Jeanne EMonore de Lespinasse was in reality the illegitimate daughter ' Her earlier contemporary, Madame de Tencin, is her chief competitor. Ch. IV J Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter - Writers. 419 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 habituds of the salon, with D'Alembert at their head. Madame Geoflfrin 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 sensibilitd 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 4ao The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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. Mademoiselle Aissd 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 Abb6 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 a generation as the leading man of letters of Europe, the curious diversity of his interests, even the prosperity in point of fortune which made him com- mand the services of secretaries and understrappers, while humbler men of letters had to do the mechanical work of composition for themselves, all contributed to bring about this fecundity. We have from him early love-letters, letters to private friends of all dates, business letters, literary letters, letters to great persons, letters in- tended for publication, letters not intended for publication, flatter- ing 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 ^ This immense production, coupled with the shifty tricks of publication, and the constant revision of some of his work in which Voltaire indulged, makes the issue of a really ' complete ' edition of him almost an impossibility, and certainly an unachieved task — as yet. Fortunately one of the best Billio- graphies extant has been devoted to him by M. Georges Bengesco. Paris. 4 vols. 1882-90. Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 421 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 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. 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 VoUand, 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 dis- similar 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 422 Tlie Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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 ex- tremest 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. The last of the epistolers selected for comment, the Abb^ 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 phihsophe society there. When he was recalled to his native country and endowed with sufficiently lucra- tive 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 pub- lished early in this century, but incompletely and in a somewhat garbled fashion. They have recently had the benefit of two dif- ferent 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 Ch. IV.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 423 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 cuhivated 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 sonorous- ness, 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 in- terested in social, economical, and political problems, it is free from that ignoring of any life and rank except that of the nobility which mars much of the work of earlier times. The picture it gives is very far fi-om 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. CHAPTER V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS. 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 ■Writing previously taken, the Pmsie, the maxim, and so forth, in the were less practised, though at the beginning and end Eighteenth- qj q^j. pj-ggent period two remarkable men, Vauve- century. nargues and Joubert, distinguished themselves m them, Periodicals. /. . / ,' . . , . . ^u r » a and m 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 iloges, pronounced in the French Academy on famous men of the immediate or remoter past, and of prize essays, sub- jects 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 litera- ture, though not exactly rapid, was steady, and gave opportunity for the cultivation of the two main branches of occasional writing as it is imderstood 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 Provost, 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 con- tempt of La Bruyfere, and the management of Vis^ and Thomas Corneille. Towards the middle and end of the period, the Gazette de France, under the management of Suard, held the principal Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 425 place with a somewhat higher aim ; and of non-official publica- tions the ]swixt Journal de Trevoux and the zxAi-philosophe Annie LitUraire of Fr^ron were notable. It was not till after the begin- ning of the Revolution that journalism proper spread and multi- pliedj 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. 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 „ , ... Fontenelle. cunous wnter, who is perhaps the most stnkmg ex- ample in literary history of multifarious talent and unwearied in- dustry just stopping short, despite their combination, of genius, was Bernard le Bovier, and his mother was a sister of Corneille, whose Kfe Fontenelle himself wrote. He was educated by the Jesuits and studied for the bar, but was unsuccessful as an ad- vocate, 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 pr£cieux, 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 Carac- iires, at least equals them, Fontenelle received hardly any damage from these. Finding that he was not hkely 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 dHer . . .,' 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. 426 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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 dic- tator of the Academic Fran9aise. His Stages and his academic essays generally were highly popular. But his chief single works are the famous Entreiien sur la Plurality des Motides, an example of singularly hardy speculation, and of no contemptible learning, art- fully disguised by an easy style, and his Histoire des Oracks, of which much the same may be said. With hardly diminished powers Fontenelle achieved an age not often paralleled in literary his- tory, 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 En- cyclopaedist 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 Bruybre 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 con- temporaries in consciously taking the direction which they were almost unwittingly pursuing. He fully appreciated the value of paradox as stimulating men's minds and giving flavour to litera- ture; 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. Inseparable from Font«inelle's name in literary history, as the Ch. V,] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 427 two were long closely united in life, is the name of La Motte. La Motte was a much younger man than Fontenelle, j- jj tt 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 Itiis 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. 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 Vauvenar- to Fontenelle, who was nearly sixty when Vauvenargues sues, 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 cente- narian. Vauvenargues was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 6th of August, 1 7 15. 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. Never- theless 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 com- mission, aiter taking the curiously unworldly step of writing directly to the king, asking for a place in the diplomatic service. An ap- plication to the minister of foreign affairs was not much more 438 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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 remark- able difference of their respective characters and points of view. Vauvenargues' principal work is an Introduction a la Connoissance de T 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 Molifere 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 VEsprit, his Conseils h unfeune Homme, etc., are all occupied almost entirely with questions of morality. Vauvenargues (and in this he was re- markable) 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 Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 429 eighteenth century by such phrases as ' les sens sont flatt^s d'agir, de galoper un cheval,' whereupon his censor annotates ' n^glig^. 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 abso- lute 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 h^ros de Corneille disent souvent de grandes choses sans les inspirer ; ceux de Racine les inspirent sans les dire.' , 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 enlighten- ment — a man of irreproachable character, and a writer of some merit. D'Aguesseau was born in 1668, and died in D'Aguess- 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 Galli- canism — 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 Mer- curiaks (that is to say, discourses pronounced on certain Wed- nesdays (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. Another writer, who has been mentioned more than once be- fore, 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 oflSce of historiographer royal, and pro- duced some remarkable works of the historical kind, one of which 430 The Eighteenth Centtiry. [Bk. iv, has been noticed. He composed novels in a fanciful style midway between Cr^billon 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 Mxurs de Notre Temps, which is both well written and shows discernment. Duclos' character has been somewhat variously represented, but the un- favourable 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. Yet another typical figure of the same numerous class is Jean ^ , Francois Marmontel, one of the most eminent pro- Marmontel. ' %. fessional men of letters of the second class. Mar- montel's moral tales, his Bdisaire, 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 Bilisaire. He had contributed almost all the minor articles on literary subjects to the Encyclopaedia, and these were collected and published as j&liments de Litt^rature in 1787. He died in 1799. The iUmenis de LiMraiure are, with the Cours de Littdrature 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 ex- amination. 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 fa parte tnalheur), and their con- ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 431 temporaries 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 Molifere, 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. Somewhat younger than Martnontel was La Harpe, who pur- sued 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 to- gether 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 Litt&aiure, 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 433 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. for correction according to cut-and-dried rules instead of at- tempting 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. With Duclos, Marmontel, and La Harpe, Thomas is usually „^ named. This writer, like others of our present sub- jects, was chiefly a composer of academic j&loges, Mimoires, 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. Of the definitely orthodox party only two names need be men- Orthodox tioned, that of the Abbd Gudn^e, who devoted himself Apologists, to exposing Voltaire's numerous slips in erudition in his Lettres de Quelques Juifs, and that of the Abb^ 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 sufBcient literary talent to execute the task entrusted to him. The Abb6 Gu^n^e, on the contrary, was a fair match even for Voltaire, but he did not attempt, perhaps it was too early to attempt, any- thing more than skirmishing. A bitter personal opponent of La Harpe, and a famous man in literary history, was Frdron. Elie Catherine Frdron was born at Quimper in Britanny in 17 19, 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 ahready con- tributed to the Observations 2ind. Jugements of Desfontaines. The Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 433 Lettres were suppressed in 1^49, but continued under another title, and at last, in 1754, became the celebrated Ann^e Littiraire, 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'^cossaise, in which Fr^ron was caricatured under the title Fr^lon (hornet). Every effort was made by the Encyclopaedists (who were not in the least tolerant in practice) to procure the suppression of the Annie. But Fr^ron 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 sup- pression had been at last obtained. He certainly suffered both from gout and from heart disease, complaints not unlikely to make a sudden shock fatal. Fr^ron, 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 de- cidedly 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'^cossaise itself. Two other adversaries of Voltaire who deserve notice as literary critics were the Abbd Desfontaines (already mentioned) and Falissot. 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 Frdron, he very fre- quently 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 £cossaise 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 anno- tators. The leaders of the philosophes themselves gave considerable attention to criticism. Voltaire wrote this, as he wrote every- Ff 434 "^he '^Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. thing, 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 con- ventional opinions in which he too often indulges, do not interfere with much acute criticism on points of detail. D'Alembert dis- Philoaopiie Anguished himself by his extraordinarily careful and Criticism, polished l&loges, or obituary notices, which remain D'Alembert, among the finest examples of critical appreciation Diderot, ^f ^ f.^yX'axa. 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 un- natural 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 Les Feuiiies Diderot's criticisms were written for Grimm's ' Leaves,' de Grimm, ■^hich 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 Diderot's in this respect than his book-criticisms are his Salons, Salons. criticisms of the biennial exhibitions of pictures in Paris, also written for Grimm. There are nine of these, ranging Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 435 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 cha- racteristics, 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 mirid, 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 His GeneraJ at first sight quite remote firom the fine arts occur in Criticism, 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 sensihiliti, but also (it is fair to believe) because of their freedom from the artificiality and the strict ob- servance 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. 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, irewspapers and a position still more important as a nursery of of the Bevo- rising men of letters. At the time of the outbreak only lution. two papers of importance existed, the already mentioned Gazette F f 2 43^ The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. de France, and the Journal de Paris, in which Garat, Andr^ Chdnier, 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 Ginguend, a literary critic of talent and a repub- lican 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 Ap6tres, Marat started his ultra-republican Ami du Peuple, Camille Desmoulins the Courier de Brabant, Durozoy the Gazette de Paris. Barrfere and Louvet, both notorious, if not famous names, launched for the first time a paper with a title destined to fortune, Le Journal des Dibats\ 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 Amidu Roi of Royou,the atrocious Pire DtuMne of Hubert, the cumbrously-named Journal des Amis de la Constitution, on which Fontanes, Clermont- Tonnerre, and other future Bonapartists and ConstitutionaUsts 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 hterary merit were started, and one, entitled NouvelUs 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 re- volutionary period, the only important newspaper was what was first called ths Journal de P Empire, and at the end of Napoleon's reign iias Journal des Dibats, on which Fi^vde, Geoffroy, and many other writers of talent worked. In the early days of these various journals pcslitical interests naturally engrossed them. But by degrees the importance of criticism grew, and under the Restoration came the Conservateur Littiraire and the Glohe, 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 remark- * At the centenary of this famous newspaper appeared a history of it {Le Journal des Dibats. Paris, 1889.) cai.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 437 able 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 '^^^ Influ- ence of Jour- may be said to be this : it opens the way to those to naUsm. 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 pro- duced. From the crowd of clever writers whom this outburst of journal- ism 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, Andr4 Chdnier was a great poet, and his brother, Marie Joseph, a man of good literary taste and master of an elegant style, Lacretelle a pains- taking 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 complemen- tary, almost imique. Chamfort was bom 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. Ailer 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 com- peting for and winning academic prizes. On the second occasion of his competition he defeated La Harpe. Afterwards Madame Helv^tius 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 438 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 faith- ful 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, Lajeune Indierme, 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 trag^-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. 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 actu- ally bore. He himself, however, first assumed the title of Chevalier de Farcieux, and then that of Comte de Rivarol. The way to literary distinction in those days was either the theatre or criticism, and Rivarol, who appears to have had no theatrical taste or talent, chose the latter. His translation (with essay and notes) of Dante is an extraordinarily clever book, and so is his discourse on the universality of the French tongue. It was not, however, in mere criticism that Rivarol's forte lay, though he long afterwards continued to exhibit his acuteness in it. In 1788 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 Almanack de nos Grands Hommes, in which he caricatures his smaller con- ' It shonld perhaps be said that a recent and very competent editor of Rivarol, the late M. de Lescure, made a strong case for the genuineness of at least some of Rivarol's pretensions. Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 439 temporaries 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 i8ot. Not only has Rivarol a considerable claim as a critic, and a very high position as a pohtical pamphleteer, but he is as much the master of the prose epigram as Chamfort is of the short anecdote. Following the ex- ample of his predecessors, he put many of his best things in a treatise, De t 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 &,re not so much Pensies 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 superfi- cial 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 anec- dotes are personal rather than general, rather amusing than in- structive, 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.. Contemporary with these two writers, though, from the post- humous publication of his works years after the end of his long life, he seems in a manner a contemporary of our j t, t own, was Joseph Joubert, the last great Pens/e-wiitei of France and of Europe. Joubert's birthplace was Montignac, in Perigord, and the date of his birth 1754, three years after that of 440 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. Rivarol, and about twelve after that of Chamfort. He was educated at Toulouse, where, without taking regular orders, he joined the Fibres de la Doctrine Chr^tienne, 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 succeed- ing 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 radi- cally different from those of the Philosophes, and he soon sought more congenial literary companions, of whom the chief were Fon- tanes and ChinedoUd, 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 Pensies 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 re- semble. 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 charac- teristic of intense compression (he described his literary aim in the phrase 'tormented by the ambition of putting a book in a page, a Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 441 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 differ- ence 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 suflScient 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 pro- cess which was inevitably bringing about the great revolution of 1830. 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 de- sertion. His friends succeeded in saving him from the conse- quences 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 44^ The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv, 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 on the jealousies of the typical bourgeois. But in irony of the controversial kind 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 P^lagie. 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 Simpk Discours against the presentation of Chambord to the Due 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 con- summate 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 Leitre h M. Renouard, in which he discusses the mishap with the manuscript of Longus, and the letter to the ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 443 Acadimie des Imcripliom 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. 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 S^nancour 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 pro- fessed novel, Isabella. S^nancour was born in 1770, his father being a man of position and fortune, who lost both at the Revo- lution. The son was destined for the Church, but ran away and spent a considerable time in Switzerland, where he married, re- turning 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 Sdnancour 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 i?««/with a difference; Chateaubriand's melancholy hero feeling that he could do anything if he would but has no spirit for any task, S^nancour'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. S^nancour 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 dis- tinctly modern characteristics (characteristics which were not fully or generally felt or reproduced till the visionary and discouraged 444 TJu Eighteenth Century. 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 '. ' Note. — It may perhaps seem a little sm^rising that nothing has been said in this chapter of the orators of the Revolution. I cannot, however, albeit authorities entitled to respect think differently, consider them as anything but curiosities of literature — and of its very outskirts — though their liistorical importance is of course undeniable. And, unlike the journalists who have been noticed in the text, they contributed no one — unless Mirabeau and the person named Louvet be perhaps excepted — ^who was more than an orator. But any one who is. interested in the subject will find it illustrated fully in Mr. H. Moise Stephens' Orators of the French Revolution (a vols., Oxford, 1892), which contains a large body of texts from Mirabeau downwards. CHAPTER VL PHILOSOPHERS. The entire Kterary and intellectual movement of the eighteenth century is very often called the pMlosophe movement, and the writers who took part in it Us philosophes. The The pMio- word 'philosopher' is, however, here used in a sense sophe move- widely diflFerent from its proper and usual one. meiit. Phihsophie, 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 re- forming 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 44^5 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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 Bruyfere had said, in the days of acquiescence in absolutism, that to a French- man ' Les grands sujets sont d^fendus,' 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 oc- cupation. 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 remark- able 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 sur- vived in literature — for Fr^ron, despite his power, was Uttle more than a literary critic — is the Abb6 Gu^nde. In so singular a state was the church of France that scarcely a single preacher or theo- logian, 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 Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 447 of religion. Indeed no small proportion of the enemies of eccle- siasticism 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 iirst, 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 geheral politics. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu et de la Brede, was born at the chdteau, which gave him the l£lst-named Montes- title, in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, on the i8th ctuieu. of January, 1689. His family was not of the oldest, but it had, as he teUs us, some two or three centuries of proved noblesse to boast of, and had been distingjiished 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 17 14, and in a year or two president. In 1 7 2 1 he produced the Leitres 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 Brfede, 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, how- 448 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. ever, 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, 1'J34. 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 loth of February, 1755. Besides the works mentioned he had written several dialogues and other trifles, a considerable number oi Pens^es, and some articles for the earlier volumes of the Encyclopaedia. Montesquieu probably deserves the title of the greatest man of Lettres letters of the French eighteenth century, the superior Fersanes. 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 aflfairs 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 hunself 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 treatmei)t 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 h Decadence des Romains is an entirely serious Ch. VI.J Philosophers. 449 work. It does not as yet exhibit the magnificent breadth of view and the inexhaustible fertility of explanation which Qrandeur et distinguish the Esprit des Lois, but it has been well Decadence regarded as a kind of preliminary exercise for that ^^ Bomains. great work. Montesquieu here treats an extensive but homo- geneous 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 Dicadence 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 /"^wj/e-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. The Esprit des Lois is, however, a far greater book than either of these, and far more original. The title may be Esprit des thought to be not altogether happy, and indeed ^°"' rather ambiguous, because it does not of itself suggest the ex- tremely 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 dis- tinction 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, offen- sive 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 in- stitutions — a theory which is perhaps more than any other identified with the book — receives special attention, and a somewhat dispro- portionate space is given to the question of slavery in connection Gg 450 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 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 re- membered 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 shortsighted 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 _/9-o«a!f«r 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 Lots. With Voltaire the case is very different.* Very many of his Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 451 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 Pens^es 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 Mceurs, 1756, composed not improbably in rivalry with Montesquieu, contains much acute re- flection 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 con- nection 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 his- tories, 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 '£crasez I'lnfSme' 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 ex- aggerated 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 I Gg 2 45a The Eighteenth Century, [Bk.iv. the whole system of government. The sharp point of his ridicule was, however, always at the service of the aggressive party, espe- cially for what he had most at heart, the overthrow of dogmatic and traditional theology and ecclesiasticism. For this pvirpose, 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. Montesquieu and Voltaire were, as has been said, precursors The Bncyoio- rather than members of the phihsophe group proper, peodia. 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 book- seller, 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 Ch.vi.] Philosophers. 453 years of Diderot's life; it was repeatedly threatened and some- times 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 else- where. Denis Diderot was bom 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 Encyclopsedia work Diderot was lavish in contributing, often without either remuneration or acknowledg- ment 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 454 TJie Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 Pens^es Philosophiques. These pieces were followed by La Promenade du Scepiique, written somewhat in the fashion of Berkeley's Alciphron, and by some minor treatises, the most important of which are the Leitres sur les Sourds et Muets, and by the already mentioned Le/tre sur les Aveugks, 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 R^e de If Alembert, which, like an elaborate criticism onHelv6tius'Z>«/'^o«?a?«, was not printed during- Diderot's life. The Essai sur les Rignes de Claude et de N&on was one of the latest of Diderot's books, and is a kind' of historico- philosophical disquisition. The last piece of any importance which is included in his philosophical works is an, extensive scheme for a Russian university. The characteristics of these 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 Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 455 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 de- servedly 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 any- thing 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. His coadjutor during the earlier part of his great work was a man curiously different from himself. Diderot was _,., , ^ ' . D'Alembert. 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 171 7, 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 456 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. insufiScient 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 distin- guished himself in after years. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at the very early age of four-and-twenty. After he had joined Diderot, he wrote a preliminary discourse for the Encyclopsedia — 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 dis- interestedness, 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 men- tioned, kept house together. He died shortly before Diderot, in 1783. Perhaps his best literary works are his already mentioned Academic ^loges, 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. The connection of Rousseau with the Encyclopsedia itself was „ brief and not important. Yet it is here that his Bousseau. , j , ,. , , , . personal and general literary character and achieve- ments may be most conveniently treated. Jean Jacques Rousseau was bom at Geneva, on the 28th of June, 17 12, 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 ch. VI.] Philosophers. 457 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 Chamb^ry. 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 1 741 he was attached to the French Embassy at VeniceundeF-Mr 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 Th^rfese le Vasseur, whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, and whom he afterwards married. The ex- traordinary 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 458 The Eighteenth Century, [Bk.iv. 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 efiects 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 lOrigim de Tln^galiti 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 Conirat 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 Re- volution, 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. Rous- seau, 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 imigr^ 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 ch. VI.] Philosophers. 459 set going, to culminate in the Catholic movement of Chateaubriand and Lamennais. But in literature itself his influence vras 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 Bemardin de Saint-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 un- dertake the explanation of the singularity, that Rousseau, who de- tested 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 per- haps better exhibited in the Confessions and in the miscellaneous works, than in either of the novels. The Contral Social is a very remarkable piece of pseudo-argument. It is felt fi-om 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 Con- fessions 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 460 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. positively ungrateful, always playing into the hands of the enemies whom his hallucinations supposed to exist, and frustrating the eflforts 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 moimtain 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 Hilcfise, 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 contem- poraries made use of his Genevan origin to find fault with his style ; but with a few insignificant exceptions the criticism has no founda- tion. It has been very frequently renewed, and sometimes with little better reason, in the case of Swiss authors. Round these chiefs of the Encyclopsedic movement were grouped many lesser men, some of whom will be most conveniently noticed here. Marmontel, Morellet, and Saint-Lambert, whose chief im- portance lay in other directions, were contributors. The Chevalier de Jaucourt, a man of no original power, but a hack-writer of ex- traordinary aptitude, took considerable part in it. There were others, however, who, partly within and partly without the range of the Encyclopsedia, had no small share in the promotion of what ch.vi.] Philosophers. 461 has been called the philosopht 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. 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 Poiitioai kingdom by unsparing examiners. The two chief of Eoonomists. these, both of whom fell into disgrace for their doings, vauban, were the great engineer Vauban, and the great theolo- Quesnay, gian Ffeelon. The latter was attracted to the subject ^ °" chiefly by compsission for the sufferings of the people, and ex- pressed his opinion in a manner more rhetorical than scientific. Vauban's course was naturally diflFerent. 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 OisivtUs de M. de Vauian and Za Dtnu Hoyale, 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 privi- lege, 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 no- thing 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 Abb6 de Saint-Kerre, 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 at- tention, and set him upon calculating the causes and remedies of periodical failings. He was himself a frequent contributor 463 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. to the Encyclopsedia. Many others of the pMlosophe set occu- pied themselves with these and similar subjects, notably the Abb& Morellet and Galiani. The former was a man of a certain vigour (Voltaire called him 'L'Abb^ Mord-Les'), the latter has been noticed already. His Dialogue sur le Commerce des Bi^s acquired for him a great reputation. 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 govern- ment of a large, though barren and neglected, province. His achievements in the way of administrative reform here were re- markable, 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 oSice, the controUership 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 cha- racteristics. He died in 17 81. 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 Encyclo- paedia, of which the most noteworthy is one on endowments, etc. All are remarkable as containing the germs of what may be ac- Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 483 cepted 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 philo- sophy 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. With the name of Turgot that of Condorcet is inseparably con- nected, and though far less important in the history of thought, it is perhaps more prominent in the history of literature, for the pupU 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 ^ jj^ ,. ^ 1743, near Saint-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 Progrh 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 stereo- typed forms, and from the absence of flexibility and colour which distinguish the later eighteenth century in France. 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 Encyclopsedist 464 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. movement with less reference to specialist departments of literature than to a certain general spirit and tendency. This was Constantin Fran9ois de Chassebceuf, Comte de Volney, by which latter name he is generally known. Volney was bom 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 per- sons, 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. Ac- cordingly, 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. 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, Ch.vi.] Philosophers. ^ 465 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, Helvdtius, and Holbach. La Mettrie was a native of Britanny; he entered the medical , „ service of the French army, acquired a speedy repu- tation 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-Machim, 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, trails de flamme both in thought and style. Claude Adrian Helv^tius 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 appoint- ment very long, and became Chamberlain to the Queen. He was very popular in society, and was of a benevolent and philan- thropic disposition, though he seems to have got into trouble at his country seat of Vor6 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 V Esprit appeared, and made a great sensation, being condemned as immoral, and burnt by the hangman. Helv^tius subsequently travelled in England and Germany, djdng in 1771. A second treatise, Be VHomme, which appeared posthu- mously, is much inferior to De V Esprit in literary merit. It was even more fiercely assailed than its predecessor, and Diderot him- self, 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 V Esprit is wanting in Hh 466 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 desul- tory, inconclusive, and even demonstrably unsound, views of ex- treme shrewdness and originality on social abuses and inconsistencies are to be found. 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 distinc- SystSme de tion in literature) was the Sysikme de la Nature, which la nature, appeared in 1770. This remarkable book, which even Voltaire and Frederick II. set themselves seriously to refute, con- tains a complete materialist system in metaphysics and theology. It represents the existence of God as a mere creation of the super- stition of men, unable to assign a cause for the evils under which they suffer, and inventing a supernatural entity to satisfy them- selves. 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 Systhme is a very singular production, animated by a kind of fanatical, and in parts almost poetical aspira- tion after the annihilation of all supernatural belief, which is hardly to be found elsewhere except in Lucretius. It had great influence, Ch. VI.] Philosophers. 467 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. In all this century of so-called philosophy, France possessed hardly more than one really eminent and considerable meta- physician. This was Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, brother of the Abb^ de Mably, who was born in 1715, and died in 1780. Condillac himself was an abb^, 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 VOrigim des Connotssances Humaines', in 1749 his TraiU des Systimes, a work critical rather than constructive; and in 1754 the TraiU des Sen- sations, his principal work, which completes his theory. The influence of Locke was the most powerful single influence in the philosopke 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 additiorf of ideas of reflection to ideas of sensation is unsustainable, and that dl 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 in- stance of the method of Condillac, which is remarkable for vivid-, ness and adaptation to the ordinary comprehension. Unlike the style of Locke himself, Condillac's style is not in the least slovenly, but polished aud lucid, exceUently 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 H h 2 468 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. 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 follow- ing 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. After this long Hst 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 de Joseph, Count de Maistre, was born at ChambSry, Maistre. jn 1^53, 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 Considirations 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 begin- ning 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 18 16 he returned to Turin, and died a few years afterwards — in 182 1. The three chief works of Joseph de Maistre are Du Pape, 1817, De r£glise Gallicane, and the unfinished Soirees de St. P^lersbourg. 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. Ac- cording to him the pope is the source of all authority on earth, and temporal princes are little more than his delegates. Except Ch. vij Philosophers. 469 in relation to religious error, Joseph de Malstre 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 Revolu- tion, he sees the only chance of rescue in the estabUshment 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. P£tersbourg, 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 de- velops 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 fi-equently 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 incisivenessi and sharpness of outline which im- press 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 47© The Eighteenth Century. 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. Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald, who is usually „ „ named with Joseph de Maistre as the leader of the Bonald. ^ , ,. , . , ^. • i 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 Condi'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 imme- diate 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 phihsophes. 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 firom their treatment of subjects of science and erudition, are better dealt with separately. The head and chief of these is beyond all question Buifon. Gieorge Louis Leclerc, who was made Count de BufiFon by Louis XV., was bom at Montbard in Burgundy, on Sept. 7, 1707 ; his father was a man of wealth and of position in the noblesse de robe. Buffbn was destined for the law, but early showed an inclination towards science. He became acquainted with a young English nobleman. Lord Kingston, who with a tutor was taking the then usual grand tour, and, after sharing this, visited England in Kingston's company. On the English language he spent considerable pains, translating Newton, Hales, and TuU 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 col- 472 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. lections in zoology, botany, and mineralogy. He was thus enabled to observe and experiment to his heart's content, and to collect a suflBcient 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 hackwork 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 remark- able 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. Buflfon's life was long, and he outlived all the other chiefs of the pMlosophe 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 rhetoricad 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. Bufibn 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 doges. 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 I'homme,' should have so completely exemplified it. Many authors of elaborate prose have been perfectly simple and un- pretentious 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. Ch.vii.] Scientific Writers. 473 No single scientific writer equals the fame of Buffon, but there are not a few who deserve to be mentioned after him. Lesser Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, a Breton by Boientiflo birth, who was a considerable mathematician and a ""^rite's, 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 de- termine 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 re- ception of Newton's principles in France were not small, and his beloved Madame du Ch^telet 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 indifi'erence to politics. Monge, BerthoUet, Cham- poUion, were among his favourites. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier were, however, the chief men of science of this period, and Cuvier at least had no mean command of a literary sfyle sufficient for his purposes. His chief work of a literary-scientific character was his discourse Sur les R/volutions 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 Mart, the work of an anatomist of the greatest talent, who died young, also belongs to literature. 474 2"^^ Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. Some contributions to letters were also made by the voyages of Voyages and discovery which formed part of the general scientific Travels, curiosity of the time. The chief of them is that of Bougainville, 1*1*11, which, graving the first clear notion to French- men of the South Sea Islands, had a remarkably stimulating effect on the imaginations of the philosophe party. In works of pure erudition more directly connected with lite- IiinguistiQ rature, the age was less fruitful than its immediate and iiiteraiy predecessor. The laborious studies of the Bene- Study. dictines, 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 LitUraire de la France — a mighty workj 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 Trouvferes, 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 Biblio- theque 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 Cume 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 M^on (who also edited the Roman du Renar/), 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 Ch. VII.] Scientific Writers. 475 some attention at the hands of official teachers of literature who had hitherto scorned it. M. J. Ch^nier, Daunou, and others, un- dertook 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 Provenjal 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, Mdnage, Dacier, and the Delphin classics. The principal work of erudition was either directed towards the so-called phi- losophy in its wide sense of enquiry and speculation into politics and manners, or else to mathematics and physics. The Bene- dictines confined themselves for the most part to Christian an- tiquity. Yet there were names of weight in this department, such as the President Renault, a writer something after the fashion of Fontenelle, but on classical subjects; and the President deBrosses, also an archaeologist of merit, and the author of some pleasant Lettres sur tltalie, 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 in such writings as those on Navigations aux Terres Austraks and Le 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 Academic Fran9aise. 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 cul- tivation 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, and perhaps also his foresight and his appreciation of the genius of the French lan- guage, 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 The Eighteenth Century. 477 works was a Comidie desAcadimutes; 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 in- dolence 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 ad- ministrative talents of Perrault were of great service, while it so ob- viously 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 un- avoidable servility which rewarded this patronage, arid the private rivalries and cliques which have occasionally kept some of the greatest names of French literature out of its lists. Molibre 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. 478 The Eighteenth Century. 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 princi- ples 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 elect- ing Boileau, though it is to be feared that this arose fi-om no higher motive than the fact that he had satirised most of its mem- bers. 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 g^ding influence that France had most need. The exuberance of creative genius between 1630 and 1690 had supplied literature with actual models far more valu- able thaa any scheme of cut-and-dried rules, and it was in need rather of a stimulant to spur it on to fiirther 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 pkilosophes 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 The Eighteenth Century. 479 limited at its best, was' reduced to something like the state of a game in which every possible move or stroke is known and regis- tered, 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 them- selves 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 peri- phrases, 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 in the following book, was the alteration to a great extent of the status of the Academy itself. It always (though with the old reproach of illustrious outsiders) included 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 480 The Eighteenth Century. assembly, not a working parliament. Th>^ 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 achieve- ments and claims to recognition. BOOK V. THE NIlTBTEBirTH: CENTTTBT. CHAPTER I. THE WRITERS OF THE LATER TRANSITION. The last inter-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 literaiy revolution which accompanied them is called The the Romantic movemen t. Strictly speaking, this Bomantio movement did not affect, or rather was not supposed MoT^ement. to affect, any branch of letters except Poetry, Drama, Fiction, and the BeUes Lettres genera lly ; in re ality 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 star ted. 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, the various 'schools' started during the last quarter of the century having been com- paratively unproductive and already in most cases short-lived. I i 48a The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. ' Naturalism,' sometimes regarded as the successor of Romanticism, is in fact only a partial transformation of it. The literature of the Revolution, the Empire, and the early Restoration, which has been in part abready 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 Sta6l, 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 transi- tion. The names which chiefly illustrate this second generation must be dealt with before the Romantics proper are arrived at. The chief of them are Bdranger, Lamartine, Lamennais, Cousin, "Writers of Stendhal, Nodier, and the dramatists Alexandre Soumet the later and Casimir Delavigne, with a certain fringe of less Transition, important names. 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 observed at first, but deep, lasting, and in- creasing as it lasted; one, Nodier, threw in his lot with it frankly and decidedly. Pierre Jean de B^ranger is one of the most original and not , the least pleasant figures in the catalogue of French poets. His life, though long, was comparatively un- eventful. 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 was born in 1780, lived in his youth with an aunt at P^ronne, was then apprenticed to a printer, and in 1804 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, Bdranger, 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, ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 483 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. Stranger'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 B^ranger with ordinary readers, both in and out of his own country, has always been immense ; but a some- what 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, C0II6, GouflK, 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. Lastly, the half-freethinking, half-dilettante school founded by M. Renan combined most of these hatreds, and endeavoiued to sink his reputation lower than ever. The ' vulgate ' if not vulgar opinion has been recently formulated by M. Lanson to the effect that he is ' irrem^diablement vulgaire' in thought, and that his style is 'le style de Scribe ' (». infra). Yet Bdranger deserves his popularity, and does -not deserve the grudging appreciation of critics. His one serious fault is his 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 versifica- tion, careless as it looks, is really studied with a great deal of care and success. As to his matter, only prejudice against his political, I i 2 484 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. religious, and ethical attitude can miss 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. The criticism which cannot relish poetry higher than his is indeed unfortunate ; but it is perhaps only less unfortunate to be unable to recognize poetry, such as it is, in him. Nor can it be fairly said that his range is narrow. Le Grenier, Le Rot d Yvetot, Roger Bontemps, Les Souve- nirs du Peuple, Les Fous, Les Gueux, cover a considerable variety of tones and subjects, all of which are happily treated. Bdranger indeed was not in the least a literary poet. But there is room in literature for other than merely literary poets, and among these B^ranger will always hold a very high place. The common com- parison of him to Burns is in this erroneous, that the element of passion, which is the most prominent in Burns, is almost absent from B^ranger, and that the unliterary character which was an accident with Burns was with B^ranger 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. To have hit these is not itself an infallible mark of greatness. But there are few worse critical faults than to assume that what is popular cannot be good, however certain it may be that popularity does not constitute goodness. Alphonse Prat de Lamartine was in almost every conceivable respect the exact opposite to Bdranger. He was bom at Macon, on the 21st of October, 1791, of a good family of Franche-Comt^, 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 Pferes 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 attach^ 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 ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 485 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 oratQr, 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 diflSculties, 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 j in prose, Souvenirs d! Orient, Histoire des Girondins, Les Confidences^ Raphael, Graziella, besides an immense amount of work for the booksellers, in history, bio- graphy, criticism, and fiction, produced in his later days. Lamartine's characteristics, both in prose and verse, are well marked. He is first of all a sentimentalist and a landscape-painter, and French poets have as a rule been neither. This is what Sainte-Beuve meant when, to Mr. Arnold's frank confession that he could not think Lamartine ' important,' the great critic replied, ' He is. important_/^ tts! This is practically the gist of M. Faguet's admirable essay \ which is not so much a panegyric of Lamartine as an admission of the shortcomings of his predecessors, and which, written after his return to popularity in France, will be found in fact a justification of what had been urged against him earlier. 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. Lamartin&'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 > Etudes sur le XIX^^ SUcle (Paris 1887), p. 73 sq. 486 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. V. get; his only important attempt in a different and larger style, the Chute dun Ange, being, though not without merits, on the whole a failure. Attempts have been made to represent him as a philo- sophical poet : and M. Scherer, a Wordsworlhian in his way, has even put him above Wordsworth in some respects as expressing adoration of nature. But no catholic student of poetry can admit this. In harmony of verse and dehcate tenderness of feeling his poetry was an enormous advance on the eighteenth century, and its power over its first readers is easily understood. But Lamar- tine 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 Gines, Lt 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. The history of his reputation during the century is extremely interesting, because, though it contains little that is surprising to careful students of literature on the great scale, it is an example typical of its kind, and very characteristic of the nineteenth century itself. He was, as has been said, almost at once extremely popular, and the rise of the more brilliant and vivacious Romantic school did not at first injure his popularity with readers, though it did with critics. His fame indeed passed the bounds of his own country, and, especially in England, gained a hold which has not been equalled by any of his successors, even by Hugo. But the rise of the latter gradually overshadowed Lamartine, and for some time before his own death he had been regarded with little affec- tion, indeed with a certain contempt, by most persons in France who took an interest in poetry. This period of eclipse lasted till about 1880, and was finally put an end to by the death of M. Hugo and the turn of tide which followed it. The Hugonic school itself had already split up and dwindled ; the mere force of vulgar reaction naturally sought out Lamartine as a stick to beat Hugo with; and, lastly, the curious morbid sect which, deriving on the Ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 487 one side from M. Renan, on the other from Beyle, has exercised so much influence in the last two decades of the age, found Lamar- tine's sentiment, his half-tones, his subdued lights, congenial or at any rate not offensive to it He had been beyond all doubt unduly depreciated in the middle period just referred to; but a catholic criticism will be slow to accept the revised estimate of him in full. For he is quite of the second order of poets, even if a liberal ex- tension be given to the first — sweet but not strong, elegant but not full, not imitative but at the same time not original, not insincere but also never intense. The next name on the list belongs to a far stronger, if a less accomplished, spirit than Lamartine. Fdlicit^ 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 18 16, and in 18 17 published his Essai sur t Indiffirence en maiilre 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 488 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. periodicals of a later period, aimed directly at the union of ortho- dox religious principles of the Roman complexion with political liberalism, and a certain freedom of thought in other directions. The Avmir was definitely censured by Gregory XVI. in 1832, and Lamennais rapiyiy 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 Gudrin, a feeble poet who died yotmg, but who, with his abler sister Eugenie, interested Sainte-Beuve, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and others. Les Paroles (Tun Crqyant, which appeared in 1834, tuiited specu- lative 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 oflf the yoke of orthodoxy than it ran to the opposite extreme, and the Catholic royalist of the First Empire became an atheistic, or at mosl! 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 ^un Crqyant 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 bad notable disciples, among whom Michelet and even Victor Hugo may be ranked. 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 some- thing in common, for Cousin's delicate, exquisite, and somewhat Victor feminine prose style is a nearer analogue to the poetry Cousin. of Lamartine even than the latter's own prose, and the sudden decline of Cousin's reputation in philosophy almost ch. I.} The Writers of the Later Transition. 489 matches that of Lamartine's reputation as a poet, though it has as yet shown no signs of revival. Victor Cousin was born in 1792, at Paris, and was one of the most brilliant pupils of the Lyc^e Charle- magne. He passed thence to the £cole 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, who however were apt to com- plain that the success to which he helped them lost them his friendship. During the reign of Louis Philippe he was one of the most influential of men of letters, though, curiously enoughj he combined with his political! liberalism a certain tendency to re- action in matters of pure literature. After 1848 he retired from public life, and, though he survived for nearly twenty years, pro- duced little more in philosophy. His briUiant but patchy eclec- ticism 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. Bat his own Kterary 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 philo- sophical classics, the chief works of his earlier period are Fragments Philosophiques, 1837, Cours de tHistoire de la Philosophie, 1827 ; 49° The Nineteenth Centttry. [Bk.v. of his later, Du Vrai, Du Beau et du Bien, and his studies on the •women of the seventeenth century. The author now to be noticed found, for a long time, little place in histories of literature, and estimates of his positive value are even yet much divided, despite a vast increase, both of knowledge about him and of attention to him, during recent years. Henri Beyle, who wrote under the name of De Stendhal, was born at Grenoble in January, 1^83. 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 Civitk Vecchia. He lived, however, chiefly at Rome, and travelled a good deal. Latterly his health was weak, and he died at Paris, in 1843, of apoplexy. He was buried at Montmartre ; but, with his usual eccentricity, he directed that his epitaph should be 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 pUhsophe 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 ch. ij The Writers of the Later Transition. 491 an Imperialist. His works are pretty voluminous. They consist of novels (La Chartreuse de Parme, Armance, Le Rouge et le Noir, etc.); of criticism (Histoire de la Peinture en lialie, 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, tXc^; and, lastly, of a singular book entitled De t 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 M^rimde, 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 of 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. The preceding paragraph remains, with unimportant alterations, precisely as it stood in the first edition of this history ; and at that time the estimate contained in it would probably have seemed, if anything, exaggerated even to most French readers, though, besides Mdrim^e, Taine and others were Beyle's partisans. In the years subsequent to 1880, however, a certain school of French novelists and critics, with M. Paul Bourget at their head, directed attention both by panegyric and imitation to his 'psychological' handling of literature, and, either as a consequence or as a coincidence, large additions were made to the^ general knowledge of him. No new book of imagination, save perhaps the curious Lamiel, was indeed added to the tale of his works ; hut four or five volumes of letters and memoirs (sometimes couched in a half disguise, as Vie de Henri Brulard, etc.) added to the knowledge of his life, which had hitherto been chiefly confined to short and cautious notices by his literary executor, by his pupil yi.iraa.it, and by critics and acquaintances who, as in the case of Sainte-Beuve, were 49a The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. bjj no means always very friendly. These same compositions more- over had to some extent the character of original work ; for Beyle, who was always egotistic, was equally autobiographic in his original work, and fantastic in his autobiographies. It cannot however be said that the new matter (devotedly edited by M. Stryienski), though it turned much guess-work into certainty, added much that could not have — ^that had not by intelligent persons — been guessed. Beyle appeared as a man of, in some respects, disagreeable character, who had posed as more offensive than he was ; and as a thinker and student both of human nature and of letters, who had great acuteness and originality, but was frequently the dupe of his own abhorrence of dupers. The most immediate influence which Beyle exerted was in unhinging, as in the above-mentioned Racine et Shakespeare, the doors which shut out French thought and taste from the general literary ' conversation-house ' of th^ world : the most enduring, the manner in which, following to a great extent, but modifying, the example of Constant's Adolpke, he introduced into French novel-writing the minute analysis of character, emotion, and motive, partly in normal but still more in morbid conditions. The three remaining writers require shorter notice. Charles Nodier, who was born at Besan9on 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 citcle, 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 con- servative and restorative character which was one of the best sides of the movement. The most noteworthy things among his original work are certain fantasy-pieces, recalling to some extent German, English, and other exotic models, but touched with a real originality, Ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 493 full of grace, fancy, and pathos, and only lacking the final gifts of form and style to be of the very first class. Such are the tales of Trilby, Le Lutin dArgail, and Inls de las Sierras, which express, and strongly stimulated, the early Romantic fondness for the out- landish and the weird : such the charming legend of the Fee aux Miettes, where Hoflmann and Voltaire combine : such nearly the whole volume of Conks de la VdlUe. Casimir Delavigne was born at Havre in 1793. He first dis- tinguished himself by his Mess/niennes, a series of satires or patriotic jeremiads on the supposed degra- dation of France under the Restoration. Then he took to the stage, and produced successively Les Vipres Sicildennes, Marino Faliero, Louis XL (well known in England from the affection which several English tragic actors have shown for the title part). Lis 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 appre- ciate the defects of the classic tradition. He is in fact the direct successor of Ducis and Marie Joseph Ch^nier, 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 hbretto of one of the 494 "^ke Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. most popul^ of modem operas, and his Une F£le sous Niron is not devoid of merit. Soumet was in the early days of the move- ment 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 pre- ference of inferior models, seems to have been the reason why he did not advance further. At the head of the minor poets of this transition period has to Minor ^^ mentioned Millevoye, who might, perhaps with Poets of the equal or greater appropriateness, have found a place Transition j^ tjjg preceding book. He is chiefly remarkable as Sarly *^^ author of one charming piece of sentimental verse, Bomantic La Chuit des Feuilles ; and as the occasion of an Movement, immortal criticism of Sainte-Beuve's, 'II se trouve dans les trois quarts des hommes un pobte qui meurt jeune tandis que I'homme survit.' The peculiarity of Millevoye and his happi- ness 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, ' lis ont dit : I'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 Lab6 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 pub- lished in 1819, and, as in all the verse of this time, the note of sentiment dominates. She continued to publish volumes at inter- vals until 1843, and another was added after her death, Great ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 495 sweetness and pathos, with a total absence of aflfectation, dis- tinguish her work. Perhaps her best piece is the channing song, in a kind of irregular rondeau form, S'il avail su. Jean Polonius, whose real name was Labenski, was a Russian, who contributed frequently to the Annates Romantiques, and subsequently published two volumes of French poetry. Emile and Antoni Deschamps were the translators of the Romantic movement. Antoni accom- plished 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 Ntmes, and born in a humble situation, deserves a place among these. CHAPTER II. 1830. It was reserved for a younger generation than that, some of whose members have been noticed in the last chapter, actually to cross the Rubicon, and to achieve the reform which TI16 Eomantic ^^^ needed. The assistance which the vast spread Propaganda of periodical literature lent to such an attempt has m Periodi- ^y^^^ already noted, and it was in four periodical publications that the first definite blast 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 Conservaieur LiiUraire (a journal published as early as 1 8 19, before the Odes of Victor Hugo, who was one of its main- stays, or even the MMitations of Lamartine had appeared); secondly, the Annales Romantiques, which begajr in 1823, with perhaps the most brilliant list of contributors that ainy periodical— with the pos- sible exception of the nearly contemporary London Magazine — ever had : a list including Chateaubriand, Lamennais,'Lamartine, Joseph de Maistre (posthumously), Alfred de Vigny, Hemi de Latouche, Hugo, Nodier, B^ranger, Casimir Delavigne, Madame Desbordes- Valmore, and Delphine Gay, afterwards Madame de Girardin. Although not formally, this was practically a kind of annual of the Mtise Franfaise, 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. But this journal was, at any rate for a time, the organ rather of the intermediate and ch. iij 1830, 497 transitionary school of Soumet and Delavigne than of the extreme Romantics. 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 poUtics, or else more or less definitely conservative and monar- chical, 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 Rdmusat, wrote in it; but its literary importance in history is due to the fact that here Sainte-Beuve, the critic of the move- ment, 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. Victor Marie Hugo' was born at Besanjon on the 28th of February, 1802. His father was an officer of distinc- Victor tion in Napoleon's army, his mother was of Venddan Hugo, blood and of royalist principles, which last her son for a long time shared. His literary activ^^egan extremely early. He was, as has been seen, a contriJrator to the Conservateur LiMraire 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 Ponies 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 life of Hugo and the history of his works have been subjected to thorough if also pitiless treatment in the four volumes of M. Edmond Bir^, V. H. avant 1830, apris 1830, and apris 185a (Paris, 1883-1894). There may be something a little repugnant in M. Bird's processes, and his criticism of purely literary things is often not happy. Bnt it must be allowed that Hugo, by his violent changes of opinion, his equally violent attacks on those who thought as he had thought at other times, his colossal vanity, and his somewhat Popian tricks, too often invited rough handling, sk 498 , The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. the Ortenfales 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 bar- barous. 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 Orieniales, had preceded the latter. The first, Han dislande, was published anonymously in 1823. It handled with much extravagance, but with extraordinary force and picturesque- ness, the adventures of a bandit in Norway. The second, Bitg 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, d/buf was not altogether happy. Cromwell, which was published in i8^^was not acted, and indeed, from its great length and other pecuiMties, could hardly have been acted. It is rather a romance, tl^wn into dramatic form than a play. In its published shape,-- however, it was introduced by an elaborate preface, containing a "fjill 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 VHonneur Castillan, and the prose romance of Noire 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 Th^dtre Franjais 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. Ch.II.] 1830. 499 though not a complete, idea of Victor Hugo, and of the character- istics of the literaiy 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 delibejately violated. Although the lan- guage is in parts ornate to |i combine to produce an effect not easily paralleled elsewhere. The Contemplaiions, as their name imports, are chiefly meditative. They are somewhat un- equal, 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 {)rose romance, Les Misir- ables, 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 ei 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, aimoyance 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, E Annie 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 L^gende des SHcles, iS'j'j, and Les Quatre Vents de t Esprit, 1881) at their best, equal anything he has ever done. The second Ligende is inferior to the first in variety of tone and in vivid pictorial pre- sentment, but equals it in the declamatory vigour of its best passages. Les Quatre Vents de t Esprit is, perhaps, the most striking single book that Victor Hugo produced, containing as 503 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. 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 character- istics. 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. Indeed, all but unreasoning admirers admit that his thought, in any definite kind, is far below his language, and is not usually great. He was also, as has been said, deficient in the sense of humorous contrast, and in the per- ception 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. It was pointed out early in his career by Sainte-Beuve, a critic of the first competence, and at that time very well disposed to him, that his perpetual description, brilliant as it is, is often an artistic fault, and differs far less in reality than in appearance from the Delillian para- phrases noticed tormerly. The one merit which swallowed up almost all others in classical and pseudo-classical literature is want- ing 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 sufSces 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, none a more im- Ch.II.] 1830. 503 perious command of awe, of the vague, of the supernatural aspects of nature. 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 trans- porting process after a fashion hard to parallel 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 unqualified 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. Hugo was no sooner dead than the process followed which has been noticed in the case of Lamartine, which always takes place 504 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. more or less on the death of a writer of commanding position, but which has never been more noteworthy than in the latter part of the nineteenth century, a time of general affectation of literary culture, but of more engouement and crotchet than solid critical scholarship. There had always been a strong minority who held more or less to the classical models of tradition, and these naturally had never forgiven Hugo. His political extravagances had alienated from him a certain portion of his old adherents ; while the larger part, having passed through successive stages of Parnassianism, Decadence, SjTnbolism (see chap. III. post), and what not, had come, if not to neo-classicism, to a crotchety kind of ' precious- ness,' which regarded his effects as garish, his workmanship as wanting in distinction, his innovations in prosody as half-hearted and unsystematic. All this, together with the mere fickleness which is found in most nations, and in the French most of all, combined to depreciate Hugo in the current speech and writing of literature, though his works are not believed to have lost their sale, and though he retains somewhat more than a faithful few among critical admirers. The change, being a matter of history, has to be here recorded, but it need not in the least affect the estimate conveyed in the last paragraph, which simply expresses Hugo's value when he is looked at from the standpoint of a general and impartial survey of literature. From such a standpoint current opinion may now and then play truant ; but its better part always returns sooner or later. It is very seldom that the two different forces of criticism and crea- tion 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 move- ment, but of the nineteenth century, and in a manner the first Sainte- master of catholic criticism that the world has Beuve. seen, was born at Boulogne on the 23rd of Decem- ber, 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 Ch.II.] 1830. 505 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 Hire 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 VolupH 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 feuilleions of criticism were the chief recurring literary event of Europe. These studies with others, and with some of the numerous prefaces and introductions which he was constantly contributing to new editions of classics, were at intervals collected and published in sets under the titles, among others, oiCritiqws et Portraits LUte- raires, 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 pro- fessorship in the CoUfege 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. 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 5o6 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. long their stars fell apart. Until his time the science of criticism had His been almost entirely conducted on what may be called Method. 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 con- tented 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, F^nelon, La Bruyfere in part, Diderot, Joubert, had adopted another method, but the small acquaintance which most Frenchmen possessed with litera- ture 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 l(iical 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. Saneers ^ *^® same time the method has two dangers to which of the it is specially exposed. One is the danger of limiting Method. tjig 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 Ch.II.] 1830. 507 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 diflBcult to say anything new, and who are therefore somewhat ungrateful subjects for the in- genious 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 chief value. He was charged in his lifetime, and has been still more charged since, with a certain jealousy of the great reputations which grew up in his day. This reproach is common; and it is almost inevitable by critics who are really critical. It is natural that a talent which is at once rare and new should be welcomed warmly, for its novelty and reality alike. Afterwards it becomes in a sense its own rival, and its mere progress invites the application of the other side of the critic's office. Now, as critical minds of the first order are not common, this is apt to seem to outsiders an incongruous back- sliding, and to be attributed to personal motives. It can only be said that in few critics will less unfairness be found than in Sainte- Beuve. In omission as distinguished from positive error, he is scarcely chargeable with more than one other fault. He sometimes seemed to be unable or unwilling to give a clear comparative summary and estimate of his man. No doubt such summaries are often treacherous and inadequate; but the execution of them is perhaps the highest degree of the critic's craft. Around Victor Hugo were grouped not a few writers who were 5o8 The Nineteenth Century, [Bk.v. only inferior to himself. But, before mentioning the members of what is called the cinacle, 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 Dumas the general in the revolutionary army, and was born, on Elder. 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 contempo- rary's dramatic work never fully possessed) the indefinable know- ledge 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 pro- prieties, attacks of which at that time French opinion was not tolerant in a serious piece. Then he returned to the historical drama in the Tour de Nesle, another drama 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, wherein he achieved far higher successes. 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 Monle Crista, 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 Ch.II.] 1830. 509 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. His 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 suflSciently 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, has equalled or even resembled his peculiar style. The chief of these were Fiorentino, an acute critic and busy jour- nalist; Auguste Maquet, one of the minor figures of the early Romantic circle, who wiU be mentioned anon ; and the novelist of the latter half of the century, whose successful style is least like that of Dumas, Octave Feuillet. Dumas' dramatic work is of but little value as literature properly so called. His forte is the already mentioned plaj^wright'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 Trots Mcmsquetaires through Vingt Ans apres to Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, a second long series of which La Heine Margot is 5io The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. 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. Unlike some romancers he has con- trived to interest age as well as youth, to retain his hold upon readers at the most different stages of their lives and tastes. And more than once, chiefly in the last passages of the two series just named, he has contrived to invest his apparently sketchy characters with a poignant interest, both tragic and comic, not often excelled by the minutest workers. 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. Honors de Honor^ de Balzac was born at Tours, on the 20th Balzac. of May, 1799. He was fairly well educated, but his father's circumstances compelled him to place his son in a lawyer's oflSce. 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 it. 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 Le Dernia:.Mheuan, a historical novel, which, if not of great ex- cellence, 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 Comidie 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 ch. II.] 1830. 511 identified with Balzac's name. The most successful of these are concerned with Parisian life, and perhaps the most powerful of all are Le Plre Goriot, Ettg^nie Grandet, La Cousine Bette, La Peau de Chagrin, La Recherche de VAbsolu, SiraphHa. 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 Jnconnu, 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 diflSculties. 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 pro- spect 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 fully 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 personages are usually virtuous in the theatrical sense only; his scheme of human character is too generally 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 51 a The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v, almost necessarily that he is happiest when his subject has a strong touch of the fantastic. The aheady mentioned Peau de Chagrin — a magic skin which confers wishing powers on its possessor but shrivels at each wish, shortening his life correspondingly — and Siraphita, 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' ceuvre Inconnu, where a solitary painter touches and retouches his supposed masterpiece till he loses all power of self-criticism, and at last 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. With Balzac's name is inseparably connected, if only from the George Striking contrast between them, that of George Sand. 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 Koningsmarck. At the age of eighteen she married a man named Dudevant, and was very unhappy, though it is rather diffi- cult 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 com- panion 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 VaUntim, Lilia, Jacques, etc. The interest of all or most of these turns on the sufferings of itie/emme incomprise, a celebrated person in litera- ture, of whom George Sand is the historiographer, if not the inventor. A long series of novels of this kind gave way, between 1840 and ch.ii.] 1830. 513 1849, first to a series of philosophical rhapsodies, of which Spiridiou is the chief, and then to one in which the political aspirations of the socialist Republicans appear. Of these, Consueh, 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, ElU et Lui, and Lttcrezia Floriani, the latter perhaps the most character- istic of all her early works. After the estabUshment 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, Franfois 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 charac- teristics of Balzac are intense observation, concentrated thought, and the most obstinate and unwearying labour, so the chief characteristic of Greorge Sand is easy improvisation. She had an active and recep- tive 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 rapid^roduction. Her novels, therefore, slipped from lier without the slightest mental effort, and appear to have cost her JLOthing. It is not true, in this case, that what has cost nothing is *orth nothing. But even favourable critics admit that it is pecu- liarly 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 im- provising novelist than Dumas, to whom the term has more often been applied, though she wrote better French, and attempted more ambitious subjects. The nobler characteristics of her novels lI 514 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. reappear, perhaps to greater advantage, in her numerous and agreeable letters, especially those to Gustave Flaubert. In striking contrast with these three novelists was Prosper „, , , M^rim^e, also a novelist for the most part, but, unlike them, a comparatively infertile writer ', and one of the most exquisite masters of French prose that the nineteenth century has seen. M^rim^e 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 distin- guishing 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 Cmsar, 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 M^rim^e's literary repu- tation, have thrown very curious light on his character, exhibiting him as a man who, with 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 M^rimde's work is, as has been said, not large, and during the last twenty years of his life it is almost ' M^rim&'s work is not absolutely despicable in bulk, for it extends to some eighteen volumes pretty closely packed. But mnch of these is occupied with familial letters, and much more with merely miscellaneous writing. His finished and definitely literary publications do not amount to a third of the whole. ' A third, Lettres h unt Autre Inconnue, is of less importance, and a fourth has recently (1896) appeared. Many letters are as yet unpublished. M. Filon's Mirimie et ses Amis (Paris, 1894) is very valuable. ' Now known, after many wild surmises, to have been Mile. Jenny Dacquin. Ch.II.] 1830, 515 insignificant. But, such as it is, it has an enduring and monu- mental value, which belongs to the work of few of his contem- poraries. 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 iclat. Le Thidtre 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 extra- ordinary cleverness the existing books of Slav poetry. La Famille de Carvajal was a further supercherie in the same style. In the very height and climax of the Romantic movement Mdrim^e 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 Eigne 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 Mdrimde, with some excursions into history (ancient and modem), 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. Colomla, Mateo Falcone, La Double Mdprise, La V/nus d'llle, L'EnUvement de la Redoute, Lokts, have equals, but no superiors, either in French prose fiction or in French prose. Grasp of human character, reserved but masterly description of Bceneiy, delicate analysis of motive, ability to represent the super- L I 2 $i6 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. natural, 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 shaH come next. It is noteworthy, however, that M^rim^e 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. Th^ophile Gautier was born considerably later than most of the Th^ophile writers just mentioned. His birth-year was 1811, Oautier. and he was a native of Tarbes in Gascony. His education was partly at the grammar school of that town, and partly at the Lycde Charlemagne. Here (as elsewhere) he made friends with Gdrard de Nerval, who had 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. Those who are tormented ' by a combined sense of ' want of ideas, sensibility, and imagination' in him, and of his magnificent literary faculty, say that he ought to have been a painter, and was only a man of letters by accident and mistake. 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 hfe, 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 ' Gautier has been a severe trial to those who will not or cannot perceive that form is what makes literature. It was not surprising that M. Scherer should fail to appreciate him; but it is piquant that he should drive M. Faguet {op. cit. supra), ordinarily one of the soberest, most catholic, and least crotchety of critics, to a kind of despairing charivari of paradox and contradiction. Gautier ' knew all the resources of French language and style,' he produces ' effects incredible and such as one would not have thought that French could attain.' Yet ' il pirira, je crois, tout entier.' These things agree not together. Ch.II.] 1830. 517 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 phrase 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 Chdtiments, on having his praise of Victor Hugo inserted in the ofiScial journal on pain of his instant resignation. He led a pleasant but labcmous 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 miscel- laneous prose, a remarkable series of studies on curious figures, chiefly of the seventeenth century, called Zm Grotesqtus, and a com- panion series on the partakers in the movement of 1830, besides his descriptive books. In novel-writing there must be mentioned 5i8 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. an unsurpassed collection of short tales (the best of which is La Morte Amoureuse) ; Le Roman de la Momie, a clever tour deforce reviving ancient Egyptian life ; and, lastly, Le Capitaint 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 Camies. In prose he is, as has been said, the greatest recent master of the ornate style of French, as M^rimde 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 thingsjjfJitgialure. In general writing he has a singular faculty of embalming the most trivial details in the amber of his phrase, so that his articles can be read ag^in 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 Camies 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 fauhs which can be found with Gautier are, that he set himself too deliberately against the tendencies of his age, and excluded too rigidly everything but purely aesthetic subjects of interest ; that the range of his literary energy excelled its power of concentration ; and that journalism in his case too often usurped what was meant for literature. He too has suffered in the last quarter of the century from the inevitable reaction — a reaction all the more ungrateful in his case in that to absolutely no writer have his juniors been more indebted for vocabulary, for form, and for the subtler inspirations of manner, spirit, envisagement of things. It is scarcely too violent an image to say that all younger writers, except a few extreme neo-classicists, since i860 or thereabouts, have consciously or unconsciously steeped them- selves in Gautier. But the reaction, as usual, needs no appeal ad misericordtam to dismiss or reduce it. Gautier's defects as well as his merits — and the latter are indeed a possession for ever — remain unaffected. The most happily gifted, save one, of the great men of 1830, Ch. II.] 1830. 519 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 i8ro. His father held Alfred de a government place of some value ; his elder brother, Musset. 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 thrown, when quite a boy, into the society of Victor Hugo, the cAiack 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'ltalie were quickly fol- lowed 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 employ- ment, 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 la regular commission, though the Revue des Deux Mondes was always open to him, and as a matter of fact published most of his work. 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 ^20 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. may be called ' song-quality,' scarcely to be surpassed. Les Nuiis, a series of meditative poems in the form of dialogues between the poet and his Muse on nights in the months of May, August, October, and December; Rolla, an extravagant but powerful tale of the maladie du siicle; 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 Stick. His prose tales, Emmeline, Frederic et Ber- nerette, 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 com- mended 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, II ne faut jurer de rim: II f out qu'une parte soii ouverte ou fermie, 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 Mussel'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 his singular conjunction of the most fervid passion and the most touching lyrical ' cry' with the finest wit, and with unusual dramatic ability. The grudging iconoclasm of _^» de sihle critics has fastened on the formal defects and indolences already noticed, and has found an additional oifence in the alleged facility and universality of his appeals to passion. It Ch.II.] 1830. 521 is scarcely necessary to point out the fallacy of this. The response of the multitude to the poet's appeal may not immediately decide his merits, but it is not necessarily a disqualification, nor its absence a title. There have been— it must be repeated — bad poets who were quite unpopular. 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 com^ manding genius, and furnished it, at brief intervals, with consum- mate 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 influence of the group, occupied the important vantage grounds of the of the theatre and the lending library in the Romantic Bomautio 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. M&im^e, 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 a 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 M6xim6e, though in very different fashion), Musset brought the most natural and unaffected tears and laughter by turns, to correct the too 52* The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. 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. Three poets deserving of all but the first rank, and belonging to the generation of 1830 itself, must come next: indeed the first of the three was the equal of almost any writer yet men- tioned in this chapter except Hugo, in the quality of his work, though its quantity was exceptionally small, and its influence even smaller. Alfred de Vigny was born at Loches on the 27 th of March, Alfred de I799- He was a man of rank, and his marriage Vigny. 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 Poimes Philosophiques not appear- ing (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 con- siderable intervals, with others, as well as with dramas, of which Chatierton is the best and best known. He also translated Othello and The Merchant of Venice. Alfred de Vigny may perhaps be most aptly described as a link between Andrd Chdnier and the Romantic poets. He is not much of a lyrist, his best and most famous poems (Mo'ise, Eloa, Doloridci) 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 Ch^nier. But his language, and in part his versifica- tion, 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 Ch.ll.] 1830. 533 Lamartine, but a Lamartine with his weakness replaced by strength, while Dohrida 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 post- humous poems akeady mentioned — the best of all being perhaps La Maison du Berger, an utterance of stately despair, magnificently versed — are fully worthy of his earlier ones, but they display no new faculty. He had however one special quality rather of spirit than of form, the presence of a peculiar blank Nihilism or Natural- ism expressed with a gorgeous dreariness of language which is very impressive, if a little theatrical. This has somewhat com- mended itself to the ruling pessimism of later days in France ; and it may be partly due to it (as well as to the fact that he had at no time enjoyed any passionate vogue either with readers or with critics) that Vigny has escaped the depreciation which we have had occasion to notice in so many of his contemporaries and rivals. On the other hand, no attempt has been made, as was made in the case of Lamartine, to make him • popular.' Popular indeed Vigny can never be ; for he has neither the defects nor the qualities of popularity with the great vulgar or the smaU. He is a very great artist, and the possessor of a vein of poetry not abundant but extra- ordinarily rich within its limits. But by a curious and unfortunate chance, not easy to parallel elsewhere, the dash of insincerity and the want of inevitableness in him are exactly suited to disgust those whom his great formal and characteristic merits most conciliate, while these merits are not quite of the kind to suit those who would not be annoyed by his defects. In other words, it requires a certain not altogether common temper of mind to admire Vigny : and this same temper, while admiring, is rather likely not to like him. The common literary slang phrase about him during his lifetime spoke of his retirement in a tour ctivoire : and, if the words be rightly apprehended, they contain at once a suflScient eulogy and a sufficient criticism. 534 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. If Alfred de Vigny is a poet of few books, Auguste Barbier is Anguste a poet of one. Born in 1805, Barbier never formed Barbier. 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 lambes, a series of extraordinarily brilliant and vigorous satires, both political and social. The most famous of all these is La Curie, a description of the ignoble scramble for place and profit under the new Orleanist government. No satirical work in modem 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 much 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 // Pianio, 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, which did not end till 1882, he wrote much, and he was elected to the Academy m 1869, but La lambes will remain his- title to fame, A name far less generally known, but deserving ef being known Gfirard do very well indeed, is that of Gerard de Nerval, or, as Wervai. hig right appellation was, Gerard Labrunie. He also was born in 1805, and was one of the most distinguished pupils of the celebrated Lyc^e Charlemagne, where he made the acquaint- ance of Thdophile Gautier. G&ard (as he is most generally called) was a man of delicate and far-ranging genius, afflicted with the peculiar malady which weighs on such men, and which may perhaps be described as an infirmity of will, passing at times into actual mental derangement. He was not idle, and there was no reason why he should not be prosperous. At an early age he translated Famt, 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 iu a horrible and mysterious manner, either by his own hand or mur- Ch.Il.] 1830. 525 dered by night prowlers. He has been more than once com- pared 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 Mr. Wjlliam Morris, the chief masters of the verse which ' lies on the further side between poetry 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 BoMme 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 miscel- laneous 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. Mdry, 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 impro- visation in each capacity. Auguste Brizeux, a Breton by birth, made himself remarkable by idyllic poetry (Marie, La Fleur cHOr) chiefly dealing with the scenery and figures of his native pro- vince. Am^dde Pommier is a fertile and not inelegant verse writer, of no very marked characteristics. Charles Dovalle, who was shot at the age of twenty-two, in one of the miserable duels between journalists so common in France, would probably have done remarkable work had he lived. Hd^gdsippe Moreau, to whom a life but very little longer was vouchsafed, devoted himself partly to bacchanalian and satirical verse, 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 B^ranger. In the same way the imitation of Lamartine was not fortunate for Victor de Laprade (PsycM, 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 considerable 52<5 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. 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. All these names are more or less widely known, but there is Cimosit& * ^^^^ °f ' oubli^s et d^daignes,' as one of their most Bomam- faithful biographers had called them, who belong to tiques. ^jjg movement of 1830, and whose numbers were probably, while their merit was certainly, greater than 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, equalled, if it did not surpass, that of many of their more fortunate brethren. The first of these is Pdtrus Borel, one of the strangest pgtnia figures in the history of literature. Very little is Borel. 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 Bohemians who for a short time made themselves conspicuous after 1830. Borel wrote pardy 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 Chatnpavert. His talent altogether lacked measure and criticism, but it is undeniable. Auguste Fontaney was bom 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 Reoue des Deux Monies. His work is very unequal, but at its best it is saturated with the true spirit of poetry. F^lix 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 tAuberge de Ch.II.] 1830. 537 la Gratut Pinte. Napoleon Peyrat, who, after the fashion of those times (in which Auguste Maquet, a fertile novelist, and a jour- nalist, and a coUaborateur of Alexandre Dumas, called himself Augustus Mackeat, and Thdophile Dondey anagrammatised his surname into O'Neddy), dubbed himself Napol le Pyr^n^en, sur- vives, and justly, in virtue of a single short poem on Roland, pos- sessed of extraordinary verve and spirit. Last of all has to be mentioned Louis Bertrand, a poet endowed with the liouis rarest faculty, but unfortunately doomed to misfortune Bertrand. 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 extra- ordinary stimulating force of the time on minds which in other days would probably have remained indocile to poetry, or at least unproductive of it. Such were the principal actors of mil-huit-cent-trente, as it is called in the anecdotage of French literary history — the chief forces, with some of the minor ones, in the great Romantic movement. This movement, somewhat over-praised and mis- praised no doubt by those who participated in it, and by enthu- siastic after-comers, has at no time lacked depreciation and abuse at least as exaggerated as its praise. At first, and necessarily, it was abhorrent to academic critics and to steady-going persons of all descriptions : as it proceeded it became something of a fashion with its own members to smile or sigh over it, to poohpboh it as a sowing of wild oats. And for some time past it has been also the fashion not merely to do this, but to represent it as of little real literary importance, as if not actually quite superseded, dead in what importance it had, as having given place to another — (a ' Naturalist '-movement, which, though according to different 538 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. judgments valuable or disgusting, has at any rate put Romanticism into the lumber-room. We must before we go further say a little on some of these points. Much that is urged against ' 1830 ' is undoubtedly true. It was in no sense an original movement ; for almost all that was good in it had been anticipated, even as part of the same actual revolu- tion, in Germany and in England. It suflfered not merely from defects of taste, but still more seriously from defects of scholarship. Not one perhaps, except M^rim^e and Sainte-Beuve, of the eight or, if we add Vigny, nine men who have been specified here as its greatest names, can be called a scholar in the sense which implies a wide knowledge of literature ancient and modern, with exact knowledge of some parts of it. It would be impossible to draw up, except in the vaguest and most general terms, a Romantic credo that would be either intelligible or inclusive ; and when critics of the minor kind attack the Romantic muster-lists and say, ' What an Army ! M^rim^e sneering at Hugo, and Hugo foaming at Mdrimde; Sainte-Beuve, after his greenest youth, writing in depreciation of all; the admirers of Vigny dismissing Gautier as without ideas, without feeling, without imagination, and the ad- mirers of Gautier scornfully turning away from Musset as from a slipshod sentimentalist,' there is no possibility of denying their facts. A very great deal of the work most specially of the move- ment is childish ; a little disgusting ; much mistaken in aim and imperfect in accomplishment. All perhaps has that special colour- ing of time which, with time, fades and passes to all eyes but those purged with unusual doses of critical euphrasy. It is no wonder that critics even of the strength of M. Brunetifere should be unable to refrain from scornful contrast of the methods and aims that pro- duced Phidre and the Caractlres with the methods and aims that produced Han d'Islande and L'Ane MorU And yet there is no need for the most strictly critical champion of 1830 to 'look over his shoulder,' as soldiers say; and it is as nearly as may be certain that competent literary historians of the future, though they may be less enthusiastic for individual Roman- tics than some of us have been, will maintain the importance of mil-huit-cent-irente. This importance is assured by the very same ch-n.] 1830. 529 fact which excuses its shortcomings and its extravagances— the solid inexpugnable fact that in no country in the world did the pseudo-classical tradition obtain such hold as it obtained in France. Germany had not advanced sufficiently far to have a definite literary tradition at all ; England, for all the successive dictator ships of Pope and of Johnson, was preserved by that mighty influ- ence of Shakespeare to which both Pope and Johnson had to bow, and even independently of Shakespearians never lacked a good number of rebels to the classical Baal. The other European literary countries were in too sleepy and decadent a condition for it to matter much what theories they held, seeing that their produc- tion was so unimportant. But with France it was very different. France had arrogated to herself, and had even to some extent been allowed, a kind of literary primacy in the Europe of the eighteenth century. She had, however impoverished her literature might be in sap and spirit, maintained a high standard of form such as it was, a vigorous practice in all literary kinds. She had never lacked names which seemed to be of the greatest, and which really were great. And the whole of this force and fame had been devoted to the classical theory. Even critics like Diderot, destructive of that theory as their practice and some of their isolated doctrines might be, had never attacked it directly. The only body that in any Euro- pean country directly connected the State with literature, a body that dispensed patronage, admitted to society, distributed fame, was, as it were, sworn to its maintenance. And therefore the over- throwing of the theory, the setting at nought of the code, the tear- ing up and burning of the fences imposed, had in France (and so for Europe generally) an importance which it could never have had in any other country. Mere destruction, mere innovation, are generally very bad things indeed. But with actually dead wood, actually withered grass, there is nothing to do but to slash off and rake up as ruthlessly as you please. The ' classicism of M. de Jouy,' as the phrase went (thus immortalising one who seems to have been a pleasant old gentieman enough with a mistaken literary idea), was dead wood and withered grass. It was cut off and raked away rather boisterously, the sets planted and the seed sown in its M m 530 The Nineteenth Century. place were rather indiscriminately selected and hastily handled. But something that had to be done was done ; and a great result followed. It will be better to reserve what has to be said of the alleged decease of Romanticism and the reigning of Naturalism in its stead for the Interchapter which will come between the new form of this book and the Conclusion. And some important workers in the more prosaic departments of literature have yet to be noticed, who, though not directly concerned in the War of Liberation in Form (this was chiefly carried on by the practitioners in poetry, fiction, and drama), helped to a vast extent the widening in scene and subject, who removed the blinkers that had so long restricted Frenchmen's view to a narrow strip of their own literature and an arbitrary selection from the classics, who opened the Middle Ages, foreign modern literatures, the East, antiquity, science. But the very fact that in France all literature had become Academic made the assault on the Academy, which was necessarily conducted by way of poetry and drama, the central position of the fight. It is of course easy to cavil at the practice of assigning too great import- ance to special dates and events, and equally easy to show the unwisdom of attaching too little. But the rather more than ten years' war in which the performance of Hernani was the landing of the Greeks, and the election of Hugo to the Academy the capture of Troy, is and will remain one of the capital incidents of literary history. CHAPTER III. POETS OF THE LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY. Three distinct stages, the last diverging in several directions, are perceptible in French poetry since the date of the Romantic movement ; and the preceding chapter has exhausted The the remarkable names belonging to the first. The Second second opens with those poets who, being born in or Eomantio about 1820, came to years of discretion in time to see Poets, 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 Baude- laire, Banville, and Leconte de Lisle, while some others may be mentioned beside them. Charles Baudelaire, the greatest of this group, and indeed the greatest French poet of the second half of the century, ^^^^gj^j^g both in intrinsic originality and in influence on his juniors, was born in Paris on April 9, 1821. His father, Fran9ois Baudelaire or Beaudelaire, held some posts in the civil service of the First Empire, and was twice married. His eldest son by his first wife was named Claude, became a lawyer, and died a year before his brother, with whom he was on bad terms. • Charles's mother, Caroline Dufays, was left a widow after ten years' marriage, and remarried a year afterwards, her second husband being Colonel, afterwards General, Aupick. Stepfather and stepson, however, appear to have got on very well together for a time, and Baude- laire was well educated at Lyons and at the College Louis-le-Grand in Paris. But when it was time to take up a profession Charles M m 2 53* The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v, was restive. He was packed off on a voyage to India, which was not .without effect on his work; but soon returned and, being of age, entered on his patrimony (which was modest) in 1842, became his own master, and was thenceforward a man of letters or nothing. The remainder of his life, which was in the ordinary sense destitute of incident, was passed in Paris until, in 1864, he established him- self in Belgium, where he hoped to make money by lecturing, and to bring out a complete edition of his works. His expectations were deceived, and his health, which it is to be feared his own foibles had undermined, grew worse and worse. He was brought back to Paris suffering from general paralysis, and died on the 31st of August, 1867. The singular character of Baudelaire's work, his melancholy end, and the oddity of the feW' details which for many years were known about him, contrasting with the extreme uneventfulness, in the ordinary sense, of his hfe, have directed on this Ufe perhaps a disproportionate amount of attention. It was not in reality very different from that of a considerable number of recruits in the army of Bohemia, except that Baudelaire had a love of mystifica- tion and ' pose ' exceeding almost any other recorded in history, that he was always of a retiring and somewhat solitary disposition, and that his models both in literature and life were rather English than French. Indeed, during his lifetime he was better known as the author of a nearly complete translation of Edgar Pee — upon which he bestowed immense pains, and which is certainly remark- able of its kind — than for his original work. This work, both in prose and verse, is not, considering that its author's literary career extended to a full quarter of a century, very abundant ; but it is of the rarest originality and character. As early as his return from his Indian voyage Baudelaire had completed some poems, and he published these, or others, at intervals in different papers for many years. It was not, however, till 1857 that they appeared in a volume under the title of Zm Fleurs du Mai. This included some pieces on subjects much better left alone, and the government of the Empire thought fit to prosecute the author and publishers. They were fined, and the book, as far as these pieces were con- cerned, was condemned. A second editioi), with the incriminated ch. III.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 533 articles omitted, but with thirty-five new poems, appeared in 1861 ; and after the poet's death the complete edition of his works, yrhich was undertaken by Gautier and others of his friends, gave a still larger collection, the condemned poems being still excluded, but obtainable in Belgian editions. Besides these poems, which even in the absolutely complete edition never yet given would not over- flow a single volume of very moderate size, Baudelaire's chief other work is an extremely original collection of Petits Polmes en Prose, inspired no doubt by the Gaspard de la Nuit of Louis Bertrand (see above), but handled with remarkable originality. A few stories and novelettes, of which the chief is La Fanfarlo, have to be added, as well as a certain amount of critical and mis- cellaneous work, about equal in bulk to what has already been mentioned, dealing with literary, artistic, and other branches of aesthetics, and always instinct with genius. There were also letters, but few of which have yet been published. Victor Hugo, in his emphatic way, once congratulated Baude- laire on having 'created a new shudder'; and this side of his genius has no doubt attracted most popular attention. As a matter of fact, however, it is but one side, and not really the most re- markable, of a singular combination of morbid but delicate analysis and reproduction of the remoter phases and moods of human thought and passion. There is nothing macabre, as the French are fond of calling it — nothing grim-grotesque — in such pieces as L'Albatros, La Vie Ant&ieure, Hymne, Le Chat, and many others in verse, as Les Bienfaits de la Lune in prose ; and these pieces are poetically quite the equals of Le Vin de t Assassin or La Charogne. Baudelaire's peculiar and extraordinary charm is due less to the formal merit of his verse, in which the attraction is rather of the words than of the metre, than to its strange expression of a mood known at all times save the most prosaic, but especially frequent, it would seem, in the centuries immediately before and after the Christian era, at the Renaissance, and in the nineteenth century — a mood wherein the keenest perception of material delights is combined with a constant tendency both to critical and mystical analysis of passion and thought alike. Lucretius and Donne are the nearest of all poets to Baudelaire in this. His 534 ' The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. adaptation to it of his verse, and of the prose for which Poe and De Quincey had undoubtedly served him as models, is wonderfully skilful. Nor was he less apt as a critic to seize and reveal in others the manifestation of talents, and that not merely of talents akin to his own. For Baudelaire's appreciation had a very wide range. Unfortunately his personal eccentricities, and the somewhat childish challenges to convention which he threw out in his work, startled many readers, while the extreme stretch of his Roman- ticism annoyed others. It was long before even tolerably liberal French critics of the more academic schools could speak of him with patience. Even they, however, have slowly and reluctantly come round to the opinion of his power which was from the first held by good judges, while of his influence there is no longer question. In tone and spirit Baudelaire has been as much the leader of young French poets for the last thirty or forty years of this century as Victor" Hugo has been in form for the last sixty or seventy. An intimate friend and contemporary of Baudelaire, whose senior Theodore ^^ ^^^ ^y * J'^^'^' ^^^ whom he outlived by a quarter de of a century, was Theodore de BanviUe. He was in Banville. remarkable contrast to his friend, and supplied quite different notes of the poetic character which was to dominate the second half of the century. He was of a good family in the Morvan, and the son of an oflBcer in the navyj but he himself began as a poet, before he was twenty, with a volume entitled Les Cariatides, and he continued to write unceasingly for something like fifty years. Banville was an equal master of serious and comic verse, and during the short-lived republic of 1848, and the Empire which followed, he showed his powers in both, not merely by the volume above named, but by others, entitled Les Stalactites, Odelettes, Les Exiles, etc., on the serious side, and by two volumes of singularly agreeable attempts in parody, satire, and other lighter styles, respectively entitled Les Ocddentales (in affectionate travesty of Hugo's Orientales) and Odes Funambuksques.. Some of these latter exhibit a faculty of humour in verse scarcely manifested elsewhere in French, while the formal, and especially the metrical, quality of the serious verse is always admirable. A volume on the Ch. III.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 535 Prussian war was not more successful than might have been anticipated; but an exquisite collection of Trente-six Ballades Joyeuses soon redeemed it, and for many years M. de Banville con- tinued to pour forth strains not of unpremeditated but of most accomplished art, some of his very best work occurring in a post- humous collection. Nor had he confined himself to the practice of poesy. His Petit Traits on the suhject may be said to be the handbook and register of the Romantic prosody, first as expounded by the Hugonic licenses, and then as codified and methodised by students and practitioners with more scholarship, if less genius, than Hugo. He was also a not unfrequent dramatist, and espe- cially in the later years of his Ufe produced no small number of prose stories and opuscula of all kinds, not always quite worthy of himself in subject, but always charmingly written. He died in 1891. It has been said that Banville was the opposite, or rather the complement, of Baudelaire. He was this not least in the extreme minuteness of his attention to formal details and the easy mastery with which he could bend the stubbornest and adapt the most intricate metres to his purpose, while Baudelaire was as a rule contented with very simple forms. The criticism sometimes made on Banville, both before and since his death, that he was ' all on the outside,' is unjust even if made hastily, and entirely incom- petent if made with deliberation. There is hardly a single volume of Banville's pretty numerous books of verse which does not contain pieces sufficient to refute it. But there is no doubt that he does not as a rule go very deep, and that a considerable part of the charm of his verse is due to his absolute mastery of technique. Without permitting himself the Ucenses which, as we shall see, his younger contemporaries were shortly to claim, he could practically do with French verse anything he pleased. Allowing for the smaller scope of French in this respect, he was the equal of 'Thomas Ingoldsby ' in inexhaustible fertility of rhyming, while his skill at grotesque and tour de force never deprived him of the power of finishing his serious verses with rhymes at once simple and rich, elaborate and harmonious. He was in fact a perfect virtuoso in rhyme and rhythm. 536 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. The third of this remarkable trio was again a little older than Leoonte M. de Banville, whom he outlived. The side of the de Lisle. Romantic movement which he took up might have seemed as exterior as that to which Banville addicted himself. M. Leconte de Lisle (1820-1894) was a Creole ; and either fpr that or some other reason he devoted himself especially to cultivating the exotic and polyglot side of the Romantic tradition. Like Baude- laire, he expended a great deal of pains upon translation, versions of more than one or two of the great Greek poets, epic and dramatic, having appeared from his pen. One of the chief features of these translations was the carrying to excess of the pedantic crotchet from which English has also suffered — the attempt to transliterate Greek exactly, and not merely to discard the loose Latin equivalents for the pure Greek names which the eighteenth century had tolerated, but to flood French with M's, with circum- flexed o's and c's. Th^ophile Gautier, whose taste in such matters was excellent, and whose fashion of quiet and good-humoured wit has rarely been equalled, remarked on one of M. Leconte de Lisle's own early books, ' II serait plus simple d'^crire en grec' But his earlier and original poems, Foisies Antiques, Poisies Barhares, Poimes et Poesies, and the like, are of very high merit, both in the barbaresque and rhetorical style beloved of the author, to which all manner of strange nations and languages contribute (Ze Massacre de Mona, Le Runoia, Le Sommeil du Condor, etc.), and in simpler pieces such as Requies. In sentiment M. Leconte de Lisle had always betrayed a distinct inclination towards pessimism, and to the adoption of a key of thought corresponding to that remarked above in Vigny ; latterly he emphasised this still more and became something of a nihilist and anti-Christian poet. But his earlier examples had been powerful in pleasing readers and priming imitators with the choice of subjects above remarked on, and also with a very distinct kind of handling, a kind which may perhaps best be called statuesque, which has been widely popular and much imitated, and which perhaps had more to do with the special characteristics of the ' Parnasse ' (see below), to which all the three poets just named were contributors, than even the metrical presti- digitation of Banville, and certainly more than the high and rare Ch. III.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 537 combination of passion, idealism, and analysis which has been noted in Baudelaire. The minor poets of this second Romantic school may again be grouped together. Charles Coran, a miscellaneous _ , , Minor poet of talent, anticipated the school of -which we poets of the shall shortly have to give some notice, that of the Second Parnassiens. Josdphin Soulary is remarkable for the Eomautio 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, which became more and more an echo of Hugo, whose connection and fervent disciple M. Vacquerie was. Gustave Le Vavasseur at- tempted, 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 (a characteristic 'fling' of the time being the saying, Lamartine, un piano ; Victor Hugo, un grand homme ; Dupont, un polte !), and two of them, Le Chant des Otevriers and Les Baeufs, are still most remarkable compositions. Louis Bouilhet (whose best poem is Meleenis) was the intimate friend of Flaubert, and as a poet showed 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 Bdranger, though with much less range, wit, and depth. He was especially the song- writer of the Second Empire, with which he at first had some difiiculties, though he was later reconciled and decorated. He played a creditable part in the war of 1870, but wrote little after it, though he did not die till 1893. One refrain of 538 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. his Brigadier, vous avez raisott, has had the luck to become a catchword. 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 Pamasse principle still more unhesitatingly, grew up, and and the formed what was known for some years, partly Komantio geriously, partly in derision, as the Parnassim school. Pispersion. „, \ f / , . , . . „,, , The ongm of this term was the issue, m 1860 (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 Thdophile 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 1876 saw a third: 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 impossibles, for their presumed devotion to art for art's sake, and their scorn of didactic, domestic, and sentimental poetry. Their numbers were very large, and, from the great and almost intentional ' school '-character of their work, it is unnecessary, as well as impossible, to give much detailed account of them here. But the three volumes just referred to are an indispensable possession and study for those who wish to understand the development, not merely of French, but of Euro- pean poetry. As was to be expected, some of their number diverged to work other than poetical, the chief of these, whom we shall meet again, being an admirable critic and novelist, M. Anatole France, and a story-teller equally graceful and graceless, M. Armand Silvestre. One, Albert Glatigny (a strolling poet, somewhat re- sembling an uncriminal Villon, with some of Villon's genius, which he showed in a few touching poems, especially the Ballade des infants sans Sotufy died early. Another, St^phane Mallarm^, the ch. III.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 539 most erudite and laborious of literary contortionists, lived to take part in further developments of 'school' writing, to be noticed below. A third, Jos^ Maria de Her^dia, an exquisite if rather empty practitioner in the sonnet (which, like the even more artificial forms of old French verse, fostered by Banville, was a favourite with the group), lived also, but to become an Academician. The three chief poets who,' having formed part of the group, remained poets and attained to something like acknowledged eminence in their art were Sully Pnidhomme, Fran9ois Coppde, and Paul Verlaine. It has been noted that Vigny and Leconte de Lisle were, each in his way, philosophical poets ; but the chief French poet who has achieved a considerable position in this philoisophical suliy Prud- poetiy is M. Sully Pnidhomme (b. 1839). Perhaps it tomme. may be doubted whether this kind of poetical vogue is ever (as the French themselves say in a phrase not quite translatable by any terse English equivalent) de bon aloi — whether it is not due to mixed causes, and chiefly to the fact that persons who have no genuine affection for poetry as such are pleased to tolerate and even welcome it when it clothes themes which they can understand and appreciate. He has had very powerful literary friends ^ while he has also enjoyed the inestimable advantage of writing, not for bread, but as he pleased. The result — Stances, ei Poimes, 1865; Solitudes, 1869; Vaines Tendresses, 1875; La Justice, 1878; Bon- beur, 1888 — certainly displays a considerable mastery of expression and versification, and a kind of thought coloured by the pessimism of the period, but less hopeless than Vigny's and less aggressive than Leconte de Lisle's. It is probable that in 'the firm perspec- tive of the past ' it will be found not to rise above the second clas& of poetry, but it will very likely hold in permanence a fairly respect- able place in that second class. The popularity and accomplishment of M. Francois Copp^e have been of a different kind, though they also have led Pran9ois to Academic recognition. M. Pnidhomme is a poet Coppie. or nothing: M. Copp^e, besides a considerable amount of verse * A very fiill and interesting study by one of the chief of these will be found in M. Gaston Paris' Penseurs et Poites, Paris, 1896. 54° The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. (Reliquaires, 1866; IntimiUs, 1868 ; La Grlve des Forgerons, 1869 ; Les Humbles, i8-j2 ; Promenades et Intirieurs, 1872 ; Conies et Vers, 1 88 1-7), has been a fairly prolific and successful dramatist, and a writer of very pleasant short prose tales. The titles given above may suggest, and will suggest correctly, that M. Copp&'s favourite subjects are of the popular-pathetic kind — the kind which in different ways Dickens in prose, and Mrs. Browning in verse, made well known in England somewhat earlier. He has been accused of sentimentality and superficiality, but it may be questioned whether the fault is not rather in the subjects than in the artist. The poetry of humble, as of all life, is real, but not more real than that of other life; and the poet who makes it his business to exploit it is certain to fall into the trivial and the maudlin. Still M. Copp6e, though the lovers of pure poetry may not care much for him, is entitled to that praise which has been already assigned in a different way to B^ranger, that he has undoubtedly given the poetic pleasure to many who are not capable of receiving it other- wise, while he has never sought to give that pleasure by unworthy means. Not so much as this last can be said, unfortunately, of the greatest of these three as a poet, though he was something of Paul a poetical Helot — M. Paul Verlaine (i844-i896),who Verlaine. died in middle age after a strange, pathetic, and scan- dalous life. The middle part of this was so much hidden from public observation that, when at last he attained celebrity, the scanty reading or short memory of not a few critics regarded him as a new phenomenon. But he had contributed some half-dozen poems (the best of them, perhaps, Vers Doris, Cauchemar, Sui Urbe) in a very Gautieresque manner, richly rhymed and bringing the visual impression strongly before the reader, to the first Parnasse of 1866, and he published other verse early. Nearly twenty years, however, passed (partly in ways with which scandal made itself busy) before, in the new departures of poetry which coincided more or less with the death of Victor Hugo, he became famous and in a way prolific. Palmes Saturniens, including his early work, and reprinted 1890; Sagesse, 1881 ; Amour, 1888; Romances sans Paroles, 1887; ParalUlement, 1889; Fites Galantes, Jadis el Ch. III.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 541 Nagv^re, etc., are the chief titles of his work. Verlaine (who was not unwilling that his extraordinary head and face should be compared to the bust of Socrates, and the most produceable of whose peculiarities are not unkindly immortalised in the eccentric poet of M. Anatole France's Lys Rouge) wrote some miscellaneous prose and criticism, and was a fair scholar in English and other languages. Like Baudelaire, and even more than Baudelaire, whose most considerable disciple he undoubtedly is, Paul Verlaine has been the subject of violent denunciation and of imbecile discipleship ; but as he wrote thirty years later the discipleship naturally in- creased, while the obloquy was less. He falls short of his master in originality, necessarily; and less necessarily in intellectual power, in distinct unity, genuineness, and intensity of poetic character. But he has the advantage of greater variety and sweet- ness in form. He began, as has been said, in the extreme of the Parnassian manner which derived from Gautier, and of which the two requisites were prosodic precision pushed to or beytShd the verge of stiffness, and a handling which aimed first of all at bringing, the actual sight-impression as vividly as possible before the eye. But he ended as the apostle, though not the extreme practitioner, of the loosening of French prosody (which Romanticism in its early stages had begun, and in regard to which the Parnassian tension was only a slightly reactionary episode), and as the exponent of an extraordinary faculty of musical presentment. These various tendencies clash and jangle strangely, though by no means inhar- moniously, in his later worL A great deal of the theory on which his. youthful admirers fastened — the search for nuances rather than for definite colours and the like — was undoubtedly extravagant; but some of it was not, and the result was unquestionably the best French poetry of the last quarter of the century, too often wilfully offensive in subject, almost always charming in its appeal to sight and to hearing, not seldom touching and creative in feeling and imagination. Verlaine, who, as has been said, was very familiar with English, made advances on his master in point of importing that indefinite music of English poetry, the want of which so often strikes readers of French, into his native tongue. 542 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. The methods by which he attained this music are to some His extent traceable ; and are only an extension of those Methods. y^iAi BanviUe, and even Victor Hugo himself, had used before him. One is the attempt to discard the famous alternation of ' masculine ' and ' feminine ' rhymes, which after long preliminary experiment had set in during the sixteenth century. It cannot be said that he ever attained to the complete ignoring of this most troublesome limitation; but he resisted if he could not forget it. Another is the shaking himself free from the hard-and-fast caesura, proportioned to the line, which had also become obligatory. A third is the indulgence in a much greater degree of lines of odd numbers of syllables. And a fourth, the least welcome to English ears, is a large extension of that Bcense of French prosody — ^in curious contrast to its usual rigidity, but corre- sponding to the practice of its most classical prose — ^which allows not merely a syllable, but a whole word of exactly the same spelling, to rhyme to another {fosur, cesur . . . paint, point, and so on). He also indulges freely in interior or leonine rhyme; and in other modes of keeping up a musical accompaniment of sound. The variety of movement and of music which is due to these and other devices is very great and very refreshing. It is conditioned on the bad side by a certain accretion of artificiality ; Verlaine is often not more ' inevitable ' than Thi^odore de BanviUe himself, and he has often much worse taste. But on the other hand he has unquestionably something which is, though sometimes, rarely present in the serene poet of the Cariatides. In life it seems certain that his accesses and excesses of sensuality were inter- spaced with accesses of mystical devotion, and this mixture — not indeed unique, since there are many examples of it, the capital one being our own Donne — produces a real ' wind of the spirit ' in his work. In the Poimes Saiurniem (which, as has been said above, may be taken to represent generally the tradition of Gautier, modified not a little by touches of Baudelaire and Leconte de Lisle) few liberties are taken with prosody. Yet the sonnet 'Never more,' with its monorhymed quatrains composing the octave, the Gautieresque Cauchemar, Sokils Couchants (the metrical motive of which is that of a virelai crossed with a pantouni), Ch. iii.l Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 543 Vne Grande Damt (pure Baudelaire), and others, make something of a masque or a mosaic; it is not easy to say to what the poet will come. In the later books the Romantic combination of formal artifice and spiritual excitement has reached its apogee. It was thought outrageous, and the actress demurred to it, when Victor Hugo made Mile. Mars address a lover as 'mon lion.' Verlaine addresses his beloved as ' ma vague,' which marks the advance on Hernani. It is impossible here to review in any detail the work of this remarkable and no doubt not quite sane poet, and it would have been improper to give him even so much space as has been given if he were not the one typical example, that France has produced, since Baudelaire. He is at present the 'furthest' Hisim- (purely childish and tasteless extravagances of form portance. and matter being put aside) of the Romantic revolt, and is likely to remain so. He has really achieved in not a few cases that mixture of musical and visual appeal — that playing on language as on a lute, and manipulating the ideas it evokes as the constituents of a panorama — which the critics of France at last admit to have been an art hidden from their poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the comparative rarity with which he attains to perfect success, the necessity which he betrays of appealing to outrageous qualities of subject, and the feebleness of most of his followers, seem to show once more that, after all, the limitations of French poetry had their origin in a genuine diagnosis of the French spirit. It would be of but little interest or use to examine fully the various schools of ' Decadents,' ' Symbolists ^ ', and the like, which have appeared and disappeared during the last twenty years. From time to time in France, as in other countries, there have been announced ' new poets ' who have equally, in the course of nature, ceased to be new and to be thought poets. The strongest hand in verse, as in prose, though in the former only a novice who could * For an examination of ' Symbolism,' refreshing in its old-fashioned thoroughness and vigour, though perhaps showing also a good deal of old- fashioned prejudice, see M. Ferdinand Brunetiire, Essais sur la Littiraturt Contemforaine, Paris, 1892. 544 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. not or did not care to carry his work further in that direction, was M. Guy de Maupassant, who preluded his remarkable novels (see below) with a volume simply entided Des Vers. This did not display much variety of poetical faculty, but was vigorous, indi- vidual, and impressive, as nothing else has been since. M. Richepin, one of those not unfrequent men of letters who show extraordinary facility in almost every branch of literature for a time, but rarely do anything really solid and lasting, perhaps comes next to M. de Maupassant with La Mer, La Chanson des Gueux, etc., and with him may be bracketed M. Maurice RoUinat. All these three indulged themselves to the fullest in the license of subject now usual with Frenchmen in belles lettres, and in connection with them, though in order of time and character he should perhaps have been joined rather with Verlaine or M. Mallarm^, seeing that he also was a Parnassian, was another eccentric writer, Villiers de L'Isle Adam, whose right to his famous historic name was not uncontested, and who did much wild work, some of it not without attraction, chiefly between 1880 and 1890. A future was at one time predicted for M. Maurice Bouchor', who attempted to oppose the Parnassian impassibility with bacchanalian strains, and a present of popularity was once enjoyed by M. Paul Deroulfede, who in the reaction from the great defeat of 1870 delivered himself of divers generous strains, not unpoetical, but not quite so poetical as patriotic. Lastly (not to take notice of the work absolutely of the hour) must be mentioned a school of half-exotic poets (the Symbolists above referred to in part), at the head of whom was M. Jean Mor^as. These have endeavoured to turn French prosody, not partially but entirely, upside down, with lines of unlimited length, rhymes and caesuras pushed far beyond the Verlainian licenses, and other means for destropng the strict regularity, the uniform measures and limits, which for nearly ' M. Bouchor's more recent ' marionette ' dramas have been praised by the competent, as have the 'Bnddhist' poems of Jean Lahor,' believed to be identical with the Parnassian, H. Cazalis, author, thirty years ago, of a good volume of verse entitled Melancholia. But ' Bnddhist ' poetry and ' marionette ' drama, however good in themselves, tell tales as to the poetical condition of their time. ch. III.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 545 a thousand years — for eight hundred at any rite — have been the distinguishing characteristics of French vefse. Such changes, however, if they can be produced at all, can only be produced by a poet'; and a poet the school in question has not yet yielded, though it has produced some tolerable versifiers of their kind. no CHAPTER IV. THE MODERN DRAMA. 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, 1830 m even Balzac having attempted it, though without drama. much success, while Gautier produced at least a poetical ballet. Great part of Alfred de Vigny's work, including Chattertm, is at any rate in dramatic form, and George Sand threw much of hers into drama. The importance of Musset's theatre has already had justice done to it ; and there can of course be no question that the interest taken by Frenchmen in plays made the work, in this kind, of Hugo and Dumas not merely of capital but of preponderating importance in the Romantic crusade. Although the partisans of the two still skirmish as to the relative value of their dramatic work, it is not rash to say that posterity, judging securely, will hold Hugo a second-rate or, at best, a very uncertain playwright, who wrote magnificently, and Dumas a play- wright of extreme ingenuity, fertility, and technical skill, who was not in the least a poet, and did not write prose extraordinarily well. It may be added that, except those whose fondness for theatrical entertainments blinds them to every other consideration, no one can possibly go to the plays of either for his best work. Although Hugo's splendour and his sweetness find ample oppor- tunity in such things as the catastrophes of Hernani and of Le Rot s'amuse, yet these opportunities are attended by special tempta- tions to mere rhetoric — indeed, to a kind of bombast difficult to The Modern Drama. 547 parallel elsewhere in a poet of genius outside of the heroic plays of Dryden, And, while Dumas' ingenuity of construction, fertility of incident, and command of dialogue appear excellently in his plays, all these things are better illustrated in his novels. But to say this is not to say much more than that the mysterious curse which in England has almost entirely divorced the acted drama from litera" ture during the century has not been wholly without effect in France likewise. It has, however, had much less effect: owing partly to the greater welcome accorded in France to the drama itself, and partly to the fact, connected with this, but not absolutely identical with it, that nearly all the greatest Frenchmen of letters, as well as most of those who are not the greatest, at one time or another try the theatre. Whether the long accepted axiom, ' They order these things better in France,' applies specially to the journey- work of literature, dramatic as well as other, is perhaps a more dubious point ; but it will undoubtedly have its weight with some judgments. The most famous and successful playwrights, however, as distin- guished from the producers of literary dramas, have yet to be noticed. Pix&^court, a melodramatist and a book- minor and collector, achieved his first success with a play on the later well-known story of the Dog of Montargis (itself D'amatisf- dating back to the earliest days of the Chansons de Gestes), in 1 8 14, and followed it up with a long succession of similar pieces. One of the less famous partakers in the first Romantic movement, Bouchardy, distinguished himself, in succession to Pix^r&ourt, as a Romantic melodramatist, his most famous works being Le Sontieur de Saint Paul and Lazare le Pdtre. Eugfene Scribe, „ .^ Scribe, who had been bom in 1791, made his ddbut, as far as success goes, in 181 6, 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, sometimes in collabora- tion, to pour forth vaudevilles, dramas, and comedies, almost all of which were favourably received. Scribe was generous to his asso- ciates, and would sometimes acknowledge the communication of a bare idea by a share in. the profits of the play which it suggested. N n 2 548 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. He had also an almost unrivalled knowledge of the techniqut of the theatre, and not a little wit. But his style is loose and careless, and his dramas do not bear reading, while the poverty of his inven- tion in quality, despite its abundance in volume, and the Philistine meanness of his conceptions of life and morality, have also brought on him severe criticism. Indeed, it has not been uncommon for censors, sober enough as a rule, to see in his wide and long-con- tinued popularity an indictment against the French middle classes. On the other hand, the perfection of his adaptation of means to ends has been admitted even by those who see nothing but a 'glorified Vaudevillist' in Scribe. His most important later plays are VaUrie, 1822 ; Le Mariagt i Argent, 1827 ; Bertrand et Raton, 1833; Le Verre dEau, 1840; Une Chaine, 1841; BatailU de Dames, 1851. In 1843 a kind of reaction was supposed to be about to take place, the signs of which were the performance of the Lucrlce of Ponsard in that year, and of the Cigtu 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, Agnis de MA-anie, Charlotte Corday, L'Honmur et t Argent, showed this sufficiently. Ponsard did not write ill ; and indeed the tendency to order and measure which always forms the foundation of the average French character deserves to be credited to him as much as deficiency of imagination and inspiration deserve to be debited with his compara- tive dullness. Yet his name, though perhaps indissolubly connected with a moment in the history of literature, is never likely to be much remembered with any direct admiration for his work. M. Emile Emile Augier (1820-1889) ^^ * more remarkable and a Augier. more independent figure. In so far as he represented a protest against Romanticism at all (which he did 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 tragidie 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 inter- esting. Almost all M. Augier's dramas, such as L'Aveniuriire, Ch. IV.] The Modem Drama. 549 1849, which is his masterpiece, Galrielle, 1849, Dtane, 1852, Le Mariage atOlympe, 1855, Z< Fils de Giboyer, 1862, MaUre Guirin, 1864, and others of more recent date (the latest being Lts FourchambauU, 1878), were distinctly on the side of virtue. But the author did 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. Indeed, for some thirty years, not merely during the Empire, but until the date of the play last mentioned, he had no rivals but Dumas fils and M. Sardou in general popularity, though some critics decline to recognise the third of the trio as the equal of the other two. Augier had no command of verse, though he sometimes tried it ; in prose he is far superior to Scribe, with whom he has sometimes been classed as representing bourgeois ideals. The last charge, not urged in malam partem, is on the whole true. A remarkable if rather narrow common sense, a slight tendency to freethinking, or at least to anti-clericalism, combined with strict probity in morals, and a companion leaning to sentimentalism, which does not exclude sanity in matters of human relationship, distinguish this dramatist. Augier represents that eighteenth- century type which, on its good as well as on its bad side, was so specially congenial to the French spirit ; and he had no diflBculty in adjusting it to the affairs of his own day. About this same time (1845) when Augier made his dibut, was the date of the appearance of a fertile and successful playwright of the less exalted class, Dennery (Don Cisar de Bazan, L'Aieule). Auguste Maquet, another of the old guard of Romanticism, distin- guished 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. Octave Feuillet, who was shortly to make a great reputation for himself as a novelist, appeared on the boards with Echee et Mat. Feuillet, indeed, was a pretty con- stant practitioner on the stage, and gradually served himself heir to Musset in the delicate and interesting kind of the proverbe, not always with proverbial titles. 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 55© The Nineteenth Century. [BicV. play-writer. Soon afterwards M. Legouv^, son of the academician of the same name, and himself an academician, began to collaborate with Scribe in work of more importance {Adrienne Zecouvrtur) 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, Z« Genire de M. Poirier, 1855. Eugfene Labiche, who had been born in 181 5, distinguished EugSne himself, in 1851, by Le Chapeau de Faille dUtalie, liabiche. and in it laid the foundation of a long career of suc- cess in the lighter kind of play which, at last, conducted him to the Academy. His best-known play is Z« Voyage de M. Perrichon. The importance of Labiche (whose palmiest time was the Second Empire, and of whose innumerable pieces it would be impossible to give a Ust, and useless to make a further selection) depends very much on the i>osition which the reader is willing to assign off the stage to the peculiar kind of drama, not quite comedy and not merely farce, which the French loosely call vaudeville. Jt is certain that in France this kind of work has come nearer to literature proper than in any other country ; and there are those who assign a positively high position in literature to Labiche. It is, however, rather diflBcult for those who remember the place now held by the minor theatre of Lesage (a man of far greater genius than the author of M. Perrichon, and, like him, an expert playwright) to think that after the same time has elapsed C^limare It Bien-Aimt will be much more read than La Princesse de Cariznu. It might task the greatest expert in comparative criticism to say whether, if it is read by any one, it will give as much amusement as to some La Princesse de Carizme itself gives now. The year 1852 was memorable for the French stage, for it saw the production of La Dame aux Cam/lias, the first important play Dumas the of Alexandre Thuaas jfils (i 824-1 895). For a time Touuger. jj^ Dumas, beginning as usual, and very young, with a volume of verse, devoted himself to novel-writing, and not merely the piece above mentioned, but others of his future plays, appeared first in this form. Indeed, it was many years (from the Aveniures de Ch.iv.] The Modern Drama. 551 Q^airt Femmes et iun Perrogueioi 1 846 to the Affaire CUmtnceau of 1867, and even later) before he gave it up. Few of his novels are much read now, though the Dame aux Catnilias has kept a certain vogue, and Tristan U Roux, 1850, Diane de Lys, 1851, and a few others have their partisans. But they were all written with vigour, and had dramatic if not fictitious interest. His proper sphere, however, was the stage. Most of his plays were directed to some burning question of the social or ethical kind, and it was also his practice to re-issue them after a time, with argumentative pre- faces, in a very singular style. Diane de Lys, 1853 ; Le Demi- Monde, 1855 ; La Question d Argent, 1857 ; Le Fils Naturel, 1858 ; Le Supplice £une Femme, 1865 (nominally composed with Emile de Girardin); Les Idles de Madame Aubray, 1867; Urn Visite de Noces, 1871 ; and JJ Etranglre, 1875, are his chief works. The history of the reputation of Alexandre Dumas fils is rather curious, and it may be permitted to think that criticism has not yet said by any means the last word on it Putting aside the usual and natural mistakes about him at his dibut, when his selection of dangerous. subjects caused him to be looked upon with suspicion not merely abroad but at home, it cannot be said that for the first twenty years of his career he was taken very seriously. The ingenuity of his construction and the sparkle of his dialogue were pretty generally admitted, but he was regarded rather as a brilliant paradozer and rhetorician than as anything more. For the last twenty years, on the other hand, his reputation, though not uncon- tested, has been constantly growing; and some sober critics have been a little staggered by finding him pronounced in England ' one of the most brilliant artists in words of latter-day France' — ^in France itself, 'le plus original et puissant des auteurs comiques depuis Molifere.' These are very great words : and in presence of them the historian who has no room for argument or controversy can only state the facts, and hint that perhaps a reservation of judgment may save those who dislike violent reversals of opinion from the danger of such a reversal some day, if they are not to find themselves in flagrant discord with authorities of the future as good as those who praise M. Dumas so highly now. The strong set of recent taste towards 'psychological' literature, 'problems,' 55a The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. 'missions,' purposes, and so forth, has naturally and justly con- ciliated that taste to an author who anticipated, met, served, and did his utmost to further it. And it may be observed that the artistic qualities of M. Dumas were not fully recognised till the greatest artists of France had passed or were passing away. He well .deserves impartial study; and it is possible that such study may finally assign him a place a good deal below the surprisingly high rank with which he has recently been brevetted, but still that of a most expert and fertile playwright and active thinker, and a writer of merit not much below the first. In 1854 appeared a now forgotten work by Victorien Sardou, bom in 1831 and destined to be the favourite dramatist of the Victorien Second Empire, and to share with MM. Augier and Saxdou. Dumas fils the chief rank among the dramatists of the last half of the century. Seven years later Nos Iniimes gave him a great success, and, in 1865, La Famille Benoiton a greater, which he followed up with Nos Bom Vtllageois, 1866. Afterwards he wrote many plays, of which the finest by far, and one of the few comedies of this age likely to become classical, is the admirable Rdbagas — a satire of the keenest on the interested politicians who, in France as elsewhere, take up demagogy as a trade. Sardou attempted serious work in various plays, the best of which is, perhaps, Patrie, but it was not his forte. Satirical observation of manners, and especially of the current political and social follies of the day, is what he could do best, and in this peculiar line he had few rivals. But he is admitted to be one of the most unequal of writers. The progress of Sardou's reputation was in the opposite direction to that of the reputation of Dumas fils. He was more intimately- connected with the Empire than was his rival, and (as viewed at least from an impartial outside) he satirised more the special weaknesses of Frenchmen as such. The • problem ' treat- ment of Dumas flattered that peculiarity of mankind which endures strictures on vices when it will not bear strictures on follies ; while Sardou's Rabagas, with other work of his, is of the dangerous character touched in the saying that no man is seriously offended by being called a villain, but none will endure being shown as a fool or a snob. It is at the same time true that M. Sardou's Ch.iv.] The Modem Drama. 553 strictly literary faculties were inferior to those of Dumas and even of Augier, an inferiority which told on the success of his more serious work, such as Patrie, La Haine, and Thermidor. But it may be said with some positiveness that the not infrequent attempt to make him out a second Scribe is absurd, and that his recent unpopularity was chiefly due to the fact that he, partly by intention, partly not, brought too much home to Frenchmen the faults which had led to their great disaster. Instead of calling him a Scribe it would be much wiser to call him a Beaumarchais, partly manqui. A peculiar offspring of the Second Empire were the brilliant burlesques of Offenbach, which owed at least part of their brilliancy to the librettos composed for them by MM. Meilhac and Haldvy. The first-named of these had produced successful dramas as far back as 1859. The coUaborateurs 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 (Z« monde oil Von s'ennuie, Le Chevalier Trumeau). This may also be asserted of M. Hal^vy, who more recently, in Les Petites Cardinal and other non-dramatic sketches, showed 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. It may also perhaps be said that on MM. Hal^vy and Pailleron the reputation of France for real gaiety during the last decade and something more must chiefly rest. ' Psychology ' is not gay, and it is impossible to think that since the French endeavoured to give themselves up to it they have either equalled other nations to whom it comes more natur- ally, or have sustained their own reputation in kinds to which they themselves are naturally adapted. As for M. Gondinet, gossip represented him as for many years a sort of universal schoolmaster to bring neophytes to the understanding of theatrical practicabilities, a thing which in its way is as much a tell-tale of the present state of matters theatrical in France as other things which have been noted in the poetical department. 554 TJie Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. 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 SEschyle, 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. Theodore de Banville, who essayed 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 Copp&'s graceful Luthier de Crimont has already been mentioned. Another literary dramatist, to distinguish the class from those who are playwrights first of all, is M. Henri de Bomier, who obtained some success, in 1875, with La Fille de Roland, and, in 1880, •mihLesNocesd'Aitila, Both these are good, though not consummate, specimens of the poetical drama. That there is no division of literature so difficult to judge from the purely literary point of view as the theatre might seem self-evident if it were not that the extraordinary passion of theatrically given persons for their favourite amusement obscures vision in one direction, and that the mighty achievements of some dramatists in ancient Greece, in Elizabethan England, and its contemporary Spain, perhaps also in France about 1660 and 1830, obscure or rather distort it in another. It is an unpopular, but probably a true, judgment that the theatre does not often produce very fine hterature ; and that, when it does not, the literature which it produces ranks below almost any other, though at its very greatest — at the height certainly of the Agamemnon and Hamlet, possibly of the Vtda es sueno and Rodogune, certainly again of Tartuffe and Le Misanthrope — ^it provides hterature second to none. It would seem, after the utmost possible endeavour to adjust vision, that France, despite much theatrical practice and great theatrical opportunities during the nineteenth century, has not quite attained the highest level. Her tragedy has not gone quite deep, her comedy not quite high enough ; and from Hugo to Hal^vy the former has always had a slight tendency to become melodrama, the latter more than a slight tendency to become farce. As for ' problem ' plays of the Dumas fih kind, it is enough to say that, from the point of view in which hterature is regarded in this book, a problem as such is more Ch. IV.] The Modern Drama. 555 likely to hurt a work of art than to save it. It may be suggested indirectly; it cannot be directly discussed. If Lear had been directly a sermon on filial ingratitude and senile petulance, Othello a lecture going to prove that husband and wife should be of the same colour and age, both would have been — it is difiScult to say what, but certainly not Lear and Othello. And on the other hand even Tariuffe, even Le Misanthrope, were a litde jeopardised by the too typical and didactic development of their heroes. Perhaps the really best product of the French nineteenth-century drama is to be found, on the one hand in pure farce, on the other in the peculiar kind which Musset alone practised in perfection, and which comes nearest to the romantic comedy of Calderoh and Shakespeare. CHAPTER V. THE MODERN NOVEL. AcnvB as has been the cultivation of poetry proper and of Classes of drama, it is not likely that the nineteenth century will Wmeteenth- be principally known in French literary history either Century 35 j^ 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, con- tinued by Marivaux and still more by Provost, and maintained, though in diminished vivacity, by later writers. Of this school George Sand and Balzac are the masters, though much import- ance 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. A rival of both of these in popularity during the reign of Louis Philippe, though infinitely inferior to both in literary skill, was Eugfene Sue (i 804-1 859), a writer of immense fecundity and The Modern Novel. 557 occasionally grandiose imagination, of whose vast production Les Mysiires de Part's (1843), and Le Tuif Errant (1849), are the best-known examples. With him ij-oveUatB of may be classed another voluminous manufacturer of incident in exciting stories, Fr^d^ric Souli^, and somewhat later ^^^ "Eixex, Paul F^val, with next to them Am^dde Achard and Roger de Beauvoir. Fdval's La Fde des grives and Achard's Belle- Rose, at least, deserve occasional extrication from the limbo of dead novels that are not masterpieces. A better writer than any of these was Jules Janin, whose literary career was long and Jules prosperous, but not uniform. Janin began with a Janin. strange story, in the extremest Romantic taste, called L'Ane Mart et la Femme Gutllotine'e. 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 gravfe 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 needs remark. With Janin may be mentioned Alphonse Karr, who however was more of a journalist than of a novelist. His abundant and lively work had not perhaps the qualities of permanence. But his Veyc^e autour de mon Jardin, his Sous hs Tilleuls, and the satirical publication known as Les Guipes, deserve at least to be named. Here too may be noticed M. Barbey d'Aurdvilly, whose works critical and fictitious (the chief being probably EEnsorceUe) 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 558 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. of France. Criminal and legal subjects were great favourites with the late Emile Gaboriau, who naturalised in France the detective novel. His chief follower was Fortune du Boisgobey. The two best novelists of the generation of 1830, outside the list of masters, have yet to be noticed. These are Charles de Bernard Charles de and Jules Sandeau. Charles de Bernard (1805-1850), Bernard. whose name out of letters was Charles Bernard du Grail de la Villette, was at one time connected with Balzac, but his fashion of work is entirely different from that of his master. 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'Ecuetl, La Quaraniaine, Le Paratonnerre, Le Gendre, etc., are admirable examples of a class in which Frenchmen have always excelled. But his longer works, Gerfaut, Les Ailes Heart, Un Homme S&ieux, 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. His work, which was almost entirely produced during the reign of Louis Philippe {Gerfaut, its central and most generally popular example, appeared in 1838), had no small influence on Thackeray, and perhaps stands nearer to that novelist's than anything else in French, though it is somewhat lighter. Jules Sandeau (181 i-i 883) was a novelist of no very different Jules class, but with less wit, with much less satiric inten- Sandean. tion, and with a greater infusion of sentiment, not to say tragedy. His connection with George Sand, who partly borrowed her name from his, has been noted. He was a constant contributor to the Reoue des Deux Mondes, held public places as librarian, and entered the Academy in 1858. His best novels (the composition of which covered some forty years, from 1834 to 1873), Catherine, Mademoiselle de Penarvan, Mademoiselle de la Seigli^re, Le Bocieur Herheau, 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 con- struction (which is such that they have lent themselves in more Ch.vj The Modem Novel. 559 than one instance to theatrical adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality. Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet (1821-1890), who began, as has been mentioned, octave by oflSciating as assistant to Alexandre Dumas. His PeuiUet. first independent efforts in novel-writing, Belldh and Onesta, were of the same kind as his master's ; but they were not great suc- cesses, 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 Hun Jeune Homme Pauvre, i8g8; Sibylle, 1862; M. de Camors, 1867; /a/w de Tr/cceur, 1872 (the two last being perhaps his strongest books, though the Roman iunjeune Homme Pauvre is the most popular); La Morte, 1886; and Honneur d Artiste, 1890. 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. Some very amusing reminiscences were published by his widow a few years after his death. For some reason or other — his favour with the Second Empire (the disasters of which have been more humanly than heroically visited upon its protigis in France), his lack of connection with any literary coterie, and his conservative tendencies in religion, politics, and to a certain extent morals, may be, alleged — Feuillet, though always popular with French readers, was depre- ciated by the majority of French critics. The depreciation would have been justified if he had written nothing but books like the Roman dun Jeune Homme Pauvre, which is full of catchpenny and vulgar sentiment. But it entirely overlooks the good qualities above referred to, which occasionally rouse him to really tragic height, and constantly enable him to furnish excellent comedy. He had, as has been noted in its place, direct dramatic aptitudes, and these stood him in good stead in his novels. Henry Murger had a very original, though a somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the Parisian BoMme, 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 56o The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. scries of sketches, entided La Vie de BoMme, 1851, 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 BoMtne. Edmond About, a very lively writer, whose liveliness was not Bdmond always kept sufficiently in check by good taste, oscil- About. lated 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, 1855, and Le Roi des Montagnes, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his shorter and more familiar stories (JJ Homme h T Oreille Cass^e, 1861, 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 unwhole- some author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least (in Sylvie) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels, Fanny, 1858, 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 betook himself later to artistic criticism of the historical kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas. Younger men were Victor Cherbuliez (b. 1826), who about i860 began a very long series of novels (Z^ Comte Kostia, Le Roman dune Honnite Femme, Meta Holdenis, Samuel BroM et Gustava Cie, etc.) of remarkably varied excellence, though never Droz. quite masterpieces; and Gustave Droz with the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches entitled Monsieur, Madame et Bibi, 1866, 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. Before Ch. v.] The Modern Novel. 561 his death the author sobered down considerably, though in his last work, Tristesses et Sourires, he showed no declension of purely literary faculty. The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Havine „, , »...,,,,. ° Flaubert, a suincient income he betook himself early to litera- ture, 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 almost forty years old, he achieved at once a great success and a great scandal by his novel of Madame Bmary, 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 Trots Contes, exhibiting in miniature all the author's characteristics ; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 188 1, the unfinished Bouvard et Picuchet, an extraordinary fantasia on the theme Vanitas vanttatum, as exemplified in the successive adoption of, and disgust with, the various arts, sciences, studies, occupations, and amusements of life on the part of a couple of commonplace persons who have acquired a small independence. 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 o 56a The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. 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 lifcely to be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of those who judge literature as literature. Some time after Flaubert's death there were published a few miscellaneous works and a correspondence with George Sand, which was followed up by a much larger collection of letters to his family and friends generally. These posthumous documents, while throwing a good deal of light on his curious character, aided the eflfect of his uncommented work in exercising a very great influence on writers of the younger generation by exhibiting him as the champion, and the unflinching practitioner, of a theory of writing the most laborious ever yet formulated. The centre point of this theory may be said to be what has been called the ' doctrine of the single word'^ that is to say, the doctrine that in order to express the artist's idea, and to convey it to the reader's apprehension, there is always some phrase, and generally but one phrase, which is absolutely right, while all others are either mistakes or make- shifts ; and that as a consequence the artist is bound to hunt for this phrase till he finds it, no matter at what cost of labour and time. HiB In his entire disregard of all interests but literary literary ones, in his horror of the bourgeois and other points, position. Flaubert was less individual and more a continuator of the men of 1 830, of whom, in fact, he was much more a belated representative than he was a champion of the school which fol- lowed. It is important that this should be kept in view, because as a matter of fact Flaubert is the only member of this later school itself who can be allowed high and undoubted genius ; and, if there is in him this Romantic tendency which is not present or less present in them, the inference is too obvious to need specific drawing. Be this as it may. La Teniation de Saint Antoine is 'Ch.v.] The Modern Novel. efi^ certainly one of the greatest productions of France in fantastic literature, Madame Bovary one of her greatest productions in the department of satiric presentation of actual life. Flaubert had no poetic power, and his play, Le Candidal, is not a success, but he ranks among the very greatest of prose writers. The school just referred to, by whom the name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been not a little compromised, is the school of the so-called Naturalists, who have, according to their own account — an account The perhaps too hastily accepted — ousted Romanticism Naturalists, altogether, and established themselves as the literary leaders of the later nineteenth century. Their chiefs, all of them novelists, are or were the brothers Goncourt, M. Emile Zola, to some extent M. Alphonse Daudet, and Guy de Maupassant, too early lost. 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 2 564 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. 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. First among the champions of Naturalism — if indeed they were not, as the last survivor of them asserted, its inventors — must be mentioned the brothers Goncourt, the younger of lies Deux whom, Jules de Gonqourt, born in 1830, died in Gonooiirt. the year of the Franco-Prussian war, while the elder, Edmond,. born in 1822, survived till 1896. During the later years of the Empire, indeed during its whole course, ' les deux Goncourt' were chiefly known as enthusiastic collectors of hric- h-hrac and as art critics and art historians (especially in regard to the eighteenth century) of extreme diligence, as unsuccessful dramatists, as members of Parisian literary society, and as the producers in collaboration of certain novels [Saur Philomine, 1861; Rene'e Mauperin, 1864; Germinie Lacertmx, 1865; Madame Gervaisais, 1869), dealing for the most part with slightly 'grimy' subjects, and written in a very laboured style intended to bring the impression as vividly as possible before the reader. After the death of Jules, and the war, Edmond continued the series of novels with others {La Fille Elisa, Les Frlres Zemganno, CMrie), and at last in the year 1887 he began and continued till the eve of his death the publication of Le Journal des Goncourt. This book, being of the nature of a full and partly scandalous chronicle of Parisian literary society for forty years past, was naturally read with avidity, and will of course always remain a storehouse of information for biographers. But it is difiicult to say whether the impression which it created was made more unfavourable to the author by the singularly bad taste with which the ' sanctity of private life ' was violated, not merely in respect to dead men, but in respect to the living, or by the deplorable spectacle of literary vanity, priggish- ness, and spite, which M. de Goncourt, consciously or uncon- sciously, displayed in his own person. For literature however the pretensions of the Goncourts to have been forerunners and prime apostles of ' Naturalism ' in handling, and of a peculiarly elaborate and contorted style, are of more Ch.vj The Modern Novel. 565 importance than the moral weaknesses of both, and the social delinquencies of the elder. For many years these Their pretensions, though pretty well known, were ignored claims. or laughed at, and in the sort QicAiacle, which consisted at one time or another of themselves, Flaubert, Tourguenieff, and MM. Daudet and Zola, the brothers would certainly have been considered to hold the lowest place. As however some of the party died, and other greater French writers died likewise, the claims of M. de Goncourt for himself and his partner assumed greater proportions, and their work attracted more attention. Foreign writers and critics of the younger generations began to hear of them, to read them, to discover that Ren^e Mauperin was a great creation, and CMrie a wonderful experiment in combined observation and style. So that, when M. Edmond de Goncp.urt.died, even his not quite Swiftian bequest of the little wealth he had to endow a sort of opposition Academy did not prevent a somewhat general acknowledgement of pretensions which would have been less kindly treated earlier. In discussing such a case, it is necessary to distinguish accurately. If high value be given to mere precursorship in popular movements, or even to mere success in converting a considerable number of persons to a writer's opinions, then MM. de Goncourt may take rank accordingly. It is certain that in the Their seventh decade of the_ century very few would have position, cared to write, aiid that not many did care to read, the history of a domestic servant neither beautiful, nor virtuous, nor vicious out of the common way, nor endowed with any experience or interest of the kind generally considered attractive ; and that in the tenth decade of the same century such stories were turned out, not in France only, by scores, and are read by thousands. Then a style, the sole aim of which is to arrest the attention by epithets as unusual as possible, by convolution, contortion, stenographic or telegraphic concentration, and every device except fluent movement and harmonious rhythm, was very unpopular : and it is very popular now. But in the eyes of those who hold that facts of this kind, though most proper to be registered in a historical account, have absolutely nothing to do with a critical estimate — ^66 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. that vogue or want of vogue are alike perfectly diflferent things from nierit — the facts will not do anything towards exalting the authors of Germinie Lacerteux, the author of CMrie, or towards depressing them. The only question is, ' L'ouvrage est-il bon, ou est-il mauvais?' And to some such judgments the work of the brothers (putting aside their very valuable contributions to the history and criticism of art, and all such useful impressionist documents as Edmond's account of the Siege of Paris) is too often rather bad work,, and never very good. The tedious tyranny of the ' document' and the ' note,' the deliberate preference of disgusting subjects (which is on the face of it as inartistic as the deliberate ignoring of them), and the undigested prominence of mere observations, mere materials, supply a formidable indictment against this work in matter and spirit. But its form is perhaps worse than its matter : because in this form everything is sacrificed to the tour de force, to the avoidance of the obvious. For M. Edmond de Goncourt even Flaubert's epithets were too ' everyday,' and by the objection he at once convicted himself of not knowing that the highest literary art consists in suffusing this everyday language with the characteristics of eternity. The choice of the out-of-the-way for its own sake is in fact a confession of impotence — an evasion by the artist who cannot reach the summit on the straighter and more difScult path. Although however Messieurs de Goncourt had always regarded themselves, and had been regarded by a few others, as the chiefs of the stafif of Naturalism, there is no doubt that its early victories — or defeats — were directly due to another person, M. Emile Zola. He was much younger than either, having been born Emlle ZoU. , .„ T^-,. no longer ago than 1840 at Fans, the son of an Italian engineer. After his school days he entered the service of the great publishing and printing house of Hachette, and was led to a connection with newspapers. This produced a good deal of miscellaneous work in critical studies (partly collected under the amiable title of Mes Haines), and, which was more important, gave him opportunities for discharging his proper function, that of the novelist. The first definite results of this in book form (after Ch.v.] The Modern Novel. 567 Mysteries of Marseilles and other things of no value) were the Contes h. Ninon, 1864, than which perhaps he has never done anything better as literature. This was a collection of short tales which at intervals afterwards he continued under the same title and others. But neither these nor his critical studies, which he also continued, would have given him the notoriety he has long enjoyed. It is disputed — and it does not much matter — ^what precise influence it was that induced M. Zola to start the famous series of connected novels, ' Les Rougon-Macqiiart,' which occupied him for some quarter of a century, and gave him whatever position he holds. The theories of Taine as to literary development are chiefly credited or debited with the idea — which was to display the influence of heredity on a large family, to work out after Naturalist fashion the human tragedies or comedies which resulted, and to embody in each of the numbers the results of a special ' document '- study in some art, science, profession, business, or what not. He had preluded this with several individual novels, the best of which is probably Th^rhe Raquin, 1867. The twenty volumes of the actual series — to which sequels have been given more recently in Lourdes and Rome, attempted studies of contemporary religion — began with La Fortune des Rougon in 187 1, and after a time, especially about 1880, attained enormous sales. Even the very shorthand of critical language could not give a summary of all of them here. To select some — Le Ventre de Paris specially busied itself with the great metropolitan markets; L' Assotnmoir with the Parisian drinking-shops ; Nana with less describable public establishments; Pot-Bouille with the life of the middle classes in flats ; Au Bonheur des Dames with shops ; La Bgle Humaine with railways; Germinal with mines; La Terre with the peasantry; L'(Euvre with artists ; L' Argent with finance ; La Ddbdcle, one of the most powerful, with the catastrophe of 1870; Le Rive, the most innocent, with cathedral establishments. In every one of these M. Zola, by combining a little observation at first and second hand with a ferocious 'cramming' of text-books, endeavoured to secure that documentary exactitude which is the sine qua non of the Naturalist method. Of the minor work which accompanied 568 The Nineteenth Century, [Bk.v. the series, all that we can notice here is the remarkable collection called Les Soiries de MMan, which M. Zola wrote with certain of his disciples, and his own contribution to which, L'Attaque du Moulin, is perhaps as a whole the best thing he has done. M. Zola's method was from the first what the French call tapageur — aiming at scandal and offence; and the natural result was that for some years he was principally criticised and defended in antagonistic or partisan fashion, so that both attack and defence served as advertisement to his work, and its true character was perpetually obscured. By degrees, as the usual result of this mistaken censorship produced itself, and as death, removing men of letters of real greatness, promoted those of more dubious Criticism qualifications, he came, even in the eyes of some ofUm. who did not greatly love the characteristics of his work, to be regarded as a ' graftd homme de nos jours ' at any rate : and it may be questioned whether even yet the atmosphere has cleared itself. When it has, something like the following judgments may emerge. The System on which 'Les Rougon- Macquart' is written is radically wrOng, inasmuch as Art is not the servant but the equal of Science (whether the latter be righdy or wrongly conceived), and must discharge her own functions by her own laws. The charging and surcharging of individual works with commercial, social, professional, scientific, artistic detail is disgusting, and at its worst hopelessly dull. The unnatural grime, relieved with equally unnatural rose-pink at intervals, adds to the fault. The author, though undoubtedly possessed of strength, has no taste and no judgment, no faculty of presenting a complete character, and little of composing a really interesting plot. His style as style is vulgar, despite its vigour, and attains that vigour partly by the obvious trick of saying things, and using words which are not generally said and used in polite society. On the other hand, an athletic faculty of grappling both with schemes and details must be granted, and twice or thrice (some, adding Une Page d Amour, would say three or four times) in works not yet mentioned something better still appears. In the hapless passion and the fantastic scenery oi La Faute de tAbbd Mourel; in the real tragedy of Lajoie de Vivre, where the irony of health Ch.v,J The Modern Novel. 569 and fate opposed is brought into play; and in the best scenes of the concluding number, Le Docteur Pascal, the author entirely transcends himself — to relapse often in the same work, always in others, to his general level. And even in these, to which has to be added the opening of L'CEuvre, the arrangement and appeal of the whole are repulsive in some way or ways to good wits and tastes. It is therefore extremely improbable that M. Zola will live except by his bad side, which may be consulted more or less shamefacedly by amateurs of the disgusting. He incurs the doom which Diderot (no milk-and-water critic, and one who probably knew that what he wrote would recoil on himself) pronounced on those who meddle with tacenda; and it may be added that his handling, even when his subjects are unobjectionable, is as a rule far too inartistic to give him a chance of long life. A qualification is usually, and to a great extent rightly, set to the inclusion of M. Alphonse Daudet among the Alphonse chiefs of Naturalism. Both in his good and in his Daudet. bad points he was in the main other than they, and his con- nection with them was very mainly personal and accidental. Born at NJmes in the same year with M. Zola, he came to Paris early and had experiences in schools and public offices, publishing a volume of verse when he was but eighteen, and enjoying some success, when barely of age, at the theatre. He was not however an exceedingly young man when, in 1868 and the following year, he published the two charming books which established his reputation, and which perhaps, save in one instance, he never on sound literary principles excelled later. These were Lettres de Man Moulin, the later and better of the two, a collection of short tales and studies quite exquisite at its best, and Le PetU Chose^ a half autobiographic novel of great pathos, and, though somewhat limited and Immature, full of promise. It cannot be said whether it was natural perverseness, or Naturalist theory, which led M. Daudet, in his later, more famous, and more popular work — J(kJi, 1873; Fremeni Jeune et Risler Aini, 1874; Les Rots m Exil, 1879; Numa Roumestan, 1882; L'Evang^iste,!^^^; Sapho, 1884; L'Immortel, 1889 — to expose himself to two criticisms with which we shall deal presently. But meanwhile he had at intervals 57° The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. in Tartarin de Tarascon and its continuations embodied, as formerly in Leiires de Mm Moulin, the characteristics of his countrymen, the modem ' M^ridionaux ' of France, combining with this a faculty of universal presentation — concerning not Tarascon, not Tobolsk, not Tangier, but the world — nowhere else shown in recent French writing, and not often in any modem work. M. Daudet, who had written a good deal of personal reminiscence, was for some years after the publication of L'Immortel incapacitated from serious literary labour by ill-health, so that he published little or nothing. His elder brother Ernest has also been a prolific littirateur, and his son L6on has produced in Les Moriicoles an ugly but rather powerful naturalist study of hospital life. Of the two charges above mentioned, the first would be of little importance if M. Daudet himself or his maladroit admirers had not attempted to deny the facts. A strong tone of Dickens appears even in Le Petit Chose, but this might be accidental. The resemblances to the same author and to Thackeray \n Jack and in Froment Jeune et Rider Aini are so strong as to be practically inexplicable if M. Daudet was unacquainted with his English originals, while in one particular case, that of a passage of Froment Jeune compared with the famous jewel-scene in Vanity Fair, persuasion rises to certainty. This however is a very small matter. The other is not small. By an unlucky choice or chance, M. Daudet selected, as his province of the Naturalist document- study, the embodiment, under the most transparent disguises, of real personages and incidents in his novels. Thus Le Nabob utilizes his experiences as secretary to the Duo de Morny; Les Rots en Exit, as indeed it honestly promises, exploits the dethroned King of Naples and other luckless or graceless crowned heads; Numa Roumestan is simply Gambetta; z,ndi L'Immortel attempts to libel almost the whole personnel, at one time or another, dead or living, of the Academy. Nor is it any reply to this that the best fiction is always and must always be based on personal observation and experience. Such observation and experience do indeed furnish the material, the suggestion to be worked up and carried out .by art: but the true artist never seeks the interest — at worst base, at best factitious and vulgar — of gossip, and scandal. It is un- Ch.v.] Tke Modern Novel. 571 fortunate that there should be these objections to a writer of such charm as M. Daudet, but it is some consolation that Nemesis as usual was even with him, and made this clumsy copying an invariable hindrance rather than a help to his work. The best of this latter, outside the books already praised, is doubtless Sapho, where the 'key,' if it exists, is at any rate not ostentatiously paraded, and which is well worth contrasting with Nana as an instance of the not-vulgar and the vulgar ways of treating soiled subjects. The strongest pupil of the Naturalist school, a pupil positively stronger within his own limits than any of bis masters except Flaubert, was Guy de Maupassant, a godson and close o„y 3^ personal disciple of the author of Madame Bavary, Maupas- who was bom in 1 850 and died of general paralysis in "^*- 1893. M. de Maupassant (who was a Norman by birth and took his best scenery and figures from Normandy) first distinguished himself in three different ways about his thirtieth year, by publishing the book of verse already spoken of (a path which he did not pursue), by his preface (announcing a militant variety of Naturalist theory) to Flaubert's posthumous work, and by a contribution of extraordinary brilliancy to the joint volume of tales referred to under the head of M. Zola, Les Soirees de Mddan. This, the best short story of its kind since M^rim^e, and hardly inferior to M^rim^e himself, was followed up during the ten or twelve years in which the author enjoyed life and health by very many short stories (the best of which on the tragic side is ' Monsieur Parent,' the best on the comic ' Les Soeurs Rondoli ') and by some half dozen substantive novels, Une Vie, Bel Ami, Mont Oriol, Pierre et Jean, Fort comme la Mart, Notre Cceur. Maupassant, early developing in the above-mentioned preface, and touching up later in another to Pierre el Jean, a theory of novel and story-writing which almost excludes plot, and quite excludes any orderly conduct and completion of it, was better than his creed in his best work ; though in much of it he set the fashion of. the modem 'impressionist' fiction which simply flings an incident, a situation, a mood, unexplained and uncoordinated, at the reader's head. He, like all his group, not merely did not. 5/3 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. avoid, but deliberately sought, tabooed classes of subject : and his whole handling of life was conditioned by an apparently sincere pessimism of the extremest kind. But he had, as pessimists sometimes though not always have, the great and saving virtue of irony, the salt of literature ; of his style it is almost enough to say that the admirers of Goncourtian acrobatics regard it as jejune and commonplace, while even old-fashioned decriers of Maupassant's theories and subjects admit its sober strength and exquisite simplicity ; and last of all, as the comparison to M^rimfe will have shown, he had the rare and not easily to be defined or analyzed faculty of telling a story. His short life and abnormal circumstances make it impossible to say what be might have done : but it is noteworthy that Pierre el Jean, perhaps the last book that he wrote while quite himself, and showing his peculiar faculty of vivid presentation in scene and character, is also the most human, the most complete in plot, and the least hampered by theory of all his larger novels. Despite its defects, which are obvious enough, Maupassant's work is the strongest, and even in a way the most finished, that France has produced during the last quarter of the nineteenth century ; and no literary loss caused to her by an unfinished career during that time has been so great as that of his death. Two contemporaries (or very nearly so) of Maupassant have been more kindly treated by fate, and, beginning to write novels at very much the same time, have continued to do so more or less to the present day with a great deal of popularity. Le Mariage de •Pierre ^oli, the first Striking novel of M. Julien Viaud lioti.' (b. 1850), a French naval oflScer, had its subject sup- plied, as indeed have nearly all those which followed (Le Roman dun Spahi, Mon Frlre Yves, Madame Chrysanthlfme, lQheur\ eH Monde, &c.), by the places which he visited in his profession. Some of these books indeed can hardly be called novels at all, while the author has also put forth not a few descriptive sketches j which do not pretend to be fiction. It is in this description of places and manners, and in a curious sentimentality, that his appeal lies, and this appeal has had a very strong effect upon inany readers. To others ' Pierre Loti ' (M. Viaud's nom de guerre), Ch.v.] The Modern Novel. 573 though admittedly sometimes successful in both respects, has seemed too commonly forced in description and rancid in sentiment. M. Paul Bourget (b. 1852), a little younger than Maupassant and Pierre Loti in years, was also a little behmd them, and by more than a corresponding interval, in producing novels. He was, however, not idle, having occupied himself much with criticism. This no ^doubt helped him to develop a theory of Paul the novel, neither Romantic nor Naturalist, but, as he Bomget. called it, ' psychological,' a theory which derived to some extent from Beyle, in whose resurrection M. Bourget has been a powerful agent By this he, an excellent writer and endowed with great acuteness of thought and deUcacy of analysis, perhaps injured, as nearly all theoretical artists do, the series of problem novels which began with Cruel Enigme in 1885. Other noteworthy numbers of it are Andri Cornilis, Le Disciple, Terre Promise, Cosmopalis, the last-named being perhaps that in which M. Bourget has most successfully got theory and practice to adjust themselves. With these must be mentioned M. Anatole France, a Parnassian in his early days, a charming critic later, but in Anatole Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard, La RSHsserie de la Prance. Reine Pidauque, and others between the two and since the last, a novelist of rare character, not entirely comprehensible perhaps to the general, but of extraordinary savour and satisfaction to those who can appreciate him. Irony is one characteristic of M. France; a wide knowledge and a most skilful use of hterature another ; but the great ataaction of his work consists in its indefinable style, which is perhaps in the lighter way the best now written by any Frenchman. The novelists just mentioned are all pretty certain — though in degrees and proportion which only a very rash critic would attempt to settle with peremptory authority now — to hold a place in any future story of French literature. But it would require still greater rashness to be at all positive in selecting those of their contemporaries, older and younger, who deserve a probationary and tentative companionship with them. An exceedingly prolific novelist of the ninth and last decades of the century was the lady who called herself 'Henry Grdville,' and whose work, resembling the average work of the better English 574 ^-^^ Nineteenth Century. novelist more than is usual with French writers, faHs short rather in concentration than in diffused literary gift. Of a more personal attraction, less pleasing to the moralist but more delightful to the student of literature, is another lady who also uses a pseudonym, 'Gyp,' but who has long been well known to be Madame de Martel, great grand-niece of Mh-abeau. She, like others, owes some instruction to Gustave Droz [pide supryho was born, of a noble „ ■..T 1- -1 i TT ., • r, r^ .„ Tooqueville. Norman family, at Vemeuil, in 1805. Tocqueville was educated for the bar, and called to it after the Restoration. But after the revolution of July he exchanged his appointmeht 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 oppor- tunity of writing his second great book on the Ancien Regime. His health was, however, weak, and he died, in 1859, of con- sumption. 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. A very rapid survey must suffice for the remainder of the names m this division. A. de Barante, among numerous Minor other works of merit, is best known by a careful and historians, detailed history of the Dukes of Burgundy, which has also con- siderable merits of historical representation ; 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. Ampfere 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 weU-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, 6go The Nineteenth Century. 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 Sdgur gave a history rf the Russian campaign of Napolerai. 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. Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889), who founded a school and has been highly extolled by it, first dis- tinguished himself in 1864 by a book on La CM AnHqtte, and followed it up by other studies of 'Institutions' ancient and modem, usually learned and ingenious, but too often over- generalised. The Duke d'Aumale made something more than a mere addition to the works of ' Royal and Noble Authors ' in his History of the Princes of Cond^. 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 1 8th century and has edited the interesting memoirs of his father, the patron of Guizot. M. Ernest Lavisse, one of the best of living French historians, has also busied himself with i8th century history, especially that of Prussia. Of other recent memoirs by far the most remarkable, whether as literature or history, are those of Madame de Rdmusat, mother of Charles de R^musat, 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. INTERCHAPTER V. SUMMARY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. In drawing up a summary of Nineteenth Century Literature in France half the matter may be said to be hardly in serious dispute ; as to the other half, authorities are in some disagreement. Although from time to time paradox, sometimes youthful, sometimes not, endeavours to belittle the importance of ' 1830,' or in other words of the Romantic movement which began ten or fifteen years before that date and reached concentration if not culmination in 1830 itself, no literary historian or critic who combines seriousness with intelligence has ever denied that the first half of the century is emphatically and for all time identified with that movement in France. We have seen already, and it is not necessary to recapitu- late at any great length, what it was, what it did, and who took part in it. We have seen that it was above all things, though it was also a process of innovation in some ways and reaction in others, a process of simple expansion — that the entirely arbitrary and unnatural swaddling-bands -which had been imposed on French literature in the century preceding (partly because the chief activity of the nation was then occupied in other ways, and latterly because there was a notaWe dearth of literary genius) were burst and thrown away. We have seen how it led to an immense development and variety in strictly poetic producticMi, how it completely re- organised drama, created almost entirely new kinds of novel, found vent in the most remarkable critical literature that had yet been seen, and in varying ways, but with the same general spirit, impressed itself upon all departments of literature. In the course of this process of expansion the language received very large positive 6oa Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. accretions as well as new uses and fashions ; and these accretions, which naturally have more effect upon prose than on poetry, have altered French prose even more decidedly than the verse and the drama to which the movement at first addressed itself. It will also have been seen that one main result of the movement was to assimi- late French much more to other languages and other literatures than had hitherto been the case. The French i8th century had indeed by no means entirely neglected foreign literatures; and it had even bestowed especial attention upon English. But there had always been a feehng, tacit or expressed, that France had nothing to learn from any other nation in point of literary form. Now the Romantics went for subjects, for styles, for literary kinds as well as for words, and, as far as they dared, for prosody, to England and Spain, to Germany and Italy, and even to the Straits q{ Malacca. More than half the preceding book, however, is only an exposition of these things at such length as was possible, and it need not be repeated save in the shortest but exactest of summaries. The Romantic movement immensely strengthened French poetry, pro- duced French prose at its best of a higher and more varied kind than had ever been known, lowered the excellence of average prose in perhaps an almost compensating degree, widely enlarged the range of kinds open to the practitioner, but left him much more dependent on his individual genius, and less able, by observing con- secrated rules, to turn out work of a certain average perfection in the kinds commonly attempted. So far there is no difference of opinion, or none that requires more serious attention than is due to such statements as that ^Hugo n'existe pas,' or that Gautier is an obsolete curiosity of literature. But in regard to the second half of the century, and to the literary characteristics of it, there is more difference of competent and expert opinion. It ie not uncommon to hold not merely that about the close of the reign of Louis Philippe or the begiiming of the Empire the original force of Romanticism proper was spent, but that a distinct reaction of the kind later known as Naturalism set in, with the tendency championed by Taine and others to materialism instead of idealism in philosophy, and to ' psychological,' Stimmary of Nineteenth Century Literature. 603 • realist/ and other forms of actual observation in poetry, drama, and fiction : the representatives of this being in different ways Flaubert, Baudelaire, the Goncourts, Dumas fits, and even, in so far as his careful depicting of foreign countries went, Gautier. And those who hold this would write 'Naturalism' as the ticket of 1860-19.00, allowing ' Romanticism ' to be that of 1820-1860. In reply to this several things have to be observed. First, that the- unquestioned leader of French literature till his death so recently as 1885 was Victor Hugo, and that although there might be the usual attempts at revolt there was no real rej^ection of his influence, which was to the last Romantic and purely Romantic. Secondly, that the greatest man of letters of the second generation, Flaubert, though claimed by Realists and Naturalists, and though himself indulging in some scoffs at the men of 1830, is admitted by almost all good critics to be Romantic to the core. Thirdly, that in all the so-called Naturalists the best part of their work is not due to any resilie?lce from Romantic principles, but the reverse. There is, however,, a stronger and more decisive consideration than any of these, and this is that all characteristics of the literature of the second half of the century which are of the slightest import- ance were present in the first. They were present as part of that revolt against classical rules and conventions which formed the ■ most characteristic part of Romanticism itself, and of which there has been no reversal. The worst tendencies of Naturalism as well as the best, the preference for garbage as well as the observation of nature, the pessimism and the preciousness, the analysis and the psychology, are present in 1830 as in i88o^ Only — and this is where the opportunity of fallacy undoubtedly comes in — what had been in the earlier time part of the general revolt, of the general search for something new and free and unconventional took in these special respects during th© later a more distinct character of theory and • pose.' To which it may be added that as the genial force of the century died down (and such a dying down can hardly be denied in the second generation as compared to the. first, much less in the third as compared to the second) theory, pose, exaggeration, systematised eccentricity, became more and more necessary to supply what was lacking. 6o4 Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. At any rate — whether it be preferred to divide the time sharply between Romanticism and Naturalism, or rather to see in the Naturalist ^ide, whidi is far from being the whole, of the later production, a debased, exaggerated, and distorted form of Roman- ticism itself — there can be but little hesitation in declaring that the force of Naturalism itself is spent, and that nothing has obviously taken its place in the shape of a dominant movement supported by imposing idiosyncrasies. If we look at the literary performance of the last years of the 19th century, we shall see, as we might perhaps also see in other countries, a good deal of estimable talent, but hardly any genius of the first class. Even those whose standards are so curiously adjusted as to see such genius in M> Zda must admit that for years that writer has simply repeated himself, that he is at least not farther than he was in 1880. In general novel- writing, which has succeeded the drama as the most popular and paying variety of literature, there are reputations but no fame ; even those who saw in M. Dumas fih a power of the first order see none in the dramatists he left behind him ; poetry is admittedly at a lower ebb now than it has been for some eighty years ; even those who thought M. de Goncourt great cannot deny that M. de Goncourt is dead ; Taine has left no historian, and perhaps '(if his was philosc^hy) no philosopher, Renan no rhetorician behind who can pretend to vie with either. Only criticism, which, though by no means (as its enemies assert) one of those parasites that only or chiefly flourish on dead organisms, is undoubtedly independent of flourishing hfe in its subjects, can be said to have a really vigorous existence now, unless we take in some nondescript and episodic phenomena of letters such as are wont to be most noticeable when there is not much vitality in the older and more recognised growths. And in the very character of the criticism of the day we note something of that day's peculiarity. For criticism in the creative periods, though it usually exists, is always militant ] and its militancy is either of the strongly aggressive or the vehemently defensive character in principle. It has something to destroy or something still better to recommend. But this is not the case with French criticism at the close of the 19th century. M. Brunetifere indeed had his campaign, and a stout and victorious one, against Naturalism : Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. 605 but the fight was half won before the battle was fought, and Natu- ralism is already a thing of yesterday in so far as it could claim to have any to-morrow. And its enemy, though he has not forgotten his swashing blow, has accordingly in the main fallen back uppn simple study— only controversial in so far as he himself is a person of controversial temperament, and as all literary subjects are in kind controversial likewise. M. Faguet is a student almost pure and simple : he has no special literary doctrine to urge, but only what he thinks to be special literary merits or defects to bring out. The less systematic criticism of men like MM. France and Lemaitre tells the same tale even more plainly. It may sometimes feel itself called upon to snuff out individual incompetence, or to laugh, sharply or amiably according to temper, at individual folly, bad taste, igno- rance, pretension. But it has no principles to proclaim, and hardly any to. oppose. It talks about its subjects, or about other things ; sometimes excellently well, sometimes less well. But it seldom even attempts to produce conviction, and generally does not seem very much disposed even to express it. These symptoms are the symptoms, if literary diagnosis is possible at all, of ebb-tide, or of the interval between ebb and flood in literature. It is no business of the literary historian, though it may be an allowable, healthful, and agreeable exercise for the literary critic, to attempt to prophesy the length of that interval or the period when the tide will again flow. It is the business of the literary historian to record the facts. And, while those facts, as far as the history of the century goes, have been pointed out to the best of this historian*s ability, he is also entitled to point out that, in more than the lact that we have already witnessed the close of a chronological period, there are at least strong signs of our being near to the end of a literary one. That literary period ^ has been fruitful as few have been, and more full of incident and achievement than almost any other of the same length in France. To some extent and in some kinds — especially poetry, criticism, and prose fiction — it has altered for the greater and better, not merely the total achievement of French, but 1; ' A somewhat full summary of it will be found in Blackwoois Magazint for January, 1895, under the title of ' The End of a Chapter.' 6o6 Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. its relative position as regards other languages and literatures. It has been hinted, both in this place and elsewhere, that in some respects, in some of the qualifications which in the concluding chapter will be specified as peculiar to the literature as a whole, there has not been quite the same effect — that France in gaining exotic gifts has perhaps allowed her domestic and patrimonial estate in literature to remain a little unimproved, even to go a little to waste. But the :gains have far exceeded the losses ; the balance is altogether to credit ; and the period may go to rest with the full consciousness of having done its duty. It is not at all impos- sible that in the immediate or at least the near future there may be something of a return to that comparative unity of European litera- ture, that absence of sharp national divisions, which existed to some extent in the Middle Ages, and was interrupted, partly by ecclesiastical, partly by political causes, at and after the Renaissance. But so long as the separate national literary productions of separate centuries are regarded by themselves, the French literature of the 19th century will have one of the most distinct places among them, and one not Im '&om the liighest. 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 litera- ture. In the inter-chapters some attempt has been made to sum iip 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 ■generalismg 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 re- quired, if only fear 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, asnd 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 about the year i8zQ or earlier, would not have found his results ludicrously falsified by the event but few years afterwards. But this drawback only applies to general- isation 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, takmg all conditions together, it is the most complete 6o8 Conclusion. example of a regularly and independently developed national litera- ture 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 exposi- tory 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 exception- ally 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 influ- ence classical models had on the original forms of literature in France, how completely German and Celtic contributions of sub- ject were assimilated, how the Proven9al 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 Pldiade reforms, reduced to harmlessness the Rhdtoriqueur innovations and the simul- taneous danger of Italianising. The criticism of Malherbe, harm- ful in some ways, served as a counterpoise to the danger of Spanish influence which was considerable in the early years of the seven- teenth 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 miTapxtta of French may be seen by turning from its general accom- plishments at different times to its particular forms. No one of Conclusion. 609 these was direcdy 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 resist- ance 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 R r 6io. Conclusion. 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 Mid 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 Renais- sance 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 sohriefy. 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 contribu- tions of matter which France received so abundantly from other nations are always toned and sobered by her in their literary form- ation. 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'Aven- tures, 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 exagger- ated attributes. A continual spirit of criticism exhibits itself Conclusion. 6\ i throughout French literature; it always, as represented by its most numerous and on the whc^e most famous representatives, tends to order, to measure, to symmetry. The next characteristic is abundant and almost superabundant wit. The terms wit and hiunour 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 rsure exceptions (Aristophanes and Lucian being almost the only ones of importance); in scarcely any other modem 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 dways distinguished French. At the present time, despite the great advance made by other literatures and a certain falling oiF 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 R r 2 6 1 3. Conclusion. of organised and almost scientific development of the possibilities of art. The wonderful fertility with which the early Trouvbres handled and re-handled the motives of the Arthurian and Carlovin- gian legends has been noticed ; and, as a very diflferent but comple- mentary 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 depart- ment 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 wha 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 'probitd attach^e k son g^nie '* 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 corol- laries 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 sufiiced to make French, as far as general usefulness and interest go, the best vehicle of ex- pression 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 Conclusion. 613 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 colour- less 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 harmonioiis 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 elaborat« 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 diffi- culties 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 ca:lled 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 Aeschylms, 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 con- ception of poetry which corresponds to the English channel. 6i4 Conclusion. Inexhaustibly inventive, full of criticism of Kfe, a master of har- monious 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. ' 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 Fas de Calais, completes this. The twelfth century adds to these earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the subjects and varies the maimer of epic verse, and begins the compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St. Denis and of Villehardouin, and the prose ro- mances of the Arthurian cycle. All this literature is so far con- nected purely with the knightly and priestly orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by classes of men, trouvferes 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 canh'letia, Breton lais, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain pattern and model in Latin and for the most part eccle- ^ The courtesy of Messrs. A. and C. Black allows me to repeat the following passage from an article of mine in the Encyclopaedia BritannUa. For this repetition I may borrow from a better writer than myself the excuse that a man canaot say exactly the same thing in two different sets of words so as to please himself, or perhaps others. Conclusion. 6ik siastical 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 bom. 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 develop- ment The language itself has shaken off all its youthful incapa- cities, and, though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modem 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 TMophile, the Roman de la Rose with the Roman du Renarl. 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 eradition, are all represented and repre- sented 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 fabu- lists. 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- 6i6 Conclusion, lifeless travesties. The brilliant colouring of Froissart, and the graceful science of ballade- and rondea'u-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'Orl^ans by his natural grace and the virtue of the forms he used, emerges from the mass of writers. Through- out the fifteenth century the process of enriching or at least in- creasing the vocabulary goes on, but as yet no organising hand appears to direct the process. Villon stands alone in merit as m 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 rUtoriqueurs 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 Pldiade 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 VCTse 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 deter- mine 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 faultiess 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 Conclusion. 6iy 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 diflBculty 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 the whole of two generations, and, though at the close of the second its force may appear to be ^ent, the results remain, and no new movement of real importance is visible, and the efforts of the Romantics them- selves 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 litera- ture excels that of any European nation, though for individual 6i8 Conclusion. 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 suflScient time has elapsed — to the levjel 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 MoU^re 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 reaUy great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those im- perfect 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. INDEX. About, Edmond (1828-1885), nove- list and jotunalist, 560. Academic influences, 458,^ 478-480. ciiticism, 530. Academic Fian9aise, 306, 326, 339, 476-480. Actors, societies of, 100, loi. Adalbert, St., 3. Adam, mystery of, 89. Adam de la Hsdle (13th cent.), trou- Tire and dramatist, 56, 57, 93. Adenis le Roi (13th cent.), tronv^ie, 19 note I, 74, 75. Adolescence Cttmentine, 146. Adolphe, 407. Aguessean, H. F. d' (1668-1751), orator, 429, 452. Aissi, Mile. (1693-1733), letter-writer, 417. Alba, 28. Alberic of Besan;on (12th c$nt.), poet, 24. Albigensian War, Chronicle of, 26. Alembert, Jean le Rond d (1717- 1783), encyclopaedist, 391, 434, 453, 455, 471. Alexander of Bemay (i2tli cent), tronvfere, 37. Alexandrines, 61, 62, 185, 272. Alexis, Vie de Saint, 8 note. Aliscans, 15, 19. Alixandre, Chanson eP, 36. Allainval, Leonor J. C. Sonlas d' (1700-1753), dramatis^ 384. Almanack de nos Grands Hommes, 438- Alzire, 380. Amadas et Idohte, 78. Amadis of Gaul, 209, 291, 292. Amants Magnifiques, 284. Amerval, Eloy d' (isth cent.), poet, 144. Amts et Amtles, 11, I3-I5i ^9> "°- story of, 13. Amphitryon, 284. Amyot, Jacques (1513-1594), trans- lator, 204-206, 218, 242. Ancien Thl&tre Franfais, 95 seqq. Anciennes Po(sies Fran^aises, 153, 154. Andrieux, Fran9ois G. J. S. (1759- i833),dramatistandpoet,375,386. Andromoque, 274. Andremide, 270. Antioche, Chanson (f, 16, 35, 40, 80. Antiquitis de Rome, 175. Antony, 508. Apologie pour Hirodote, 138, 166. ArgensoD, Ren6 Louis de Voyer, Marquis d' (1694-1757), memoir- writer, 414. Amauld, A. (1612-1694), Port Royal- ist, 309. 3io> 346- Arnault, A. V. (1766-1834), poet and fabulist, 375. Arthur, 30. tale of, its origins, 30, 123. Arthukian Romances, 30-36, 38 note. Arthurian cycle, French order of, 31, 78. Romances,, spirit and literary value of, 34- comedy of, 40. Arvers, Felix (1806-1851), poet, 526. Asseneth, 120. Assises de Jerusalem, wl. Assonance, 10, 23. Astrh, 291. Athalie, 274, 275, 277. Aubignac, Fran9ois Hjdelin, Abb^ d' (1604-1676), dramatist, novelist, and Clitic, 265, 294 note. Anbign^, Agrippa d' (1550-1630), poet and historian, 184, 185, 225, 226, 229. Aucassin et Nicolette, 77, 120. Andefroy le Bastard (lath cent.), trouvfere, 52. Angler, E. (1820-1889), dramatist, 548, S49- 620 Index. Anlnoy, Marie C, Comtesse d' (d. 1720), tale-teller, 300. Antran, Joseph (1813-1875'), poet and dramatist, 554. Balf, Jean Antoine de (1533-1592% poet, 168, 170, 177, 178, 182, 198. — Lazare de (?-i647), trandator, 191. Balada, 28. Ballade, 82. Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis, ISO- Balzac, Honor^ de (i 799-1 850), no- velist, 510-S12, 515. Balzac, Jean Guez de (1594^1655), essayist and letter-writer, 327,328. Banville,Th. de (b. 1820), poet, 534, 535, 554. Barbey d'Anr^villy, J. (b. 1808), mis- cellaneons writer, 557. Barbier, Auguste (1805-1882), poet, Barbier de Shnlle, 524. Barlaam and Josaphdt, 65. Baron (1643-1729), comic writer and actor, 289. •Bartas, Guillaume de Saluste 'da (1544-159°). poet. 183, 184. Barth^Iemy, Louis, Abb6 (i 750-1812), scholar, 399. Bassompierre, Franjois, Mar^chal de, memoir-writer, 309. Bastart de Bouillon, 16, 80. Saude, Henri (1430-1495), poet, 135. Baudelaire, C. (i8ai-i866), poet and critic, 531-534- Bdtidouin de Seiowc, 16, 80. Bayle, P. (1647-1706), philosoj)her and encyclopaedist, 347. Beanmarchais, CaroB de (1731-1799), dramatist, 385. Bttisaire, 430. Bellay, Guillaume (1491-1543) and Martin (?-i559) du, memoir- miters, 228. Bellay, Joachim du (1524-1560), poet, 174-176, 179, 180, 191, 242. Belleau, Remy (1528-1577), poet, 176, 198. ' ■Belloy, Bnrette de (1727-1775), dra- matist, 380. Benedictine students, 475. Benoist de Sainte More (11 54-1 189), trouv^re and chronicler, 37, 38, 62. Benserade, Isaac de(i6i2-i69i), poet, 250. B^ranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857), poet, 482-484. Bergerac, Cyrano de (1620-1655), dramatic and novelist, 280, 296. Bergier, Nicolas Sylvestre (1718- 1790), theologian, 432. Berlioz, H. (1803-1869), miscellaneons writer, 586. Bernard, C. de (1805-1850), novelist, 558- B&oalde de Verville (1558-1612), tale-teller, 166. Bersuire, Pierre (1290-1352), trans- lator, 116. Bettant, Jean (1553-1611), poet, 187, 310- Berte aus grans PUs, 17, 75. Berlin, Antoine (1752-1 790), poet, 373, Bertrand, L. (1807-1841), poet, 527. Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of (1660-1734), memoir-writer, 316. B&enval, Pierre Vidtor, Baron de (1722-1791), memoir-writer, 414. Bestiaries, 65, 118. Beyle, Henri (1783-1842), novelist and critic, 490-492. Beza, Theodore (1519-1605), dra- matist and translator, 190, 203. Bible, 64. Bihliothipie des Romans, 21, 474. Bichat,M.F.X.(i77i-i8o2), scientific writer, 473. Billaut, A. (1600-1662), poet, 252. Blanc, L. (1813-1883), historian, 599. Blancandin et FOrguWeuse cC Amour, 77. Blandin de Comoalha, 26. Blason, 182. Blasph(mateurs, 99. Blonde ^Oxford, 79. Blot (1610-1655), port, 250. Bodel, Jean (b. 1269]), tronvire, 36, 56, 73, 89. Bodin, Jean (1530-1596), laviryer, 220. Boethius, Provenjal poem on, 24, 25. Beetle, Etienne de la (1530-1563), poet and political writer, 181, 214, 215, 221. Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), poet and critic, 256-259. Boisrobert, F. Le Metel de (1592-1662), poet and dramatist, 250. Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Index. 621 Vicomte de (1754-1840), political writer, 470. Bordign^, Charles de (i6th cent.), poet, 143- Borel, P. (1809-1859), poet and novelist, 526. Bomier, H. de (b. 1825), dramatist, 654- Borron, Robert and H^lie de (12th and 13th cent.), 31, 3»- Bossnet, Jacques Benigne (1627^1704), theologian and preacher, 352- 355- Bouchardy, Joseph (1810-1870), dramatist, 547. Bouchet, Guillaume (d. 1607), tale- teller, 166. Bouchet, Jehan (1476-1555), historian and poet, 143, 144, 166. Bouciqualt, Jean le Maigre (d. 142 1), memoir-writer, 86. Bougainville, Louis Antoine de (i 729- l8ll), traveller, 474, Bouilhet, L. (1821-1872), poet, 537. Boulainvilliers, Henri de (1658-1722), historian and political writer, 410. Bourdaloue, Lonis (163,2-1704), theo- logian, 359. Bourgeois Centilhomme,. 284. Bourgot, Paul (b. 1852), novelist, 573. Boursault, Edme (1638-1708), drama- tist, 287. Bradamante, 196. Brant6me, Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbe de (1540-1614), memoir-writer, 221-224. Brebenf, Guillaume de (1618-1661), poet, 259. Brienne, Comte de (17th cent.), memoir-writer, 311. Brizeux, Auguste (1803-1858), poet, 525- Brodeau, Victor (1470-1540), poet, 149. Brosses, Ch. de (1709-1777), mis- cellanist, 475. Brueys, D. A. de (1640-1725), drama- tist, 289. Brun de la Montaigne, 74, 77. Branetiire, F., critic (b. 1849), 582. Brunetto Latini (12 20-1 294), scholar, 118, 124. Brieves de Commarchis, 75. Bulfon, George Lewis Leclerc, Count de (1707-1788), naturalist, 471. Bugjargal, 498. Buttet, Claude • (i6th cent.), poet, 181. Cabanis, J. P. G. (1757-1808), scien- tific writer, 473. Calmet, Dom Augustin (1672-1757), biblical historian, 412. Calvin, Jean (1509-1564), theologian, 201-203. Campistron (1656-1737), dramatist, 279, 288. Candide, 395, Canso, 28. Cantilenae, 6, 51. Caractires of La Bruyfere, 337. Carloix, Vincent (16th cent.), memoir- writer, 226. Carte de Tendre, 293. Cassel, glossary of, 3. Castelnau, Michel de (1500-1592), memoir-writer, 229. Castoiement d'un Fire d, son Fils, 66. Caylus, Madame de (1673-1729), memoir-writer, 316. Cazotte,Jacques(i720-i792), novelist, 398. Cinacle, the, 508, 519. Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, 121, 163, 255- Chamfort, N. (1741-1794), moralist and critic, 437, 438. Champcenetz (1759-1794), journalist, etc., 436, 437. Champier, Symphorien (1472-1535), poet, 143. Chanson, 54, 483. Chanson dAlixandre, 36, 38. Chanson c[ Amour, 54. Chanson de Soland, argument of, 1 1. Chanson des Albigeois, 27. Chansonnettes, 54. Chansons de Gestes, 2, 5, 6, 9-21, 33. 36. 39. 42, 61, 62, 80. Chanson des Rues et des Bois, 501. Chansons du XV""' Siicle, 138. Chapelain, Jean (1595-1674), poet, 25i> 257, 273. 321. Chapelle, C. E. L. (1626-1686), poet, 250. Chardry (13th cent.), tronvire, 65. Charlemagne h Constantinople, Voyage de, 17. Charlemagne in Chansons, 12, 13, IS, 18. 6aa Index. Chaileval, C. J. L. Fancon de Ris, seigneur de (i6i 2-1693), poet, 250. Charroide Nimes, le, 15. ChaiTon, Pierre (i 541-1603), moralist and theologian, 219, 220. Cbartier, Alain (1390-1458), poet, 82, 85, 86, 117, 137, 141, 242. Chasles, P. L. (1798-1873), critic, 582. Chassignet, J. B. (1578-1620), poet, 348. Chastellain, Georges (1403-1475), chronicler, no, 121, 136. Chateanbiiand, Fran9ois Attguste de (1768-1848), novelist and luis- cellaneous writer, 401, 402. ChStillon, A. de (1810-1884), poet, 526. Chaulien, Abbi de (i639-i72o),poet, 260. Chanssee, Nivelle de la (1692-1754), dramatic poet, 383, 387. Chef itcBuvrt Inconnu, 511. ChSnedolW, C. de (1769-1833), poet, 376, 440. Chenier, Andre Manede (1762-1794), poet, 374, 375. Chenier, Marie Joseph (1764-18 11), poet, critic, and journalist, 373, 375, 493- Cherbuliez, V. (b. 1832), novelist, 560. Chetifs, 16. ChtvcU de F»st^ 75. ChevalerieOgierdeZ)anemarc7ie,la,i6, Chevalier i, la Charrette, 33, 34. Chevalier as Deux Espies, 78. Chevalier au Cygne, 16, 80. Chevalier au Lyon, 33, 34. Chivalry, spirit of, 25, 34. Choli^res, Sieur de (i6th cent), 166. Chrestien de Troyes (d. t. H95), trou- v^re, 33, 34, 36. Chrestien, Florent (1541-1596), trans- lator and political writer, 232. Christ, Passion du, go. Chronique de du Guesclin, 61. Chronique de Messire Jacqzee de La- laing, 121. Chronique des Quatre Premiers Valois, 107. Chronique de Rains, 106. Chronique du Rigne de Charles IX, 515- Chronique scandaleuse of Jean de Troyes, 112. Chroniques of Froissart, 108. Croniques, Grandes et Inestimables, du Grant et Mnorme Giant Gar- gantua, 157. Chroniques of Jean Lebel, 107, 108, 109, Chute dun Ange, 485. Cinna, 269. Cinq Mars, 522. Clan, Robert de (12th cent.), chroni- cler, 106. Claude, Jean (1619-1687), theologian, 351- Claveret (17th cent.), dramatist, 265. Cl4lie, 293. Cliomadis, 75. Cliop&tre, drama, 191, 193, 196, 198. Cleop&tre, novel, 279, 293. Cliveland, 394. Cligis, 34. Clitandre, 267, 269. Codes and Legal Treatises, 117. ColW, Charles (1709-1783), poet, dra- matist, and memoir-writer, 376. Collerye, Roger de (i6th cent.), 142, 143- Colletet, G. (1598-1659), poet, 250, Collin d'HarleviUe, J. F. (1755-1806), comic poet and dramatist, 386. Combat des Trente, 61. Comidie des Academistes, 280 note. Comidie des Chansons, 280. Comidie des Comidiens, 280. Comidie des Comidies, 280. Comidie des Proverbes, 280. Comidie Italienne, 378. Comedie Larmoyante, 383. Comines, Philippe de {c. 1447-1511), memoir-writer, 131-1331 Commedia dell' arte, 280. Commedia erudita, 280. Compire Mathieu, 400. Comte, A. (1796-1851), philosopher, 589- Comtesse de Ponthieu, 1 20. Condamnation de Banquet, 99, 190. Cond^, B. and J. de (14th cent.), trouvferes, 64. Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de {1715- 1780), philosopher, 467. Condorcet, Jean ^toine Nicolas de Caritat (1743-1794), economist and philosopher, 463. Confession dun Enfant du Slide, 520. Index. 6^3 Confession du Vicaire Savoyard, 459. Confessions, 397, 457, 458, 459, 460. Coafr^rie de la Passion (licensed, 1402), 100. Conjuration de Fiesgtu, 306, 312. Conjuration des Espagnols centre V-enise, 307. Conquite de Constantinobk, 104, 105, 107. Con spiration de Wal^ ein, 306. Utician and n0TeI ist,4O4,4 o7, 459. Consueh, 513. ' Contes Drolatiques, 512, 515. Contes d^Espagne et d'ltalie, 519. Contes dEutrapel, 165. Contes etjoyeux i)evis, 165. Conies oi'Lx Fontaine, 253, 254, 255, 356. Contrat Social, 458, 459. Contreditz du Sengecreux, 142. Contre-un, 221. Conversation du Pire Canaye, 333. Coppee, F. (b. 1842), poet, 539, 554. Coq-WAne, 146, 149, 170. Coqnillart, Gnillanme (?i42i-i5io), poet, 134, 135, 136. Coran, Ch. (b. 1814), poet, 537. Corinne, 404, 405. Comeille, Pierre (1606-1684), poet and dramatist, 267-272. Comeille, Thomas (1625-1706), dra- matist, 278, 288. Corrozet, Gilles (1510-1568), poet and fabnlist, 150. Cottin, Madame (1773-1807), novel- ist, 406, 407. Coney, Ch^telain de (13th cent.), poet, 55- — Mathieu de (15th cent.), chronicler, III. Courier, Paul Lonis (1772-1825), translator and political pamphlet- eer, 441, 482. Couronnement Lovs, 15. Cousin, Victor (1792-1868), philoso- pher, 488-490. Convin, Watriquet de (14th cent), trouvfere, 64. Crebillon the Elder, C. Jolyot de (i 674-1 763), dramatist, 379, 380. Cribillon the Younger, C. P. Jolyot de (1707-1778), novelist, 398. Cretin, Guillaume (d. 1525), poet, 137, 138, 144, 181, 242. Crispin, Rival de son Malire, 382. Cromwell, 498. Cnvier, G. C. (1769-1832), naturalist, 473- Cygne, Chevalier au, 16, 25, 80. Cymbalum Mundi, 162, 163, 220. Dacier, Madame (1654-1720), 339 note. Dames Galantes, 223. Dancourt, F. C. (1661-1725), dra- matist, 289. Dangeau, Ph. de Courcillon, Marquis de (1638-1720), memoir-writer, 317- Daniel, 89. Daniel, P4re (1649-1728), historian, 3o6- Daphnis et Chlol, 205. Dassoucy, C. Coypeau (1605-1674), miscellanist, 296. Daubenton, Louis Jean Marie (1716- 1800), naturalist, 472. Daudet, A. (b. 1 84o),novelist, 569-5 7 1 . Daurat, Jean (f. 1507-1588), poet, 168, 170, 175, 178, 183. Daurel et Beton, 19 note 2. Difense et Illustration de la Langue Franfaise, 170, 178. Deffand, Madame du (1697-1780), letter- writer, 417, 418. Definition of Chansons de Geste, 10. De VAllemagne, 404, 405. De t Amour, 491. De VFglise GcUlicarte, 468. De t Esprit, 465. De V Homme, 465. Delavigne, Casimir (1793-1843), poet and dramatist, 493. Delille, Jacques (1758-1813), poet, 372, 479- Denis Pyramus (13th cent), poet, 77. Ddpit Amoureux, 281, 282. Desaugiers, M. A. M. (1772-1827), poet, 376. Descartes, Rene (1596-1650), philoso- pher, 340-346. Deschamps, Emile (1795-1871). Poet, 538- Deschamps, Eustache (1328-1415), poet, 82, 84. Descort, 27. Dfisfontaines, P. F. Guizot (1685- 1745). <:n'><=>43'. 433- 624 Index. Deshouli^res, Madame (1638-1694), poetess, 260. Desmahis, J. F. E. (1722-1761), dra- matist, 385. Desorgnes, J. T. (i 763-1808), poet, 373. Des P^riers, B. (1500-1544), tale- teller, 150, i6z, 163. Desportes, Philippe (1546-1606), poet, 186, 187. Destonches, P. H. (i 680-1 754), dra- matist, 383. Deux Bordeors Ribaux, 42. DMn du Village, 385. Diable Amoureux, 398. Diabh Boiteux, 389, 390. Dialects, 5, 114. — and Provincial Literatures, 5. Dictionnaire de Trivoux, iijl. Diderot, Denis (1713-1784), encyclo- psedist, 383, 396, 421, 434, 463, 454- Discours de la Methode, 342, 344, 345. Dits and Debats, 42, 63, 64, 85, 93, 95, 96- Dive Bouteille, 159, 161. Dolet, Etienne (i5o?-i544)> poet, translator, and printer, 150, 206, 307, 242. Dolopathos, 44, 77. Doon de Mayence, 17. Dorat, C. J. (1734-1780), poet, 376. Doublet, Jean (i6tli gent.), poet, i8j. Dovalle, Ch. (1807-1829), poet, 525. Droz, G. (b. 1832), novelist, 560. Dubos, Jean Baptiste (1670-1742),. historian, 410. Dn Cange, see Dufresne. Ducis, J. F. (1733-1816), poet and dramatist, 381. Dnclos, Charles Pinaud (1704-1772), historian and moralist, 395, 414, 429. Dufresne, Charles (Dn Cange) (1614- 1688), historian, scholar, 325. Dufresny, Charles Eiviire (1648- 1724), dramatist, 287, 288, 289, 448. Duguay-Trouin, Ren6 (1673-1736), memoir- writer, 317. Dulaurens, Henii Joseph (1719-1797), satirist and novelist, 400. Dumas the Elder, Alexandre (i8o6- 1870), dramatist and novelist, 508-510, 518, 527. Dumas the Younger, Alexandre (1824- 1 895), dramatist and novelist, 550. Dupanloup, F. A. P. (1802-1878), theologian, 591. Du Pap, 468. Du Perron, Cardinal (155(5-1618), poet and controversialist, 203, 248. Duplessis-Momay (1549-1623), con- troversialist, 203, 2;21. Dupont, P. (1821-1870), poeti 537. Durant, G. (i55°-i6i5), poet, 232. Dnras, Madame de (1778-1829), novelist, 406. D'UrK, Honors (1567-17,25), novelist, 291. Durmart le Gallois, 78. Du Ryer, Pierre (1605-1658), drama- tists, 265. Eastern stories in Early French litera- ture, 44. Ecole des Femmes, 283, S^ole des Maris, 283. Emaux et Cam(es, 518. ■Mmile, 397, 458. Encyclopaedia, 452. Enfances Godefroy, l5. Enfances Ogier, 75. Enfants sans Souci, loi. ' lijambement,' 76, 499. Epinay, Madame d' (1725-1783), memoir- writer, 415. Erckmann-Chatrian, novelists, 557. Erec et Enide, 34. Esprit des Lois, 448, 449. ' Esprit Gaulois,' 40, 154, 235. Esquisse des Progris de I'Esprit Humain, 463. Essais of Montaigne, 214, 215, 326, 337. 344- Essai sur les Mceurs, 411. Essai sur les Rignes de Claude et de Niron, 413, 454. Essai sur t Indiffirence en matiire de Religion', 487. Essai sur I'Origine des Connoissances Humaines, 467. Essayists, historical, 308. Estienne, Henri (1528-1598), scholar, 138, 166, 209. Estr^es, F. A. d' (17th cent.), memoir- writer, 309. Estula, 44. £tourdi, 281, 282. Index. poe*. 150, 154. Fontaines, Madame de (d. 1730), novelist, 391. Fontanes, L. de (1757-1821), poet, 375i 44°- S Fontaney, A. C. (i 803-1 837), poet and critic, 526. Fontenay-Mareuil, F. Duval de (1595- 1647), memoir- writer, 308. Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de (1657-1757), miscellaneous wri- ter, 425. Forbin, C. de (i6s6-l733)t memoir- writer, 317. France, Anatole (b. 1844), poet, novel- ist, and critic, 538, 573, 583. Fr&on, Elie Catherine (1719-1776), journalist, 432, 446. Froissart, Jean (1337-1410), historian and poet, 82, 84, 85, 108-110. Fromentin, Eugene (1820-1S76), no- velist and critic, 586. Furetiire, Antoine (1620-1688), novel- ist and miscellaneous writer, 297. Gaborian, E. (1835-1873), novelist, 558- Gace BruU (13th cent), poet, 56. Galerie du PeUais, 269. '^> Galiani, Abbe (1681-1 753), economist and letter-writer, 422, 462. Gamon, Achille (i6th cent.), memoir- writer, 229. Ganelon, 12, 13, 17. Garat, D. J. (1749-1833), journalist, etc., 436, 437. Gargantua, 157-159. Garin le Loherain, 16. Gamier, Robert (1545-f. 1601), dra- matist, 196, 197. Gaspard de la Nuit, 533. Gassendi (1592-1655), Neo-Epicnieaa philosopher, 347. Gautier, Thiophile (181 1-1872), poet, critic, and novelist, 516-518, 521, 524- Gaymar, Geoffrey (b. 1149), chroni- cler, 62. Gazetteers, the rhyming, 261. Gtniedu Ckristianisme, 401, 403. Genlis, Madame de (1746-1830), no- velist, 406, 415. Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th cent.), historian, 30 seqq. Gerard de Roussillon, 16. Girard de Viane, 17. Gerson, Jean Charlier de (1363-1439), theologian, 114, 115. Gemzez, E. (1799-1865), critic/?8l. Gesta Romanorum, 44. 6a6 Index. Geste, Meaning of, 9 note i. Gi^lee, Jacquemart (13th cent), poet, 47- Gilbert, N. J. L. (1751-1780), poet, 373- Gil Bias, 383, 389, 390. Gillot, Jacques (i6th cent.), political writer, 232. Ginguene, P. L. (1748-1816), critic, etc., 436. Girardin, Madame de (1804-1855), dramatist, 549. Girartz de Rossilho, f.% 24, 35. Giron U Courists, 32, 35. Glatigny, A., pojt, 538. Globe, 497. GUrieux, 383. Godeau, A. (i'6d5-i67j), poet, 250. Golden Violet, etc., 28, 29. Gombaud, J. Ogier de (1570-1666), poet, 248. Gomberville, Marin le Roy Seigneur de (1600-1647), poet and novel- ist, 250, 294. Goncourt, E. and J. de, miscellaneous writers, 564-566. Gourrille, Jean Hiranlt de (d. 1703), memoir-writer, 315. Graal, the Holy, Chapter vr.,fassim. Grammont, Mar^chal de, and his family, literary work of, 316. Grandes Chroniqtus dc France, 104, 106, 107. Grand Cyrus, 293. Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, 448. Grands Capitaines, 222. Grands Jours d'Auvergne, 361. Gratien du Pont (i6th cent.), poet, 144. Great St. Graal, 31. Greban, Amoul and Simon (15th cent.), dramatists, 93. Gresset, J. B. L. (1709-1777), poet and dramatist, 371, 3S4. Grevin, J. (1540-1570), dramatist and poet, 182, 195. Grimm, F. M. (1723-1807), miscel- lanist, 417. Gringore, Pierre (1478-1544), poet and dramatist, 141, 188, 189. Grandeur, 289, Gu^n&, Antoine (1717-1803), contro- versialist, 432, 446. Guiart, Guillaume (13th cent.), chro- nicler, 62. Guillaume dt Palemt, 11. Guise, Fran9ois, Duke of (1519-1563), memoir-writer, 229. — Henri, Duke of (1614-1663), me- moir-writer, 316. Guizot, F. P. G. (1787-1874), hU- torian, etc., 595. Gnttinguer, U. (1785-1866), poet, 494. Guyot de Provins, tronvfere, 56, 64. — or Kyot, author of Proven9al Fercevale, trouvire, 26. Habert,Fran9ois(iS20-i56a or 1574), poet, 150. — Philippe (1605-1637), poet, 150. Haillan, du (1537-1610), historian, 230. HaUvy, L. (b. 1834), dramatist and novelist, 553. Hamilton, Anthony (1640-1720), poet and tale-teller, 260, 300. Han d'Islande, 498. Hardy, Alexandre (1560-1631), dra- matist, 264. Helgaire, Bp., 3 note a. Helv^tins, Claude Adrien (1715- 1771), philosopher, 465. Henanlt, E. J. F., President (1685- 1770), lawyer, etc., 415. Henriade, 368, 370, 371. Henri de Valenciennes (12 th cent.), chronicler, 105. Heptameren, 163-165. Hiraclius, 27°. Herberay des Essartg, Nicolas (d, i5S°)i translator, 209, 210. ffernani, 496, 498, 499. Heroet, Antoine (d. 1568), poet, 151. Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules, 317, Histoire Ancienne, 410. Histoire Comique de Francion, 296, 297. Histoire det Anarchic dePologne, 413. Histoire de Port Royal, 505. Histoire Litt&aire de la France, 474. Histoire des Indes, 412. Histoire des Oracles, 426. Histoire des Variations des &glisa Protestantes, 353. Historia Britonum, 30 note. Historiettes of Tallemant des R^anx, 363- Holbach, P. H. Thiiy Baron d' (1723- ilic)), phihsophe, 466, 473. Index. 627 Horace, aSg. Hotman, Franjoia (1524-1593), 330. Hngo, Victor Marie (1803-18851, pbet, noYelist, and dramatist, 497-504. Huguts Capet, ly. Hngnes de Rotelande, tronvire, 38. Huon de Bordeaux, 15, 17. Hnon de Mery (i 3th cent), trouvfere, id. lamies (Barbier), 524. lamhes (Chenier), 375. Illusion comique, 267, 269. Impromptu de Versailles, 283. litis de Castro, 378. Institution Chritienne, aoi, 202. Iphiginie, 275. Itinhaire de Paris hjirusalem, 402, 403- Jacques de Lalaing, 121. Jacques le Fataliste, 396, 400. Jalousie du Barbouilli, 282, 284. Jamyn, Amadis (1530-1585), poet, 176, 181, 186. Janin, J. (i 804-1 874), novelist and critic, 557. Jargon, 139. Jaufri, 26. Jean de Ttiim (13th cent.), trouvere, 120. Jetnnin, Pierre (1546-1622), diplo- matist, 228. Jehan de Paris, 155 note. jfei du Prince des Sots et de Mire Sotte, 99, 188. Jen parti, 54. Joconde, 255. JodeDe, Etienne (1532-1573), drama- tist and poet, 178, 191-194, 197. Joinville, Jean de (1224-1 31 9), chro- nicler, 106, 107. Joly, Clande (1607-1700), and Gny (17th cent.), memoir-writers, 312. Jonah, Book of, 4. Joubert, Joseph (1754-1824), pensie- , writer, 439-441. foufrois de Poitiers, 79. Jourdains de Blaiiiies, 15, 17. Juives, 197. Julie, 458. Jta de la Feuillie, 93. Jiivenal des Ursins, Jean (1350-1431), chionicler, iii, 112. s s Karr, A. (b. i8oi), novelist and jour- nalist, 557. KrQdener, Madame de (i 764-1824), novelist, 406. Lab^, Lonise (1526-1566), poetess, 151, 152, 180, 260, 494. Labiche, E. (b. 1815), dramatist, 550. La Boetie, Etienne de (1530-1563), poet, etc., i8i, 214, 221. La Borderie (i6th cent.), poet, 151. La Bruy^re, Jean de (1645-1696), novelist, 336-339- La CalprenMe, Gauthier de Coste, Seigneur de (1610-1653), novel- ist, 293. La Chatre, E. de (17th cent.), memoir- writer, 311, 315. La Chaussee, Nivelle de (1692-1754), dramatist, 383, 387. La Condamine, C. M. de (1701-1774), scientific writer, 473. Lacordaire, J. B. H. (1802-1861), journalist and preacher, 590. Lacretelle, C. J. D. (1766-1855), his- torian, 436, 437. La Fare, Marquis de (1644-1713), poet, 260. La Fayette, Madame de (1634-1693), novelist, 394, 297-299, 334, 391. La Fontaine, Jean (1631-1697), poet and dramatist, 252-256. Lafosse, A. de (1653-1 708), dramatist, 279. Lagrange-Chancel, F. J. de (1677- 1758), -poet, 369. La Harpe, J. F. de (1739-1803), dra- matist and critic, 431, 437, 440. Lais, 6> 59. 8i- La Jacquerie, 515. La Ligende des Siicles, 500, 501. La Marche, O. de la (15th cent.), chronicler, 110. Lamartine, Alphonse Prat de (1791- 1869), poet, historian, and novel- ist, 484-487- Lambert (/»' Cors"), 12th cent., trouvere, 37- Lamennais, Fflicite Robert de (1782- 1854), theologian and journalist, 487, 488. La Mettrie, J. O. de (i709-l7S7). philosopher, 465. La Morte Amoureuse, 518. 6a8 Index. La Mothe le Vayer, F. de (1588- 1672), moralist, etc., 347. La Motte, Antoine Houdart de (1673- 1731), dramatist and critic, 437, 429. Lancelot du Lac, 32, 34, 35, 36. Lanfrey, P.(i82 8-1877), historian, 600. Langne d'Oc, 4, 22, 23. Langue d'Oil, 4, 22. C Annie Terrible, 501. La None, F. de (1651-1691), memoir- writer, 235. — J. B. Saav£ (1701-1761), dramatist, 385- La Nouvelle Hiloise, 397, 460. La Ferase, Jean de (i6th cent.)) poet, 181, 195. Lapidaries, 118. Laprade, V. de (1812-1887), poet, 535. La Princesse de Clhies, 298. Larivey, Pierre (b. c. 1540), comic author, 198, 199. La Rochefoucauld, Fran9ois de Mar- cillac, Duke de (1613-1680),-, moralist and memoir-writer, 298, 299. 334-336. ' La Salle,__A. de (1398-1460?), ro- mance-writer, 120-122, 134, 128, 155. La Taille, Jacques de (1541-1563), poet and dramatist, 182, 195. La Taillp, Jean de (1540-1608', poet and dramatist, 183, 195, 198. Latin to French, relation of, 1-3. Latin Literature, influence of, on Early French, ^. La Tour Landry, Chevalier de (14th cent.), moralist, 115, 116. L'Avare, 284. Laws of William the Conqueror, 1 1 7. League, preachers of the, 204. Le Bel Incimnu, 78. Lebel, Jean (14th cent.), chronicler, 107, 108. Lebrun, Esconchard (1739-1807), poet, 372-373- Le Capitaine Fracasse, 518. Le Cid, 269, 477. I^conte de Lisle, C. M. R. (1820- 1894), poet, 536. L Ecossaist, 263, 433. Leger, St., Life of, 4. Legislation Primitive, 470. Legouvi, G. M. J. G. (1764-1812), poet and dramatist, 381. Legouv^, Ernest (b. 1807), dramatist, 55°- Le Houx, Jean (d. 1616), poet, 252. Le Lipreux de la Citi d'Aoste, 406. VEmpereur Constant, 130. Le Roi Flore et la belU Jehanne, no. Le Maire de Beiges, J. (I476'i548)i poet and historian, 141, 207. Lemattre, Jules (b. 1853), critic, 584, 585- Lemercier, N. (1771-1840), poet and dramatist, 375, 381, 386. Lemierre, A. M. (1723-1793), poet, 371- Lenient, C. F. (b. 1826), critic, 582. Leroy, P. (i6th cent.), publicist, 233, Lesage, Alain Ren^ (1668-1747), novelist and dramatist, 381, 386, 389. 39°- Les Chdtiments, 500, 517. Les Contemplations, 500. Les Contemporaines, 400, Lescurel, Jehannot de (14th cent.), poet, 82, 83. 'Les Misirables, 501. I^es Quatre Vents de VEsprit, 501. Lespinasse, Mademoiselle de (1732- 1776), letter-writer, 418. Les Saisnes, 1 7. L'Estoile, Pierre de (i6th cent.), me- moir-writer, 237. Lettres de Quelqties Juifs, 432. Lettres du Sipulcre, 117. Lettres Persanes, 447, 448. Lettres Portugaises, 417. Le Vavasseur, L. G. (b. 18 19), poet, , 537- L ffomme-Machine, 465. V Homme qui Pit, 501. L'Hospital, Michel de (1505-1573), 221. Lingua romana rustica, 2, 113. L'lsle, C. J. Rouget de (i 760-1 836), poet, 377 note. Literature proper, beginning of, 6. Littre, E. (1801-1881), positivist and philologist, 587, 589, 591. Livre des Cent Ballades, 87. Livre des fails du Marlchal de Bouci- qualt. III. Livres de raison, 118. Loret, J. (d. 1665), poet and gazetteer, 261. Lorris, William of (13th cent.), trou- vere, 67, 71. Index. 629 Lutrin, 357, 258. Lyrics, origins of, 51. Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de (1709- I ?8s), historian and publicist, 413. Macaire, 17. Maceite, 240. Machault, Guillanme de {c. 1284- 1377). poet, 82, 83, 84. Mademoiselle, La Grande, see Mont- pensier. Magny, Olivier de (d. 1560), poet, 179, 180. Mahomet, 380. Maillard, Olivier (1440-1502), preach- er, 138. Maimboorg.L. (1610-1688), historian, .305- Maintenon, Madame de (1635-1719), letter-writer, 295. Mairet, Jean (1604-1686), dramatist, 265. Maistre, Joseph Marie de (1753-1821), philosopher and politii^ Vfriter, 468, 487. Maistre, Xavier de (1763-1852), no- velist, 406. Malade Imaginaire, 285, 287. Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715), philosopher, 349, 350. Malfilatre, J. C. L. de Clinchamp, (1733-1767). poet. 373- Malherbe, Fran9ois de (1555-1628), poet, 246-248. school of, 248. Manekine, 78, 79. Manon Lescaut, 388, 394. Mantel Mautaillii, 43. Map, Walter (12th cent.), prose romancer, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 103. Maqaet, A. (i 813-1888), dramatist and novelist, 509, 527, 549. Marguerite d'AngoulSme, Queen of Navarre (1492-1549), poetess and tale-teller, 150, 162, 163. Marguerite de Valols, Queen of Navarre and France (i 553-161 5), memoir-writer, 226. Marguerites de la Marguerite des . Princesses, 150, 164. Mariage de Figaro, 385. Mariamne, 364, 265. Marianne, 392, 395. Marie de France (13th cent.), poetess, 47. £0. 69- S 5 Marigny, J. Carpentier de (17th cent.), poet, 250. Marillac, M. de (1573-1632), memoir- writer, 308. 'Marivaudage,' 384, 392, 407, 425. Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de (.1688- 1763). novelist and dramatist, ,, 384. 391. 393, 395- Marmonfel, Jean Fran9ois (1733- 1799), dramatist, critic, etc., 385, 399. 430, 44°- Marot, Clement {c. 1497-1544), poet, 144-149, 181, 241. school of, 149-152. Marot, Jean (1463-1523), poet, 137. Martial d'Auvergne (c. 1420-1508), poet, 135, 136. Martin, H. (1810-1887), historian, 600. Mascaron, Jean (1634-1703), preacher, 361. Massillon, Jean Baptiste (1663-1742), preacher, 358, 360. Maucroix, F. de (1619-1708), poet, 250. Maupassant, G. de, poet and novelist, 644. 671- Manpertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de (1698-1759), mathematician and physicist, 473. Maynard.Jean (1582-1646), poet, 248. Mamrinades, 295, 305, 323. Midecin malgrilui, 284. Midecin Volant, 282. Midie, 267, 269. Meditations (Descartes), 342. .MW8&<«o«f(Lamartine), 484, 485,496. Milite, 266, 267, 269. Mimoires de Grammont, 300. Mimoires d' Outre-Tombe, 402. Menage, G. de (I613-1692), scholar, 321, 339 note. Mdnippie, Satyre, 231-236, 243, 330. Menot, Michel (1440-1518"), preacher, 138. Menieur, 269, 271, 280. Menteur, Suite du, 269. Meon, Dominique Martin (1748- 1829), scholar, 474. Miraugis de Portlesguez, 66, 76. Mercure Galant, 288. Mercuriales (D'Aguesseau), 429. M^rimfe, Prosper (1803-1870), novel- ist, historian, and miscellaneous writer,407,5i4-5i6,5i8,52i,S38. 3 630 Index. Merlin, 32. Mirofe, 380. M^ry, J. (1798-1866), poet and novel- ist 5»5- Meschinot, Jean (1415 or 1420-1491 or 1509), poet, 137. Messlniennes, 493. Mitromanie, 376, 383. Menng, Jean de (13th cent.), political writer and poet, 67, 69, 71. Mezeray, Fran9ois Eudes de (1610- 1683), historian, 305, 306. Michel, Francisque (1809-1888), scholar, 13. Michel, Jean (d. 1495), mystery-wxiter, 90. Michelet, Jules (1798-1874), histo- rian, etc., 582, 596-597. Micromigas, 395. Mignardists Amoureuses de VAdmirie, 180. Mignet, F. (b. 1796), historian, 596. Millevoye, C. (1782-1816), poet, 494. Miracles de la Vierge, 89, 92. Misanthrope, 282, 284, 290. Moise Sauvi, 251. Molifere, J. B. Poquelin (1622-1673), dramatist, 281-287. his comedy, 290. ^ Molinet, Jehau (d. 1507), poet and chronicler, 137, 141. Montage Guillaume, 15. Monnier, H. (1799-1877), novelist and miscellaneous writer, 587. Monologue, 94. Monologue du Gendarme Cassl, 35. Monselet, C. (1829-1888), miscella- neous writer, 587. Monstrelet, Enguerrand de {c. 1390- 1453), chronicler, no. Montaigne, Michel Eyqnem, Sienr de (1533-1592). 213-219- Montalembert, C. F. de (1810-1870), historian and political writer, 487, 590. Montchrestien, Antoine de (d.-i62i), dramatist, 263. Montigut, E. (b. 1826), critic, 580. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de (1689-1755), political philosopher, 447-450. Montfleury, A. J. (1640-1685), actor and dramatist, 2S7. Montluc, Blaise de (1502-1577), me- moir-writer, 224, 225. Montpensier, A. M. L. de (La Grande Mademoiselle), (1627-1693), me- moir-writer, 313. Monuments, Early, 3-5. Moralitides Enfansde Maintenant, 98. Moralities, 98, 188, 189, 190. Moreau,H^gesippe(i8io-i838), poet, 5^5- Morellet, Andr^ F. (1727-181:9), critic and economist, 462. Mort Artus, 32, 35. Mo7-t de Pompie, 269. MotteviUe, Madame de (1612-1689), memoir-writer, 310. MouskJs, Philippe (12 15-1283), chro- nicler, 62. Moyen de Parvenir, 166. Mummolinus, St., bishop of Noyon, 3. "3- Mundus, caro, datmonia, 99, 190. Murger, H. (1822-1861), novelist, 559. Muset, Colin (13th cent.), trouvere, 56. 57- ' Musset, Alfred de (1810-1857), poet, novelist, and dramatist, 519-521, 528, 541, 546. Mysteries and Miracle Plays, 89-93, 125, 188, 190. Mystire de Saint Louis, 188, 189. Mystire du Viel Testament, 90, 91. Mystery of Adam, 89. Nadaud, G. (1820-1893), poet, 537. Naimes, Duke, 12, 18. Nangis, Guillaume de (b. 1302), his- torian, 106. Nanine, 385. Naturalism and naturalists, 563. Nemouis, Marie de (1625-1707), me- moir-writer, 310. Nennius (9th cent.), chronicler, 30, 31. Nerval, Gerard de (1805-1857), poet and novelist, 516, 524."" Neveu de Rameau, 397. Newspapers, 435-437- Newspapers of the Revolution, 435. Nicholas of Troyes (i6th cent.), novel' ist, 162. Nicole, P. (1625-1695), 323, 346. Nicomlde, 270. Nisard, D. (1806-1888), critic, 581. Nobla Leycion, 28. Nodier, Charles (1780-1844), miscel- laneous writer, 492. Index. 631 Noel du Fail (1520-1591), tale-teller, 165. Norma, 493. Notre Dame de Paris, 498, 499. Nouvelles Ricriations etjoyeux Devis, 163. Ohermann, 443. Odes et Ballades, 49^. (Edipe (Comeille), 268, 270. — (Voltaire), 370, 378, 380. OisiveUs de M. de Vauban, 461. Old French Literature, revival of study of, 587. , Oratsons Funibres, 361. Oresme, Nicholas (1348-1382), trans- lator, 116. OrientaUs, 498, 506. Origins, The, 1-8. of Chansons de Gestes, 10. Orleans, Charles d' (1391-1465), poet, 82, 86, 87, 148. Ossat, Cardinal S (i 536-1604), letter-vfriter, 227, 228. Ozanam, F. (1813-1853), critic and historian, 590. Pailleron, E. (b. 1834), dramatist, 553. Falaprat, Jean (1650-1721), dramatic author, 289. Palissot de Montenoy, Charles (1730- 1814), dramatist and critic, 433. Palissy, Bernard (f. 1510-1589), potter and scientific writer, 210. Palma-Cayet, P. V. (1525-1610), his- torian, 227. Panard, C. F. (1694-1765), poet, 376, 483- Panhypocnsiade, 375. Fawtagruel, 157, 158, 165, 167, 207, 235. 291. Pantagrueline Prognostication, 159. Pare, Amboise (c. 1510-1590), sur- geon, 211. Paris, Paulin (1800-1881), literary historian, 6, 21, 55, 587. — Gaston (b. 1839), Hterary historian, 587. Parmentier, Jean (1494-1530), poet, 144. Pamasse, the, and Parnassien School, 536, 537. 538. Parny, Evariste de (1753-1814), poet, 373. Paroles d'un Croyant, 488. Partenopex de Blois, 77. Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662), moralist, 328, 332. Pasquier, Etienne (1529-1665^, legist and antiquary, 208, 209. Passerat, Jean (1534-1662), poet, 182, 232. 235- Passion, mystery of the, 90. Pastonrelle, 28, 52, 53, 54, 81, 93. Pathelin, 95, 121. Patru, O. (1604-1681), lawyer, etc., 339 note. Paul et Virginie, 399. Paulmy, A. R. deVoyer d'Argenson, Marquis de (1722-1787), his- torian and bibliographer, 474. Pavilion, E. (1632-1705), poet, 251. Peau de Chagrin, 512. Pidant JouS, 280, 296. Pellisson, P. (1624-1693), historian, 306. Pensies (Joubert), 440. Pensies (Pascal), 329, 331, 346. Perceforest, 120. Percevale, 26, 32-34, 36, 74, 76. P&efixe, Hardonin de Beaumont de (1605-1671), historian, 305. Period of Composition of Chansons de Gestes, 11. Perrault, Charles (1628-1703), fairy- tale-writer, 300. Perrot d'Ablancourt (1606-1664), translator, 339 note. Pertharite, 370. Petit, Jean (1360-1411), theologian and publicist, 114, 122. Petit Jean de Saintri, 121, 122. Peyrat, N. (' Napol le Pyr&een'), poet, 527. Phidre, 275, 278. Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beau- manoir (13th cent.), poet and jurisconsult, 78, 118. Philosophe movement, Bk. iv. Ch. ii.-vi. /flW2»«. 'Philosophe,' I7th-cent. meaning of the word, 347 note. Pibrac, Guy du Faur de (15 29-1584), poet, 182. Pierre de Saint Cloud (13th cent.), trouvfere, 45. Pigault, Lebrun (1753-1835), novelist and dramatist, 406. Piron, J. (1690-1773), poet and dra- matist, 376, 377, 382, 383. 63a Index. Pisan, Christine de (1363-1420), poetess, 70, 82, 85, 86, iii, 117. Pithou, P. (1539-1596), lawyer and satirist, 232, 234. Pix^r^court, R. C. G. de (1773-1844), dramatist, 547. Plaideurs, 275. Planche, G. (1808-1857), critic, 582. Planh, 27. Pleiade, the, 147, 148, 151, 168, 169, 176, 179, 195, 197, 198, 208, 217, 226, 232, 237, 243, 244, 247, 249, 250, 264, 276, 343, 364. Political economists, 461. ' Politiques,' 232, 234. ■Polo, Marco (1256-1323), Venetian traveller, 119. Polonius, Jean (ILabenski) (1790- 1855). poet, 495. Polyeucte, 269, 272. Pompignan, Le Franc de (1709-1784), poet, 371, 380. Fonsard, F. (1824-1867), dramatist, 548- Fontalais, Jehan du (isth cent), poet, 142. Pontchartrain, P. Phflypeaux de (i 566- 1621), memoir-writer, 308. Pontis, L. de (b. 1583), memoir- writer, 309. Port Royal, 346. Pradon, N. (1632-1698), dramatist, 279- Pricieuses Ridicules, a8i, 282, 285, 287, 29.2. Presles, Raoul de (1314-1383), trans- lator, 116, 117. Provost, Abb^ (i697-i763)» novelist, 393) 395. 424- Prise dAlexandrie, 83. Prise d' Orange, 15. ' Prophets' (the) of Christ, 88. Propos Rtistigues, 165. Prose, general use of, 113. PRovENfAL Literature, 22-29. range and characteristics of, 23, 52; periods of, 24 ; First, 24, Second, 25, Third, 27. Proven9al to French, relation of, 28. Provinciates, 329, 330, 346. Frudhomme, Sully (b. 1839), Poet, 539. Psyche (romance), 285. Psyche (opera), 270. Pucelle, Chapelain's, 251. — Voltaire's, 371. Pukhirie, 270. Pyrame et Thisbi, 265. Fyramus, Denis, 77. Quatre Fils Aymon, 17. Quesnay, Fran9ois (1694-1774), sur- geon and economist, 461. Quesnes de Bethune (d. 1224), trou- v^re, 55, 56. Quest of the Saint Graal, 32, 35, 74. Quinault (1638-1688), dramatist, 279, 287. Quinet, E. (1803-1875), historian, etc., 582, 596. 598- Quinujoyesdu Mariage, 121. Rabelais, Fraufois (1495-1553)1 156- 162, 207, 211, 213. his followers, 125, 126, 127. Rabutin, Fran9ois de (d. 1852), me- moir-writer, 229. Rabutin, R. de Bussy (1618-1693), memoir-writer, 317. Racan, Marquis de (1589-1670), poet, 248. Racine, Jean (1639-1699), dramatist, 273-278. — Louis (1692-1763), poet, 369, 370. Raoul de Cambrai, 16, 19. Raoul de Houdenc (13th cent.), poet, 66, 74, 76. Rapin, Nicolas (1535-1608), poet and miscellaneous writer, 182, 232, 235. 239- — de Thoyras, P. (i 661-1 725), histo- rian, 306. Rapports de Physique et de Monde, 473. Raulin (1443-1514), preacher, 138. Raynal, G. I. F. (17 13-1 796), his- torian, 412, ^ Reboul, Jean (1796-1864), poet, 495. Recherche de la VSriti, 349. Recherches de la France, 208. Refrains, 53, 54. Regnard, Jean (1656-1710), dramatist, 288. Regnier,.Mathurin (1573-1613), poet and satirist, 236-241. Reichenau, glossary of, 3. Relation of French to Latin, I, 2. R^musat, Madame de (1780-1821), memoir and letter-writer,4i6,6oo. — Ch. A. de (1797-J875), philo- sophical and miscellaneous writer^ 497, 588. Index. 633 Renaissance, the, Bk. ii. French, 248, 279. course and result of, 242, 245. period ai, 127, 128, 140, 168, 169, 279. forerunners of, 128. prose-writers of, 200. French, as compared with Italian, "4. 379. late disenchantment of, 213. and Middle Ages, 127, 474. Renan, E. (1823-1892), historian and critic, 591-593. Retiart, Couronnement de, 47. Smart U Contrefait, 48, 49. Renart It Nowoel, 47, 48. Rtnart, Ancien, 45, 46. Rmaut dt Montanban, 17. Rent, 403. Repues Franches, 129. Restif de La Bretonne, N. (i 734-1 806), novelist, 400. Retroensa, 28. Retz, Cardinal de (1614-1679), me- moir-writer, 306, 311, 312. Revolution, memoirs of the, 415, 416. Revue des Deux Mondes, 519, 526, 558. Reynard the Fox, 45-49. ' lUietoriqueurs,' 87, 136-138, I4I. Riccoboni, Madame (1713-1793), novelist, 394. Richelieu, Alphonse Louis du Plessis (1585-1642), memoir-writer, 309. and file Academy, 476, 477. Duke de (1696-1788), memoir- writer (?), 415. Richepin, J., poet and novelist, 544. Rivarol, A. de (1750-1801), journalist ; and moralist, 438. Rivet de la Grange, Dom Antoine (1683-1649), Benedictine and savant, 474. Robert de.Borron (12th cent.), trou- vire, 31, 32, 34, 35. Robertet, F. (d. 1522', letter-writer, 137. Robin et Marion, 93. Rodogune, 268, 269, 271, 272. Rohan, Henri de (1579-1638), memoir- writer, 308. Roland, Chanson de, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15, 18. history, argument, etc., 11-13. Rollin, Charles (i66i-i74i),historian, 409. Roman Bourgeois, 297. Roman Comiqtie, 280. Roman de Brut, 62. Roman de Dolopathos, 77. Roman des Eles, 66, 76. Romak dEnias, 38. . Roman de Jules Cisar, 38, 119. Roman de VEscouffle, 78. Roman de la Poire, 71. Roman de la Rose, 63, 67-71, 77, 85, 98, "5. 137* 145. 146, 240. Roman de Rou, 62. Roman des Sept Sages, 44, 119. Roman de Thibes, 38. Roman de Troie, 37, 38. Roman du Chevalier as Deux Espees, 78. Roman du Renart, 44-50, 63, 474. Romans d Aventures, 36, 73-80, 209. Romana Lingua, 2, 3. Romance, Picaroon, 294. Romance Tongue, 3, Romances, Arthurian, 34. Romances, Heroic, 292. Romamen und Pastourellen, 52-54. Rondeau and Rondel, 28, 82, 135, 137. Ronsard, Pierre de (1524-1585), poet, 238, 247, 249. Rossilho, Girartz de, 19, 20, 24, 25. Rotrou, Jean de (1609-1660), drama- tist, 265, 267, 272. Roucher, J. F. (i 745-1794). Poet. 372- Rousseau, Jean Baptiste (1669-1741), poet, 368, 372, 385, 479, 485. Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), novelist an&j^hilqsophe, 397, 403, 405. 456=4607^ Rulhiere, C. C. de (i 735-1791), his- torian, etc., 408, 412. Rusticien of Pisa, 119. Ruteboeuf (b. 1230), trouvere, 57-59, 58, 64, 89. Sagon, Francois (i6th cent.), poet, 149. Saint-Aldegonde, Mamix de (i6th cent.), polemical writer, 203. Saint- Amant, M. A. de (i 594-1661), poet, 251, 252. Saint-Bernard, sermons of, 114. Saint-Evremond, Charles de Margue- tel de St. Denis, Seigneur de (1610-1703), moralist and critic, 30<5, 315. 336, 347. 348, 476. 634 Index. Saint-Gelais, O. de (1466-1502), poet, nl, 153. 153- Mellin de (1491-1558), poet, 149. Saint- Guillaume da Disert, Miracle Flay of, 91, 93. Saint-Lambert (i 71 7-1803), poet, 371, 479- Saint-Louis, 251. Saint-Marc Girardin (1801-1873), critic, 583. Saint-Favin, S. de (1600-1670), poet, 2S»- Saint-Pierre, C. F. Castel, Kbhi de (1 658-1 743), political writer, 461 . Saint-Fierre, J. H.Bemaidin de(i737- 1814), novelist, 399, 485. Saint-R6al, C^sar Vichard, AbW de (1631-1692), historian, 307. Saint-Simon, Louis de Kouvroy, Duke de (1675-175S), memoir-writer, 317-320. Saint- Victor, P. de (1827-1883), critic, 576- Sainte-Benve, Charles Augnstin (1804 -1869); critic, 171, 407, 436, 502, „ 504-507, 575, 579, Sainte-Palaye, La Cnme de (1697- 1781), philologist, 474. Saisnes, 17. Salel, Hugnes if. 1504-1553), poet and translator, 150, 182, 207. Sales, Fraii9ois de (1567-1635), de- votional writer, 351. Saliat, Flerre (i6th cent.), translator, 206. Salut d' Amour, 54. Sand, George (A. L. A. Dupin, Ma- dame Dudevant, 1804-1876), no- velist, 443, 512-514, 521. Sandeau, J. (1811-1883), novelist and dramatist, 512, 550, 558. Sarcey, F. (b. 1828), critic, 576. Sardou, V. (b. 1831), dramatist, 552, 553- Sarrasin, J. (1605-1654), poet and historian, 350, 306. Satyre Minippie, 231-236. Sancourt, ballad of, 7. Saurin, Bernard Joseph (1709-1781), poet and dramatist, 380, 384, 385. Saurin, Jacques (167 7-1 703), preacher, "361. Scarron, Paul (i6io-i66o), novelist and dramatist, 280, 294, 295, 297. Scfeve, Maurice (d. 1564), poet, 151, 152- Schelandre, Jean de (1585-1635), poet and dramatist, 249, 264. Scherer, E. (1815-1889), critic, 486, 579- Science et Asnerye, 99. Scribe, E. (1791-1861), dramatist, m> 548- Scud^ry, Georges de (i66i-i65?), poet and dramatist, 351, 365, 392. Scudery, Madeleine de (1607-1701), novelist, 293, 294, 299. Sedaine, Michel Jean (1719-1797), dramatist, 385. Segrais, J. K. de (1624-1701), poet, 250. S^nancour, Etienne Pivert de (i 770- 1846), moralist, 443.^ Senecan drama, 273, 379. September massacres, memoirs of, 416. Sept Sages de Rome, 44. Siraphita, 512. Series, 166. Serena, 37. Serres, Olivier de (1539-1619), scien- ti6c writer, 211. Sertorius, 270. Serventois and Sirvente, 54. Servitude Volontaire, 221. Sestina, 37. Sivign^, Marie de Rabntin-Chantal, Marquise de (1626-1696), 320- 323- Sganarelle, 283. Siicle de Louis Quatorze, 411. Siige de Calais, 380. Siege ofMetz, 329. Siege of Orleans, 100. Siege of St. Quentin, 229. Sirvente, 26, 37, and Serventois, 54. Socrate Chrltien, 337, 344. Soiries de St. Pitershourg, 468. Songtdu Verger, 117. Sonnets, 175, 250. Sophonisbe, 370. Soiel, Charles (d. 1674), novelist, 396. Soties, 99, 100, t88, 189. Soulary, J. (b. 1815), poet, 537. Sonlie, F. (i 800-1 847), novelist, 557- Soumet, Alexandre (i 788-1845), dra- matist, 493. Index. (>iS Searches, Marquis de (17th cent), memoir-writer, gao. Sonza, Madame de (1761-1836), no- velist, 406. Sfartacus, 380. Staal, Madame de (Mile, de Lau- ;^nay, 1684-1750), memoir-writer, 413. Stag}; Madame de (A. L. G. Necker, 1766-1817), novelist, etc., 403- 405, 459. 482- Stapfcr, P. (b. 1846), critic, 585. Strasbbrg Oaths (swpm in 842 be- tween Charles the'^ald xaA. Louis the German against their brother Lothaire), 1, 4. Sue, £. (1804-1854), novelist, 556. Sully, Maurice de (1160-1196), ser- mon-writer, 114. Sully, Maximilian de Bethune, Duke de, memoii>writer, aaS. Surlna, 270. Systime de la Nature, 466. Tabarin (17th cent), dramatist, 279 note. Tahuieau, Jacques (1527-1555), poet, 180. Taine, H. (1828-1893), critic and historian, 576-579. Tallemant des Rdaux, G^d^on (1619- 1692), anecdotist, 324. Tartuffe, 282, 283, 284. Tastu, Madame (b. 1798), poetess, „ 495- Tavannes, Jean and Guillaume de, memoir-writers, 229. Tilimaque, 356, 357, 399. Temple de Gnide, 447. Tencin, Madame de (C. A. Gu^rin), (16S1-1749), novelist, 391. Tenson, 54. Testament, 64. Testaments, of Villon, 128-131. Thaun, Philippe de (12th cent), trou- vire, 65. Theagenes and Chariclea, 204. Theatre de la Foire, 378, 382, 384. 7h^dtre de r Agriculture ei du lin- age des Champs, 211. Theatre Fran9ais, 498, Thlbdide, 273. Thiodore, 269. thiophile. Miracle, 89. 'Thiophile,' poet, see Viaud. Thibaut de Champagne (iaoi-1253), poet, 28, 53, 56, 66. Thierry, Amidee (1787-1873), his- torian, 593. Thierry, Augustin (1795-1856), his- torian, 593. Thiers", A. (1797-1877), historian, r^^ 594- Thomas, A. L. (1732-1785), essayist, 432. Thuana (sc. Historia), 229. Tillemont, S. le Nain de (1637- 1698), ecclesiastical historian, 306. Tite et BMnice, 270. Tocqueville, A. de (1805-1859), his- torian and political writer, 599. Toison d'Or, 270. Torneijamens, 27, Tory, Geoffroy (16th cent.), gramma- rian, 211. ' Tragedie Bourgeoise, 384. Tragiques, 185. Traiti des Sensations, 467. Travailleurs de la Mer, 501. Tr^sors, 118. Tressan, L. E. de la Vergne, Comte de (1705-1782), romance-writer, 21,474- Trevoux, Dictionnaire de, 297. — Journal de, 425. Triolet, 96. Tristan, Romance of, 32, 35, 74. Tristan (17th cent), dramatist, 265. Troie, Roman de, 37. Troilus, 120. Troubadour Poetry, forms of, 26. Trouveres and Jongleurs, 7, 19, 74, Turcaret, 382, 383. Turgot, A. R. J. (1727-1781), econo- mist, 408, 462. Turoldus (nth cent), trouvfere, la. Turpin, chronicle of, 103 note. Tyard, Pontus de (1521-1603), poet, 168, 170, 178, 179. Tyr et Sidon, 249, 264. Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuu, 519. Vachot, Pierre (i6th cent.), poet, 144. Vacquerie, A. (b. 1819), critic and poet, 537. , Vad^, Jean Joseph (1719-1757), poet, 376- 6jfi Index. Vair, Gnillanme du (i 556-1631), law* yer and moralist, 220, 328. Vair Pallfroi, 43. Valtrie, 406. Valmore, Marceline Desbordes (1787 -1859}, poetess, 494. VarUtis /{istoriqites et Littiraires, 333- Varillas, A. (i634-i696),historiaH,305. Vauban, S^bastien le Prestre de (1633 ~i73i)i engineer and political toonomist, 461. Vaudeville, 387. Vaugelas, C. F. de (1585-1650), grammarian, 328, 304, 478. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1536- 1606), poet, 180, 182, 190, 237. Vauvenargues, Luc de ClapierS, Mar- quis de (1715-1747)1 essayist and moralist, 427-429. Venceslas, 266. Vengeance de Raguidel, 76. Vinus, de, la Diesse d Amors, 72. Vlritaile Saint Genest, 266. Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896), poet, 640-543- Verse Chronicles, 61-63. Vertot, Abbi (1655-1735), historian, . 305, 306- Ver-Vert, 384. VeuUlot, L. (1813-1880), journalist, S9'- Viaud, Julien (' Pierre Loti *), (b. 1 850), novelist, 572. Viaud, Theophile de (1590-1626), poet and dramatist, 249, 265. Vieilleville,Mar&halde (1509-1 571), memoir*writer, 226. Vigny, Alfred de (i 799-1864), poet and novelist, 522, 523. Vilain, le, qui conquist jParadis par Plaist, 43. Vilain Mire, 43. Villanelle, 82. Villanesques, 182. Villars, Boyvin du (i6th cent.), me- moir-writer, 229. Villars, L. H., Duke de (1653-1734), memoir- writer, 316. Villedieu, Madame de (1631-1683), novelist, 294. Villehardouin, Geoffroi de (f. 1160- 1213), 104-106. Villemain, A. (1790-1870), critic, 581, Villon, Franfois (1431-1485), poet, 128-131. Vinet, A. (1797-1847), critic, 581. VioUet-le-Duc, E. E. (1814-1879), architectural writer, 586. Virgins, Ten, 6, 23,^89. Voir Dit, 83. Voiture, V. (1598-1628), poet and letter-writer, 249, 350, 3a& Volney, C. F. de Chassebceuf, Comte de (1757-1820), philosophe and traveller, 413, 464. Voltaire, F. Arouet de (1694-1778), life and poems, 370, 371, plays, 379, 380. -^ales, 395, 396. 'histories, 4x1. criticism, 433. philosophy, 450, 451. scientific work, 473. Voyages h la Lune et au Soleil, 296. Voyage auiour de ma Chambre, 406. Voyage de Charlemagne d Constant!- nofile, 17, 40. Vciyage dujeune Anacharsis, 399. Wace {c. 1120-1174), trouvire, 62. William of Liorris, see Lorris. William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, chronicle of, 02. ' William IX., Count ot Poictiers (loao -1090), troubadour, 24, 26. William of Tudela (13th cent.), poet, 26. William of Tyre (d. 1129), historian, 106. Ysopet, 50. Zadig, 395. Zaide, 298. Zaire, 379. Zola, E. (b. 1840), novelist and critic, 563, 565, 666-569- . THE END. CLAEENDON PRESS BOOKS History, Philosophy, and Law Greece, Italy, Egypt, etc Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, from the LVIth to the CXXIIIrd olympiad. Third edition. 4to. £1 14s. 6d. From the CXXIVth Olympiad to the Death of Augustus. Second edition. 4to. £1 12s. Epitome. 8vo. 6s. 6d. Clinton's Fasti Romani, from the death of Augustus to the death of Heraclius. Two volumes. 4to. £2 2s. Epitome. 8vo. 7s. Greswell's Fasti Temporis Catholici. 4 vols. svo. £2 los. Tables and Introduction to Tables. Svo. 15s. Origines Kalendariae Italicae. 4 vols. Svo. £2 2s. Origines Kalendariae Hellenicae. 6 vols. Svo. £4 4s. A Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions. By E. L. Hicks. New edition, revised by G. F. Hill. Svo. 12g,-6d. 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